school, there is no place where he is in greater danger of corruption, where he is more exposed to the pestilential contagion of vicious example, that may blight the opening blossoms of virtue and intellect, and mar the fairest prospects of the fond parent. The season of education is a most important one. On the proper employment of it depend not only the happiness, the respectability and usefulness of individuals, but the greatness and prosperity of nations. It is therefore of the highest consequence to the wellbeing of nations, that the youths be trained to industry, to self-denial, to fortitude, and, in short, to all the amiable, to all the manly virtues. That they should be taught to value only what is esteemable, and to despise all grovelling and factitious enjoyments; to consider knowledge, virtue, and piety, as the only good; idleness, vice, and irreligion, as the only evil. It is true, the sublime and consolatory doctrines of christianity are not to be learned from the Greek and Roman authors; but where can the moral virtues be taught with better hope of success? Where can writers be found more calculated to captivate the youthful imagination, to inspire a love of literature by natural, simple, chaste, but ardent effusions of genius, to mould the heart to all the gentle, to all the exalted virtues? They are, besides, to be approached with a kind of religious veneration, as the source whence all the literature and many of the languages of Europe flow. The first and most obvious remedy for this almost universal failure in classical education is, that parents themselves should be convinced of its importance to the future happiness, respectability, and usefulness of their sons, and their election being once made, that they should strain every nerve to inspire them with a love of learning. They will not find this so difficult as they may at first imagine. Children are dependent on their parents for every thing they enjoy; they are drawn to them by the strong ties of natural affection, they consider them the first of the human race, hence it is easy for them, if they will give themselves the trouble, to mould them to their will. But it must not be forgotten, that dry precepts are not suf ficient for this purpose. These serve only to disgust, never to carry conviction to the youthful mind, nor to overcome the playfulness and indolence natural to the age. The parent who would avoid the bitterness of disappointment must be ever on the alert to watch the mental progress of his son; by interesting narratives, by splendid examples, he must allure him into the paths of virtue; he must become his fellow student, unlock to him the gates of literature, and point out the delightful fields that stretch in fair prospect within the sacred precincts. But it often happens that so much of the father's time is spent abroad, in the active pursuits of life, in providing for the wants of his family, in the road of ambition, or the acquisition of fortune, that it is impossible for him to attend to the domestic education of his sons, though ever so willing. Let the task therefore devolve on the mother. I trust that none of my fair readers will be alarmed at this proposal. I am not quite certain that, with Mary Wolstonecroft, I would choose to see a member of parliament in petticoats, yet I see no reason why women should be excluded from many of the advantages of education enjoyed by men. Nor do I see that a knowledge of Virgil and Cicero, Xenephon and Homer, would disqualify them for the management of a family, for acting the part of good daughters, good wives, and good mothers, any more than a knowledge of the languages of Voltaire and Tasso. improvement of her son, by encouragement, example, and reward, alluring him into the delightful paths of literature and virtue. It was from hearing his mother recite the old pathetic Scotch ballads, that the enthusiasm of poetry was first kindled in the infant mind of Burns. It was from the unceasing care of the mother of the Gracchi that her sons were from childhood trained to that eloquence by which they afterwards became the delight of the Roman. Forum. It was under the superintending eye of his aunt, Mrs. Porten, that Gibbon acquired, while yet a boy, that thirst for knowledge, by which he afterwards became one of the most distinguished historians of any age or country. It is said that the mind of an emment living poet was first embued with the love of sacred song, while his mother read to him the Illiad of Homer at his bed-side during a long illness, and to this maternal care, perhaps, the lovers of poetry have lately been indebted for much refined and exquisite enjoyment. We know that such was the education of the immortal Alfred. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of extracting the following beautiful ing beautiful passage from the greatest of the English historians. "Alfred, on his return home, became every day more the object of his father's affection; but being indulged in all youthful There is no evil so great as that a boy should spend five hours a-day for six years of his life idly, or what is worse, in contracting dangerous habits. If we will then teach our sons Latin and Greek, let their mothers be taught these languages likewise. They spend. more of their time at home than fathers, even the most regular in their conduct, can possibly do. They possess more perseverance and more enthusiasm in all their pursuits. In their gentle bosoms, maternal affection reigns with unlimited sway, and will rouse them to undergo any degree of labour in unfolding the intellectual powers of a beloved son. In this way, the advantages of public and private education may be blended, the defects supplied, and the faults of both systems corrected. Many of the most illustrious characters who have adorned human nature, many of those distinguished individuals who have illumined and delight-pleasures, he was much neglected in his ed the world by works of genius, have acknowledged themselves indebted for their intellectual eminence, to the early tuition of a fond and judicious mother. The sun in his diurnal course beholds no more noble sight than a mother labouring for the moral and intellectual education; and he had already reached his twelfth year when he was yet totally ignorant of the lowest elements of literature. His genius was first roused by the recital of Saxon poems, in which the Queen took delight; and this species of composition, which is sometimes able to Take considerable progress, even among without rudder or pilot? While routs, barbarians, expanded those noble and balls, assemblies, dinner parties, card clevated sentiments which he had receiv- | parties, and musical parties go on in ended from nature. Encouraged by the less succession; while with a laudable Queen, and stimulated by his ardent in- œconomy of time, the mother can dine clination, he soon learned to read those abroad, attend a concert, and two routs compositions, and proceeded thence to on the same day (fashionable day !); shall acquire the knowledge of the Latin she be totally ignorant of what is passing tongue, in which he met with authors within her own walls, and what it most. that better prompted his heroic spirit, concerns her to know? Shall she be igno and directed his generous views." rant how the heir of her house is em ploying the invaluable hours of boyhood; whether he be contracting habits of indolence or exertion; whether he be stor ing his mind with useful knowledge, warming it by the contemplation of the magnanimous virtues of the worthies of ancient or modern history and acquiring a taste for literature, or suffering the powers of his understanding to go to waste, or if his imagination be lively, to shoot forth in dangerous luxuriances; whether he is likely to become a distin tinguished sportsman and jockey, the honour and solace, or the disgrace of her declining years. Let not mothers shrink from the labour, the task is a delightful one and not more delightful than important: no less than correcting the evil propensities of the heart and pruning those exuberancies in the youthful mind which if allowed to acquire strength may choak the growth of virtue: no less than fostering those qualities that are the ornament of our nature, and nursing those fair blossoms which shall bloom through countless ages; no less than cultivating the powers of that intellect to the im-guished orator and statesman, or a disprovement of which no limits can be affixed: no less than training a being for immortality! It is not to be dissembled that much labour is to be undergone, many privations submitted to, some fashionable amusements relinquished by the mother who would superintend the education of her son; but all mothers have done and suffered much for their sons and shall they withdraw their exertions at the time when they are most required. For a long period of seven or eight years, from nine to sixteen, by far the most important years of human life, when the character is irrevocably fixed, shall they quit their post, shall they take no account of, the mental progress of their sons, shall they leave them to navigate their course over a boisterous sea It must be confessed that nothing is more unfavourable to domestic educa→ tion than the present state of our even ing parties. Can it be expected that young Hopeful will apply seriously to his task, that he will make any solid or manly ac quirements, while his parents suffer themselves to be whirled round ir a ceaseless vortex of fashionable folly? no such thing; it is not even expected. No, no, he too must be indulged in his pleasures. A hundred Masters and Misses must be assembled for the gratification of his va nity, for there is no pleasure without a crowd, and the greater the crowd the more honourable for the young gentle man, and the more delightful for his guests. At fourteen years of age, he must ape all the absurdities of his elders, assume the dress, the carriage, and the manners of a man of fashion! Just so he dangles in the train of some little beauty. He gets by rote the fashionable cant of unmeaning compliment, and applies it with the same address. He is in extacies when she touches the piano or harp, and vows she sings and dances like an angel. He sits beside her at supper and whispers civil things in her ear all the while, or amuses her with sly remarks on the strange dresses and vulgar manners of some of the party; and concludes this briliant scene by handing her to her chair, and conducting her home, and retires to his father's house at an hour not very far from that at which his great grandfather, when a boy of his years, rose for morning prayers, or the performance of his morning task. While this state of society continues, children will not be more rational than parents. They will either be plunged prematurely in fashionable dissipation, or their bosoms will be tormented by ineffectual longings to the destruction of every ge. nerous and manly feeling. On this subject, the Spy is the more urgent, being convinced that many of the failures of our maturer years are to be traced to habits of indolence, or mental dissipation, contracted during the long period of school-boy education.Nothing can be conceived more admirably calculated to paralyze all the energies of the mind, to plunge it for ever in hopeless stupor, than being compelled to drudge for six or eight years in a language in which no progress is made, and of which the acquisition is considered as useless and unimportant by the student himself, and by all around him. Valuable as classical learning is, yet in every case where it is not pursued with firm. ness and vigour, and a strong conviction of its usefulness in forming the future man, it would be better to omit it altogether. Every mode of education is to be prized more for the exercise of mind which it elicits, for the habits of industry, perseverance, and exertion, called forth in its progress, than for the extent of knowledge, which can possibly be attained by the young student. But, if habits of patient investigation are acquired; if the seeds of future excellence are implanted in the mind; if it is roused to a consciousness of its own powers; if it is warmed by a literary ardour; if it is enamoured of virtue, much has been atchieved, and the object of school discipline is fully accomplished. A youth may be born to title and fortune, but these important objects can be attained only by the unwearied assiduities of both. parents. MAELSTROM. Where dark Norwegian tempests rave, Lo! where the current rests---serene, But shattered wrecks, or planks, or trees, And flies the fatal main. For with the quick receding tide, He knows the treacherous smiles subside; Oft floating to the distant isle, Till the resistless current's course Engulphed within its dreadful grasp, Till with velocity increased they sweep,. TO CORRESPONDENTS.-A TUTOR shall appear. If A JOURNEYMAN will send to the Star-Office, he will find a Note directed to him. EDINBURGH-Printed at the Star Office, (price 4d. a single Number, 4s. 6d. per quarter, deliverable in town, and 58. when sent to the country), by A. AIKMAN, for the PROPRIETORS; where Subscriptions, and Communications, (post paid), will be received. |