and particular application to every particular genius and disposition, which is impossible in a numerous flock, and would be wholly in vain (could he have time to study and correct every one’s particular defects and wrong inclinations) when the lad was to be left to himself, or the prevailing infection of his fellows, the greater part of every four and twenty hours. ’Tis virtue, Callias, direct virtue, which is the valuable but the hard part to be aimed at in education; and not a forward pertness, or any little arts of shifting. All other, even good accomplishments, should give place and be postponed to this. This is the solid and substantial good which tutors should not only talk of, but which the labour and art of education should replenish the mind with, and deeply root there: nay never cease inculcating, and fixing by all proper methods, till the young man, having a deep and abiding sense and relish of its excellence, places his strength, his glory, his pleasure in it.11 But tell me, pray, whether a master, with the eyes of Argus, can watch over fifty boys, with all the assiduous vigilance necessary to form and nourish this noble disposition in their minds.
CAL. You then prefer private education at home: yet we seldom see such make their way so well thro’ the world, as those who have been justled and tossed about in a public school. The contests and collisions of many lads, one against another, wonderfully sharpen and brighten genius.
SOC. No matter what name you give the education I am pleading for. But I have not yet said, whether I would have lads bred at home by a skilful preceptor, or abroad at some school with a12 few other condisciples, under an expert good master. All I have hitherto contended for is, that they ought to be educated where the principles and habits of candour, benevolence, temperance and fortitude of mind may be early learned; not the definitions merely, but the habits of them; and where they run no risk of learning waggeries or cheats, and pertness or roughness. And this is as true, as it is, that the former, not the latter, make an able, as well as a good man. And yet, Callias, if you will insist upon the vast benefit of assurance, I am willing to put the whole matter upon this single point. Take a boy from the highest form in Evenus’s numerous school, and one of the same age, bred as he should be in his father’s family, our friend Pointias’s son, for example, who is not yet ten years old, and bring them together into good company, and see which of the two will have the more decent manly carriage, and address himself with the more becoming genteel assurance to strangers. Here, I imagine the school-boy’s confidence will either fail or discredit him, whereas we have often seen the other make a very agreeable charming figure in the company of strangers. But if the confidence and assurance acquired in public schools be such as fits only for the conversation of boys, had he not better be without it? Let me use one argument more with you, Callias. Does that retirement and bashfulness which our daughters are brought up in, make them less knowing or less decent women? Conversation, when they come into the world, soon gives them a becoming assurance: and whatsoever there is beyond that, of assuming and rough, may in men be well spared too. For courage and firmness, as I take it, are very different from boisterousness and rudeness.
CAL. How then would you have young men able to stand upon their own legs, so as not to be dupes and bubbles when they come into the world, which is so over-run with tricksters and crafty artful knaves of various kinds?
SOC. How young men should be fitted for conversation, and entered into the world, we shall enquire on some other occasion. A young man, before he leaves the shelter and guard of his father or tutor, should be fortified with resolution, and made acquainted with men to secure his virtue, lest he should be seduced into some ruinous course, before he is sufficiently apprised of the dangers and snares of the world, and has steadiness enough to resist temptation. But what is done in public schools thus to prepare them for the world?—But of this, I say, another time. Now, I would only ask you what you meant by saying education must be either private or public?
CAL. Is there any difficulty in understanding this? Is there any middle between private and public?
SOC. Is there no difference, Callias, between a vast extensive garden and a small one;13 or between a moderate flock of sheep and a very numerous herd?
CAL. There is certainly.
SOC. What do you then say of a few pupils, suppose eight or ten, and three or fourscore? Will there be no emulation, no rivalship, no bustling or collision, but where there is so great a number of competitors, that their emulations and justlings cannot possibly be attended to with sufficient care, in order to make a proper use and improvement of them to the real advantage and good of each different temper and genius?
The rest of this conversation is not preserved to us. But for these reasons, young pupils were sent very early in ancient times to masters of eminent wisdom and virtue, and well acquainted with the world, who, with the help of proper assistants of their own choice, and under their superintendency, took some ten, some twelve, some seventeen, none above twenty, under their inspection. And upon them did parents devolve the whole care of their children’s education, with full confidence and satisfaction. Here they were safer from the infection of servants than they could possibly be at home with their fathers, who being engaged in business, were obliged to leave the care of their children, in a great measure, to low domestics, or at least could not keep them intirely from their company, which soon effaces the best lessons parents can give. For those masters making education their sole employment, and confining themselves to a small number, could easily watch over and direct all the motions of their pupils, and keep them from whatever company and conversation they thought improper for them. But this was done without force or restraint, with due regard to that love of liberty which is natural to the human mind, and the foundation of magnanimity.
Liberty, said one of these masters, I think it was another Parian, whom Socrates is said to have highly esteemed, is man’s noblest birth-right: the child who loves it not must needs have a very mean dastardly spirit, incapable of nourishing generous seeds: the noble virtues cannot be reared up to any perfection in such a cold, lifeless soil. The whole business therefore of liberal education, and it is called liberal for that very reason, is to cherish into proper vigour the love of liberty, and yet guard it against degenerating into the vice which borders upon it, wilfulness or stubbornness. The great secret of education is to render young minds pliable and submissive, not to commands and threats, or violence, but to mild persuasive reason; willing to do what is right, and for that reason eager to be informed in what is such, and yet at the same time impatient of violent restraint: too manly to be driven like beasts, and yet too rational to refuse to hearken to persuasion, or to oppose what is enjoined them, merely because it is fit for them, and as such. Now, in order to form this temper, youth must be accustomed to rational treatment, that is, to do the things that are good for them, because they are so without feeling any compulsion or restraint laid upon them. “I never command, said he, and I always gain my point. For when I would have any of them under my care to do any thing, I am sure that it is proper for them; and I am as sure that I can easily make them perceive it to be so by asking them a few simple questions, in a mild loving manner, about it. It is not implicit respect to me, but regard to reason I aim at establishing in their minds. And he who is taught to know no master but reason, will soon love the teacher who hath thus made him free, in proportion as he loves reason, and tastes the endearing sweets of the true liberty which reason and virtue alone can give.”
Those sage preceptors well knew, that the desire not of liberty only, but of dominion, is natural to mankind, and a passion that ought not to be erased but cherished. This desire is, perhaps, the original of most vicious habits that are ordinary and natural. But without it, how listless and dead would the human mind be? Upon this stock only, can all the great or heroic virtues be grafted. And therefore, kind nature hath not implanted it in our breasts, to be eradicated by a tyrannical father or schoolmaster, but to be nursed and directed into the laudable ambition and true greatness of soul of which it is the seed: into the noble desire of acquiring authority by superior wisdom and virtue; and into the virtuous pride which consists in foregoing pleasure, or suffering pain with chearful constancy, for the satisfaction and merit of doing great and generous deeds.
This natural love of dominion and
