ect of this
and the succeeding chapter.

All education should have two objects in view, the opening of the
understanding and the improvement of the heart. Of the two, the latter
is most important. There cannot be a question, whether the person of the
most desirable character be the virtuous or the learned man. Without
virtue knowledge loses half its value. Wisdom, without virtue, may be
said to be merely political; and such wisdom, whenever it belongs to a
man, is little better than the cunning or craftiness of a fox. A man of
a cultivated mind, without an unshaken love of virtue, is but a dwarf of
a man. His food has done him no good, as it has not contributed to his
growth. And it would have been better, for the honour of literature, if
he had never been educated at all. The talents of man, indeed,
considering him as a moral being, ought always to be subservient to
religion. "All philosophy, says the learned Cudworth, to a wise man, to
a truly sanctified mind, as he in Plutarch speaketh, is but matter for
divinity to work upon. Religion is the queen of all those inward
endowments of the soul: and all pure natural knowledge, all virgin and
undeflowered arts and sciences, are her handmaids, that rise up and call
her blessed."

Now if the opening of the understanding, and the improvement of the
heart, be the great objects to be attained, it will follow, that both
knowledge and wise prohibitions should always be component parts of the
education of youth. The latter the Quakers have adopted ever since the
institution of their society. The former they have been generally
backward to promote, at least to any considerable extent. That they have
done good, however, by their prohibitions, though unaccompanied by any
considerable knowledge, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge. But
this goad has been chiefly confined to the children of those who have
occupied middle stations in the society. Such children have undoubtedly
arrived at the true wisdom of life at an early age, as I described in
the first volume, and have done honour to the religion they professed.
But prohibitions, without knowledge, have not been found to answer so
well among the children of those who have had the prospect of a large
moneyed independence before them, and who have not been afraid either of
the bad opinion of their own society, or of the bad opinion of the
world. It has been shewn, however, that knowledge with prohibitions
would, in all proba