To excite in the young pupil this noble contempt of the honours, which mere wealth and pomp can confer, point out public men, who, though they live in splendour, are despised. Contrast these with other instances of men who have lived or died in poverty, and who have been respected and admired for their talents and their integrity. For example, they should know that Lord Chatham, dying insolvent, was more the object of public respect and admiration than any man of the age, who had amassed millions, or who had displayed all the profusion of Asiatic pomp and luxury. Upon this plain but solid foundation of économy, the more lofty and splendid virtues may be raised. When the pupil has acquired habits of perfect truth, firm principles of justice, and that power of forbearance and self-denial, which the practice of these virtues implies, it will not be difficult to exalt these into what is called generosity of character, strength, and greatness of mind. It is commonly believed, that these are not to be produced by education; that generosity and greatness of mind arise entirely from the natural temper or disposition. It is observed in support of this opinion, that these qualities often break out in uncultivated, and even in uncivilized persons; hence many have hastily concluded, that the cultivation of the understanding, and all that is termed education, tend to diminish and depreciate this natural disposition to generosity and heroism. But though greatness of mind and generosity have sometimes appeared' in uncultivated persons, yet these are extraordinary cases; they are mentioned with surprise when they occur in our own times, or they are recorded in history as moral phenomena. When noble moral qualities are united with intellectual cultivation, they are shown perhaps in a less sudden and astonishing manner: but their power and value are infinitely increased; their possessors are more extensively and permanently useful to society. A barbarian is generous and magnanimous only by starts, sometimes in the intermittent fits of cruelty and revenge; often from impulse, never from reason; but cultivated magnanimity is uniform as it is rational; it is never ́subject to caprice, or disgraced by paroxysms of passion. The idea of teaching disinterestedness appears at first view impracticable, because generous actions must be performed spontaneously, not at the desire of others, or from the hope of any specific view of advantage, or even of applause. Beside this difficulty arising from the necessity of keeping all hope of fee or reward out of sight, there is another which arises from the imperfect experience of children. They feel the pleasures of sympathy and self-approbation at the moment when they do any thing kind or generous; but the present pleasures of their senses are so strong and lively, and their ideas of the future so imperfect, that they cannot look forward, even for a few hours, to the enjoyment of the rewards of sympathy and self-approbation. Intellectual gratifications, though motives sufficiently powerful when they are near, have but faint influence when remote: and that, which is but at the distance of a few days or hours, appears remote to the inexperienced eye of a child. From these considerations we should be satisfied in young children with that generosity, which is prompted, like the barbarian's, by immediate sympathy or impulse. Reward with instant approbation, encourage with smiles and caresses, the first spontaneous acts of childish benevolence; and patiently and securely watch for opportunities of extending the generosity of impulse into the magnanimity of reason. By leading a child to reflect upon his own feelings, and to compare the intensity and duration of his own pleasures, sensual and intellectual, and by waiting quietly for the result of his own experiments in morality, it is possible, without using any artifice, or teaching either ostentation or hypocrisy, to cultivate generosity of temper to such a degree as to render the pupil, in the common and just acceptation of the words, perfectly free from selfishness. This generosity of character may to some persons appear foreign to the business of a statesman. Without it certainly a man may be a politician, perhaps a more expert and successful politician, but he can never become a great statesman; to deserve this name, he must have large views of large objects; and, in comparison with the public good, all merely personal interests should be as nothing in his estimation. When the foundation of a good and great character has been early laid by domestic education, the boy intended for public life should be sent to a public school. In the preceding essays it has been sufficiently urged, that parents should prepare their sons for classical studies before they send them to public seminaries. To the list of things to be taught to a young statesman before he enters a public school may perhaps be added some knowledge of geography, and of English and ancient history. Geography is easily learned by child *Practical Education. ren*. Rollin's method of joining with the ideas of the names, situation, and boundaries of countries, some account of their natural productions, will increase the amusement of the young geographer, and may perhaps tend to give a taste for the statistical studies, which will be useful to a statesman. If he learn the general outline and some of the principal facts of English history; if he be told what are the productions and commodities for which his own country is most famous, this knowledge will not much burthen his memory, and he will be proud of his information among companions of his own age: this may bias his mind in favour of the mode of life he is to follow when he becomes a man. But all these are minor considerations subject to circumstances, and by no means to be insisted upon anxiously. It is comparatively of little importance in what year of his childhood a boy learns them. It is true, that facts early fixed in the mind remain ready for future use; but even the hope of this advantage should never urge parents and preceptors to load the memory of their pupils, and to run the risk of disgusting them with any species of useful knowledge. What quantity of Latin and Greek may be useful or ornamental to a statesman, must next be determined. Mr. Fox's biographers assert, that no professed philologist could be more accurately acquainted, than he was, with the phraseology and versification of the great Grecian poet; that he was not only at an early age qualified to be a critic, but a writer in the learned *Practical Education. languages-that he left behind him at Eton admired specimens of classical poetry-and that one day, when a clergyman, eminent for his knowledge of the Greek language, was endeavouring to prove, that a verse in the Iliad was not genuine, because it was written in a measure not used by Homer; Charles Fox immediately recited twenty other verses of the same measure, to show that deviation from the usual metre was no evidence of interpolation. Allowing that in this there is no friendly exaggeration, which may be suspected, these are evanescent academic triumphs, calculated only to make the unlearned stare; they added little to the real fame of the man, the orator, or the statesman: except so far as they predisposed people to think highly of his talents, they were of no use to him in any debate in the senate, in any of the business of the nation, or in any of the various situations he occupied in life. Those who delight to argue in a circle will here probably attempt to prove, that because some celebrated men of the present day early distinguished themselves at school by their knowledge of prosody, and by their Latin verses, therefore these things are necessary proofs of ability, and indispensable for the education of those who hope to become celebrated statesmen. In fact, they were merely accidental, not essential. Whatever is made the test of ability at public schools will necessarily excite the ambition of the most able. If at Eton the prize of superiority had been to him who should excel in the Pyrrhic dance, or in coiling rhophalic verses, we should probably have heard of the early superiority and astonishing feats of Charles Fox in these trials of skill: but would this be any proof of the test being in itself judicious or |