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and most servile vocations that a man can follow-a vocation of hireable zeal of eloquence to let, indifferently, for the purposes of justice and chicanery-a profession tending to give apathy, sophistry, and contractedness to the human mind. On the other hand, the increase of commerce, and of the intercourse of civilized nations, must continue to give new importance every day to the mercantile character; and in proportion as manufactures flourish, the successful manufacturer will cease to be a plodding and mechanical speculator, and will derive his success from scientific improvements and inventions. Perhaps the knowledge either becoming or requisite in a finished mercantile man is really more liberal, though less technical, than what goes to constitute mere lawyer. The knowledge of foreign languages-of domestic and foreign statistics-and of political economy, ought to enter fully into the education of a British merchant of superior grade; and the manufactures of England have been the most important springs of national glory in the arts and sciences. As to the literature of taste and imagination, there is no reason why a merchant or manufacturer should not have as much time and leisure to addict himself to it, as the lawyer or any other professional man; and, in fact, there may be seen in that part of our community which lives by trade, a general fondness for polite literature, distinctly marked by the books which fill their libraries, and by the literary institutions which they support. The establishment of a college would promote the literary and scientific character of all that portion of the community-it would raise their respectability— it would occasion the young man, who is choosing his vocation for life, to anticipate no illiterate companionship, if he should go from his college to a counting-house-it would dissipate many prejudices about the comparative gentility of professions; and, instead of tending to overstock the profession of the law, would rather tend to diminish the number of its candidates.

Again, let us ask, how the establishment of a London college, including medical classes, would tend to overstock the business of the healing art. It lies with the faculty, and the Surgeons' College, and the Apothecaries' Hall, to limit the numbers of the three kinds of practitioners by debarring incompetent candidates, from being physicians, surgeons or apothecaries. As it is not proposed that the new college should have the power of conferring medical degrees, the limitary power of the above examining bodies would not be in the least degree invalidated by its establishment. From what has been said, it is also evident that it is not the cheapening of London medical education, but the rendering it better, that is the main effect likely to result from a college. That amelioration will depend on the possibility of classes being collected in such numbers, as to make the payment of the same fees which are now paid, amount to sums that will offer a temptation to popular physicians to relax their lucrative practice for professorships. Whilst this object is contemplated, the idea of reducing the expense of medical education in London is out of the question, and thus nobody needs to apprehend a rush of new candidates from low life into the medical profession. On the contrary, the more multifariously the branches of medical knowledge are taught, the higher will the standard of common medical education be raised; and, consequently, the students unable to support the expense of numerous classes, will be driven to

abandon the vocation. At the same time, a College school of medicine, by enforcing discipline, attendance, and examination, would place the habits and attainments of medical students more immediately under the public eye; it would expose and discourage the lazy and frivolous; ignorance and empiricism would be discountenanced, and genius and industry would be called forth.

I shall now proceed to say something of the plan of education, which I humbly conceive to be most advisable for this establishment.

It seems to be agreed upon by the friends of the scheme, that it shall include examination, and such a system of discipline, as, consistently with mildness and liberality, may secure the regular attendance of students, and prevent disgraceful neglect of instruction. The College, it is understood, will consist of three departments; a department of Literature, another of Science, and a third of Arts. A Chancellor and Vice-chancellor will form the superiors of the establishment; and a committee, elected by the shareholders, will act as visitors and as a board of general control.

To the Literary department will belong the classes for Ancient and Modern Languages, Belles Lettres, History and Antiquities.

On the propriety of the Learned languages being taught in a great place of Metropolitan Education, I hold it unnecessary to enter into any long argument; for I think, if we appeal to the public at large, we shall find their opinion decidedly in favour of classical education. At the same time men only conditionally admit the advantages to be derived from it. If a man has leisure to accomplish himself in ancient literature, nobody denies the refinement and pleasantness of the accomplishment; all that people doubt is, whether its advantages compensate, to a man who must economize time in his education, for the heavy sacrifice of so many years as are commonly bestowed on learning Greek and Latin. A previous question, however, may well be surmised, namely, whether all the sacrifice of time commonly allotted to classical learning, be absolutely requisite to acquire it? Milton did not think so, and he is practical as well as high authority on the subject. He taught his pupils to read the classics, as his biographers inform us, with astonishing rapidity. Dr. Johnson ridicules their assertion, because, aș he says, nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. But this objection either means nothing, or means that all modes of teaching are the same. It is therefore the language of mere sophistry; for every body can be taught faster by a proper method, than he can learn by an improper one. Locke also had an idea, that languages might be learnt by shorter processes than are generally used; and Mr. Hamilton has founded a system of teaching, which, I think, needs only to be examined to banish all doubt from every reasonable mind, that the labour of learning languages may be exceedingly abridged. The value of Hamilton's system consists in the kind of lessons that are given to pupils; the beauty of the Bell and Lancaster system lies in the contrivance of teaching any lesson to a large as well as a small number of pupils. Both of these improvements may therefore be easily united in any forthcoming plan of public education.

With such improvements in the art of tuition within our reach, it would be absurd to abandon the hope of imparting classical education to youth in a much shorter time than that in which it is now imparted.

The very existence of a college, where teaching would be kept up during ten months of the year, would ensure to a youth as long a space of classical study in two years, as he now possesses at the University during three years, the time allotted for his acquiring a degree of master of arts.

The cheap and easy acquisition of living languages would, I humbly apprehend, be one, and not the least, of the advantages to be derived from the proposed College. I may be told, indeed, that there are both public and private teachers of these languages to be had, on easy terms, in the metropolis. The Oriental languages, so important for the numerous youth who are to pursue their fortunes in India, are taught, I am aware, even gratis, by the learned Dr. Gilchrist, to whom all who are interested in our Indian empire are indebted for having thrown a new light upon the study of the Hindoostanee tongue, and for having divided its court language from its vulgar dialects, by the most masterly research and the clearest grammatical illustration. I may be told, perhaps, that while there is such a teacher in London, and while he is largely attended, there is no need of erecting a chair in the new establishment for the same branch of instruction. But I contend, that it would be highly beneficial for the establishment, if Dr. Gilchrist could be induced to deliver his instructions within its precincts; and that his students would also derive an advantage from pursuing their studies in a place where they would find other classes open for their attendance, without loss of time, or the trouble of walking across a street from his class. And a young man preparing to go to India may very well be supposed to require several accomplishments, in addition to his oriental acquirements. As to the European living languages, there are, no doubt, multitudes in London who teach them both privately and in classes. And if a college were erected, the immediate consequence would be, that a swarm of teachers of French, Italian, &c. would establish themselves in its vicinity, for the sake of picking up private pupils, or forming classes. There would, of course, be both good and bad candidates for the stray custom of the college, and some would be likely to offer very cheap terms; but whether they would teach well or ill, either on cheap or on dear terms, would be very much a matter of chance. But by making professorships for those languages, you might put it beyond a doubt that the youth would have excellent as well as cheap teachers; for you would evidently sooner get a superior master to accept of a college chair, than to come and teach in the neighbourhood upon private speculation. The elected and appointed professor would draw a large class, and could teach, therefore, on lower terms than the private teacher. But I have heard it alleged, that the modern languages cannot be taught to large classes so well as to small ones, or to private pupils. I am confident that this is not the fact, and that the Bell and Lancaster system of teaching has practically demonstrated its being quite as easy to teach a language to hundreds of scholars at one time, as to a small number. Dr. Russell, of the Charter-house, illustrates this fact in tuition, with regard to Greek, which he teaches on the Bell and Lancaster plan. I have heard Dr. Russell's scholars, who had been only two years at Greek, translate Thucydides, the most difficult of classical historians, at sight, (if I am not mistaken) or, at all events, with very slight preparation; and he assured me that in a room

where there is nothing to prevent the teacher from seeing the whole of his pupils at once, it is as easy to teach effectively three hundred scholars, as to teach thirty.

About the practicability of instructing a large class, as well as a small one, in any language living or dead, I conceive it is superfluous, after what we have seen of the Bell and Lancaster system, to entertain a doubt; and an undeniable benefit resulting from a large class is to make tuition proportionably cheap. It can scarcely be conceived that any competent private teacher could give fifty lessons at a lower rate than four pounds a year. But a professor in the supposed College, if he drew some two hundred pupils to his class, might give them two hundred and forty lessons, or ten months' tuition in the year for the same price. You would, moreover, insure the likelihood of an able teacher; and it should be remembered, that several languages could be taught successively in the same class-room of a college; so that a few additional professors would not augment the expense of building it.

I have heard it suggested, that it would be better for a youth to be sent abroad at once for the acquisition of modern languages, than to learn them at home. But it should be recollected that many circum stances may make it utterly inadvisable, or impossible, for a young man to be sent abroad. Branches of education which he cannot learn so well out of England, must be abandoned. A youth must be intrusted to foreigners, among whom you know not what acquaintances or morals he may pick up; and before he could visit France for the sake of French, Germany for German, and Italy for Italian, an expense would be incurred, obviously much beyond that of paying a few pounds, a year, for acquiring each of these languages at home. Besides, the advantages of travelling at a ripe age, when the mind has strength and information sufficient to select and enter into all the proper objects of curiosity, are tenfold those of visiting foreign countries in a state of juvenile inexperience. Our intercourse with the Continent is increasing, and the moral benefits of travelling are now open to a large class of society, capable of turning them to good account. It is still, however, a general misfortune of Englishmen when they travel, to find themselves too little acquainted with modern languages.-A false belief of the difficulty of learning them is very prevalent, as well as false doubts of their usefulness. But when Englishmen go abroad, they are apt to pay dearly by their awkwardness for this mistake. I remember finding a German village highly amused with talking of the embarrassment of an Oxford doctor, who had just quitted it before I arrived; and when I heard who the Englishman was, whose ludicrous distress had excited so much mirth, I recognized the name of a scholar highly estimated in his own University for his Latin verses and erudition.The schoolmaster of the village had been summoned to decide upon a compact, which had been made by dumb signs between this English doctor and a blacksmith of the place, relative to shoeing the doctor's horses and mending the wheels of his carriage. But the different manner in which the German pedagogue and the English scholar pronounced Latin, had rendered that language of no avail to the former as an interpreter; and the negotiation had become a pantomimic scene of discord and perplexity, when an English party of travellers happened to arrive, among whom there was a girl from a boarding-school, aged fifteen, who by dint of French, which the German schoolmaster, not VOL. X. No. 55.-1825.

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the English professor, understood, relieved her learned countryman from his embarrassment.

It is a fact that our boarding-school girls receive an education in many respects more available for the present state of society, than the learning of university graduates.

It consists with the liberal principles of the present age, that the projected College should leave its students free to attend whatever classes, and in whatever succession, they may think fit. There should be no excluding laws, except on the score of infamous character or behaviour. The only exception to this principle which I should think of suggesting, would be, to prevent the establishment degenerating into a mere elementary school, by making a certain slight examination in Latin and Arithmetic requisite to entering the literary and scientific departments. But I barely moot this question; and I am by no means unprepared for its being negatived. In a general view I am aware that exclusions and restrictions are inadvisable. There are some truths, however, in the theory of education, which it is the duty of all the friends of good education to promulgate, though it may be better to recommend them to men's common sense, than to enforce them by arbitrary regulations. I shall here submit some maxims which I conceive to be truths of this nature.

However inexpedient it might be to enact a law for the proposed College, to oblige youth to study this or that branch of instruction earlier than another, yet it would surely be the duty of persons directing a youth's education, to adapt the succession of his studies to the natural progress of the human mind.

Languages are certainly best learnt while the memory is young and impressible, and the classes where they are taught, are therefore to be the first attended. The same thing may be said of those elementary parts of science which require to be committed to memory, as the memory is a faculty earlier ripe than the understanding. By the exercise of the memory, however, I mean not submitting it to that slavish toil which excludes either agreeable tasks for the judgment, or playful amusements for the imagination. Only, as the memory is probably as good at fourteen as at twenty-two, its docility and impressibility ought to be made available in those years, when an equally laborious exercise of the understanding would overburthen the mind, if superadded to the efforts of the memory.

In the same light with languages and with the easier elements of science, we may consider those accomplishments of art which require rather the pliability than the strength of the mental powers. During the earlier course of College study, I should exhort all young men to learn that most useful art short-hand writing, an art which, I believe, will one day be studied as universally as common writing, and which will abridge the labour of penmanship to a degree that will materially quicken the intercourse of human thought. In like manner the art of drawing might be learnt early in life, by every person, with great ease and unspeakable advantage: it is a superior species of writing, that may be turned to account without reference to the cultivation of taste or imagination, but simply as a useful power of retaining matter of fact impressions from visible nature.

The understanding, as has been said, ought certainly at no time of