tic and Syro-phoenician verses; and yet we doubt whether there will be a sufficient avidity in literary men to get at the beauties of the finest writers which the world has yet seen; and though the Bagvat Gheeta has (as can be proved) met with human beings to translate, and other human beings to read it, we think that, in order to secure an attention to Homer and Virgil, we must catch up every man-whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke,— begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he is twenty; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; and so teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can scan the verses of the Greek tragedians.

that both will be placed on a firmer basis, in proportion as the minds of men are more trained to the investigation of truth. At present, we act with the minds of our young men, as the Dutch did with their exuberant spices. An infinite quantity of talent is annually destroyed in the Universities of England by the miserable jealousy and littleness of ecclesiastical instructors. It is in vain to say we have produced great men under this system. We have produced great men under all systems. Every Englishman must pass half his life in learning Latin and Greek; and classical learning is supposed to have produced the talents which it has not been able to extinguish. It is scarcely possible to prevent great men from rising up under any system of education, however bad. Teach men dæmonology or astrology, and you will still

nius, in spite of these or any other branches of ignorance and folly.

There is a delusive sort of splendour in a vast body of men pursuing one ob ject, and thoroughly obtaining it; and yet, though it be very splendid, it is far from being useful. Classical literature is the great object at Oxford. Many minds so employed have produced many works, and much fame in that department; but if all liberal arts and sciences useful to human life had been

The English clergy, in whose hands education entirely rests, bring up the first young men of the country as if they were all to keep grammar schools in little country towns; and a noble-have a certain portion of original geman, upon whose knowledge and liberality the honour and welfare of his country may depend, is diligently worried, for half his life, with the small pedantry of longs and shorts. There is a timid and absurd apprehension, on the part of ecclesiastical tutors, of letting out the minds of youth upon difficult and important subjects. They fasey that mental exertion must end in religious scepticism; and, to preserve the principles of their pupils, they confine them to the safe and elegant imbe-taught there,-if some had dedicated cility of classical learning. A genuine Oxford tutor would shudder to hear his young men disputing upon moral and political truth, forming and pulling down theories, and indulging in all the boldness of youthful discussion. He would augur nothing from it, but impiety to God, and treason to kings. And yet, who vilifies both more than When an University has been doing the holy poltroon who carefully averts useless things for a long time, it ap from them the searching eye of reason, pears at first degrading to them to be and who knows no better method of useful. A set of lectures upon politeaching the highest duties, than by ex-tical economy would be discouraged in tirpating the finest qualities and habits Oxford*, probably despised, probably of the mind? If our religion is a fable, not permitted. To discuss the enthe sooner it is exploded the better. If closure of commons, and to dwell car government is bad, it should be upon imports and exports, to come amended. But we have no doubt of so near to common life, would seem to the truth of the one, or of the excellence of the other; and are convinced

themselves to chemistry, some to mathematics, some to experimental philosophy, and if every attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility,-the system of such an University would have been much more valuable, but the splendour of its name something less.

They have since been established.

be undignified and contemptible. In | public life, we would exhort him to the same manner, the Parr, or the Bent-contemn, or at least not to affect the ley of his day, would be scandalised reputation of a great scholar, but to in an University to be put on a level educate himself for the offices of civil with the discoverer of a neutral salt; life. He should learn what the constiand yet, what other measure is there tution of his country really was,-how of dignity in intellectual labour, but it had grown into its present state, the usefulness and difficulty? And what perils that had threatened it,—the ought the term University to mean, malignity that had attacked it, the but a place where every science is courage that had fought for it, and the taught which is liberal, and at the wisdom that had made it great. We same time useful to mankind? Nothing would bring strongly before his mind would so much tend to bring classical the characters of those Englishmen literature within proper bounds as a who have been the steady friends of steady and invariable appeal to these the public happiness; and, by their tests in our appreciation of all human knowledge. The puffed up pedant would collapse into his proper size, and the maker of verses and the rememberer of words, would soon assume that station, which is the lot of those who go up unbidden to the upper places of the feast.

We should be sorry, if what we have said should appear too contemptuous towards classical learning, which we most sincerely hope will always be held in great honour in this country, though we certainly do not wish to it that exclusive honour which it at present enjoys. A great classical scholar is an ornament and an important acquisition to his country; but, in a place of education, we would give to all knowledge an equal chance for distinction; and would trust to the varieties of human disposition, that every science worth cultivation would be cultivated. Looking always to real utility as our guide, we should see, with equal pleasure, a studious and inquisitive mind arranging the productions of nature, investigating the qualities of bodies, or mastering the difficulties of the learned languages. We should not care whether he were chemist, naturalist, or scholar, because we know it to be as necessary that matter should be studied, and subdued to the use of man, as that taste should be gratified, and imagination inflamed.

In those who were destined for the church, we would undoubtedly encourage classical learning, inore than in any other body of men; but if we had to do with a young man going out into

examples, would breathe into him a pure public taste, which should keep him untainted in all the vicissitudes of political fortune. We would teach him to burst through the well paid, and the pernicious cant of indiscriminate loyalty; and to know his Sovereign only as he discharged those duties, and displayed those qualities, for which the blood and the treasure of his people are confided to his hands. We should deem it of the utmost importance, that his attention was directed to the true principles of legislation,—what effect laws can produce upon opinions, and opinions upon laws, what subjects are fit for legislative interference, and when men may be left to the management of their own interests. The mischief occasioned by bad laws, and the perplexity which arises from numerous laws, the causes of national wealth,the relations of foreign trades,— the encouragement of manufactures and agriculture, the fictitious wealth occasioned by paper credit, the laws of population, the management of poverty and mendicity-the use and abuse of monopoly, -the theory of taxation,

the consequences of the public debt. These are some of the subjects, and some of the branches of civil education, to which we would turn the minds of future judges, future senators, and future noblemen. After the first period of life had been given up to the cultivation of the classics, and the reasoning powers were now beginning to evolve themselves, these are some of the propensities in study which we would endeavour to inspire. Great

of man.

knowledge at such a period of life, we | tural difference of original conformacould not convey; but we might fix a tion of mind. As long as boys and decided taste for its acquisition, and a girls run about in the dirt, and trundle strong disposition to respect it in others. hoops together, they are both precisely The formation of some great scholars alike. If you catch up one half of these we should certainly prevent, and hinder creatures, and train them to a particular many from learning what, in a few set of actions and opinions, and the years, they would necessarily forget; other half to a perfectly opposite set, of but this loss would be well repaid, course their understandings will differ, if we could show the future rulers of as one or the other sort of occupations the country that thought and labour has called this or that talent into action. which it requires to make a nation There is surely no occasion to go into happy, or if we could inspire them any deeper or more abstruse reasoning, with that love of public virtue, which, in order to explain so very simple a pheafter religion, we most solemnly believe nomenon. Taking it, then, for granted, to be the brightest ornament of the mind that nature has been as bountiful of understanding to one sex as the other, it is incumbent on us to consider what are the principal objections commonly made against the communication of a greater share of knowledge to women than commonly falls to their lot at present for though it may be doubted whether women should learn all that men learn, the immense ME BROADHURST is a very good sort disparity which now exists between of a man, who has not written a very their knowledge we should hardly bad book upon a very important sub- think could admit of any rational ject. His object (a very laudable one) defence. It is not easy to imagine to recommend a better system of that there can be any just cause why female education than at present pre- a woman of forty should be more. vals in this country-to turn the atten- ignorant than a boy of twelve years of tion of women from the trifling pursuits age. If there be any good at all in to which they are now condemned-female ignorance, this (to use a very and to cultivate faculties which, under colloquial phrase) is surely too much the actual system of management, might of a good thing. almost as well not exist. To the examination of his ideas upon these points We shall very cheerfully give up a portion of our time and attention.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

(E. REVIEW, 1809.)

Advice to Young Ladies on the Improvemest of the Mind. By Thomas Broadburst. 8vo. London, 1808.

Something in this question must depend, no doubt, upon the leisure which either sex enjoys for the cultivation of their understandings:- and we cannot help thinking, that women have fully as much, if not more, idle time upon their hands than men. Women

-sources of

A great deal has been said of the original difference of capacity between men and women; as if women were more quick and men more judicious-are excluded from all the serious busias if women were more remarkable for ness of the world; men are lawyers, delicacy of association, and men for physicians, clergymen, apothecaries, stronger powers of attention. All and justices of the peace – this, we confess, appears to us very exertion which consume a great deal fanciful. That there is a difference in more time than producing and suckling the understandings of the men and the children; so that if the thing is a thing Fomen we every day meet with, every- that ought to be done-if the attainbody, we suppose, must perceive; but ments of literature are objects really there is none surely which may not be worthy the attention of females, they accounted for by the difference of cir- cannot plead the want of leisure as an stances in which they have been excuse for indolence and neglect. The placed, without referring to any conjec- lawyer who passes his day in exaspe

rating the bickerings of Roe and Doe, | sider such an unusual extension of is certainly as much engaged as his knowledge, without connecting with it lady, who has the whole of her morn- some sensation of the ludicrous, should ing before her to correct the children remember, that, in the progress from and pay the bills. The apothecary, absolute ignorance, there is a period who rushes from an act of phlebotomy when cultivation of the mind is new to in the western parts of the town to in-every rank and description of persons. sinuate a bolus in the east, is surely as A century ago, who would have becompletely absorbed as that fortunate lieved that country gentlemen could be female who is darning the garment or brought to read and spell with the ease preparing the repast of her Esculapius and accuracy which we now so freat home; and in every degree and quently remark,—or supposed that they situation of life, it seems that men could be carried up even to the elemust necessarily be exposed to more ments of ancient and modern history? serious demands upon their time and Nothing is more common, or more attention, than can possibly be the case stupid, than to take the actual for the with respect to the other sex. We are possible to believe that all which is, speaking always of the fair demands is all which can be; first to laugh at which ought to be made upon the time every proposed deviation from practice and attention of women; for, as the as impossible-then, when it is carried matter now stands, the time of women into effect, to be astonished that it did is considered as worth nothing at all. not take place before. Daughters are kept to occupations in It is said, that the effect of knowledge sewing, patching, mantua-making, and is to make women pedantic and mending, by which it is impossible affected; and that nothing can be they can earn tenpence a day. The more offensive, than to see a woman intellectual improvement of women is stepping out of the natural modesty of considered to be of such subordinate her sex, to make an ostentatious disimportance, that twenty pounds paid play of her literary attainments. This for needle-work would give to a whole may be true enough; but the answer is family leisure to acquire a fund of real so trite and obvious, that we are almost knowledge. They are kept with nim- ashamed to make it. All affectation ble fingers and vacant understandings, and display proceed from the suppotill the season for improvement is ut-sition of possessing something better terly past away, and all chance of than the rest of the world possesses. forming more important habits com- Nobody is vain of possessing two legs pletely lost. We do not therefore say and two arms;- because that is the that women have more leisure than precise quantity of either sort of limb men, if it be necessary they should lead which every body possesses. Who ever the life of artisans; but we make this heard a lady boast that she understood assertion only upon the supposition French? - for no other reason, that that it is of some importance women we know of, but because everybody in should be instructed; and that many these days does understand French; ordinary occupations, for which a little and though there may be some disgrace money will find a better substitute in being ignorant of that language, should be sacrificed to this considera- there is little or no merit in its acquition. sition. Diffuse knowledge generally among women, and you will at once cure the conceit which knowledge occasions while it is rare. Vanity and conceit we shall of course witness in men and women as long as the world endures :-but by multiplying the attainments upon which these feelings are founded, you increase the difficulty of indulging them, and render them

We bar, in this discussion, any objection which proceeds from the mere novelty of teaching women more than they are already taught. It may be useless that their education should be improved, or it may be pernicious; and these are the fair grounds on which the question may be argued. But those who cannot bring their minds to con

much more tolerable, by making them secured from the perilous inroads of knowledge.

the proofs of a much higher merit. When learning ceases to be uncommon among women, learned women will cease to be affected.

be more

We would fain know, too, if knowledge is to produce such baneful effects upon the material and the household A great many of the lesser and more virtues, why this influence has not alobscure duties of life necessarily de-ready been felt? Women are much volve upon the female sex. The better educated now than they were a arrangement of all household matters, century ago; but they are by no and the care of children in their early means less remarkable for attention to infancy, must of course depend upon the arrangements of their household, them. Now, there is a very general or less inclined to discharge the offices nction, that the moment you put the of parental affection. It would be education of women upon a better very easy to show, that the same obfooting than it is at present, at that|jection has been made at all times to moment there will be an end of every improvement in the education of all domestic economy: and that, if both sexes, and all ranks — and been you once suffer women to eat of the as uniformly and completely refuted tree of knowledge, the rest of the by experience. A great part of the family will very soon be reduced to the objections made to the education of same kind of aërial and unsatisfactory women are rather objections made to diet. These, and all such opinions are human nature than to the female sex: referable to one great and common cause for it is surely true, that knowledge, of error;-that man does everything, where it produces any bad effects at and that nature does nothing; and that all, does as much mischief to one sex everything we see, is referable to posi-as to the other, and gives birth to tive institution, rather than to original fully as much arrogance, inattention feeling. Can anything, for example, to common affairs, and eccentricity perfectly absurd than to sup- among men, as it does among women. pose, that the care and perpetual solici- But it by no means follows, that you tade which a mother feels for her chil-get rid of vanity and self-conceit, bedren depends upon her ignorance of cause you get rid of learning. SelfGreek and Mathematics; and that she complacency can never want an excuse; would desert an infant for a quadratic and the best way to make it more equation? We seem to imagine, that tolerable, and more useful, is to give to We can break in pieces the solemn in- it as high and as dignified an object as titutions of nature by the little laws possible. But, at all events, it is unof a boarding-school; and that the fair to bring forward against a part of existence of the human race depends the world an objection which is equally upon teaching women a little more or powerful against the whole. When a little less-that Cimmerian ignor- foolish women think they have any ance can aid parental affection, or the distinction, they are apt to be proud of circle of arts and sciences produce its it; so are foolish men. But we appeal destruction. In the same manner, we to any one who has lived with cultiget the principles upon which the vated persons of either sex, whether he love of order, arrangement, and all has not witnessed as much pedantry, the arts of economy depend. They as much wrongheadedness, as much depend not upon ignorance nor idle- arrogance, and certainly a great deal bes; but upon the poverty, confusion, more rudeness, produced by learning and ruin which would ensue from in men than in women: therefore, we eglecting them. Add to these prin- should make the accusation generalples the love of what is beautiful and or dismiss it altogether; though, with magnificent, and the vanity of display; respect to pedantry, the learned are and there can surely be no reason certainly a little unfortunate, that so able doubt but that the order and very emphatic a word, which is occaeconomy of private life is amply sionally applicable to all men em

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