and a devoted spirit. No person of a sober and enlarged mind can for a
moment delude himself into the opinion that, when he is delivered into
his own hands, his education is ended. In a sense to which no one is
a stranger, the education of man and his life terminate together. We
should at no period of our existence be backward to receive information,
and should at all times preserve our minds open to conviction. We
should through every day of our lives seek to add to the stores of our
knowledge and refinement. But, independently of this more extended sense
of the word, a great portion of the education of the young man is left
to the direction of the man himself. The epoch of entire liberty is a
dangerous period, and calls upon him for all his discretion, that he
may not make an ill use of that, which is in itself perhaps the first of
sublunary blessings. The season of puberty also, and all the excitements
from this source, "that flesh is heir to," demand the utmost vigilance
and the strictest restraint. In a word, if we would counteract the
innate rebelliousness of man, that indocility of mind which is at all
times at hand to plunge us into folly, we must never slumber at our
post, but govern ourselves with steady severity, and by the dictates
of an enlightened understanding. We must be like a skilful pilot in a
perilous sea, and be thoroughly aware of all the rocks and quicksands,
and the multiplied and hourly dangers that beset our navigation.

In this Essay I have treated of nothing more than the inherent
restiveness and indocility of man, which accompany him at least through
all the earlier sections and divisions of his life. I have not treated
of those temptations calculated to lead him into a thousand excesses and
miseries, which originate in our lower nature, and are connected with
what we call the passion of love. Nor have I entered upon the still
more copious chapter, of the incentives and provocations which are
administered to us by those wants which at all times beset us as living
creatures, and by the unequal distribution of property generally in
civil society. I have not considered those attributes of man which may
serve indifferently for good or for ill, as he may happen to be or not
to be the subject of those fiercer excitements, that will oft times
corrupt the most ingenuous nature, and have a tendency to inspire into
us subtle schemes and a deep contrivance. I have confined myself to
the consideration