being gratefully ascribed to the diffusion of knowledge, is erroneously attributed to the injurious effects of tuition and education. These complainants deplore a public benefit; for it can scarcely be doubted that it is better for society, that thousands should enjoy a certain portion of knowledge, and of mental power, than that a larger comparative share should be monopolized by a few individuals.

This increased facility of obtaining instruction, and these improvements in the art of education, have arisen not from public schools and universitics, but chiefly from the art of printing; the emulation and the competition excited by the press have contributed more more than any other cause, to produce this melioration. Ancient establishments have, in the mean time, continued stationary; their rules have not been changed to adapt them to our times; their routine of instruction, such as it was centuries ago, continues with little alteration; and consequently many studies and many dogmas, which have long since been exploded, continue to make a customary, but burdensome and useless part of education. In our public schools there are considerable defects: a uniform course of instruction must there be pursued by youth intended for different professions, who waste much time in acquiring learning which will be of little use to them in real life, whilst they have no means of obtaining know

-ledge that would prepare them for their different situations in society, and which must be essential to success in their various professions. This subject has been of late so much discussed, that it is not necessary to recapitulate the arguments, which have been adduced against the learning usually taught at schools and universities; it seems on all hands to be agreed, that some change is necessary; but what that change should be, and how far it should extend, is a subject of great delicacy. It is prudent, in the first place, to take advantage of the experiments, that have been tried upon a large scale in other countries.

There was once a system of instruction established in Europe, the success of which, as far as the intellectual powers are considered, was exemplified in almost every country of the new and old word-The system of the Jesuits. Their morality is not here spoken of, but merely their knowledge, and their skill in communicating it to youth,

Of the little that has transpired, scarcely any thing can be adopted by us from the Jesuits' system of education, because it was founded on peculiar religious tenets, and on l'esprit de corps. That society acted as a body, and had colleges and schools in regular gradation, all subordinate to their head; quick and constant communication was maintained between the masters of these schools, that is to say, between all the inferiors

and superiors of the order; notes were kept of the ages, talents, dispositions, and acquirements of each of the pupils, and these were transmitted to the superior, so that he had a general knowledge of the rising generation; and whenever a young man of ability was wanted for any mission or employment, whenever any opportunity of placing a youth advantageously occurred, the Jesuits exerted themselves to seize it for their pupils. They had interest not only in private families, but they had insinuated themselves at courts into almost all public affairs; so that they had continual means of rewarding and providing for their most promising pupils. This assurance of reward, and this hope of advancement, made it the anxious wish of parents in all catholic countries to get their children admitted into the seminaries of the Jesuits. The studies and application required for success enured the youth to labour; and the certainty of immediate reward or punishment, proportioned to their merits or demerits, kept alive the spirit of emulation, and regulated the conduct of the whole. Great care was taken to admit none but promising youths, and none but those who had given proofs of learning or talents were advanced to public situations; for the honour and interest of the order were the governing principles, and thus supplied motives for industry and impartiality.

In our schools, which are not thus subordinate

to a corporation of masters, and where there are not the same means of communication, or power of rewarding and providing for pupils, no imitation of their rules can be of any use, nor would it be at all desirable, that mystery should be introduced into our free and open system of public education. Whatever its faults may be, its publicity is an invaluable advantage. Whatever peculiar and superior arts of instruction the Jesuits may have possessed, and that they had such may be presumed from the celebrity of their pupils, they would be purchased at too high a price by the introduction of any system of secret combination, of any inquisitorial spirit, or any political intrigue. But there are some particulars in their plan of education which might be advantageously imitated. For example, their custom of keeping notes and registers of all the facts, that could throw light upon the characters, moral and intellectual, of their pupils. The art of education might be improved, and might be exalted to the dignity and security of a science, by keeping such registers of facts relative to the early history of the human mind. All inconvenience to individuals might be avoided, by using initials or letters taken at hazard, to designate the children in such journals or cases in education, which might be kept in initiatory schools. Another peculiarity in the Jesuits' plan of instruction deserves our attention. They taught much by conversation:

each pupil was allowed to have the advantage of conversation with the superiors for a certain number of hours, and it was believed that much knowledge was communicated in a short time by this oral mode of instruction. It has been remarked, that the pupils of the Jesuits had more presence of mind in conversation, had more ready recollection of their knowledge, and, in short, were more men of the world, than youths brought up by any other preceptors; and this has justly been attributed to the habits of conversing, which they acquired by their early education.

In France, during the administration of M. de Lamoignon, there was a design to improve the national education, and something upon the plans of the Jesuits' schools and colleges, to use court language, was in contemplation. But the breaking out of the dreadful revolution put an end to these schemes. In the first national assembly there were many men of the highest reputation for literature, science, and real virtue, who desired only moderate reform, who little foresaw the consequences of some of their own attempts to improve: who did not, till it was too late to take measures either for their own safety or that of the nation, perceive the swelling tide of democracy, by which they were suddenly overwhelmed. Amongst these were many who produced plans of public instruction and of national education, full of eloquence and ability. In the enthusiasm of the