ESSAY VII. OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE EDUCATION. INNUM NNUMERABLE are the difcuffions that have originated in the comparative advantages of public and private education. The chief benefit attendant on private inftruction feems to be the following... There is no motive more powerful in its operations upon the human mind, than that which originates in fympathy. A child muft labour under peculiar difadvantages, who is turned loose among a multitude of other children, and left to make his way as he can, with no one ftrongly to intereft himself about his joys or his forrows, and no one eminently concerned as to whether he makes any improvement or not. In this unanimating fituation, alone in the midft of a crowd, there is great danger that he should become fullen and felfifh. Knowing nothing of his fpecies, but from the aufterity of difcipline or the shock of contention, he must be expected to acquire a defperate fort of firmness and inflexibility. The focial affections are the chief awakeners of man. It is difficult for me to feel much eagerness in the pursuit of that by which I expect to contribute to no man's gratification or enjoyment. I cannot entertain a generous complacency in myself, unless I find that there are others that fet a value on me. I fhall feel little temptation to the cultivation of faculties in which no one appears to take an intereft. The first thing that gives spring and expansion to the infant learner, is praise; not fo much perhaps because it gratifies the appetite of vanity, as from a liberal fatisfaction in communicated and reciprocal pleasure. To give plea. fure to another produces in me the most animated and unequivocal confcioufnefs of exiftence. Not only the paffions of men, but their very judgments, are to a great degree the creatures of fympathy. Who ever thought highly of his own talents, till he found those talents obtaining the approbation of his neighbour? Who ever was fatisfied with his own exertions, till they had been fanctioned by the fuffrage of a bystander? And, if this fcepticism occur in our matureft years, how much more may it be expected to attend upon inexperienced childhood? The greatest stimulus to ambition is for me to conceive that I am fitted for extraordinary things; and the only mode perhaps to infpire me with felf-value, is for me to perceive that I am regarded as extraordinary by another. Thofe things which are cenfured in a child, he learns to be ashamed of; thofe things for which he is commended, he contemplates in himself with pleasure. If therefore you would have him eagerly defirous of any attainment, you must thoroughly convince him that it is regarded by with delight. you This advantage however of private education it is by no means impoffible in a great degree to combine with public. Your child may be treated with esteem and diftinction in the intervals of his fchool education, though perhaps thefe can scarcely follow him when he returns to the roof of inftruction. Praise, to produce its juft effect, ought not perhaps to be adminiftered in too frequent dofes. On the other hand, there is an advantage in public education fimilar in its tendency to that juft defcribed. Private education is almoft neceffarily deficient in excitements. Society is the true awakener of man; and there can be little true fociety, where the difparity of difpofition is fo great as between a boy and his preceptor. A kind of lethargy and languor creeps upon this fpecies of ftudies. Why should he ftudy? He has neither rival to surpass, nor com panion with whom to affociate his progress. Praise lofes its greatest charm when given in folitude. It has not the pomp and enchantment, that under other circumftances would accompany it. It has the appearance of a cold and concerted fratagem, to entice him to industry by indirect confiderations. A boy, educated apart from boys, is a fort of unripened hermit, with all the gloom and lazy-pacing blood incident to that profeffion. A fecond advantage attendant upon public education is that a real fcholar is feldom found to be produced in any other way. This is principally owing to the circumftance that, in private education, the rudiments are scarcely ever fo much dwelt upon; the inglorious and unglittering foundations are feldom laid with fufficient care. A private pupil is too much of a man. He dwells on thofe things which can be made fubjects of reasoning or fources of amufement; and efcapes from the tafk of endless repetition. But public education is lefs attentive and complaifant to this fpecies of impatience. Society chears the rugged path, and beguiles the tedioufnefs of the way. It renders the mechanical part of literature fupportable. Thirdly, public education is beft adapted for the generation of a robuft and healthful mind. All All education is defpotifm. It is perhaps impoffible for the young to be conducted without introducing in many cafes the tyranny of implicit obedience. Go there; do that; read; write; rife; lie down; will perhaps for ever be the language addreffed to youth by age. In private education there is danger that this fuperintendence should extend to too many particulars. The anxiety of individual affection watches the boy too narrowly, controls him too much, renders him too poor a flave. In public education. there is comparative liberty. The boy knows how much of his time is fubjected to his taskmafter, and how much is facredly his own. Slavery, difguife it as we will, is a bitter draught;" and will always excite a mutinous and indignant fpirit. But the moft wretched of all flaveries is that which I endure alone; the whole weight of which falls upon my own fhoulders, and in which I have no fellow-fufferer to share with me a particle of my burthen, Under this flavery the mind pufillanimoufly fhrinks. I am left alone with my tyrant, and am utterly hopelefs and forlorn. But, when I have companions in the house of my labour, my mind begins to erect itself. I place fome glory in bearing my fufferings with an equal mind. I do not feel * Sterne, annihilated |