s father's
house, the first important lessons, those which decide his future
abilities and character, must be learned. We have repeated this idea,
and placed it in different points of view, in hopes that it will catch
and fix the attention. Suppose that parents educated their children
well for the first eight or nine years of their lives, and then sent
them all to public seminaries, what a difference this must immediately
make in public education: the boys would be disposed to improve
themselves with all the ardour which the most sanguine preceptor would
desire; their tutors would find that there was nothing to be
_unlearned_; no habits of idleness to conquer; no perverse stupidity
would provoke them; no capricious contempt of application would appear
in pupils of the quickest abilities. The moral education could then be
made a part of the preceptor's care, with some hopes of success; the
pupils would all have learned the first necessary moral principles and
habits; they would, consequently, be all fit companions for each
other; in each other's society they would continue to be governed by
the same ideas of right and wrong by which they had been governed all
their lives; they would not have any new character to learn; they
would improve, by mixing with numbers, in the social virtues, without
learning party spirit; and though they would love their companions,
they would not, therefore, combine together to treat their instructers
as pedagogues and tyrants. This may be thought an Utopian idea of a
school; indeed it is very improbable, that out of the numbers of
parents who send their children to large schools, many should suddenly
be much moved, by any thing that we can say, to persuade them to take
serious trouble in their previous instruction. But much may be
effected by gradual attempts. Ten well educated boys, sent to a public
seminary at nine or ten years old, would, probably, far surpass their
competitors in every respect; they would inspire others with so much
emulation, would do their parents and preceptors so much credit, that
numbers would eagerly inquire into the causes of their superiority;
and these boys would, perhaps, do more good by their example, than by
their actual acquirements. We do not mean to promise, that a boy
judiciously educated, shall appear at ten years old a prodigy of
learning; far from it: we should not even estimate his capacity, or
the chain of his future progress, by the quantity of knowle