see in summer the delights of haymaking, and of harvesthome; in winter he should see the good old hospitalies of Christmas, and all those country festivities, which attach people to their homes. These customs tend to connect and to increase the pleasure of the connexion between different classes of society, and they cement the bond of union between landlord and tenant.

The heart of a benevolent youth will naturally expand in these scenes of innocent pleasure, and he will probably form many wishes and many schemes for increasing the comforts and permanent happiness of the peasantry, who enjoy so much the transient pleasures of a harvest-home or of a holiday. He will probably express to his father and his friends his wishes, and talk of what he would do, if he were old and rich enough, and perhaps he may solicit for favours of various sorts for tenants. Then is the moment to lead his understanding to reflect how real good is to be effected. Without checking his benevolence, he may be made to perceive the difficulty of bestowing gifts, or dispensing charities for the lasting advantage even of the objects of generosity. His mind may thus be opened by degrees to the perception of many of the fundamental truths of political economy; he may be shown examples of the folly and injustice of encouraging idleness by bestowing alms upon those, who are able and yet not willing to work; he may be convinced, that merely giving money to relieve the temporary wants of the poor, instead of inspiring. them with the desire of relieving themselves by their own exertions, is not doing any real benefit: that it is as vain as the fond hopes of children who plant flowers without roots.

7

He should further be shown, that people in society cannot be made, or cannot long remain equals in property, unless they were all equally strong, equally wise, and equally industrious; and unless they had all precisely an equal number of children. It is sufficient to suggest these ideas to parents, and the manner in which, in some instances, they may be introduced into the mind; it would be tedious and impertinent to illustrate the subject farther. Indeed it would be impossible without making this a treatise on Political Economy, instead of an essay on the Education of a Country Gentleman. The object is to excite the curiosity of the pupil on these questions, and then he will read to inform himself farther and more accurately. Mere conversation on such abstruse subjects could never be sufficient, to teach all that ought to be known; but by hints thrown out at times, when the pupil's mind is interested on any of these points, his understanding may be wakened; he may be induced to think, by being urged to explain his ideas, and to defend them by arguments. When he has been brought to this point, the business is done; he will take pains to go to the bottom of the subject, let it be ever so deep. It will be necessary only to point out to him the works, that are most likely to afford him the information he desires to obtain.

When a youth has left school, and before he goes to a university, he might spend a few months at home under the care of a literary preceptor, who might prepare him to hear public lectures on political economy with advantage. Smith's Wealth of Nations is the best book to open his views, and to give him clear ideas. While he reads, he should be warned not to

take any thing for granted; not to believe, that, because he is perusing an author of high authority, he must therefore resign his understanding implicitly. No-the object is to in

duce him to think and reason for himself, not to make him get by rote the opinions or words of any author; that would be only to make him a talking copy of a book. As much as possible, he should be excited to apply what he reads to what he hears and sees in the world; this he may not immediately have opportunities of doing: but, if he have the intention, he will not forget to execute it on proper occasions.

At some of our universities he will have ample means of improving himself in the study of political economy, by hearing the lectures of able professors. It should be the object of a country gentleman at the university, to extend his general knowledge, and to imbue his mind with a taste for science and elegant literature. This may be done as much by keeping good company, as by reading good books.

After leaving the university, he should not return to reside at home, to lounge about his father's house, the idle heir expectant of the estate; but he should in times of war go into the army, and serve a campaign or two, according to the common expression, to make a man of himself; to see and feel something of the rough as well as the smooth parts of life; to be forced to form an independent character, by acting as well as thinking for himself. These are times, when other and more imperious motives call upon every young man of property and patriotism, who is not bound to a profession, to give his share of personal military service to his country.

In times of peace, the idle life of an officer would not be. advantageous to the heir of a country gentleman; it might alter his domestic tastes and habits; it might give him a love of dissipation, or perhaps of gaming, which would be destructive to his happiness. Therefore, in times of peace, when there are no fit opportunities of his serving in foreign armies, he should travel: first in his own country, and afterwards on the continent.

In travelling through his own country, his principal object should be to inform himself of the modes of living, manners, and opinions of all ranks of people; but chiefly of the middle and lower classes. He should inform himself of their different practices in agriculture; he should talk to farmers, and get acquainted with their notions of rural economy, and with their opinions upon those public measures, which affect their interests: by thus becoming acquainted with their prejudices, he will be able to form a judgment for himself, when he is to settle on his own estate; in the mean time, it will be advantageous to him to have seen the most remarkable and interesting things in his own country before he goes abroad; because these will be points of comparison to which he can recur, when he sees new objects; and because he will thus have it in his power to gratify the curiosity of foreigners; he will have some ideas to impart in exchange for those which he receives: this will be a means of drawing out the knowledge and conciliating the regard of enlightened foreigners. The most that a letter of recommendation can do for any traveller is literally to introduce

See Education of a Lawyer.

him into good society; but after the first introduction, he must make his own way. If he have no information to give in return for that which is communicated to him, why should men of science or literature, whose time is precious, give it up to an uninteresting stranger. Complaints are often made of the silence, reserve, and haughtiness of English travellers, who either will not or can not converse: even on subjects of which they are well informed, they are not communicative; and they are sometimes shamefully ignorant of their own country, though fully possessed with the conviction that it is superior to all others; an opinion which they will never be able to impress to their satisfaction on the minds of foreigners, while they can enforce it only by assertion.

Some years ago an English nobleman, who set out upon his travels without having seen any thing of his own country, became so much ashamed of not having it in his power to give any description of celebrated places in England, and of not being able to answer any of the various questions, which were put to him concerning English manufactures, and British curiosities both of nature and art, that he actually returned home, determined to travel through the British Islands to see all those ́things, which he had never thought of seeing till he was thus roused to a sense of their value; and thus made sensible, that a man should qualify himself for going abroad by previously visiting all that is worthy of notice at home.

The principal objects which a country gentleman should propose in travelling are amusing and instructing himself, enlarging his mind, and increasing his power of doing good. By