Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

On this occasion it was, that the servile discipline of our schools, and the pedant tutorage of our colleges, afforded ample scope to your resentment. From an over-charged picture of both these, your Lordship finds means to dress up such a prodigy of ill manners, as must be the scorn, or pity, of all good company: which, to move our pity, or our scorn the more, your Lordship, I remember, took care to contrast to the easy, the assured, the all-sufficient air of a finished traveller.

To this triumphant part of your harangue, I have only to oppose some plain and simple truths.

The awkward bashfulness of a young man is a sin which, I know, admits of no expiation, in good company. However, what good company will not pardon, it will soon remove. And, till that blessed time comes, let it _first_ be considered that the modesty of ingenuous youth, though a terrible vice in itself, is yet favourable to some virtues. It is full of deference and respect; it preserves innocence; nourishes emulation; and, till reason be of age to take the rein into her hands, suspends and controuls all the passions. Nay, if it did nothing more than dispose a young man to observe much and talk little; even this advantage might be some recompence for the ill figure it gives him in the eyes of your Lordship’s good company.

Have a care, my Lord, lest by taking off this restraint too soon, you emancipate your favoured youth from every principle of honour, and let him run headlong into worthlessness, dissolution, and ruin!

I know what the world is ready to think of this talk. But a truce with the world. I am a Philosopher, your Lordship knows: nay, your Lordship, too, is a Philosopher. Let us for once then hazard an unfashionable truth, that modesty in a young man is his grace and ornament; and that a confident young booby, not a bashful one, is the prodigy that needs the expiation.

Consider, _further_, my Lord, that bashfulness is not so much the effect of an ill education, as the proper gift and provision of wise nature. Every stage of life has its own set of manners, that is suited to it, and best becomes it. Each is beautiful in its season; and you might as well quarrel with the child’s rattle, and advance him directly to the boy’s top and span-farthing, as expect from diffident youth the manly confidence of riper age.

Lamentable in the mean time, I am sensible, is the condition of my good Lady; who, especially if she be a mighty well-bred one, is perfectly shocked at the boy’s awkwardness, and calls out on the taylor, the dancing-master, the player, the travelled tutor, any body and every body, to relieve her from the pain of so disgraceful an object.

She should however be told, if a proper season and words soft enough could be found to convey the information, that the odious thing, which disturbs her so much, is one of nature’s signatures impressed on that age; that bashfulness is but the passage from one season of life to another; and that as the body is then the least graceful, when the limbs are making their last efforts and hastening to their just proportion, so the manners are the least easy and disengaged, when the mind, conscious and impatient of its imperfections, is stretching all its faculties to their full growth.

If I had the honour of her Ladyship’s ear, I might further add, for her comfort, that as to this over-whelming modesty, which muffles merit, the boy, if she have but patience, will presently outgrow it, as he does his cloaths; that when this cloak of shame has done its work of warming and invigorating his young virtue, it may safely be laid aside, or rather will drop off of itself; and that, as poor and sheepish a thing as master now is, he may turn out, in the end, as forward a spark as the best of them.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Fye, Mr. LOCKE; what, my philosopher give into this gaiety! he, who reproached me just now for the way of raillery and declamation!

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship does well to upbraid me for treating in so light a manner what deserves, indeed, the most indignant reproof. For, what is this endeavour to quench ingenuous shame, but a blasphemous attempt to counteract the designs of Providence, and obliterate, by main force, one of the most natural, as well as most precious, distinctions of early youth? Modesty is the blush of budding reason and virtue: and if art could succeed in the preposterous project of forcing the fruit without the bud, not only this prime grace of the year would be lost, but the production itself, though it might be wondered at as a rarity, could never pretend to the flavour and ripeness of that which is of nature’s own growth.

In plain words, my Lord, modesty is the ornament of youth: and the earnest or rather the proper cause, of all that is excellent in riper age. It graces the boy, and, in due time, forms the man: whereas in suppressing this young virtue, you precipitate, indeed, a sort of manhood; which, yet, in effect, is only a perpetual boyism, or rather a portentous mixture of both states, without the virtues of either.

I am far from meaning by all this, and your Lordship will be as far from suspecting me to mean, that an easy unconstrained manner is not an amiable and agreeable thing. I am only for waiting the proper time of its appearance; which nature makes a little later than our impatient fancies are ready to prescribe to her.

Consider too this polite accomplishment, this supreme finishing of a well-formed character, can only be acquired, except in some extraordinary instances, by long incessant use and habit in conversation; which, besides the unfitness of the thing in other respects, would dissipate the young mind too much, and take it off from those other more important pursuits, which are proper to that age.

Nay, I might further say, and with much truth, that politeness, in your Lordship’s, at least the court-sense of the word, is not to be attained by the ablest men; and when it is attainable, would generally do hurt, I mean beyond a certain degree, to its possessors.

No very great man was ever what the world calls, perfectly polite. Men of that stamp cannot afford such attention to little things, as is necessary to form and complete that character.

And even to men of a common make, that excessive sedulity about grace and manner, which constitutes the essence of good-breeding, would be injurious; as it tends to cramp their faculties, effeminate the temper, and break that force and vigour of mind which is requisite in a man of business for the discharge of his duty, in this free country.

So that, for any thing I see, this exquisite ease of good breeding should be left to the ambition of still inferior spirits, of such indeed as are conscious to themselves of an incapacity for any other.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

The concession is gracious; and the danger, no doubt, alarming, lest our senators and men of business should be disabled for their high functions by an excess of good manners. Yet ’tis some consolation, that at present I see no symptoms of that enfeebling politeness among such of the ornaments of either house, as I have the honour to be acquainted with.

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship may divert yourself as you think fit, with an old man’s fears. But if this mode of travelling, which has taken so much with us since the peace[42], should continue for any time, the day may come but too soon, when these fancies of mine will be realized: when politeness shall be fatal to ability of every kind; and, at least in the higher ranks of life, when our countrymen shall be too well bred to be good for any thing.

And now, having ventured so far, shall I proceed one step further, and take to myself the privilege of an old man, to express my sense of this whole matter, a little unfashionably? The mighty value, that is set upon manners, comes, as I have already hinted, from a quarter, which, though it may imprint respect on a person of your Lordship’s age and gallantry, must not pretend to be so much considered by grey hairs. If you can forgive the liberty, I will then, at length, speak out, and say, They are the ladies, only, or chiefly, that have affixed such an idea of merit to this envied quality of good-breeding; and that, as appearances are thought to sway full enough with that delicate sex, they may perhaps have advanced the credit of it something higher than such an accomplishment deserves.

And when I further consider the mighty influence which these fair dispensers of reputation must needs have on our gallant and courtly youth, I cannot wonder that the mode of foreign travel is become so fashionable. Nay, I am half inclined to suppose, that, in this debate between us, I have rather your politeness to contend with, than your judgment: and that, if your Lordship would deal roundly with me, your answer on this occasion would be the same with HIS, who, (as I have heard you tell the story) being questioned by his friends why a person of his acknowledged sense and bravery would accept the challenge of a coxcomb, thought it vindication enough of himself to reply, “that, for the _men_, he could safely trust their judgment; but how should he appear, at night, before the _maids of honour_[43]?”

Whether I presume too much in this fancy, is not material. It is enough to say, that what there is of use or beauty in polite carriage will come of itself, with a little experience of the world and good company; and shall not, with my consent, be purchased at the expence of far better things.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Nor with mine: for, with all the courtliness and gallantry you make me master of, I never intended by the _good company_, I mentioned with so much respect, either those foolish men, or women, who prefer the forward assurance of their boys to every other consideration. I only think that a reasonable attention to the manners of our noble youth is a matter of much consequence; as early impressions of this sort are necessary to fit them for the commerce of the world, from which alone they can hope to derive their best and most solid instruction: and your gaiety on the fair sex must not restrain me from agreeing with them, in this instance, that I see not how that world can be read and studied, as it ought to be, without travelling.

MR. LOCKE.

Yes; now your Lordship comes to an important point indeed. From the polish of manners, the least considerable, and the easiest to be attained of all the parts of good breeding, your Lordship, as I now remember, rose at once to a subject of real consequence, I mean, THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD; a science, as you well termed it, the most profound and useful. And if this MASTER-SCIENCE were to be acquired by means of early travel, our young gentleman should have my consent to shut up his books, and set forth on his adventures, directly.

But, good my Lord, consider with yourself the difficulty of this study; the ripeness of age and judgment necessary for entering upon it; much more, for making a real progress in it.

And why, as I before hinted, will your Lordship be so impatient to come at the end, without the means? Why, in such haste to build up men, when nature has allotted a season for their being boys?

Without doubt, if our youth could start up men, at once, armed at all points, as the fable has it, and thoroughly furnished for the business of life, we should gladly accept this benefit, and might then be content to overlook or suppress all the cares of education. But this is not the condition of humanity. Its improvements of every kind are slow and gradual. Time and attention form each; and it is only through the right application of preceding states, that we arrive, at length, at the maturity of human wisdom. Let the child and boy be allowed to perfect themselves in what belongs to those conditions, and it will then be time enough to provide for the manly character.

Reflect with yourself, my Lord. When the young unfurnished traveller is carried out into the world, with no principles to poize his conduct, no maxims to direct his judgment, what can be expected from this untimely enterprize? what, but fluctuating morals, and fortuitous deliberations? He has not so much as the idea of what constitutes _man_. How then should he obtain any real and useful knowledge of the human character?

If by a knowledge of the world, be only meant a knowledge of the external modes and customs of it, this, no doubt, were best acquired by surveying them as they present themselves in the various tribes and societies of mankind. But your Lordship means more than this: you understand a knowledge of a higher kind; such as respects the creature _man_, considered in his essential parts, his _reason_ and his _passions_. This is a different kind of study, my Lord, from that other. Any one that has eyes, is qualified to observe the shapes and masks of men; but to penetrate their interior frame, to inspect their proper dispositions and characters, is the business of a well-informed and well-disciplined understanding.

Can your Lordship seriously expect that a young boy should comprehend the effect, which government, policy, institution, and other circumstances of life, have on the pliant reason of mankind? or that he should have the skill to disentangle the various folds and intricacies, in which their real characters lie involved, through the insidious and discordant working of the passions? He should surely know what truth and reason is, before he can derive any benefit to himself from the discourse of men: and he should have carefully watched the movements of his own heart, before he presume to analyze, as your Lordship expressed it, the characters of others.

You see, then, the unseasonableness and inutility of foreign travel, as to the case in hand, even on the supposition that our traveller were admitted into what is called, the best company. But how shall this privilege be obtained? In what country can it be thought that the politeness of eminent men will condescend to a free and intimate communication with boys, of whatever promising hopes, or illustrious quality? Certain slight and formal civilities, your Lordship knows, are the utmost that can be looked for; and are indeed the whole of what our ill-prepared traveller is capable.

Your Lordship did well to remind me of such societies as those in which you and I have, at times, been engaged. The recollection is, of course, flattering and agreeable. But let us presume upon ourselves, my Lord; the LIMBORCHS and LE CLERCS are not so obvious to every body, as they were to us; or, if they were, every body would not profit so well by them. And if private scholars be thus inaccessible, how shall we think to intrude on the business and occupations of experienced magistrates and ministers? And, putting both these out of the question, who remain for the tutorage and instruction of these travelled boys, but such raw, unaccomplished companions, as they left at home, and may find every where in abundance?

Still my objections go further. What if, by uncommon sagacity and good luck, some acquaintance be made with superior persons, and some little insight at length be gained into their real characters? Of what mighty advantage will this be in life, when their business lies amongst other men; and when the same industry and attention had brought them acquainted with the characters of those, they must act and live with? Foreigners are neither an easier study than our own countrymen, nor a more useful one. The very modes and forms of external breeding catch the attention of unexperienced youth; and are so many obstacles to their real progress in this science. And, when all is done, the modifications of the human character, as existing at home, and exhibited in the lives and actions of their fellow-citizens, are, as I said, the proper objects of their curiosity.

In short, the utmost I can allow to this discipline of foreign travel, under the idea of its furnishing _a knowledge of the world_, is, That it may possibly wear a young man into some studied and apish resemblance of the models, he copies from, in his deportment and manners; or that the various scenes, he has passed through, may furnish matter, at his return, for much unprofitable babble in conversation: but, that he should come back fraught with any solid information concerning men and things, such as, in your Lordship’s sublime phrase, may fit him to appear with lustre in the court or senate of his own country, is what I can never promise myself from this fashionable mode of education.

I am even disposed to promise myself the less from it, for an _observation_, I have sometimes had the opportunity of making.

An old man has so little about him to provoke envy, that he may be allowed to make the best of his former successes. And though I pride myself in _one_, of a very delicate nature, the boast of it will not be ill taken even there, where your Lordship, with all your pretensions, would be heard with no patience. In short, I indulge myself in the vanity of saying that I have, in my time, been well with the fair sex, and have even been countenanced so far as to be admitted into a degree of acquaintance and familiarity with some ladies of the highest quality and distinction. And of these, I have constantly observed, that, though bred up at home, they had a manifest advantage over their travelled brothers, I was going to say, in learning and science, but certainly in true politeness, good sense, and even a knowledge of the world.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I understand this civility to the ladies, as a decent atonement for your late freedoms with them. In this light I should be unwilling to cavil at it: and yet I see not, how your high encomiums on the superior good sense and politeness of these home-bred ladies can consist with the passion, you before censured in them, for foreign travel, as favourable, in their opinion, to the production of such virtues.

MR. LOCKE.

My consistency in this representation, I doubt, is less questionable, than my civility. For the ladies, on whom I bestowed those high, but just encomiums, were chiefly such as I had known in my younger days, before the passion for travel had got among them. Now indeed the case is altering apace, and the effects are answerable. The virtues of the _English_ ladies, when they staid at home, were more conspicuous than those of our travelled gentlemen. Now that they, too, begin to travel, their follies are, also, more glaring: in either case, I am willing to own, for the credit of my civility, from the same reason, that both good and ill qualities strike us most, when _set_ in the precious metal of that sex.

However, from the whole of my experience, I must needs conclude, that this finishing of a travelled education only serves to corrupt good qualities, or inflame bad ones.

But the ladies are not in my province. If they were, a knowledge of the world is not the leading virtue I might wish to see them possessed of. In the men, I confess, this accomplishment is of more importance; and I am therefore solicitous, that no well-meaning youth, whom it so much concerns to gain a knowledge of the world, should be misled in his search of it.

Seriously, my Lord, the WORLD, which I am forced to repeat so often, is a solemn word, and the study of it has an air of something plausible and imposing. But those, who know what the world is, will think it best that a young man begin with what is the first and last concern of every man, the study of himself; and if, in due time, he come to understand, and, still more, to value as they deserve, the characters of the great and good men of his own country, the opprobrious name of _home-bred_ will not hinder him from acquiring the best fruit, with which a knowledge of the world, rightly understood, can furnish him.

For, my Lord, I must not, on so inviting an occasion as this, conceal an odd fancy of mine from your Lordship.

The affair of _knowing the world_, about which weak and fantastic people make so much noise, and which one hears them perpetually insisting upon with so much sufficiency, is of all others the nicest and most momentous step that is made in education. And, though volumes have been written to teach us how we may best become scholars, orators, courtiers, what not; yet not one leaf do I ever remember to have seen, composed by any capable man, that instructs us in the proper way of getting into this great secret.

It is not a matter to be entered upon, if I were vain enough to think myself capable of it, in this casual conversation; but thus much I may presume to say, that whoever designs to let a young man into a safe and useful knowledge of the world, must do it in a way very remote from that which has hitherto been taken.

A young man, they tell us, must know the world; therefore, say they, push him into it at once, that he may acquire that knowledge, which his own experience, and not another’s, must procure for him.

I, on the other hand, take upon me to say, Therefore keep him out of that world, as long as you can; and when you commit him to it, let the ablest friend or tutor lend him his best experience, to conduct him gradually, cautiously, imperceptibly, into an acquaintance with it.

You ask the reason of this mysterious procedure; yet methinks it should be obvious enough. From _sixteen to one and twenty_ (a period, in which the cares of an ordinary education cease, or are much relaxed) is that precise season of life, which requires all the attention of the most vigilant, and all the address of the wisest, governor. The passions are then opening; curiosity awake; and the young mind ready to take its ply from the seducements of fashion, and creditable example.

Nor is this the worst. An education, that deserves the name, has inculcated maxims of honour and probity; has inspired the noblest sentiments of moral duty; has impressed on the mind a veneration for all the virtues, and an equal horror for all the vices, of humanity.

Full of these sublime ideas, which his parents, his tutors, his books, and even his own ingenuous heart has rendered familiar to him, the fatal time is at hand, when our well-instructed youth is now to make his entrance into the world: but, good God, what a world! not that which he has so long read, or dreamt of; but a world, new, strange, and inconsistent with all his former notions and expectations.

He enters this scene with awe; and contemplates it with astonishment. Vice, he sees assured, prosperous, and triumphant; virtue discountenanced, unsuccessful, and degraded. He joins the first croud, that presents itself to him: a loud laugh arises; and the edge of their ridicule is turned on sobriety, industry, honesty, generosity, or some other of those qualities, he has hitherto been most fond of.

He quits this clamorous set with disdain; and is glad to unite himself with _another_, better dressed, better mannered, in all respects more specious and attractive. His simplicity makes him for some time the dupe of this plausible society: but their occasional hints, their negligent sarcasms, their sallies of wit, and polite raillery on all that he has been accustomed to hold sacred, shew him at last that he has only changed his company, not mended it.

This discovery leads him to another. He attends to the lives of these well-bred people, and finds them of a piece with their manners and conversation; shewy indeed, and, on first view, decorous; but, in effect, deformed by every impotent and selfish passion; wasted in sloth and luxury; in ruinous play; criminal intrigues; or, at best, unprofitable amusements.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

This painting, methinks, is a little strong. Besides, you might surely have provided better company for your young inspector of the world, than that shameless crew, or this corrupt one.

MR. LOCKE.

I take up, as he must do, with such company as the world is most apt to throw in our way; and the colouring, your Lordship knows, is modest enough for the occasion.

But I attend our boy-adventurer no further in his progress into the world, and return now to ask you, what effect your Lordship thinks these strange unexpected scenes must naturally have upon him? Certainly one or the other of these two; either that the scorn of virtue, he every where observes, will by degrees abate his reverence of it, and at length obliterate all the better impressions of his education; or, if these should still keep their hold of his young ingenuous breast, that he will entertain the most indignant sentiments of mankind, and suffer himself to be carried by them into a sour and sullen misanthropy, at least; perhaps into a sceptical and prophane impiety.

I have seldom known a young man of sense and parts, educated in this way, escape from one or other of these mischiefs.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

But why then bring him up with those high notions of mankind, of which the world must presently disabuse him, at the expence either of his innocence, or good nature?

MR. LOCKE.

That question had been natural enough from most men. But your Lordship knows very well, that, in this moral discipline, as in every other, ideas of excellence are to be imprinted on the young mind, and the most consummate models proposed for imitation: on this certain principle, That, whoever would be moderately accomplished in any art, and most of all in this supreme art of life, must take his aim high, and aspire to absolute perfection. A painter or statuary of the lowest form, your Lordship knows, is taught to work after a MADONNA _of_ RAPHAEL, or a VENUS _of_ MEDICIS; yet is not likely to meet with either, among his acquaintance.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

The observation is surely just; and I could only mean that those high fancies should be checked and moderated in due time, before our entrance into that world, which, it is foreseen, will so little correspond to them.

MR. LOCKE.

And what is that _due time_, your Lordship sets apart for this delicate operation?

Is it, before the young boy commences his travels? But that, according to your Lordship’s scheme, is so early, that the regimen, you would now abate, has not taken its full effect, and his weak unconfirmed virtue would die under the experiment.

Is it then, when his travels are already begun? And is the sage tutor, your Lordship anxiously flies to, as to some god, on every occasion of distress, to charge himself with the solution of this difficulty? Alas! now it is too late. You have brought the boy into the scene. He will see and judge for himself. The torrent bears him away: the instant impression is too strong to be counteracted by the feeble and, now, disgusting admonitions of a tutor.

See then, if the proper way, to secure him from these inconveniences, be not, To keep him yet at a distance from the world; and, when you let him into some knowledge of it, to do it seasonably, gradually, and circumspectly: to take the veil off from some parts, and leave it still upon others; to paint what he does not see, and to hint at more than you paint: to confine him, at first, to the best company, and prepare him to make allowances even for the best: to preserve in his breast the love of excellence, and encourage in him the generous sentiments, he has so largely imbibed, and so perfectly relishes: yet temper, if you can, his zeal with candour; insinuate to him the prerogative of such a virtue, as his, so early formed, and so happily cultivated; and bend his reluctant spirit to some aptness of pity towards the ill-instructed and the vicious: by degrees to open to him the real condition of that world, to which he is approaching; yet so as to present to him, at the same time, the certain inevitable misery of conforming to it: last of all, to shew him some examples of that vice, which he must learn to bear in others, though detest in himself; to watch the effect these examples have upon him; and, as you find his dispositions incline, to fortify his abhorrence of vice, or excite his commiseration of the vicious: in a word (for I am not now directing a tutor, but suggesting, in very general terms, my ideas of his office) to inform the minds of youth with such gradual intelligence, as may prepare them to see the world without surprize, and live in it without danger.

This is that important chapter, which I presumed to say no institutor of youth had yet composed, or so much as touched upon, in a treatise of education. You will learn from this brief summary of its contents, what, in my opinion, should be the employment of those precious years, which are usually thrown away upon foreign travel.

In earnest, my Lord, there is a fatal mistake in this matter. People speak of a knowledge of the world, as what may be acquired at any time, and, for its importance, cannot be acquired too soon. Alas! they forget, that a long and careful preparation is necessary, before we are qualified so much as to enter on this task; and that they, who are latest in setting out, will arrive the soonest, certainly the safest, at their journey’s end.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

But where shall this mighty work of preparation be carried on? And in what privileged sanctuary shall our good young man be kept from the sight and contagion of this wicked world, and yet be gradually forming for the use and practice of it?

MR. LOCKE.

Where, does your Lordship ask? Why, in his college; in a friend’s, or his father’s house; any where, in short, rather than in a foreign country, where every wholesome restraint is taken off, and the young mind left a prey to every ill impression.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

And are there no inconveniences, on the other hand, which a provident parent may be supposed to foresee, and may be willing to guard against?

MR. LOCKE.

I understand your Lordship. I know, that, for want of better arguments in support of this foreign breeding, weak or unworthy parents are ready to take up with such as these:

They tell us, especially if of rank and quality, that their children have suffered more than enough already, in their passage through our public and vulgar schools; that, together with many illiberal habits, they have contracted many low and illiberal friendships, which are, in all reason, to be shaken off; that these unworthy companions follow them to the University, and are, if not the bane, yet the dishonour and incumbrance of their future lives; that an absence of some years abroad loosens these hasty and ill-timed connexions; and leaves them, on their return, at full liberty to contract others, more suitable to their birth and quality, and more conducive to their views of fortune, as well as of reputation, in the world; that indeed they might remove the young man immediately from his school into their own house; but that much of their time is necessarily spent in the metropolis, the licence of which is not to be guarded against by any care of their own, or of the best governor; that his low illiberal acquaintance would haunt him even there; at least, that the youth of his own age and rank would naturally flock about him, and, under a thousand pretences of civility or amusement, engage him in all the follies, and perhaps the vices, of this great town; that, on the whole, his only refuge from these mischiefs is in the way of foreign travel; whence, at length, he may return in riper age and with better judgment to take his station in the world.

To this popular talk (which your Lordship, I suppose, glanced at, but would not condescend to enforce directly) it is enough to reply, that part of the inconveniences, here enumerated, are feigned at pleasure, and the rest exaggerated; that the authority of a father, if he deserve that name, in concurrence with honest friends and an ordinary governor, will prevent them all, or at least palliate them; and that, to take matters at the worst, his son will be exposed to still greater inconveniences any where else. But in truth I cannot see, if a college be excepted against, and the business be to see the world, as it is called, why _London_ should not be esteemed as fit a scene for the purpose, as any other great town in _Europe_. I think it contains as much good company as any other; and I doubt whether it be more licentious; or, if it be, there are three restraints upon it, which, I am sure, will not be found abroad: I mean, “the parental authority;” “domestic government;” and “a regard to reputation, under the eye and notice of his friends.”

So that, in every view, whether on your Lordship’s plan, of entering directly on the great study of the world, or on mine, of only preparing for it, our young man cannot possibly do better, at his years, than stay at home; where, if your Lordship please, we will then leave him; at least, till we have tried the force of your next, and, as I remember, LAST argument in behalf of foreign travel, “which arose out of the mighty benefits, supposed to attend the study and cultivation of what are called the FINE ARTS; in short, from the lustre and importance of the virtuoso character.”

Your Lordship, who has so acknowledged a taste in these things, and of course has so exquisite a sense of their value, may be excused for enlarging so particularly on this head. But to me, who am of a plainer make and cooler disposition, they appear, if not frivolous, yet of little importance, when compared with those other things, which are the proper and more immediate objects of education.

It would, I doubt, disgust your Lordship, should I speak my mind freely of them; or even insinuate, that I take these studies, when entered upon in early youth, and proposed as matters of serious pursuit and application, to have indeed the most pernicious tendency; as breaking the nerves and force of the mind, and inspiring I know not what of a trifling and superfluous vanity.

To render these pursuits serviceable in any degree, or even harmless, they should in all reason be postponed to riper years, when the confirmed judgment will of course take them but for what they are, for nothing more than elegant and polite amusements.

Not to insist, that to excel in this species of taste, as in all others, a previous foundation is required, of reflexion and good sense: for I agree with your favourite poet; of every polite study and indulgence even of the imagination,

SAPERE, _est et principium et fons_.

These and still stronger objections might be made to your partiality for the _fine arts_. But I am contented to wave them all; as indeed they would come with an ill grace from one, who must acknowledge himself to have no particular skill or discernment in them, and who should not therefore presume to enter the lists with so consummate a master of them as your Lordship.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

And so, under the cover of a civil speech, you escape from the most specious, at least, of those arguments, which are alleged in favour of an early travelled education. For, whether it be true, or no, that other accomplishments may be as well acquired at home, it is past a doubt that the polite and liberal arts can only be learnt abroad. And of their use and ornament to our noble youth—

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship, I know, can say more, and finer things, than you expect I should seriously dispute with you, on this occasion.

I have now, my Lord, (at least if my old memory has not betrayed me) gone over the several heads and topics of your defence; and said enough, I believe, on each, to shew that foreign travel is not, on whatever side we view it, the most proper method of a young gentleman’s education.

The benefits, you propose by it, are either of small account in themselves, at least of much less account than those you must sacrifice to them; or, when their importance is real and confessed, may be attained more conveniently in some other way, and at some other season.

For, after all I have said, your Lordship is not to conclude that I am wholly bent against the practice of foreign travel. I am as sensible, as any man, of its important use, when undertaken at a proper time and by fit persons. For, though I esteem it idleness, and something worse, for a young boy to waste his prime and most precious years in sauntering round _Europe_, yet I know what ends of wisdom and of virtue may be answered by a capable man’s survey of it.

But then, my Lord, I reckon that capacity at no vulgar rate. He must be of worth and consideration enough to be received into the wisest, nay the greatest company. His natural insight into men and things must be quick and penetrating. His faculties must all be at their height; his studies matured; and his reading and observation extensive. With these accomplishments, if a man of rank and fortune can find leisure to employ a few years among the neighbouring nations, I readily agree, his voyage may turn out to his own benefit, and to that of his country.

In this way it may be true, as your Lordship insisted, that our island prejudices will be usefully worn off, and much real civility and politeness be imported among us.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I thank you for this concession. Although I cannot yet be convinced of the total impropriety of an earlier voyage, I am pleased to find you do not interdict the thing itself. Many wise persons among us have even talked at that rate. But you are more reasonable; and indeed that extravagance was not to be apprehended from your true sense and superior knowledge of human nature.

MR. LOCKE.

I have that esteem of your Lordship’s kind opinion, as to be very unwilling to forfeit any share of it. Yet what I have now to advance will, I readily foresee, expose me to some risk, in that particular.

For now your Lordship has expressed your regard for _a superior knowledge of human nature_, it emboldens me to add that such knowledge (which I have small right to claim to myself) is not to be acquired but by the largest and most extensive observation of the human species: so that I may be found at last even a warmer advocate for the uses of foreign travel, than your Lordship.

I hold then that the knowledge of human nature (the only knowledge, in the largest sense of the expression, deserving a wise man’s regard) can never be well attained but by seeing it under all its appearances; I mean, not merely, or chiefly, in that fair and well-dressed form it wears amid the arts and embellishments of our western world; but in its naked simplicity, and even deformities; nay, under all its disguises and distortions, arising from absurd governments and monstrous religions, in every distant region and quarter of the globe.

The subject appears to me of that importance, that it almost warms me, an old philosopher as I am, into some emulation of your Lordship’s enthusiasm.

I would say then, “that, to study HUMAN NATURE to purpose, a traveller must enlarge his circuit beyond the bounds of _Europe_. He must go, and catch her undressed, nay quite naked, in _North-America_, and at the Cape of _Good Hope_. He may then examine how she appears crampt, contracted, and buttoned up close in the strait tunic of law and custom, as in _China_ and _Japan_: or, spread out and enlarged above her common size, in the loose and flowing robe of enthusiasm, among the Arabs and Saracens: or, lastly, as she flutters in the old rags of worn-out policy and civil government, and almost ready to run back naked to the deserts, as on the _Mediterranean_ coast of _Africa_.”

These, my Lord, are the proper scenes for the philosopher, for the citizen of the world, to expatiate in. The tour of _Europe_ is a paltry thing: a tame, uniform, unvaried prospect: which affords nothing but the same polished manners and artificial policies, scarcely diversified enough to take, or merit, our attention.

It is from a wider and more extensive view of mankind that a just estimate is to be made of the powers of human nature. Hence we collect what its genuine faculties are: what ideas and principles, or if any, are truly innate and essential to it; and what changes and modification it is susceptible of from law and custom.

If you think I impose too great a task on our inquisitive traveller, my next advice is, That he stay at home: read _Europe_ in the mirror of his own country, which but too eagerly reflects and flatters every state that dances before its surface; and, for the rest, take up with the best information he can get from the books and narratives of the best voyagers.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

That is, you discourage him from looking abroad into the world of reason and civility, the most natural state of mankind; and require him to waste his time and observation on slaves, madmen, or savages; states, in which reason and civility have no place, and where humanity itself, almost, disappears.

Admirable advice this, to come from a philosopher! and still better, to send your disciple to take his information of this unnatural disordered scene from the lying accounts of ignorant, ill-instructed, and gaping tale-tellers!

MR. LOCKE.

I was afraid, I should not be able to secure to myself the good opinion, which your Lordship was pleased to express of my _knowledge of human nature_. This mortifying experience puts an end to my adventurous flights, at once; and forces me back again into the narrower walk, which your Lordship seems willing to prescribe to me.

Be it then, as you insist, that an _English_ gentleman’s care should be, to accomplish himself in the school of reason and civility; to fit himself, in short, for that state which your Lordship dignifies with the name of _natural_. Still I declare against his _European_ travels.

The manners of each state are peculiar to itself, and best adapted to it. The civility, that prevails in some places on the continent, may be more studied and exquisite than ours; but not therefore to be preferred before it. Those refinements have had their birth from correspondent policies; to which they are well suited, and from which they receive their whole value. In the more absolute monarchies of _Europe_, all are courtiers. In our freer monarchy, all should be citizens. Let then the arts of address and insinuation flourish in _France_. Without them, what merit can pretend to success, what talents open the way to favour and distinction? But let a manlier character prevail here. We have a prince to serve, not to flatter: we have a country to embrace, not a court to adore: we have, in a word, objects to pursue, and interests to promote, from the care of which our finer neighbours are happily disburthened.

Let our countrymen then be indulged in the plainness, nay, the roughness of their manners: but let them atone for this defect, by their useful sense, their superior knowledge, their public spirit, and, above all, by their unpolished integrity.

Would your Lordship’s favourite Athens have done wisely (or rather did it do so?) to exchange the simplicity and manly freedom of its ancient character, for the fopperies and prostrations of the Asiatic courts? Nay, would the softer accomplishments of Athens, in its best state, have done well in a citizen of _Sparta_?

Your Lordship sees what to conclude from these hints. For my own part, my Lord, I esteem politeness, in the reasonable sense of the word, as the ornament, nay more, as the duty of humanity. But, under colour of making this valuable acquisition, let no culture of the human mind, no instruction in letters and business, no discipline of the passions, no improvements of the head and heart, be neglected. Let the foundation of these essential virtues be laid deep in the usual forms of our _public_, if you will, or (as you know I had rather) in the way of a more attentive and moral, because _private_, education. Let the commerce of the world, in due time and under due regulation, succeed to this care; and your Lordship will find your young gentleman as fully accomplished in all respects as, in reason, you should wish to see him. And for proof of it, if I were not restrained, by a common and perhaps false delicacy, from bringing the names of our friends and acquaintance into example in conversation, how many instances of this sort could I point to, in such men as your Lordship has known in your own country, and is most disposed to reverence; and some of them, possibly, in your own family!

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Rather tell me, how we may reasonably expect to see such models produced, according to the vulgar way of our home-breeding: that one or two such may, perhaps, after strict search, be found among ourselves, I shall not dispute with you.

MR. LOCKE.

The search would cost me small pains. But I press the matter no further. It is enough that your Lordship sees I have my eye on some, the most estimable, nay the most accomplished characters, that have been formed among ourselves: and that even so envied a thing, as a fine gentleman, has been fashioned on this side the water. But the rarity of the production, you think, makes against me, and shews there is no trusting to the stubborn soil and unfriendly climate of our country. You conclude, upon the whole, for the expediency of foreign travel, from the acknowledged defects of our authorized seats of learning; which, according to your Lordship’s idea and representation of them, are so degenerate and depraved, that nothing of worth and value can be reasonably expected from that quarter.

This, after all, is your main reason for advising a foreign education. Your spite is to our Universities; and, to bribe, or rather provoke me into the same quarrel, your Lordship did not forget to remind me of the little obligation, which I myself, who was trained in their discipline, have had to them.

I could assent, perhaps, to some part of this charge. It is certain, at least, that the prejudices, the bigotry, the false learning, and narrow principles, which have prevailed too much, and still prevail, in those famous seminaries, create an unfavourable opinion of them in the minds of many liberal and discerning persons. Nay, I will not disown to you, that I have at times been tempted myself to entertain, perhaps to express, some resentment against them. But we are always severe, generally unfair, judges in our own case. And, to say the truth, when the matter comes to be considered impartially and coolly, their faults, of whatever kind, will admit of much alleviation.

The UNIVERSITIES OF ENGLAND, your Lordship knows, had their rise in the barbarous ages. The views of their institutors were, accordingly, such as might be expected from men of their stamp, and in their circumstances.

These seminaries were more immediately consecrated to the service of the church; which is the less to be wondered at, as our statesmen, you know, were, at that time, churchmen. Hence the plan of studies, prescribed to the youth, would be such as was best adapted to the occasions of that class of men, in whose instruction the public was more directly interested.

Besides, the learning of that time was rude and barbarous; and, had their views been more enlarged, the founders of our colleges had it not in their power to provide for the encouragement of any other. The supreme accomplishment even of our men of business was little more than a readiness in the forms, and a dexterity in the quirks, of the canon law: and the pride of the most profound scholars lay in applying the subtleties of the Aristotelian philosophy to theologic and metaphysical questions; whence too much stress was evidently laid on logical exercises and scholastic disputations.

’Tis true, some few of our colleges were erected at a time, when something more light and knowledge had broke in upon us; I mean, during the progress of the _Reformation_. But the great object that filled all men’s minds being the dispute with the see of _Rome_, the principal circumstance that distinguishes these later foundations from the other is, that their statutes provide more especially for the management of that controversy. So that, even in these societies, the scholastic disputative genius still prevailed, to the exclusion of that more liberal plan of studies, which is fitted to all times, and would have suited better to the general purpose of these established seats of education.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

This account of the institution and genius of our _English_ Universities may be easily credited, even from what we now see of them. But, though some causes may be assigned for the introduction of these barbarous plans of education, what reason can be given why they should be cherished in our days, or that men of sense should submit to them?

MR. LOCKE.

The reason is not far to seek. These barbarous plans of education had, we have seen, in former times, both their reason and their use. Bodies of men retain the character of their first institution very long; and, all things considered, I am inclined to think it not amiss that they do so. Universities and schools of learning, in particular, should not be in haste to exchange established principles and practices, which the best sense of former ages had introduced, for novel and untried pretensions. The reason is plain: their instructions would have small weight, and their discipline no stability, amid such easy and perpetual changes. They are, indeed, the depositaries of the public wisdom and virtue; and their business is, to inculcate both on the rising generation, upon the footing on which they are received and understood in the several countries where they are erected. Even if their local statutes laid them under no restraint, an easiness in departing from established rules were a levity not to be commended; and would, in the end, be unfavourable to truth itself, when at any time it should come, in its turn, to be entertained among them.

The truth is, my Lord, we are ready to consider these seminaries as schools of philosophy, strictly so called: whereas their proper character is that of schools of learning and education. Under this last idea, much of that bigotry and prejudice is to be looked for, and should be excused, which would rightly be objected to them under that other denomination.

Hence then, I conceive, a just apology may be made for the present condition of our Universities. If they have not, in all respects, corrected the vices of their original institution, let the influence and authority of such institution be pleaded in their excuse; and if certain inveterate errors in speculation (for I know your Lordship’s chief quarrel to them) not immediately connected with their institution, happen still to maintain their credit in those places, let it be considered that the general sense of the public should in all reason be expected to go before their profession and propagation even of right principles. Believe it, my Lord, as reason and sound philosophy make a progress among us, these bodies will gradually, though reluctantly indeed, reform themselves: and the service they will then render to truth will be the greater for the opposition they now make to it.