fician. Habit, I grant, has great influer conftitutions; but we have no precife this fubject.

We know, that among favages, and e our peasants, there are found children bor conftitutions that they cross rivers by endure cold, thirst, hunger, and want o furprising degree; that when they ha fick, they are cured without the help o by nature alone. Such examples are add fuade us to imitate their manner of edu accustom ourselves betimes to fupport t tigues. But had these gentlemen conf how many lives are loft in this afcetic had they confidered, that those favages a are generally not fo long lived as thofe led a more indolent life; that the mor the life is, the lefs populous is the cou they confidered, that what the phyfici Atamina vita, by fatigue and labour be and thus anticipate old age; that the nu furvive thofe rude trials, bear no proport who die in the experiment: had thefe t properly confidered, they would not ha tolled an education begun in fatigue and Peter the Great, willing to inure the his feaman to a life of hardship, ordere fhould only drink fea-water; but they un all died under the trial.

But while I would exclude all unneceffa vet till I would recommend temperance i

This diet

ing; nothing given children to force an appetite; as little fugared or falted provifions as poffible, though ever so pleafing; but milk, morning and night, fhould be their conftant food. would make them more healthy than any of those flops that are ufually cooked by the miftrefs of a boarding-school; befides, it corrects many confump tive habits, not unfrequently found amongst the children of city parents.

As boys fhould be educated with temperance, so the first, greatest lesson that should be taught them, is, to admire frugality. It is by the exercife of this virtue alone, they can ever expect to be useful members of fociety. It is true, lectures continually repeated upon this fubject, may make fome boys, when they grow up, run into an extreme, and become mifers; but it were well, had we more mifers than we have among us. I know few characters more ufeful in fociety; for, a man's having a larger or fmaller share of money, lying useless by him, no way injures the commonwealth; fince, fhould every mifer now exhauft his stores, this might make gold more plenty, but it would not increase the commodities or pleasures of life; they would ftill remain as they are at prefent: it matters not, therefore, whether men are mifers or not, if they be only frugal, laborious, and fill the station they have chofer. If they deny themfelves the neceffaries of life, fociety is no way injured by their folly.

Instead, therefore, of romances, which praife young men of fpirit, who go through a variety of adventures, and at last conclude a life of diffipation, folly,

C. 3

folly, and extravagance, in riches and m there fhould be fome men of wit employ pofe books that might equally intereft th of our youth, where fuch an one might for having refifted allurements when yo how he, at laft, became lord-mayor; ho married to a lady of great fenfe, fortune an To be as explicit as poffible, the old story tington, were his cat left out, might be viceable to the tender mind, than either To Jofeph Andrews, or an hundred others, w gality is the only good quality the hero is teffed of. Were our fchoolmafters, if any have fenfe enough to draw up fuch a wo employed, it would be much more fervic their pupils, than all the grammars and c ries they may publish these ten years.

Children should early be inftructed in from which they may afterwards draw the advantages. When the wonders of nature ver exposed to our view, we have no grea to become acquainted with thofe parts of le which pretend to account for the phænomena of the ancients complains, that as foon as men have left fchool, and are obliged to conv the world, they fancy themfelves tranfported new region. Ut cum in forum venerint exiftime aliam terrarem orbem delatos. We should early, fore, instruct them in the experiments, if I exprefs it, of knowledge, and leave to matur the accounting for the causes. But inftead of

they have not the leaft curiofity for thofe parts of the science which are propofed for their inftruction: they have never before feen the phænomena, and confequently have o curiofity to learn the reasons. Might natural philofophy, therefore, be made their paflime at school, by this means it would in college become their amusement.

In feveral of the machines now in ufe, there would be ample field both for inftruction and amufement: the different forts of the phosphorus, the artificial pyrites, magnetifm, electricity, the experiments upon the rarefaction and weight of the air, and those upon elastic bodies, might employ their idle hours; and none should be called from play to fee fuch experiments but fuch as thought proper. At first, then, it would be fufficient if the inftruments, and the effects of their combination, were only fhown: the caufes fhould be deferred to a maturer age, or to those times when natural curiofity prompts us to difcover the works of nature. Man is placed in this world as a fpectator: when he is tired of wondering at all the novelties about him, and not till then, does he defire to be made acquainted with the causes that create those wonders.

What I have obferved with regard to natural philofophy, I would extend to every other feience whatfoever. We 'fhould teach them as many of the facts as poffible, and defer the caufes, until they feemed of themfelves defirous of knowing them. A mind thus leaving school, stored with all the fimple experience of fcience, would be the fitteft in the world for the college courfe; and, though such a youth

C. 4.

might

might not appear so bright, or so talkative, as those who had learned the real principles and caufes of fome of the fciences, yet he would make a wifer man, and would retain a more lafting paffion for letters, than he who was early burdened with the difagreeable inftitution of caufe and effect.

In hiftory, fuch stories alone fhould be laid before them as might catch the imagination: instead of this, at prefent, they are too frequently obliged to toil through the four empires, as they are called, where their memories are burdened by a number of difgufting names, that destroy all their future relish for our best historians, who may be termed the trueft teachers of wifdom.

Every fpecies of flattery fhould be carefully avoided. A boy who happens to say a sprightly thing is generally applauded fo much, that he fometimes continues a coxcomb all his life after. He is reputed a wit at fourteen, and becomes a blockhead at twenty. Nurfes, footmen, and fuch, fhould therefore be driven away as much as poffible. I was even going to add, that the mother herself should stifle her pleasure, or her vanity, when little mafter happens to fay a good or a fmart thing. Thofe modeft lubberly boys, who feem to want fpirit, become at length more fhining men, and at fchool generally go through their business with more eafe to themfelves, and more fatisfaction to their instructors.

There has of late a gentleman appeared, who thinks the ftudy of rhetoric effential to a perfect education. That bold male eloquence, which often, without pleafing, convinces, is generally destroyed

by