stile, how masters ought to study clearness and perspicuity, and how youth will learn this stile from masters who excel in it, while they are taught by it—But youth ought to be employed in teaching what they know to others—The advantages of so employing them—There is another eloquence that ought not to be neglected in education, which is the concise stile, in which men ought to talk to men—How youth may be improved in this—How the rules of oratory ought to be taught—They are all founded in human nature, and teaching them aright, is developing human nature, because it is shewing how and by what the passions of men are affected—Observations on this subject, p. 386.
The same is true of poetry—Observations from Plutarch upon reading the poets with youth—Further reflexions on this subject— Of the common commentaries upon classic authors, upon the Greek and Roman poets in particular—Mr. Pope’s notes on Homer a true model of criticism, p. 391.
Painting and sculpture considered—Their ends, their rules, their connexion with natural or moral philosophy—The author is shorter on this subject, having elsewhere treated of it at large, p. 397.
Of instructing youth early in drawing—The advantages of it—How youth ought to be inured to view and examine pictures and poems—By what rules or questions both ought to be tried, and of the false taste in painting corresponding to verbal criticism in classical reading—Upon the necessity of improving the imagination of youth—Our eyes and ears were designed by nature for improvement, being capable of very noble improvements—What genius and wit means—How the imagination may be improved and refined—The fancy will ever be pursuing some species of beauty, some Venus—The advantage of directing it early towards the true Venus, the true beauty—This is the only way of securing it against straying, wandering and seduction, p. 400.
An important rule of nature to be attended to in teaching the arts which imitate nature, viz. the connexion in nature between beauty and utility—This rule must be attended to by all artists, if they would gain the end of their arts, which is to please an intelligent eye—Reasonings from Vitruvius, Cicero, Quintilian, on this subject—Nature’s beauty proceeds from her steady observance of this rule, Natura nil frustra facit, and art must imitate nature, p. 405.
The polite arts have been condemned by some moralists as a part of the luxury which hath always proved so fatal to states—Reflexions on this subject—The argument from abuse considered—Poetry and painting have always flourished together—They lend each other mutual aids and charms—They only lend their ornaments to virtue with willingness—When they are prostituted to bad purposes, the force, the constraint, the violence they suffer appears—They have flourished best in virtuous times—Their genuine uses and ends described, p. 408.
They cannot be cultivated in poor indigent states, ’tis only in times of ease and opulence there is leisure or spirit for cultivating them—But affluence soon corrupts men—Philosophy itself hath always been first corrupted before the polite arts have been prostituted to serve vice—These arts declined at Athens with public virtue—Rome was very corrupt before they were known in it; and therefore they soon declined there—Under the bad Emperors, after the dissolution of the commonwealth, good taste sadly degenerated—It revived again with liberty and virtue under a few good ones, p. 412.
These arts had no share in the ruin of Carthage—Nor in that of Sparta—How both these states fell—Nor in the ruin of the Persian empire—How it fell—A private man may bestow too much time and expence upon pictures, &c. but this no objection against the good uses that states may employ the arts of design to promote—In the character of Atticus elegance is distinguished from luxury—Expensiveness in the materials is ruinous to good taste; so Pliny observes—Whatever abuses have been made of the polite arts, they may be well employed, and there is a real distinction between tasteless waste or prodigality, and elegant use of wealth—The way to secure a state against bad taste and gross voluptuousness, is by right education to form early in young minds love to virtue, and good taste of true beauty and decency in the arts of design, p. 414.
Conclusion
In which a few obvious reflexions are offered to shew what preparation is necessary to qualify one for travelling to advantage. p. 418.
Plutarchus Plasmatias:
BEING
A RECITAL OF CONVERSATIONS,
IN WHICH
The Sentiments of the best Ancients concerning Philosophy and Liberal Education are fairly represented.
Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit.
—JUVENAL2
Observations upon Liberal Education
Having been long engaged in the important business of Education, as it was my duty, so it hath ever been my chief employment to collect all the instructions relating to this art I could, from ancients and moderns.—And whatever I have been able to learn from the experience of others, or my own, concerning this matter, is now offered to the publick, because the subject is of publick, of universal concern.—I say from experience, because, as with regard to the culture of plants or flowers, sure rules can only be drawn from experiment; so, for the same reason, there can be no sure rules concerning education but those which are founded on the experimental knowledge of human nature.—And here every conclusion is deduced from internal principles and dispositions of the human mind, and their operations, which are well known to all who have carefully studied mankind; and is therefore confirmed by experience, in the same manner that natural philosophers establish their physical doctrines, upon observations evincing certain properties of bodies and laws of motion.
Every question of any moment relating to liberal education is here treated of at due length, as may be seen by casting an eye over the contents. But tho’ this essay be divided, for method and order’s sake, into chapters, yet all the questions belonging to this subject are in their nature so closely connected, so interwoven, that to judge how any one of them is handled, the whole must be read. In every article, brevity and conciseness have been studied, as much as was consistent with the perspicuity, distinctness, amplification, and variety of illustrations, an argument of so complex a nature, and such vast importance, required.
The design of this Treatise, to give a general idea of it in the fewest words I can, is to shew, “How greatly private and publick happiness depend upon the right education of youth: And that human nature is so far from being incapable of arriving very timeously at a considerable degree of perfection in wisdom and virtue, that young minds, by suitable methods of education, may indeed be very early formed to the sincere love of virtue; and may make great improvements in the more useful arts and sciences, as well as in languages, with much less difficulty, and in much less time, than is commonly imagined: And to delineate and recommend these methods of instructing and forming youth.”
This is the shortest account I can
