with the instruction of those who are destined for the church.

SO as to

If we look at the education of a barrister, we find him usually taken from school at an early age, before his mind is formed, and before he has imbibed any fixed principles, and placed in the office of a special pleader; not to learn maxims of equity and justice; not to obtain a correct notion of the origin, progress, and objects of British jurisprudence; not to gain an adequate knowledge of the history of his country, and of the laws of other states, enable him to form a just estimate of the comparative excellence of those laws with the laws of his native land; nor yet to imbibe accurate ideas and a clear understanding, of the British constitution; but to study forms to the neglect of substantial knowledge, and to become an adept in all the wily science of chicane; in the honourable art of not only defending right and wrong without discrimination, and with equal energy, and with equal feeling-but of making wrong triumph over right.

Turning to the military man-we see him, generally speaking, taken from the scene of instruction at the very period when he might begin to feel the benefits of it, and placed in the army, a commission having been bought for him, without the smallest preparation for the profession, without the least knowledge of the duties of it, without having an idea of military tactics, without having ever heard even of the science of war. We see him a beardless youth, without a single qualification, commanding veterans grown grey in the service. His uniform is at once the symbol of command, and the only sign of his knowledge. If he be rich, he looks for promotion to the length of his purse, and not to his merit. In this system, there is every discouragement to study, no incentive to exertion, and no stimulus to the acquisition of knowledge.

Is mere consistence observed in training up a youth to the pursuits of trade and commerce?-he is, indeed, taught to write, and the stores of Dilworth and Cocker are laid open to him; but his education, properly speaking, begins only when he enters the shop or the 'counting-house. As an apprentice or a clerk, the fashionable manners of modern citizens deprive him of the advantages, enjoyed in good old times, of being admitted as an inmate into the family of his master. He is, consequently, left to provide both food and lodging for himself, to be the guardian of his own morals, and the guide of his own conduct. He is conse

quently exposed to all the dangers which attend boys who are educated at a public school in the metropolis. The trader of Cheapside has now his town residence a one of the fashionable squares at the west end of the capital, and his country villa besides. He gives routs, he games, and, aping his betters, adopts all the dissipated manners of modish life.

In a word, the times are strangely out of joint; and though we have hitherto escaped a political revolution (thanks to our insular situation!), we have experienced a moral revolution, the effects of which set all calculation at defiance, Education and its object, in every class of life, seem to be as well adapted to each other as a titled puppy and a city miss.

Though we have felt it our duty to state our sentiments on this important subject, for important it is in every point of view, yet we are sensible that some apology is due to our readers for having so long diverted their attention from the book before us. The author's comments, in the following note on Dr. Beattie's sentiments respecting public schools, are particularly pertinent and forcible.

"Dr. Beattie's opinion on the subject of education must be allowed to have great weight. But his objections to a private education are not unanswerable. What he says with respect to schoolacquaintance, is fallacious. While such connexions are of use to ten in future life, they mislead an hundred by inspiring them with ideas beyond their station, without affording them the least assistance in the pursuit of unattainable objects. Beattie himself acknowledges, that THE GREAT INCONVENIENCE OF PUBLIC EDUCATION ARISES FROM ITS BEING DANGEROUS TO MORALS;' and that' OUR INNOCENCE, DURING THE FIRST PART OF LIFE, IS MUCH MORE SECURE AT HOME, THAN ANY WHERE ELSE.' After this confession, what can he say in favour of public schools, which ought to influence a mind virtuously and religiously disposed? Temptations,' he insinuates, must come at last,' and will they have less strength?'-No-but the young man, well principled in virtue's book' at a private school, will have more strength to encounter those temptations, than if, initiated early in a public school, he had never received any religious instruction. • His new

6

"

associates will laugh at him.' Here it is pre-supposed, that the experiment of a private education has been tried on one boy. only; and that all the rest have been publickly educated. But why this supposition?--If private education to a certain age were general, the boy's new associates' at the university would also, have come from private schools. See Forbes's Life of Beattie, Vol. I. pp. 180-185."

The greater part of this little, but instructive volume,

is devoted to the important subject of female education; and who, that knows any thing of the influence of female manners on society, will deny that it is a subject of vital importance? The sensible author opens this branch of his discussion with laying down the following principle, which is sanctioned both by religion and by the experience of ages-that women are born for retirement, not for a life of seclusion; but for domestic life.

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Though there exist, I own, among good judges, a difference of opinion respecting the education of boys; yet in regard to females the point has been long positively decided: to all at least who have not thrown religion out of the question, it appears in theory not to admit of argument-I say in theory; because the practice of many sensible and religious people should rather seem to prove the contrary. Surely there can be no doubt that the natural disposition and characters and destinations of women, contrasted with those of men, point them out as formed for retirement. The more approved modes of educating women, in all ages and countries, and their occupations in subsequent life, must sufficiently discover to us the general sense of mankind. How different, at Athens, was the education of the modest woman and of the courtezan! The latter

was intended for public use. We shall see, I fear, in the English boarding-school, the seminary for courtezans restored."

The two grand leading objections to the ordinary mode of educating girls, are these: first, that it makes accomplishments the primary consideration, and necessary and useful knowledge a subordinate object; and secondly, that it tends to educate girls above the sphere of life in which they are destined to move, in defiance alike of an apostolic admonition, and of a maxim of Pagan wisdom. And what does this system tend to produce?-beautiful excrescences on the social tree: useless wives, negligent mothers, and wretched prostitutes! But let our author describe a modern boarding-school, or, in more fashionable phrase, a polite seminary for young ladies.

"Lo, our first nurseries, of distinguish'd name,
By rank upheld, but glory in their shame;

And sister-school with rival sister vies,

To catch the manners living, as they rise;"
Where girls for simple nature court finesse,
And, happy mimics, shift from dress to dress;
Each art, the invention of caprice assume,
The modish step, the figure, and the bloom;
With the sly hazel, or with eyes of sloe,
Ogle the polish'd tutors of the toe;
As melting masters o'er their bosoms lean,
Pencil, with fairy touch, the shadowy scene;

Sweet dulcet harps, or languish to guitars,
Or steal, from soft pianos, amorous airs! *
Yet, midst these airs, perhaps, the cultur'd mind
May show some symptoms to our wishes kind;
Some marks of solid worth that promise well,
And in exertion future blessings tell.
Perhaps, in embryo, useful talents lie
Where the glib needle twinkling fingers ply;
Where females o'er the tale historic bend,
And some the silent hour to science lend;
And others musing, trace the moral page—
How like the damsels of a former age! †

"But shall fine fingers, that as rose-buds glow,
With vulgar flippancy essay to sew?

"Dancing, in our first female schools, is so important an object, that a whole train of masters is necessary to its perfection! I suppose Addison's idea of dancing-only so far useful, as that a lady may know how to sit still gracefully'-would be deemed at present ridiculous. And even Sallust, perhaps, would be thought a moralist uncommonly severe, when speaking of Catiline's accom, plished mistress, he pronounced her too good a dancer for a virtuous woman.'

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† Music is also distributed among a whole band. Mrs. H. More once heard a mother declare, that the visits of masters of every art, and the different masters for various gradations of the same art, followed each other in such close and rapid succession, during her whole London residence, that her girls had not a 'moment's interval to look into a book.' But Mrs. More is acquainted with several ladies, who excelling most of their sex in the art of music, and excelling them also in prudence and piety, find little leisure or temptation amidst the delights and duties of their families for the exercise of this talent; regret that so much of their own youth was wasted in acquiring an art, which can be turned to so little account in married life; and are now conscientiously restricting their daughters in the portion of time allotted ⚫ for its acquisition.' I take this opportunity of desiring Mrs. More to expunge from her book (when a new edition shall be called for) a strange sort of sentiment, to say the least of it-If life be so long, says she, 'that we are driven to set at work every engine to pass away the tediousness of time; how shall we do to get rid of the tediousness of eternity!-an eternity, in which not one of "the acquisitions which life has been exhausted in acquiring, will be ⚫ of the least use? How does Mrs. M. know this?-The sentiment has a tincture of the tabernacle. See Strictures on Female Edu

cation, Ed. 5, Vol. I. r. 111.

The highest mental attainment of most girls, is the ability to write letters-if a qualification gained and improved with little or no expence of thought, may be called a mental attainment. With many ladies, who are said to write good letters, words flow over whole pages, where not a single thought' is discoverable.

Shall radiant eyes, that all the world bewitch*,
Ache, in pale stupor, o'er the tedious stitch+?
Yes! and each little heart with transport heaves,
As fancy wanders o'er the mimic leaves;
As hopes, impatient for the promis'd hour,

Brush the fair blooms and flit from flower to flower;
And fears, that all the bright embroidery skim,
With transitory shade, its foliage dim;

And jealousies along the silver stray

Pant on each thread, and melt in mists away!
And lo! the work to full perfection swells!

How flutter the boy-beaux and baby-belles!" P. 27.

Impartial justice, however, induces us to state, that there are some modern schools at which more solid attainments may be acquired. From a card before us, we learn, that at one of these schools, a few miles from the metropolis, fourteen young ladies (a wine-merchant's dozen) may be

* * Ροδοδάκτυλος.

It is for homely features to keep home;

They had their name thence: coarse complexions,
And cheeks of sorry grain, will serve to ply

The sampler, and to tease the huswife's wool.
What need a vermeil tinctur'd lip for that,
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn?
There was another meaning in these gifts;
Think what, and be advis'd!'

So said Comus, amidst his bacchanalian crew; hailing the strumpet Cotytto, the Goddess of Impudence. Very different was the language of the Angel Raphael.

"Formerly, girls were employed in work to adorn the mansion-house and magnificent hangings of tapestry afforded proofs of laborious attention. Nor were the walls vain of their decorations. At present, whilst we admire the elegant fingers of a young lady busied in working or painting her ball-dress, we cannot but think that her grand stimulus is the idea, how well she shall look in it!' Had she not better been working to adorn her mother? No Roman citizen of distinction appeared in public except in the garb spun by his wife or his daughter. In the last age, I confess, female acquirements were too confined-they were limited almost to the sampler and the receipt-book. But, if girls were once confectioners, they are now actresses.

Mrs. More has reprobated these baby-balls. Yet I do not know that her Essay has worked any degree of reformation. In every little country-town, boys and girls mix together in the dance from previous appointment. I have often known a girl invite a party to her father's house, when her father and mother were both absent at their respective places of amusement.