Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

The youth of the most accomplished people in _Europe_ would have much to correct in themselves, and something, perhaps, to learn, in their voyages into the neighbouring nations; however inferior to their own, in the general state of knowledge and politeness. What then must be the case of our _English_ youth, confined in this remote corner among themselves, and indulged in their own rustic and licentious habits?

Our country has never been famous for the civility of its inhabitants. We have, rather, been stigmatized in all ages, and are still considered by the rest of _Europe_, as proud, churlish, and unsocial. The very circumstance of our Island-situation seems to expose us to the just reproach of inhospitality. And if, with this disadvantage, we should cherish, and not correct, those vices which so naturally spring from it, what less could we expect than to be distinguished by such names, as our ill-manners would well deserve, though our pride might suffer from the application of them?

It seems then to be an inevitable consequence of what has been said, that we of this country have a more than ordinary occasion for the benefits of _foreign travel_. And the reason of the thing shews, they cannot be obtained too soon. Young minds are the fittest to take the ply of civility and good manners. The task is less easy, and the success more uncertain, when we enter upon this business late in life; when intractable humours have gathered strength, and the unsocial manner is become habitual to us. Whatever may be objected to the incapacity of this age in other respects, youth is out of question the time for acquiring right propensities and virtuous habits.

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship has so many good words at command upon all occasions, that one cannot but be entertained, at least, with your rhetoric, if not convinced by it. But my present concern is, to have a clear conception of your argument, which in plain terms, as I apprehend it, stands thus; “That every nation has many vices and follies to correct in itself; that this is perhaps more especially the case of our own; and that early _Travel_ is the only, at least the most proper, cure for them.”

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

That, Sir, is my meaning; and, though expressed in more words than may be necessary, it is surely not coloured by any rhetorical exaggerations. But you must allow me to proceed in my own way, and enforce the general argument, I have delivered, by applying it to the particular exigencies and necessities of our _English_ youth.

You, who have been abroad in the world, and have so just a knowledge of other states and countries, tell me, if there can be any thing more ridiculous than the idiot PREJUDICES of our home-bred gentlemen; which shew themselves, whenever their own dear Island comes, in any respect, to be the topic of conversation. What wondrous conceits of their own prowess, wisdom, nay of their manners and politeness! With what disdain is a foreigner mentioned by them, and with what apparent signs of aversion is his very person treated! They scarcely give you leave to suppose that any virtuous quality can thrive out of their own air, or that good sense can be expressed in any foreign language. Nay, their foolish prepossession extends to their very soil and climate. Such warm patriots are they, such furious lovers of their country, that they will have it to be the theatre of all convenience, delight, and beauty.

“To hear their discourse among themselves, one would imagine that the finest lands near the _Euphrates_, the Babylonian or Persian _Paradises_, the rich plains of _Egypt_, the Græcian _Tempe_, the Roman _Campania_, _Lombardy_, _Provence_, the Spanish _Andalusia_, or the most delicious tracts in the Eastern or Western _Indies_, were contemptible countries in respect of what they dote upon under the name of _Old England_[40].”

Now, if it were only for the sake of truth and decency, if it were but to avoid the ridicule to which these palpable absurdities and childish fancies expose them, one cannot but wish that our countrymen would open their eyes, and extend their prospect beyond their own foggy air, and dirty acres.

But this is the least inconvenience of their home breeding. How many low HABITS and sordid practices grow upon our youth of fortune, and even of quality, from the influence of their family, or at best provincial, education!

They retain so much of their _Saxon_ or _Norman_ character, that their noblest passion is that of the Chace; unless a horse-race may, haply, contend with it. Their ideas are all taken from the stable or kennel; and they have hardly words for any other sort of conversation.

In conjunction with this habit, or in direct consequence of it, they plunge themselves into the brutalities of the bottle and table. Having little use of the faculty of thinking or discoursing on any reasonable subject, they care not how soon they disable themselves for either. To this end, their surloins are of sovereign effect; and if any spark of the _divine particle_ be still unsubdued, they quench it forthwith in the strongest wines, or, which suits their taste and design best, in their own country liquor.

This sottish debauch leads to others. My young master will be denied no animal gratification. And thus low intrigues and vulgar amours follow of course, in which the sum of his refined pleasures is, at length, completed.

The rest of his life runs on in this drowzy tenour; unless perhaps you except those intervals, which can hardly be called _lucid_, when his half-closed understanding seems stunned, rather than awakened, by party-rage, election bustle, and the noise of faction.

Admirable patriots these! and usefuller citizens by far, than if they had acquired some relish of temperance, decency, and reason, in foreign courts, and the more improved societies of _Europe_.

But suppose our young gentleman to have escaped this sordid taste, and by better luck than ordinary to have finished his home education without much injury to his morals. Nay, suppose him to be inured, in good time, to better discipline, and to have had the advantage of what is called amongst us, by a violent figure of speech, _a liberal education_.

To put the case at the best, suppose him to have been well whipped through one of our public schools, and to come full fraught, at length, with _Latin_ and _Greek_, from his college. You see him, now, on the verge of the world, and just ready to step into it. But, good heavens, with what PRINCIPLES and MANNERS? His spirit broken by the servile awe of pedants, and his body unfashioned by the genteeler exercises! Timid at the same time, and rude; illiberal and ungraceful! An absurd compound of abject sentiments, and bigoted notions, on the one hand; and of clownish, coarse, ungainly demeanor, on the other! In a word, both in mind and person, the furthest in the world from any thing that is handsome, gentlemanlike, or of use and acceptation in good company!

Bring but one of these grown boys into a circle of well-bred people, such as his rank and fortune entitle him, and in a manner oblige him, to live with: and see how forbidding his air, how embarrassed all his looks and motions! His awkward attempts at civility would provoke laughter, if, again, his rustic painful bashfulness did not excite one’s pity. What wonder if the young man, under these circumstances, is glad to shrink away, as soon as possible, from so constraining a situation; and to seek the low society of his inferiors, at least of such as himself among his equals, where he can be at ease, and give a loose to his unformed and disorderly behaviour!

But now, on the other hand, let a young gentleman, who has been trained abroad; who has been accustomed to the sight and conversation of men; who has learnt his exercises, has some use of the languages, and has read his HORACE or HOMER in good company; let such an one, at his return, make his appearance in the best societies; and see with what ease and address he sustains his part in them! how liberal his air and manner! how managed and decorous his delivery of himself! In short, how welcome to every body, and how prepared to acquit himself in the ordinary commerce of the world, and in conversation!

I should think, if there were no other advantage of early travel, beside this of _manners_, it were well worth setting against all the other inconveniences, whatever they be, of this sort of Education.

MR. LOCKE.

Good my Lord——

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I know what you would say: that _manners_, in the proper acceptation of the word, at least in the sense of wise men, implies much more than the ease, assurance, civility, (call it what you will) which a young Traveller is supposed to acquire in his intercourse with the politer nations. Without doubt, it does. But give me this foundation of good breeding to work upon; and if I had the tutorage of a noble youth, I durst be answerable for all the rest, which even a philosopher includes in his sublime notion of _manners_: whereas, without it, his improvements of other sorts would be almost thrown away; nay, his virtues themselves would be offensive and unlovely.

But do not imagine I confine myself to _manners_ in the obvious meaning of that term. I further understand by it an ability for ingenuous, useful, and manly conversation. For a traveller, that makes the proper use of his opportunities, will be all of a piece, and return as polished in his mind and understanding, as in his person.

And here, again, how deficient is the turn and course of our ordinary education! Whither would you send our young pupil, to accomplish himself in the necessary art of speaking handsomely and thinking justly? What companions have you provided for him, or what instructors in this man-science will you direct him to? shall he court the acquaintance of some lettered pedagogue in the schools, or solicit the precious communication of some famed professor in the occult sciences? Wonderful models of correct wit, sublime sense, and elegant expression!

I have read of an ancient Rhetorician, that took upon him to teach others the _art of speaking_; but in such a way, says my author, that if a man had a mind to learn the art of _not speaking_, he could not have been directed to an abler master.

I forbear the application of my little tale, out of pure respect to the modern disciples and ornaments of this ancient school; and, without pushing matters so far, it will be owned, that whatever advantage of this sort may be left at home, the loss will be amply made up to an inquisitive traveller, on the Continent. _France_, and even _Italy_, abounds in men of distinguished literature and politeness. Nay, a _German_ Professor may supply the place of an University Doctor. Think, what illustrious persons may be sometimes met with even in a _Dutch_ town: and how many instructive hours you and I have passed in conversation with such knowing, candid, and accomplished scholars, as LE CLERC and LIMBORCH. Philosophy, and even Divinity, could take a liberal air, under their management; and eloquence itself might be learned, on almost every subject, in their company.

I consider then the acquaintance and familiarity of men of eminent parts and genius, as another considerable benefit resulting from this way of foreign education.

Still there are higher things in view (for, now I have ventured thus far in the dogmatic tone, I find myself, like our authorized teachers, a little impatient of control, and in a humour to run myself out without lett or interruption); still, I say, there are higher advantages in view from travelled culture and education.

You may think as slightly as you please, of the exterior polish of _manners_, or may even treat as superficial the _information_ that can be acquired in good company. But what say you to that supreme accomplishment, a KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD; a science so useful, as to supersede or disgrace all the rest; and so profound, as to merit all the honours, and to fill up all the measures of the best philosophy? For, by _a knowledge of the world_, I mean that which results from the observation of men and things; from an acquaintance with the customs and usages of other nations; from some insight into their policies, government, religion; in a word, from the study and contemplation of men; as they present themselves on the great stage of the world, in various forms, and under different appearances. This is that master-science, which a gentleman should comprehend, and which our schools and colleges never heard of.

I know this science is too difficult to be perfectly acquired, but by long habit and mature reflection. I know it is not to be expected from a slight survey of mankind; from a hasty passage through the different countries, or a short residence in the great towns, of _Europe_. All this I am not to be told; but it must be allowed me at the same time, that so important a study cannot be entered upon too soon, and that the rudiments at least of this science cannot be laid in too early.

The proper business of men, especially those of rank and quality, lies among men. The first and last object of a Gentleman should be an intimate study and knowledge of his species. Say, that some chapters of this great book, the world, are above his reach, and too hard for his decyphering. Yet others are easier and more manageable. Initiate a young man betimes in these pursuits; and his progress, as in other things, must be the more sure and successful.

Above all, let him be taught to give an early attention to the manners of men, to observe their dispositions, to inspect and analyze their characters. What a field is here for an intelligent young man, assisted by the superior lights and experience of an able governor! And what a harvest of true knowledge and learning must he gather and bring home with him, from the numberless varied scenes he has passed through in his voyages! With what lustre must such a person appear in the court or senate of his own country! How secure against the attempts of artifice and design! the plots of insidious enemies, or the pretences of false friends! how apt for the business of life, and for bearing his part in public debates and cabinet-consultations!

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship declaims so handsomely on this theme, that I am something loth to spoil your panegyric by asking a plain question, “How this knowledge of the public affairs of his own country is to be come at, by foreign politics?”

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

As if the objects of that knowledge were not every where much the same! Bigotry or Fanaticism in religion, selfish or factious intrigues in government, neglected or ill-improved agriculture or commerce, insolence and want of discipline in fleets and armies, a bad-constituted police under venal magistrates, and a corrupt administration; are not these the principal mischiefs to be guarded against by our young citizen, or perhaps senator? And where is the country, which does not afford opportunities of laying in useful lessons on all these subjects?

To say the least, a little home-practice will go a great way, when entered upon with so true a preparation of general knowledge. On the other hand, it hardly needs to be observed, the disadvantage, with which our young Islander must come into this scene; a novice to the affairs of the world; a stranger to men and characters; and who has never perhaps stretched his observation beyond the narrow circle of his companions, or even his own family.

My panegyric, as you call this plain representation of facts and things, would never have an end, if I were to take to myself all the advantages, which this topic of an early knowledge of the world in a young traveller affords me. But I leave the rest to be supplied out of these hints; and pass on to other considerations, which seem of moment to the credit and reputation of our country, and to the accomplishment, at least, of our ingenuous youth; however they may rank in the estimation of some, who in modern times have assumed to themselves the name and office of Philosophers.

You, who have so much a nobler way of thinking than these nominal sages, will allow me, I hope, to lay some stress on the LIBERAL ARTS; which adorn and embellish human life; and, where they prevail to some degree of perfection, are among the surest marks of the civility and politeness of any people.

It is notorious enough how backward we have been, and still are, in all these elegant and muse-like applications. There is little or nothing in the way of _picture_, _sculpture_, and the arts of _design_ among us, that can stand the test of a knowing and judicious eye. It is but of late we have begun to form to ourselves any thing like an _ear_ in harmony and the proportions of just music. And whatever magisterial airs our fashionable workmen in the dramatic and poetical kinds may give themselves in their prologues and prefaces, it is no secret to such as have looked into the ancient masters, or have made an acquaintance with the style and manner of the politer moderns, that we are far from possessing a right taste in these things, and that the Muses have hitherto shewn themselves but little indulgent to us.

The courtship, we have paid to them, has been pressing and ardent, if you will; but this circumstance, though it may do much, nay is thought to do every thing with the sex, seems not to have succeeded with these coy Ladies. Passion and assiduity are not the only things: somewhat of an address and management is looked for in our advances. Wherever the defect lies, and whatever be the cure for it, certain it is, there is much of the Gothic manner in the performances of our best artists: there is neither chasteness of design, nor elegance of hand, in our manual operations: nothing like correctness of thought, simplicity of style, or the grace of numbers, in our literate productions.

’Tis true, the strength and vigour of our genius has been exerted in other things. We have been solicitous to procure a just taste in policy and government, and have at length succeeded in this first and highest emulation. It may now be proper to apply the liberty, we have so happily gained, to other improvements. There is something, I have ever observed, congenial to the liberal arts in the reigning spirit of a free people. It must then be our own fault, if our progress in every elegant pursuit do not keep pace with our excellent constitution.

But the likeliest way to quicken the growth of these studies, is to turn our attention from the bad models of our own country, and enter into a free commerce and generous struggle, as it were, with our more advanced neighbours. And it is here again, as in the manners and arts of life, the seeds of good taste cannot be committed to the mind too soon. It were then to be wished, that our young men had right impressions of _art_ in their tender years; and that, forming their relish among the ablest proficients in _Europe_, they might afterwards communicate their improvements to their own country.

Thus, it might be hoped, in some convenient time, we should have something of our own to oppose to the wit, learning, and elegance of _France_; and that, in the mechanic execution of the fine arts, we should come at length to vye with the _Italian_ masters.

Nor think, that such an emulation as this would be without its use, even in a moral and political view. Beauty and virtue are nearer of kin, than every one is perhaps aware of: and the mind that is taken with the charm of what is _true and becoming_ in the representation of sensible things, cannot be inattentive to those qualities in the higher species and moral forms. It is thither indeed the virtuoso passion naturally tends; and there, it finally acquiesces.

_Quid VERUM atque DECENS curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum._

But I see what you think of this language. Let me add then, that policy, as well as philosophy, is on the side of these studies. Who can doubt their virtue in softening and refining the manners of a people? or, to take policy in its vulgar sense, where would be the hurt, if _Britain_ were the seat of arts and letters, as well as of trade and liberty? Then might _we_ be travelled to, in our turn, as our neighbours are at present: and our country, amidst its other acquisitions, be also enriched (I use the word in its proper, not metaphorical sense) with a new species of commerce.

Not to insist, that the ascendant which one nation takes over another in all public concerns, is very much owing to this pre-eminence of taste and politeness, to its acknowledged superiority, I may say, in the literate and virtuoso character; of which _France_ is an instance in our days; as _Italy_ is well known to have been in the days of our forefathers.

And, if there be use and value in such things, how shall our ingenuous youth be tinctured with a right sense of them, but by early and well-conducted travel? For what discipline, what examples, what encouragements, have we at home? what academies for the genteel exercises? what conferences for the improvement of art or language? what societies for the cultivation of the liberal character?

The contemplation of these defects carries me still further; to the source and fountain of them all, which I make no scruple to lay open to you.

“Time was, Sir, when philosophy herself could appear with grace even in courts, when the great and noble, nay and princes themselves, were not ashamed to be of her train, but frequented her studious schools and walks, and were even ambitious of her company in their hours of leisure and recreation.

See now to what unpractised cells and ignoble societies she is degraded! her graceful form faded and shrunk; her ingenuous sprightly air deadened into I know not what gloom and austerity of the cloyster.

You, who have done more than any other, to retrieve her credit and bring her back to the world, can best tell her present degenerate condition. You know where she lies, unapproached by her former suitors; her liberal manner soured into disdain and hate; her persuasive voice, which spoke the language of the Gods, broken into untuned numbers and discordant harshness; and her very sense corrupted into empty sophisms and unintelligible jargon. The Graces, those companions of her better days, are all fled: and in their room, a riotous band of fauns and satyrs dance around her. Yet still she assumes a sort of mock-sovereignty; and, under the new name of _Genius of the Schools_, presides, in sullen majesty, over her numerous, servile, awe-struck votaries.”

In some such way as this, were I at liberty to pursue the figured speech, and to adopt the higher tone of the ancient masters, would I presume to represent the present state of Erudition, as we see it managed in certain sublime seats and authorized nurseries amongst us.

And would you invite our liberal and noble youth to resort thither? could you expect that their free spirits would stoop to be lectured by bearded boys; or that their minds could ever be formed and tutored by such pedants, in a way that fits them for the real practice of the world and of mankind?

Have we not long enough submitted to the inconveniencies of this monkish education? Look on the generality of those persons who have had their breeding in those seminaries. What principles in morals, in government, in religion, have sprouted thence! what dispositions have we known corrupted by their discipline! what understandings perverted by their servile and false systems! Has truth, or liberty, or reason, fair play from that quarter? Nay, has not truth, and liberty, and reason, though speaking by ONE of their own sons, been calumniated and rejected! In a word, have they not always set themselves to obstruct the progress of true knowledge, and the cause of freedom?

If such then be the state of our own seats of literature and education, what more needs be alleged in the behalf of FOREIGN TRAVEL; which is the only means left to remedy these mischiefs, or at least to palliate and correct them?

DIALOGUE VIII.

ON THE USES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.

LORD SHAFTESBURY—MR. LOCKE.

TO ROBERT MOLESWORTH, ESQ.

Here I concluded my defence: when Mr. LOCKE, perceiving, by the attention we all paid to him, that we were now prepared to receive his answer, raised himself in his chair, and, with a firmer tone and look than I expected, addressed himself to me in the following manner.

MR. LOCKE.

Were the subject before us a matter of indifference or curiosity, such as idle men are used to discourse of, I could allow your lordship to pursue it in this way of Socratic raillery and declamation. But, if ever there was a question, that deserved the examination of a philosopher, properly so called, it is, surely, this of EDUCATION; and, among the various parts of it, none is more strictly to be inquired into, as none is, perhaps, so big with important consequences, as that which comes recommended to us under the specious name of FOREIGN TRAVEL.

I could not, therefore, but wonder to hear your lordship enlarge so much, and so long, on I know not what varnish of manners and good breeding; of the knowledge of men and the world; of arts, languages, and other trappings and shewy appendages of education: just as if an architect should entertain you with a discourse on Festoons and Foliage, or the finishing of his Frize and Capitals, when you expected him to instruct you in what way to erect a solid edifice on firm walls and durable foundations.

What a reasonable man wants to know, is, the proper method of building up _men_: whereas your lordship seems solicitous for little more than tricking out a set of fine _gentlemen_. It seemed, indeed, as if your lordship had calculated your defence of travelling for a knot of Virtuosi, or a still more fashionable circle (where, doubtless, it would pass with much ease and without contradiction); and had, somehow, forgotten that your hearers are all plain men; one of them, an old one; and he too, as your Lordship loves to qualify him, a philosopher.

To speak my mind frankly, my Lord, your defence of foreign travel, as lively and plausible as it seemed, has no solid basis to rest upon. You tell us of many defects in the breeding of our _English_ youth, and you would willingly redress them: but in what way this is best done, can never be known from vague and general declamation.

To make this inquiry to purpose, some certain principles must be laid down; some scheme of life and manners must be formed; some idea or model of the character, you would imprint on young minds, must be described; to which we may constantly refer, as we go along; and by which, as a rule, we may estimate the fitness and propriety of that sort of breeding, you would recommend to us.

Since your Lordship then will needs have me dictate to you on the subject of Education, I must have leave to do it in another way, and after a more solemn manner, than you perhaps expect from me in this freedom of conversation.

I begin with this certain principle: That the business of education is to form the UNDERSTANDING, and regulate the HEART. If man be a compound of Reason and Passion, the only proper discipline of his nature is that which accomplishes these two purposes.

So far we are, doubtless, agreed. But the subject requires a more particular application of this principle.

You have laboured with much plausibility to persuade us, That the only reasonable education is that which prepares and fits a man for the commerce of the world: and I readily admit the notion, provided we first agree about the meaning of this big word, the WORLD. Your Lordship, it may be, in your sublime view of things, is projecting to make of your Pupil, what is called, in the widest sense of the term, a _Citizen of the World_. A great and awful character, my Lord! But let us advance by just degrees.

First, if you please, let us provide that he be a worthy citizen of _England_; and, by your favour, let me ennoble this small island of ours with the pompous appellation of the world. It is that world, at least, in which our adventurer is to play his part; and for the commerce of which it concerns him most immediately to be prepared.

Now, as your Lordship’s chief care is directed, very properly, towards its chief subjects; I mean, the men of rank and fortune, whose ample property and noble birth give their country the greatest concern in their education; let me ask in what manner they are likely to qualify themselves best for the important parts, they are to act in it?

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Certainly, by acquiring that knowledge, and those accomplishments, that are most proper for the discharge of them.

MR. LOCKE.

Undoubtedly, my Lord: there cannot be two answers to so plain a question. As that education is, in general, the best which forms the man, in the best manner; so, in this confined view, that education must be thought the best, which forms the _Englishman_, in the best manner.

To proceed then on this reasonable concession.

An _English_ citizen, or, if you will, Senator, (for this is the station to which our greater citizens do, and our best should aspire) can never acquit himself of the duties he owes his country, under this character, but by furnishing himself with all those qualities of the _head_ and _heart_, which his superior rank and pretensions demand.

This _last_ chapter is an important one; and would be very long, if justice were done to it. But a summary of the main articles, of which it consists, may be given in few words.

I require then in our young aspirant to the name and honours of an _English_ Senator, that his mind be early and thoroughly seasoned with the principles of virtue and religion: that he be trained, by a strict discipline, to the command of his temper and passions: that his ambition be awakened, or rather directed, to its right object, the _public good_; and to that end, that his soul be fired with the love of excellence and true honour: above all, that he have a reverence for the legal constitution of his country, and a fervent affection for the great community to which he belongs.

Your Lordship has a due respect for these virtuous qualities of the HEART, which will give this consideration its full weight with you. But were they of no more account, than many institutors of youth seem disposed to reckon them, still there are other qualities, those of the HEAD, in every man’s account essentially requisite to the discharge of those offices, which our greater citizens are destined to sustain.

I require, therefore, in the next place, that our young Senator have a ready and familiar use, at least, of the _Latin_ tongue (your Lordship, I know, will add, and of the _Greek_; but in this I am not so peremptory): that he be competently instructed in the elements of science, as well as what are called polite letters: that, especially, he be well grounded in the principles of morals, public and private; that he have made a thorough acquaintance with the history of his own country, and with its constitution, Civil and Ecclesiastical: that he have a general insight into the history of the world, ancient and modern: above all, that he have a well-exercised understanding; I mean, that he be taught to reason clearly and consequentially upon any subject: and, further, to put all these abilities to use, that he have a ready command of his own language, and the power of expressing himself, whether in writing or speaking, with ease and perspicuity, at least, if not with elegance.

Other ornamental qualities I omit for the present, which will almost come of themselves, if his education be rightly conducted; or may be acquired with little pains, and in the way of diversion only. But these solid accomplishments I hold it necessary for our youth of quality to possess, by the time in which they usually pass out of the hands of their Tutors and Governors, I mean the age of twenty-one.

Am I unreasonable in these demands? or can any thing less be dispensed with in a gentleman, who, by established custom, is to enter into the world at those years, and to bear a part in the public business and legislature of his country?

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Without doubt, these accomplishments are no more than may be reasonably required in our young gentleman, or Senator. But how they are to be come at in our vulgar way of _Education_, I do not easily apprehend.

MR. LOCKE.

Of that, in due time. At present, you accept this as a reasonable idea or sketch of an _English_ gentleman’s character; such as the course of his education ought to imprint upon him: and I shall now shew you very clearly that it is not possible to be attained in the way of _foreign Travel_.

Consider, _first_ of all, the unavoidable WASTE OF TIME; of that time which is so precious in every view; not only as being the most proper for making the acquisitions, I speak of; but as being the only period of his life, which he will be at liberty to employ in that manner.

Early youth is flexible and docile: apt to take the impressions of virtue, and ready to admit the principles of knowledge. The faculties of the mind are then vigorous and alert: the conception quick, and the memory retentive. The humble drudgery of acquiring the elements of literature and science is to young minds an easy and a flattering employment. A submissive reverence for their teachers disposes them to proceed without reluctance in any path that is prescribed to them; and a springing emulation, joined to a conscious sense of gradual improvement, gives force and constancy to their pursuits. The objects of their application seem important; not only from the novelty of them, and the authority of those who have the direction of their studies, but chiefly perhaps from a confused sense of their value, much above what they would entertain, were they able to form a true and distinct judgment of them.

This, then, is the season for laying the foundations of knowledge and ability of every kind; and if you let it slip, without applying it carefully to those purposes, you will in vain lament the omission in riper years, when the cares or amusements of life afford little leisure for such pursuits, and less inclination.

There may have been some few examples of those, whose superior industry in advanced age has atoned for the defects of their education. But in general the _man_ depends intirely on the _boy_; and he is all his life long, what the impressions, he received in his early years, have made him[41]. If therefore any considerable part of this precious season be _wasted_ in foreign travel, I mean if it be actually _not employed_ in the pursuits proper to it, this circumstance must needs be considered as an objection of great weight to that sort of education.

Your Lordship may consider, _next_, the DISSIPATION OF MIND attending on this itinerant education; while the scene is constantly changing; and new objects perpetually springing up before him, to solicit the admiration of our young traveller.

One of the greatest secrets in education is, to fix the attention of youth: a painful operation! which requires long use and a steady unremitting discipline; the very reverse of that roving, desultory habit, which is inseparable from the sort of life you would recommend. The young mind is naturally impatient of constraint: it hates to be confined for any time in the same track; and is flying out, at every turn, from the proper subject of its meditation. Instead of counteracting this native infirmity, you indulge and flatter it; till, by degrees, the mind loses its tone and vigour, and is utterly incapable of paying a due attention to any thing.

I insist the more on this consideration, because in acquiring the elements of learning it is of great importance that the learner proceed uniformly in the course on which he has entered. It may now and then be the privilege of a genius, to seize the principles of knowledge at once, and to grow wise, as we may say, by intuition. But the common sort of minds are of another make. It is by slow steps only that they arrive at knowledge; and, if you stop or divert their progress, their labour is all thrown away, or yields at best a shallow, superficial, and ill-digested learning.

But were no account to be had of _the loss of time_, or of _this dissipated turn of mind_, which is still more pernicious, I should nevertheless object to this travelled education, on account of the very objects to which our traveller’s APPLICATION is directed.

Instead of those necessary and fundamental parts of knowledge, which I require him to have laid in, his attention, so much of it as can be spared for any thing that looks like information, is wasted on things either frivolous or unimportant.

His _first_ business is, to make himself perfect in the forms of breeding, which he finds in use among those he lives with, or perhaps in their forms of dress only.

His _next_ concern is, to acquire a readiness in the languages of _Europe_; or, to shorten his labour as much as possible, at least in the _French_ language. The pretence is, that he may fit himself for conversation with his foreign acquaintance; which takes up much time to little purpose, as the use ceases, in a good degree, with his return home: and, that he may qualify himself for perusing their best books; which takes him off from the study of those which are still better; in the learned languages, and I will venture to say, in his own.

If any thing _further_ employ his attention, it is perhaps a little virtuosoship. He inquires after fine pictures, fine statues, fine buildings. He visits the shops of artificers; gets admission to libraries, cabinets of medals, and repositories of curiosities; and, for some relaxation from these arduous toils, is frequent at Churches, Theatres, and Courts of Judicature, and stares at processions, ceremonies, and other solemn shews.

And, now, when these three points have been duly attended to, I leave your Lordship to guess what leisure he is likely to have for accomplishing himself in those other studies, which you allow me to suppose are of much greater importance.

In one word, my Lord, if he acquires any knowledge, it is only, or chiefly, of such things as he may very well do without, or, at best, are of an inferior and subordinate consideration: while the branches of learning, he must neglect for these, are of the most constant use and necessity to him in the commerce of his whole life.

Till then your Lordship can find a way to reconcile these different pursuits, I must be of opinion that the boasted way of travel is the worst that can be contrived for the proper instruction of our young countrymen.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Without doubt, if these less important points engross all their attention. But can there be a difficulty in carrying on the two designs together; especially, if a good and attentive tutor be at hand to direct his pupil’s pursuit and quicken his application?

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship, like the friends and parents of a young traveller, is for exacting wonders at the hands of this important personage, a tutor. But the truth is, so many, and so different things cannot be well learned, even with the advantage of the best parts under the very best direction.

Besides, your Lordship forgets that what we now inquire into, is, whether the generality of our _English_ youth of quality should be educated in this form; not, whether two or three young men, of the most uncommon genius and application, may not possibly succeed in it. I demand an education, which may ordinarily produce useful and able men: your Lordship is providing only for, what comes of itself, a prodigy.

And now, my Lord, with this preparation, I think myself enabled to reply distinctly to the several arguments you alleged for the expediency of foreign travel. It is very clear, that the most solid advantages are lost by it. But perhaps we shall find a recompense for this loss, in the shewy and ornamental accomplishments, which travel promises; and which your Lordship supposes the world will readily, and with reason, accept instead of them.

These accomplishments are summed up in the BENEFITS of an enlarged society and conversation; which, again, branch out into many heads; and under different names, furnished, I think, the substance, as well as governed the method, of your vindication.

This was the polite and popular theme, which you chose to dress out in all the colours of your eloquence. To make way for these, and to lay them on with more effect, your Lordship was pleased to tell us a very melancholy story. _England_, it seems, is over-run with barbarism and ignorance; its inhabitants are rude and uncivilized; and nothing can be learnt among them, which is fit to appear in good company.

If this had been said of our forefathers in CÆSAR’S time, or even in good King EDGAR’S, when the land, they say, was over-run with wolves (by which, I suppose, the monkish mythology means _men_, as savage); I could have found but little, it may be, to oppose to the accusation. But at this time of the day, when arts and letters have at least made some progress among us; when commerce has extended our acquaintance with the rudest parts of the globe, and policy strengthened our connexions with the most civilized; when our country is filled with large flourishing towns, and even prides itself in a vast, opulent, and splendid metropolis; I could not but think the charge was a little aggravated, or that your Lordship had forgotten to speak of _England_, as it now subsists, in the close of the seventeenth century. It seemed to me as if the _English_ might now, at least, deserve to be considered as _men_; and that in our courts and camps, if not in our colleges, we might stand a chance of finding what your Lordship would not disdain to qualify with the name of _gentlemen_.

But the other representation was more favourable to your Lordship’s cause: and out of that representation arose the several BARBARITIES, with which you thought fit to mortify and alarm us.

The first fire of your zeal is spent on that swarm of PREJUDICES, with which our _English_, or at least provincial, youth are commonly over-run.

PREJUDICES, my Lord, is an equivocal term; and may as well mean right opinions taken upon trust, and deeply rooted in the mind, as false and absurd opinions, so derived and grown into it.

The _former_ of these will do no hurt; on the contrary, perhaps, the very best part of education is employed in the culture of them.

But admit, they are of the _latter_ sort: still they may be only the excesses of right principles and notions. And in that case, I should doubt whether the evil be of consequence enough to deserve your indignation. Perhaps no man has enough of certain virtues, that does not carry them something too far. The just degree, the precise mean, is a nice point to hit. The condition of our common nature is such, that we either overshoot the mark, or fall short of it; and your Lordship easily apprehends which is the more convenient as well as more generous part, in this moral archery.

Besides, reflexion and experience will come in, soon enough to moderate these excesses. So that, for my part, though our young patriot should happen to entertain the extravagant conceit, you diverted yourself with, of the soil and climate of _Old England_, I should take that for no great objection to his home-breeding, and should, possibly, not be over-forward to disabuse him of such honest errors.

Surely, my Lord, there are certain _associations_ of ideas, which, however oddly formed, your Lordship would be something loth to undo.

To take your own instance: What if the ideas of liberty chanced to be closely connected with those of _Old England_; so as, by the magic of this union, to convert her rude heaths and barren mountains into pleasurable landskips; would you be forward, if you had it in your power, to dissolve this charm, and, by setting those objects in their true and proper light, disenchant the mind, at the same time, from the idea, or warm love at least, of _English_ liberty?

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

You know well, I perceive, how to chuse your instances. The force of this, you suppose, will hardly be lost on him, who professes himself an adorer of that liberty. But, under favour, I see no such inconvenience, as you suggest, in putting asunder two things which truth and nature had no hand in bringing together. LIBERTY has charms enough to attach the mind, wherever the place of her abode be; and I have never heard that the loveliness of her form is impaired, or even disgraced, by the homeliness of her habitation.

MR. LOCKE.

It may be so; and the reason, as in the case of the more selfish affections, is, That the habitation of our idol, whatever be our worship, is rarely thought homely. But convince us that our country is scarce worth contending for, and, as lovely as its Goddess Liberty may appear to enamoured eyes, the generality of her votaries will, I doubt, be something slack in her defence.

But, after all, an illustration must not be questioned at this rate. It is enough, that your Lordship sees I am not for discarding Principles, under the opprobrious name of Prejudices. The tender minds of youth are to be treated with indulgence. If they put forth too fast, and too luxuriantly, let the ordinary methods of culture be applied to them. A little dressing and pruning, at fit seasons, may do more good, than _transplanting_: a fatal experiment, in many cases; which, in checking the immoderate vigour of its growth, kills the tree, or, at best, brings on a languishing and dwarfish imbecillity.

If, indeed, by Prejudices you mean _vicious principles_, properly so called; that is, vicious in themselves, as well as in the degree: these, it is certain, must be rooted up; and the sooner, the better: but then there is no need of crossing the seas for the benefit of such an operation.

For the proper cure of such prejudices, as I take it, is to be made by the application of those truths that are common to all climes; not by the partial manners or opinions which arise out of them in this or that more polished society.

But your Lordship, I observed, as though you had taken up this charge of Prejudices purely to introduce the satire on _Old England_, was content to drop it, as soon as it had served your turn. You exchanged it, however, for _another_ of more importance, THE LOW, SORDID, AND IMMORAL HABITS; which strike into the lives and manners of our youth, and are, as you conceive, epidemical and incurable in this Island.

It may be true, that too much of the complaint is well-founded. The taste of our provincial gentry may be something coarse; and their houses, none of the best schools of civility and politeness: so that low and even immoral habits may be, and, I doubt, too often are, the fruit of an ordinary domestic education. But then what remedy does your Lordship prescribe for the removal of them? Why, you send them abroad with all their imperfections upon their heads; to get rid of their bad habits, as they can, and to pick up better, as they will: or, do you perhaps imagine that the ill qualities, they take out with them, will drop off, of themselves? and that the good ones they stand in need of, like new leaves in the spring, will immediately put forth and take their places?

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I do but imagine, that bad habits are only to be expelled by better; and that therefore the readiest way for our countrymen to get quit of their ill manners, is, to force them into good company. And, with your leave, I see nothing very absurd or unreasonable in this imagination.

MR. LOCKE.

Certainly not, in prescribing good habits as a cure for bad ones. But your Lordship had done well to shew what there is in a foreign air, that is so propitious to good habits, as that none but such can thrive in it; or, if there be a mixture of good and bad, as with us, how your traveller shall be secured against an ill choice. Otherwise our young spark may pick up new habits indeed; but they may only be different from what he took from home, not better or more reasonable.

I doubt, my Lord, that, when such rude and untutored boys find themselves removed from that restraint which the eye of a parent, though but little accustomed to civility himself, imposed upon them, they will rather give way to a freer indulgence of their own froward humours, than be in any disposition to check and reform them. What inclination will such persons have to benefit by good company? or how indeed will they gain admittance into it?

I appeal to your own observation, whether, when this sort of ill-educated people get abroad, and settle for a time in some frequented city, their usual way be not to keep at distance from the better company of the place, and to flock together into little knots and clubs of their own countrymen, or of such others as are most resembling in taste and manners to themselves; where all their low humours are freely indulged, and even inflamed, by the mutual society and countenance of one another. This, your Lordship knows, is most frequently the case; while the obsequious tutor is at length more likely to be swayed by the importunity, and perverted by the ill example, of his disciples, than they are to be restrained by his advice and authority.

But, though foreign travel should be indeed a remedy for the mischiefs, complained of, I still question whether it would be a _proper_ one. Suppose our young gentleman to be of so pliant a make, as to lay aside his rustic and illiberal habits in complaisance to the better company, he is obliged to live with: does it immediately follow, that he will adopt none but what are fit for him to assume; and, with so raw and undiscerning a judgment as he carried out with him, that he will have the skill to select only and assume such manners as are most becoming and ornamental?

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

As if one needs be in any pain, on that head; when the habits, I spoke of, are not only different from those he must assume abroad, but the very reverse of them!

MR. LOCKE.

Alas, your Lordship is not to be told, that the reverse of wrong is not always right. Even in the instance your Lordship puts, a young man may be polished indeed out of his rusticity; yet, if he have no better rule to go by, than the fashion of the place where he lives, he may easily wear himself into the contrary defect, an effeminate and unmanly foppery. And, for the probability of such miscarriage, your Lordship is again referred to your own experience and observation.

As to what I take to be the proper remedy for these barbarities, that is another question, which I may afterwards find occasion to explain to you more at large. For the present, I must take leave to conclude, that, under the circumstances here supposed, foreign travel is generally an _insufficient_, always an _improper_, cure for them.

Your Lordship indeed goes further. You contend, that, if these sordid and dirty habits could by any means be expelled, still our _English_ education is so essentially bad, that no liberal or graceful manners could be derived from it. And here your Lordship’s rhetoric expatiates in full security. You seem confident that, though a method might be found out for making reasonable men, yet our home-breeding is absolutely incapable of furnishing fine gentlemen.