The pursuit of this elegant accomplishment ought at no time to be
entirely omitted. But the attention of youth is distracted between the
method of different masters, and their amiable confidence, in the
direction under which they are placed, entirely ruined by mutability and
inconstance. The same observation may also be applied here, as in the
learned languages. The attention of the pupil should be confined as much
as possible to the most classical writers; and the French would furnish
a most useful subsidiary in a course of history. Let me add, that though
I have prescribed the age of ten years, as the most eligible for the
commencement of classical education, I conceive there would be no
impropriety in taking up the modern language so early as nine.
Such then is the kind of subjection, that the learning of languages
demands. The question that recurs upon us is; How far this subjection
may fairly be considered as exceptionable, and whether its beneficial
consequences do not infinitely outweigh the trifling inconveniences that
may still be ascribed to it?
But there is another subject that demands our consideration. Modern
education not only corrupts the heart of our youth, by the rigid slavery
to which it condemns them, it also undermines their reason, by the
unintelligible jargon with which they are overwhelmed in the first
instance, and the little attention, that is given to the accommodating
their pursuits to their capacities in the second.
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