EDUCATION. THE objects of education are to form virtuous habits, to impart knowledge, and to generate a desire to know; of which three a desire to know is the most important. It" is the very soul of education, without which she is only as a statue, lovely, indeed, to behold, but dead and motionless." The attainment of these objects depends upon knowledge by the preceptor of the springs of human action and upon his acting in obedience to his knowledge:-upon his understanding the art of forming habits, by precepts and by example, and the art of communicating his knowledge, the "Mollia tempora fandi,”—and the art of exciting desire, by stimulating it if torpid, and by restraining it if excessive. This swift business I must uneasy make, lest too light winning All zeal for improvement must be appalled by the difficulties which impede this part of education. It is not by the exertions, but by the temperament and example of the instructor, that the mind is awakened to be ever alive and ever active. It is seldom effected by direct education; it Fear. results rather from the slow, indirect, silent but "Wisdom doth live with children round her knees; The different motives to which preceptors have resorted, are Fear, Emulation, and the Love of Knowledge. Since the discoveries that have been made of the laws of association, it cannot now be necessary to prove that the love of knowledge ought not to be connected with any painful associations Love will not be spurred to what it loaths. How clearly was this foreseen, and how power * Wordsworth. fully stated by the preceptor of Queen Elizabeth, who says, "Socrates, whose judgement in Plato is plainlie this: Οὐδὲν μάθημα μετὰ δουλείας τὸν ἐλεύθερον χρὴ μανθάνειν. οἱ μὲν γὰρ τοῦ σώματος πόνοι βίᾳ πονούμενοι, χεῖρον ὀυδὲν τὸ σῶμα ἀπεργάζονται· ψυχῆ δὲ βίαιον ὀνδὲν ἔμμενον μάθημα. In Englishe thus; No learning ought to be learned with bondage for bodily labours, wrought by compulsion, hurt not the bodie; but any learning learned by compulsion, tarrieth not long in the mynde.' And leste proude wittes, that love not to be contraryed, but have lust to wrangle and trifle away troth, will say, that Socrates meaneth not this of children's teaching, but of some other higher learninge; hear what Socrates, in the same place, doth more plainlie say; Mǹ Toívvv βίᾳ, ὦ ἄρισε, τοῦς παῖδας ἐν τοῖς μαθήμασιν, ἀλλὰ raisovras τpédɛ. That is to say: 'And therefore, my deare friend, bryng not up your children in learninge by compulsion and feare, but by playing and pleasure.' "Fonde scholemasters neither can understand, nor will follow, this good counsell of Socrates; but wise ryders, in their office, can, and will do both; which is the onlie cause, that commonlie the yong jentlemen of England go so unwillinglie to schole, and run so fast to the stable; for, in very deede, fond scholemasters, by feare, do beate into them the hatred of learning; and wise ryders, by jentle allurements, do breed up in them the love of ryding. They finde feare and bondage in scholes, they feel libertie and freedome in stables; which causeth them utterlie to abhorre the one, and most gladlie to haunt the other. Beate a child if he daunce not well, and cherish him though he learn not well, ye shall have him unwilling to go to daunce, and glad to go to his booke: knock him alwaies when he draweth his shafte ill, and favour him again though he fault at his book, ye shall have him verie loth to be in the field, and verie willing to be in the schole. "And one example, whether love or feare doth worke more in a childe for vertue and learninge, I will gladlie report; which maie he herd with some pleasure, and folowed with more profit. Before I went into Germanie, I came to Brodegate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholdinge. The parentes, the Duke and the Duches, with all the houshould, jentlemen and jentlewomen, were hunting in the parke. I found her in her chamber, readinge Phædon Platonis in Greeke, and that with as much delite, as some jentlemen would read a merrie tale in BoAfter salutation, and dewtie done, with some other taulke, I asked her, why she would leese such pastime in the parke? Smiling, she answered me: I wisse, all their sport in the parke is but a shadoe to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good folke, they never felt what case. trewe pleasure ment.' And how came you, Madame,' quoth I, 'to this deepe knowledge of pleasure? And what did chieflie allure you unto it, seeinge not many women, but verie fewe men, have attained thereunto?' I will tell you,' quoth she, and tell you a truth, which perchance ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is, that he sent me so sharpe and severe parentes, and so jentle a scholemaster. For when I am in presence eyther of father or mother, whether I speake, kepe silence, sit, stand, or go; eate, drinke, be merrie, or sad, be sowying, playing, dauncing or doing anie thing else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfitelie as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presentlie, sometimes, with pinches, nippes, and bobbes, and other waies which I will not name for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I thincke myselfe in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer who teacheth me so jentlie, so pleasantlie, with such fair allurements to learninge, that I thinke all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do els, but learninge, is full of grief, trouble, feare, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my booke hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth dayly to me more pleasure and more, that, in respect of it, all : |