The question of secondary punishments is perhaps the most difficult of any. The words of Mr. Harmer afford perhaps the best rule shortly expressed on this subject. "If I were asked,” said this gentleman, in an examination before a committee of the House of Commons, "what description of punishments would, in my opinion, be productive of benefit, I would answer, Such as might force the delinquent into a course of discipline wholly opposite to his habits. Idleness is assuredly a part of his character, which industry would counteract. Set him to labour. He is probably debauched, and abstinence would be advantageous to both his mind and his body: apply it. He has been accustomed to dissolute companions, separation from whom would essentially ameliorate him keep him in solitude. He has hitherto rioted in uncontrolled liberty of action. I propose that he should be subjected to restraint, and the observance of a proper decorum." The only remark I would make upon these suggestions is, that if the delinquent were subjected to vigilant inspection, it would not be necessary to keep him in solitude.

200

CHAPTER XXIV.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN ENGLAND.

As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellencies, which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions.

LOCKE, of the Conduct of the Understanding.

THE education of youth, which has employed so many pens, which has produced so many sublime writings, and which has undergone so little practical alteration, is not to be thoroughly discussed in a few words. Some remarks, suggested rather by observation of the world, than by any original speculation, may, perhaps, be allowed.

Men of enlarged views, and hearts glowing with the love of mankind, have often con

ceived that youth might be brought up to learn more knowledge and less vice than are distributed to them at the public schools of England. With this project in their heads, and the most laudable love of their children in their

hearts, many parents have given their children a private education. They have taught them ten branches of knowledge instead of two, and have preserved their morals and their health during the first eighteen, or perhaps twenty years of their life. But how often have we seen these promising flowers drop off without being succeeded by fruit in due season? The lessons which are learnt by a boy in the lingering and lifeless manner of a private study, without the excitement of emulation, perhaps without the fear of correction, make no lasting impression on the mind. The restraint of a nursery of twenty years, gives a zest to the pleasures and the follies for an indulgence in which boyhood alone can be any palliation. The period when the talents and strength of the man ought to be unfolded is wasted in the new pursuits of idleness and debauchery. At the same time, the habits contracted at home, where the young

patrician met with no equal, unfit him for the rub of the great world, and fix for ever those defects of temper which early contradiction and early society might have extirpated. Such is often, though not always, the result of an education, intended to produce a faultless monster, and laid out with the hope of giving its unhappy object a pre-eminence over the ill-trained generation of his equals and contemporaries. The mistake in these instances seems to arise from the want of considering, that the object of education is not only to store the mind, but to form the character. It is of little use that a boy has a smattering of mineralogy, and is very fluent at botanical names; it will be of no avail to him to talk of argil and polyandria, if he cries when he loses at marbles, and is lifeless as a statue when he is obliged to play a game at cricket. Now a public school does form the character. It brings a boy from home, where he is a darling, where his folly is wit, and his obstinacy spirit, to a place where he takes rank according to his real powers and talents. If he is sulky, he is neglected; if he

is

angry, he gets a box on the ear. His cha

racter in short is prepared for the buffetings of grown men; for the fagging of a lawyer, or the fighting of a soldier. Now, this is of much more importance than the acquisition of mere knowledge. Many men only begin to acquire their knowledge between twenty and thirty, few men change their characters after twenty. Considering the question in this view, it is of little importance to enumerate the names of eminent men in England, who have not been brought up at public schools. Many of these rose from middle life, and to them my argument does not apply. The son of a tradesman or a farmer meets buffetings enough, without being sent to any school; he is ordered to serve a customer, or look after the haymakers; and learns practical life much sooner than any gentleman's son can possibly do.

It being conceded that a boy of high expectations ought to be brought up at school, I am not disposed to contend that the education of our public schools is exactly what is right, or that it is all that is right. These schools were instituted at a time when all know