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LETTER XCII

MY DEAREST MR. B.,

I will continue my subject, although I have not had an opportunity to know whether you approve of my notions or not by reason of the excursions you have been pleased to allow me to make in your beloved company to the sea-ports of this kingdom, and to the more noted inland towns of Essex, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Dorsetshire, which have given me infinite delight and pleasure, and enlarged my notions of the wealth and power of the kingdom, in which God's goodness has given you so considerable a stake.

My next topic will be upon a home education, which Mr. Locke prefers, for several weighty reasons, to a school one, provided such a tutor can be procured, as he makes next to an impossibility to procure. The gentleman has set forth the inconveniencies of both, and was himself so discouraged, on a review of them, that he was ready, as he says, to throw up his pen. My chief cares, dear Sir, on this head, are three: 1st, The difficulty which, as I said, Mr. Locke makes almost insuperable, to find a qualified tutor. 2ndly, The necessity there is, according to Mr. Locke, of keeping the youth out of the company of the meaner servants, who may set him bad examples. And, 3rdly, Those still greater difficulties which will arise from the example of his parents, if they are not very discreet and circumspect.

As to the qualifications of the tutor, Mr. Locke supposes, that he is to be so learned, so discreet, so wise, in short, so perfect a man, that I doubt, and so does Mr. Locke, such an one can hardly be met with for this humble and slavish employment. I presume, Sir, to call it so, because of the too little regard that is generally paid to these useful men in the families of the great, where they are frequently put upon a foot with the uppermost servants, and the rather, if they happen to be men of modesty.

"I would," says he, "from children's first beginning to talk, have some discreet, sober, nay, wise person about them, whose care it should be to fashion them right, and to keep them from all ill; especially the infection of bad company. I think this province requires great sobriety, temperance, tenderness, diligence, and discretion; qualities hardly to be found united in persons that are to be had for ordinary salaries, nor easily to be found any where."

If this, Sir, be the case, does not this excellent author recommend a scheme that is rendered in a manner impracticable from this difficulty?

As to these qualities being more rarely to be met with in persons that are to be had for ordinary salaries, I cannot help being of opinion (although, with Mr. Locke, I think no expence should be spared, if that would do) that there is as good a chance for finding a proper person among the needy scholars (if not of a low and sordid turn of mind) as among the more affluent: because the narrow circumstances of the former (which probably became a spur to his own improvement) will, it is likely, at first setting out in the world, make him be glad to embrace such an offer in a family which has interest enough to prefer him, and will quicken his diligence to make him deserve preferment; and if such an one wanted any of that requisite politeness, which some would naturally expect from scholars of better fortune, might not that be supplied to the youth by the conversation of parents, relations, and visitors, in conjunction with those other helps which young men of family and large expectations constantly have, and which few learned tutors can give him?

I say not this to countenance the wretched niggardliness (which this gentleman justly censures) of those who grudge a handsome consideration to so necessary and painful a labour as that of a tutor, which, where a deserving man can be met with, cannot be too genteelly rewarded, nor himself too respectfully treated. I only beg to deliver my opinion, that a low condition is as likely as any other, with a mind not ungenerous, to produce a man who has these good qualities, as well for the reasons I have hinted at, as for others which might be mentioned.

But Mr. Locke thus proceeds: "To form a young gentleman as he should be, 'tis fit his governor should be well bred, understand the ways of carriage, and measures of civility, in all the variety of persons, times, and places and keep his pupil, as far as his age requires, constantly to the observation of them. This is an art not to be learnt or taught by books.—Nothing can give it but good company and observation joined together."

And in another place says, "Besides being well-bred, the tutor should know the world well; the ways, the humours, the follies, the cheats, the faults of the age he has fallen into, and particularly of the country he lives in: these he should be able to shew to his pupil, as he finds him capable; teach him skill in men and their manners; pull off the mask which their several callings and pretences cover them with; and make his pupil discern what lies at the bottom, under such appearances, that he may not, as unexperienced young men are apt to do, if they are unwarned, take one thing for another, judge by the outside, and give himself up to show, and the insinuations of a fair carriage, or an obliging application; teach him to guess at, and beware of, the designs of men he hath to do with, neither with too much suspicion, nor too much confidence."

This, dear Sir, is excellently said: 'tis noble theory; and if the tutor be a man void of resentment and caprice, and will not be governed by partial considerations, in his own judgment of persons and things, all will be well: but if otherwise, may he not take advantage of the confidence placed in him, to the injury of some worthy person, and by degrees monopolize the young gentleman to himself, and govern his passions as absolutely, as I have heard some first ministers have done those of their prince, equally to his own personal disreputation, and to the disadvantage of his people? But all this, and much more, according to Mr. Locke, is the duty of a tutor: and on the finding out such an one, depends his scheme of a home education. No wonder, then, that he himself says, "When I consider the scruples and cautions I here lay in your way, methinks it looks as if I advised you to something which I would have offered at, but in effect not done," &c.—Permit me, dear Sir, in this place to express my fear that it is hardly possible for any one, with talents inferior to those of Mr. Locke himself, to come up to the rules he has laid down upon this subject; and 'tis to be questioned, whether even he, with all that vast stock of natural reason and solid sense, for which, as you tell me, Sir, he was so famous, had attained to these perfections, at his first setting out into life.

Now, therefore, dear Sir, you can't imagine how these difficulties perplex me, as to my knowing how to judge which is best, a home or a school education. For hear what this excellent author justly observes on the latter, among other things, no less to the purpose: "I am sure, he who is able to be at the charge of a tutor at home, may there give his son a more genteel carriage, more manly thoughts, and a sense of what is worthy and becoming, with a greater proficiency in learning, into the bargain, and ripen him up sooner into a man, than any school can do. Not that I blame the schoolmaster in this," says he, "or think it to be laid to his charge. The difference is great between two or three pupils in the same house, and three or four score boys lodged up and down; for, let the master's industry and skill be never so great, it is impossible he should have fifty or an hundred scholars under his eye any longer than they are in the school together." But then, Sir, if there be such a difficulty as Mr. Locke says, to meet with a proper tutor for the home education, which he thus prefers, what a perplexing thing is this. But still, according to this gentleman, another difficulty attends a home education; and that is, what I hinted at before, in my second article, the necessity of keeping the youth out of the company of the meaner servants, who may set him bad examples. For thus he says, "Here is another great inconvenience, which children receive from the ill examples which they meet with from the meaner servants. They are wholly, if possible, to be kept from such conversation: for the contagion of these ill precedents, both in civility and virtue, horribly infects children, as often as they come within the reach of it. They frequently learn from unbred or debauched servants, such language, untowardly tricks and vices, as otherwise they would be ignorant of all their lives. 'Tis a hard matter wholly to prevent this mischief," continues he; "you will have very good luck, if you never have a clownish or vicious servant, and if from them your children never get any infection."

Then, Sir, my third point (which I mentioned in the beginning of this letter) makes a still stronger objection, as it may happen, against a home education; to wit, the example of the parents themselves, if they be not very circumspect and discreet.

All these difficulties being put together, let me, dear Sir, humbly propose it, as a matter for your consideration and determination, whether there be not a middle way to be found out in a school education, that may remedy some of these inconveniencies? For suppose you cannot get a tutor so qualified as Mr. Locke thinks he ought to be, for your Billy as he grows up. Suppose there is danger from your meaner servants; or we his parents should not be able to lay ourselves under the requisite restraints, in order to form his mind by our own examples, which I hope, by God's grace, however, will not be the case—Cannot some master be found, who shall be so well rewarded for his care of a few young gentlemen, as to make it worth his while to be contented with those few?—suppose from five to eight at most; whose morals and breeding he may attend to, as well as to their learning? The farther this master lives from the young gentleman's friends, the better it may be. We will hope, that he is a man of a mild disposition, but strict in his discipline, and who shall make it a rule not to give correction for small faults, or till every other method has been tried; who carries such a just dignity in his manner, without the appearance of tyranny, that his looks may be of greater force than the blows of others; and who will rather endeavour to shame than terrify, a youth out of his faults. Then, suppose this gentleman was to allot a particular portion of time for the more learned studies; and before the youth was tired with them, suppose another portion was allotted for the writing and arithmetic; and then to relieve his mind from both, suppose the dancing-master should take his part; and innocent exercises of mere diversion, to fill up the rest, at his own choice, in which, diverted by such a rotation of employments (all thus rendered delightful by their successive variety), he would hardly wish to pass much time. For the dancing of itself, with the dancing-master's instruction, if a well-bred man, will answer both parts, that of breeding and that of exercise: and thus different studies at once be mastered.

Moreover, the emulation which will be inspired, where there are several young gentlemen, will be of inconceivable use both to tutor and pupil, in lessening the trouble of the one, and advancing the learning of the other, which cannot be expected where there is but a single youth to be taken care of.

Such a master will know it to be his interest, as well as duty, to have a watchful eye over the conduct and behaviour of his servants. His assistants, in the different branches of science and education, will be persons of approved prudence, for whom he will think himself answerable, since his own reputation, as well as livelihood, will depend upon their behaviour. The youths will have young gentlemen for their companions, all under the influence of the same precepts and directions; and if some chosen period were fixed, as a reward for some excellence, where, at a little desk, raised a step or two above the other seats, the excelling youth should be set to read, under the master's direction, a little portion from the best translations of the Greek and Roman historians, and even from the best English authors; this might, in a very engaging manner, initiate them into the knowledge of the history of past times, and of their own country, and give them a curiosity to pass some of their vacant hours in the same laudable pursuit: for, dear Sir, I must still insist that rewards, and innocent gratifications, as also little honours and distinctions, must needs be very attractive to the minds of youth.

For, is not the pretty ride, and dairy house breakfasting, by which Miss Goodwin's governess distinguishes the little ladies who excel in their allotted tasks, a fine encouragement to their ductile minds?—Yes, it is, to be sure!—And I have often thought of it with pleasure, and partaken of the delight with which I have supposed their pretty hearts must be filled with on that occasion. And why may not such little triumphs be, in proportion, as incentives, to children, to make them try to master laudable tasks; as the Roman triumphs, of different kinds, and their mural and civic crowns, all which I have heard you speak of, were to their heroes and warriors of old? For Mr. Dryden well observes, that—

 
"Men are but children of a larger growth;
Our appetites are apt to change as theirs,
And full as craving too, and full as vain."
 

Permit me. Sir, to transcribe four or five lines more, for the beauty of the thought:

 
"And yet the soul, shut up in her dark room,
Viewing so clear abroad, at home sees nothing:
But like a mole in earth, busy and blind,
Works all her folly up, and casts it outward
To the world's open view—"
 

Improving the thought: methinks I can see the dear little Miss, who has, in some eminent task, borne away the palm, make her public entry, as I may call it, after her dairy breakfast and pretty airing, into the governess's court-yard, through a row of her school-fellows, drawn out on each side to admire her; her governess and assistants receiving her at the porch, their little capitol, and lifting her out with applauses and encomiums, with a Thus shall it be done to the Miss, whom her governess delighteth to honour! I see not why the dear Miss in this case, as she moves through her admiring school-fellows, may not have her little heart beat with as much delight, be as gloriously elated, proportionably, as that of the greatest hero in his triumphal car, who has returned from exploits, perhaps, much less laudable.

But how I ramble!—Yet surely, Sir, you don't expect method or connection from your girl. The education of our sex will not permit that, where it is best. We are forced to struggle for knowledge, like the poor feeble infant in the month, who is pinned and fettered down upon the nurse's lap; and who, if its little arms happen, by chance, to escape its nurse's observation, and offer but to expand themselves, are immediately taken into custody, and pinioned down to their passive behaviour. So, when a poor girl, in spite of her narrow education, breaks out into notice, her genius is immediately tamed by trifling employments, lest, perhaps, she should become the envy of one sex, and the equal of the other. But you. Sir, act more nobly with your Pamela; for you throw in her way all opportunities of improvement; and she has only to regret, that she cannot make a better use of them, and, of consequence, render herself more worthy of your generous indulgence.

I know not how, Sir, to recover my thread; and so must break off with that delight which I always take when I come near the bottom of my letters to your dear self; because then I can boast of the honour which I have in being your ever dutiful,

P.B.

LETTER XCIII

Well, but, my dear Mr. B., you will perhaps think, from my last rambling letter, that I am most inclined to a school education for your Billy, and some years hence, if it should please God to spare him to us. Yet I cannot say that I am; I only lay several things together in my usual indigested way, to take your opinion upon, which, as it ought, will be always decisive with me. And indeed I am so thoroughly convinced by Mr. Locke's reasons, where the behaviour of servants can be so well answered for, as that of yours can be, and where the example of the parents will be, as I hope, rather edifying than otherwise, that without being swayed, as I think, by maternal fondness, in this case, I must needs give a preference to the home education; and the little scheme I presumed to form in my last, was only on a supposition, that those necessary points could not be so well secured.

In my observations on this head, I shall take the liberty, in one or two particulars, a little to differ from an author, that I admire exceedingly; and that is the present design of my writing these letters; for I shall hereafter, if God spare my life, in my little book (when you have kindly decided upon the points in which I presume to differ) shew you, Sir, my great reverence and esteem for him; and can then let you know all my sentiments on this important subject, and that more undoubtedly, as I shall be more improved by years and your conversation; especially, Sir, if I have the honour and happiness of a foreign tour with you, of which you give me hope; so much are you pleased with the delight I take in these improving excursions, which you have now favoured me with, at different times, through more than half the kingdom.

Well then, Sir, I will proceed to consider a little more particularly the subject of a home education, with an eye to those difficulties, of which Mr. Locke takes notice, as I mentioned in my last. As to the first, that of finding a qualified tutor; we must not expect so much perfection, I doubt, as he lays down as necessary. What, therefore, I humbly conceive is best to be done, will be to avoid choosing a man of bigoted and narrow principles; who yet shall not be tainted with sceptical or heterodox notions, nor a mere scholar or pedant; who has travelled, and yet preserved his moral character untainted; and whose behaviour and carriage is easy, unaffected, unformal, and genteel, as well acquiredly as naturally so, if possible; who shall not be dogmatical, positive, overbearing, on one hand; nor too yielding, suppliant, fawning, on the other; who shall study the child's natural bent, in order to direct his studies to the point he is most likely to excel in; and to preserve the respect due to his own character from every one, he must not be a busy body in the family, a whisperer, a tale-bearer, but of a benevolent turn of mind, ready to compose differences; who shall avoid, of all things, that foppishness of dress and appearance, which distinguishes the petit-maitres, and French ushers (that I have seen at some boarding schools), for coxcombs rather than guides of education: for, as I have heard you, my best tutor, often observe, the peculiarities of habit, where a person aims at something fantastic, or out of character, are an undoubted sign of a wrong head; for such a one is so kind as always to hang out on his sign what sort of furniture he has in his shop, to save you the trouble of asking questions about him; so that one may as easily know by his outward appearance what he is, as one can know a widow by her weeds.

Such a person as I have thus negatively described, may be found without very much difficulty, perhaps, because some of these requisites are personal, and others are such as are obvious at first sight, to a common penetration; or, where not so, may be found out, by inquiry into his general character and behaviour: and to the care of such a one, dear Sir, let me suppose your Billy is committed: and so we acquit ourselves of the first difficulty, as well as we can, that of the tutor; who, to become more perfect, may form himself, as to what he wants, by Mr. Locke's excellent rules on that head.

But before I quit this subject, I beg to remind you of your opinion upon it, in a conversation with Sir George Stuart, and his nephew, in London; in which you seemed to prefer a Scottish gentleman for a tutor, to those of your own nation, and still more than to those of France? Don't you remember it, dear Sir? And how much those gentlemen were pleased with your facetious freedom with their country, and said, you made them amends for that, in your preference to their learned and travelled youth? If you have forgot it, I will here transcribe it from my records, as I call my book of memorandums; for every time I am pleased with a conversation, and have leisure, before it quits my memory, I enter it down in as near the very words as I can; and now you have made me your correspondent, I shall sometimes, perhaps, give you back some valuables from your own treasure.—Miss Darnford, and Mr. Turner, and Mr. Fanshaw, were present, I well remember. These were your words:

"Since the union of the two kingdoms, we have many persons of condition, who have taken their tutors for their sons from Scotland; which practice, to speak impartially, has been attended with some advantageous circumstances, that should not be overlooked. For, Sir George, it must be confessed that, notwithstanding your narrow and stiff manner of education in Scotland, a spirit of manly learning, a kind of poetic liberty, as I may call it, has begun to exert itself in that part of the island. The blustering north—forgive me, gentlemen—seems to have hardened the foreheads of her hungry sons; and the keenness with which they set out for preferment in the kindlier south, has taught them to know a good deal of the world betimes. Through the easy terms on which learning is generally attained there, as it is earlier inculcated, so it may, probably, take deeper root: and since 'tis hardly possible—forgive me, dear Sirs—they can go to a worse country on this side Greenland, than some of the northern parts of Scotland; so their education, with a view to travel, and to better themselves by settlements in other countries, may, perhaps, be so many reasons to take greater pains to qualify themselves for this employment, and may make them succeed better in it; especially when they have been able to shake off the fetters which are rivetted upon them under the narrow influence of a too tyrannical kirk discipline, which you, Sir George, have just now so freely censured.

"To these considerations, when we add the necessity, which these remote tutors lie under, of behaving well; first, because they seldom wish to return to their own country; and next, because that cannot prefer them, if it would; and thirdly, because it would not, if it could, if the gentleman be of an enlarged genius, and generous way of thinking; I say, when we add to the premises these considerations, they all make a kind of security for their good behaviour: while those of our own country have often friends or acquaintances on whose favour they are apt to depend, and for that reason give less attention to the duties requisite for this important office.

"Besides, as their kind friend Æolus, who is accustomed to spread and strengthen the bold muscles of the strong-featured Scot, has generally blown away that inauspicious bashfulness, which hangs a much longer time, commonly, on the faces of the southern students; such a one (if he fall not too egregiously into the contrary extreme, so as to become insufferable) may still be the more eligible person for a tutor, as he may teach a young gentleman, betimes, that necessary presence of mind, which those who are confined to a private education sometimes want.

"But, after all, if a gentleman of this nation be chosen for this employment, it may be necessary that he should be one who has had as genteel and free an education himself, as his country will afford; and the native roughness of his climate filed off by travel and conversation; who has made, at least, the tour of France and Italy, and has a taste for the politeness of the former nation: but from the boisterousness of a North Britain, and the fantastic politeness of a Frenchman, if happily blended, such a mixture may result, as will furnish out a more complete tutor, than either of the two nations, singly, may be able to produce. But it ought to be remembered that this person must have conquered his native brogue, as I may call it, and be a master of the English pronunciation; otherwise his conversation will be disagreeable to an English ear.

"And permit me to add, that, as an acquaintance with the Muses contributes not a little to soften the manners, and give a graceful and delicate turn to the imagination, and a kind of polish to severer studies, it would not be amiss that he should have a taste of poetry, although perhaps it were not to be wished he had such strong inclinations that way, as to make that lively and delectable amusement his predominant passion: for we see very few poets, whose warm imaginations do not run away with their judgments. And yet, in order to learn the dead languages in their purity, it will be necessary to inculcate both the love and the study of the ancient poets, which cannot fail of giving the youth a taste for poetry, in general."

Permit me, dear Sir, to ask you, whether you advanced this for argument sake, as sometimes you love to amuse and entertain your friends in an uncommon way? For I should imagine, that our two universities, which you have shewn me, and for which I have ever since had a greater reverence than I had before, are capable of furnishing as good tutors as any nation in the world: for here the young gentlemen seem to me to live both in the world and in the university; and we saw several gentlemen who had not only fine parts, but polite behaviour, and deep learning, as you assured me; some of whom you entertained, and were entertained by, in so elegant a manner, that no travelled gentleman, if I may be allowed to judge, could excel them! And besides, my dear Mr. B., I know who is reckoned one of the politest and best-bred gentlemen in England by every body, and learned as well as polite, and yet had his education in one of those celebrated seats of learning. I wish your Billy may never fall short of the gentleman I mean, in all these acquirements; and he will be a very happy creature, I am sure.

But how I wander again from my subject. I have no other way to recover myself, when I thus ramble, but by returning to that one delightful point of reflection, that I have the honour to be, dearest Sir, your ever dutiful and obliged,

P.B.