CONTENTS. III, IV. Of the Sources of Genius V. Of an Early Tafte for Reading VI. Of the Study of the Claffics VII. Of Public and Private Education VIII. Of the Happiness of Youth XI. Of Reasoning and Contention XII. Of Deception and Frankness THE ENQUIRER. PART I. ESSAY I OF AWAKENING THE MIND, THE true object of education, like that of every other moral procefs, is the generation of happiness. Happiness to the individual in the first place. If individuals were univerfally happy, the fpecies would be happy. Man is a focial being. In fociety the interefts of individuals are intertwifted with each other, and cannot be feparated. Men fhould be taught to affift each other. The firft object fhould be to train a man to be happy; the second to train him to be useful, that is, to be virtuous. There is a further reafon for this. Virtue is effential to individual happiness. There is no tranfport equal to that of the performance of virtue. All other happiness, which is not connected with felf-approbation and fympathy, is unfatisfactory and frigid. To make a man virtuous we must make him wife. All virtue is a compromise between oppofite motives and inducements. The man of genuine virtue, is a man of vigorous comprehenfion and long views. He who would be eminently ufeful, must be eminently inftructed. He must be endowed with a fagacious judgment and an ardent zeal. The argument in favour of wifdom or a cultivated intellect, like the argument in favour of virtue, when clofely confidered, fhows itself to be twofold. Wisdom is not only directly a means to virtue; it is alfo directly a means to happiness. The man of enlightened understanding and perfevering ardour, has many fources of enjoyment which the ignorant man cannot reach; and it may at least be fufpected that these fources are more exquifite, more folid, more durable and more conftantly acceffible, than any which the wife man and the ignorant man poffefs in common. Thus it appears that there are three leading objects objects of a juft education, happiness, virtue, wifdom, including under the term wisdom both extent of information and energy of purfuit: When a child is born, one of the earliest pur-1 poses of his inftitutor ought to be, to awaken his mind, to breathe a foul into the, as yet, unformed mafs. What may be the precife degree of difference with respect to capacity that children generally bring into the world with them, is a problem that it is perhaps impoffible completely to folve. But, if education cannot do every thing, it can do much. To the attainment of any accomplishment what is principally neceffary, is that the accomplishment should be ardently defired. How many inftances is it reasonable to suppose there are, where this ardent defire exifts; and the means of attainment are clearly and skilfully pointed out, where yet the accomplishment remains finally unattained? Give but fufficient motive, and you have given every thing Whether the object be to fhoot at a mark, or to mafter a science, this obfervation is equally ap plicable. The means of exciting defire are obvious. Has the propofed object defirable qualities? Exhibit them. Delineate them with perfpicuity, and delineate them with ardour. Show B your object |