I remember Pericles, in his famous oration at the • funeral of thofe Athenian young men who perished in the Samian expedition, has a thought very much celebrated by several ancient critics, namely, that the lofs which the commonwealth fuffered by the deftruction of its youth, was like the lofs which the year would fuffer by the deftruction of the fpring. The prejudice which the public fuftains from a wrong education of children, is an evil of the fame nature, as it in a manner starves pofterity, and defrauds our country of those perfons who, with due care, might make an eminent figure in their refpective pofts of life.

I have feen a book written by Juan Huartes a Spanish phyfician, intitled Examen de Ingenios, wherein he lays ⚫ it down as one of his firft pofitions, that nothing but nature can qualify a man for learning; and that without a proper temperament for the particular art or fcience which he ftudies, his utmoft pains and application, affifted by the ableft mafters, will be to no purpose.

He illuftrates this by the example of Tully's fon • Marcus.

Cicero, in order to accomplish his fon in that fort of learning which he defigned him for, fent him to Athens, the most celebrated academy at that time in the world, ⚫ and where a vaft concourse, out of the moft polite na

tions, could not but furnish the young gentleman with ⚫ a multitude of great examples and accidents that might infenfibly have inftructed him in his defigned ftudies: he placed him under the care of Cratippus, who was ⚫ one of the greatest philofophers of the age, and, as if all the books which were at that time written had not been fufficient for his ufe, he compofed others on purpose for • him notwithstanding all this, hiftory informs us, that Marcus proved a mere blockhead, and that nature, who it seems was even with the fon for her prodigality to the father, rendered him incapable of improving by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philofophy, his own endeavours, and the moft refined converfation in Athens. This author therefore propofes, that there < should be certain triers or examiners appointed by the ftate to inspect the genius of every particular boy, and to allot him the part that is most suitable to his natural talents.

• Plato

Plato in one of his dialogues tells us, that Socrates, who was the fon of a midwife, ufed to fay, that as his mother, though she was very skilful in her profeffion, • could not deliver a woman, unless she was firft with child, fo neither could he himself raife knowledge out of a mind, where nature had not planted it.

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Accordingly the method this philofopher took, of inftructing his fcholars by feveral interrogatories or queftions, was only helping the birth, and bringing their own thoughts to light.

The Spanish doctor above-mentioned, as his fpeculations grow more refined, afferts that every kind of wit has a particular science corresponding to it, and in which alone it can be truly excellent. As to thofe geniuses, which may feem to have an equal aptitude for feveral things, he regards them as fo many unfi◄ nifhed pieces of nature wrought off in hafte.

There are indeed but very few to whom nature has ⚫ been fo unkind, that they are not capable of fhining in • fome fcience or other. There is a certain bias towards knowledge in every mind, which may be ftrengthened and improved by proper applications.

The story of Clavius is very well known; he was ⚫entered in a college of Jefuits, and after having been tried at feveral parts of learning, was upon the point of being difmiffed as an hopeless blockhead, until one of the fathers took it into his head to make an effay of his parts in geometry, which it feems hit his genius fo luckily, that he afterwards became one of the greatest mathematicians of the age. It is commonly thought that the fagacity of these fathers, in discovering the talent of a young ftudent, has not a little contributed to the figure which their order has made in the world.

• How different from this manner of education is that which prevails in our own country? Where nothing is more ufual than to fee forty or fifty boys of feveral ages, tempers and inclinations, ranged together in the fame clafs, employed upon the fame authors, and enjoined the fame tasks? Whatever their natural genius may be, they are all to be made poets, hiftorians, and

'orators,

orators alike. They are all obliged to have the fame capacity, to bring in the fame tale of verfe, and to furnish out the fame portion of profe. Every boy is bound to have as good a memory as the captain of the form. To be brief, inftead of adapting ftudies to the particular genius of a youth, we expect from the young man, that he fhould adapt his genius to his ftudies. This, I must confefs, is not fo much to be imputed to the inftructor, as to the parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his fon is not capable of performing as much as his neighbour's, and that he may not make him whatever he has a mind to.

If the prefent age is more laudable than those which have gone before it in any fingle particular, it is in that generous care which feveral well-difpofed perfons have taken in the education of poor children; and as in thefe charity schools there is no place left for the overweening fondness of a parent, the directors of them would make them beneficial to the public, if they confidered the precept which I have been thus long inculcating. They might eafily, by well examining the parts of thofe under their infpection, make a juft diftribution of them into proper claffes and divifions, and allot to them this or that particular ftudy, as their genius qualifies them for profeffion, trades, handicrafts, or fervice by fea or land.

How is this kind of regulation wanting in the three great profeffions?

Dr. South complaining of perfons. who took upon them holy orders, though altogether unqualified for the facred function, fays fomewhere, that many a man runs his head against a pulpit, who might have done • his country excellent service at the plough-tail.

In like manner many a lawyer who makes but an indifferent figure at the bar, might have made a very elegant waterman, and have shined at the Temple ftairs, though he can get no bufinefs in the house.

I have known a corn-cutter, who with a right education would have made an excellent phyfician.

To defcend lower, are not our ftreets filled with fagacious draymen, and politicians in liveries? We have feveral

235 ⚫ feveral tailors of fix feet high, and meet with many a broad pair of fhoulders that are thrown away upon a barber, when perhaps at the fame time we fee a pigmy porter reeling under a burden, who might have managed a needle with much dexterity, or have fnapped his fingers with great cafe to himself and advantage to the public.

The Spartans, though they acted with the fpirit 'which I am here fpeaking of, carried it much farther than what I propofe: among them it was not lawful for the father himself to bring up his children after his own fancy. As foon as they were feven years old, they were all lifted in feveral companies, and difciplined by the public. The old men were fpectators of their performances, who often raifed quarrels among them, and fet them at ftrife with one another, that by thofe early discoveries they might fee how their feveral talents lay, and without any regard to their quality, difpofe of them accordingly for the fervice of the commonwealth. By this means Sparta foon became the miftrefs of Greece, and famous through the whole world for her civil and military difcipline.

• If you think this letter deferves a place among your fpeculations, I may perhaps trouble you with fome other thoughts on the fame fubject..

"I am, &c.?

Friday,

No 308

Friday, February 22.

Fam proterva

Fronte petet Lalage maritum.

Hor. Od. 5. lib. 2. ver. 15.

-Lalage will foon proclaim

Her love, nor blush to own her flame.

• Mr. Spectator,

I

CREECH.

Give you this trouble in order to propofe myself to you as an affiftant in the weighty cares which you have thought fit to undergo for the public good. I am a very great lover of women, that is to fay honeftly; and as it is natural to ftudy what one likes, I have induftriously applied myfelf to understand them. The prefent circumftance relating to them, is that I think, " there wants under yet, as Spectator, a person to be distinguished and vested in the power and quality of a cenfor on marriages. I lodge at the Temple, and know, by feeing women come hither, and afterwards obferving them conducted by their counsel to judges chambers, that there is a cuftom in cafe of making conveyance of a wife's eftate, that he is carried to a judge's apartment and left alone with him, to be examined in private whether he has not been frightened or fweetened by her spouse into the act he is going to do, or whether it is of her own free will. Now if this be a method founded upon reafon and equity, why fhould there not be also a proper officer for examining fuch as are entering into the ftate of matrimony, whether they are forced by parents one one fide, or moved by intereft only on the other, to come together, and bring forth fuch aukward heirs as are the product of half love and constrained compliances? There is no body, though I fay it myfelf, would be fitter for this

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