REMARKS

ON

EDGEWORTH'S ESSAYS

ON

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION:

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED

IN THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW FOR OCTOBER 1811.

REMARKS

ON

EDGEWORTH'S ESSAYS,

&c.

IT is an attempt worthy of the active spirit of the present age to revise the existing plans of education; and while other things are sharing the benefit of the new lights afforded to us, to consider whether some of them may not be turned with advantage upon those systems and places of instruction which are to furnish the state with its most efficient and valuable members. The writers of the day, who are always the circulators of growing information, have not been wanting in this point. They have favoured us with their opinions very freely; perhaps with more bustle than wisdom; according to the common zeal of that description of men, who, when they have their hour of audience with the public, rarely offend by saying too little. But the cause itself of improvement is not to be discountenanced for their indiscretion. It will always deserve attention and inquiry: should this fail of recommending to us what is new, it may yet give us sounder reason, and

that is no bad alternative, to be satisfied with what

we possess.

Among those who have wished to deserve well of the youth of their country, by shewing how they may be instructed on a better model than their fathers, Mr. Edgeworth stands by far the first, in the application which he has given to the subject, and the fulness with which he has explained himself upon it. In his present volume, besides opening a general plan which we believe to be novel, he has incorporated with it all the most promising and popular of the topics that have been insisted on by other writers. The review of his work, therefore, will include the most compendious discharge of our critical duties on the subject at large.

For the first twenty years, and often five and twenty, of a man's life, he may be considered as under the auspices of education. This is a fearful portion of his whole existence; and perhaps there is no part of it, long as it is, which may not be well or ill directed so as to have an effect upon what he is to be for ever after. But the earlier stage of it, we confess, lies wholly beyond our knowledge. While life is wrapped up in the mystery of the bud, we have not applied our sight to look into its convolutions, nor have we physiology enough to say what culture it requires. Mr. Edgeworth begins with the infant; we cannot follow him there, but must be contented to meet him at a more advanced point

on the road. By casting our views forward at once into manhood, and considering what a person ought then to be, we may pass a fair judgment upon those plans and measures of education which profess to be directed to that stage of life.

There are some preliminary matters, however, which we must not omit, as they are essentially connected with the main and leading purpose of the work. In the first chapter they are introduced to us by a renewal of the long agitated questions on the existence of natural genius, and the choice of a profession. Out of the former of these questions we do not think the author has extricated himself very happily, either by forcible argument in support of his opinions, or a clear explanation of what those opinions are. As well as we can collect his sense upon it, he intends to grant a wide difference of original native capacity in different men; but to deny any peculiar natural genius; that is, some men may be born to rise above the rest of their species; but in what way it shall be, whether as philosophers, artists, or poets, is no part of their natural destination. In fact, he seems nearly to adopt the doctrine of Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley: "The true "genius is a mind of large general powers accident

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ally determined to some particular direction." If this doctrine be true, human minds, great and small alike, are at the first indifferent to any art, science, or profession. Accident may decide the taste of others, by well selected and well managed motives,