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PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION. (E. REVIEW, 1809.)

Essays on Professional Education. By R. L. Edgeworth, Esq. F.R.S. &c. London. 1809.

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THERE are two questions to be asked respecting every new publication-Is it worth buying? Is it worth borrowing? and we would advise our readers to weigh diligently the importance of these interrogations, before they take any decided step as to this work of Mr. Edgeworth; the more especially as the name carries with it considerable authority, and seems, in the estimation of the unwary, almost to include the idea of purchase. For our own part, we would rather decline giving a direct answer to these questions; and shall content ourselves for the present with making a few such slight observations as may enable the sagacious to conjecture what our direct answer would be, were we compelled to be more explicit. One great and signal praise we think to be the eminent due of Mr. Edgeworth: in a canting age he does not cant; at a period when hypocrisy and fanaticism will almost certainly insure the success of any publication, he has constantly disdained to have recourse to any such arts; without ever having been accused of disloyalty or irreligion, he is not always harping upon Church and King, in order to catch at a little popularity, and sell his books; - he is manly, independent, liberal — and maintains enlightened opinions with discretion and honesty. There is also in this work of Mr. Edgeworth an agreeable diffusion of anecdote and example, such as a man acquires who reads with a view to talking or writing. With these merits, we cannot say that Mr. Edgeworth is either very new, very profound, or very apt to be right in his opinion. He is active, enterprising, and unprejudiced; but we have not been very much instructed by what he has written, or always satisfied that he has got to the bottom of his subject.

On one subject, however, we cordially agree with this gentleman; and return him our thanks for the courage with which he has combated the excessive abuse of classical learning in England. It is a subject upon which we have long wished for an opportunity of saying something; and one which we consider to be of the very highest importance.

The principal defect,' says Mr. Edgeworth, in the present system of our great schools, is, that they devote too large a portion of time to Latin and Greek. It is true, that the attainment of classical literature is highly desirable; but it should not, or rather it need not, be the exclusive object of boys during eight or nine years.

Much less time, judiciously managed, would give them an acquaintance with the classics sufficient for all useful purposes, and would make them as good scholars as gentlemen or professional men need to be. It is not requisite that every man should make Latin or Greek verses; therefore, a knowledge of prosody beyond the structure of hexameter and pentameter verses is as worthless an acquisition as any which folly or fashion has introduced amongst the higher classes of mankind. It must indeed be acknowledged that there are some rare exceptions; but even party prejudice would allow, that the persons alluded to must have risen to eminence though they had never written sapphics or iambics. Though preceptors, parents, and the public in general, may be convinced of the absurdity of making boys spend so much of life in learning what can be of no use to them; such are the difficulties of making any change in the ancient rules of great establishments, that masters themselves, however reasonable, dare not, and cannot, make sudden alterations.

The only remedies that can be suggested might be, perhaps, to take those boys, who are not intended for professions in which deep scholarship is necessary, away from school before they reach the highest classes, where prosody and Greek and Latin verses are required.

In the college of Dublin, where an admirable course of instruction has been long established, where this course is superintended by men of acknowledged learning and abilities, and pursued by students of uncommon industry, such is the force of example, and such the fear of appearing inferior in trifles to English universities, that much pains have been lately taken to introduce the practice of writing Greek and Latin verses, and

much solicitude has been shown about the prosody of the learned languages, without any attention being paid to the prosody of

our own.

'Boarding houses for the scholars at Eton and Westminster, which are at present mere lodging houses, might be kept by private tutors, who might, during the hours when the boys were not in their public classes, assist them in acquiring general literature, or such knowledge as might be advantageous for their respective professions.

New schools, that are not restricted to any established routine, should give a fair trial to experiments in education, which afford a rational prospect of success. If nothing can be altered in the old schools, leave them as they are. Destroy nothing injure none - but let the public try whether they cannot have something better. If the experiment do not succeed, the public will be convinced that they ought to acquiesce in the established methods of instruction, and parents will send their children to the ancient seminaries with increased confidence.'-(pp. 47—49.)

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We are well aware that nothing very new can remain to be said upon a topic so often debated. The complaints we have to make are at least as old as the time of Locke and Dr. Samuel Clarke; and the evil which is the subject of these complaints has certainly rather increased than diminished since the period of those two great men. hundred years, to be sure, is a very little time for the duration of a national error; and it is so far from being reasonable to look for its decay at so short a date, that it can hardly be expected, within such limits, to have displayed the full bloom of its imbecility.

There are several feelings to which attention must be paid, before the question of classical learning can be fairly and temperately discussed.

We are apt, in the first place, to remember the immense benefits which the study of the classics once conferred on mankind; and to feel for those models on which the taste of Europe has been formed, something like sentiments of gratitude and obligation. This is all well enough, so long as it continues to be a mere feeling; but, as soon as it interferes with action, it nourishes dangerous prejudices about education. Nothing will do

in the pursuit of knowledge but the blackest ingratitude; the moment we have got up the ladder, we must kick it down; as soon as we have passed over the bridge, we must let it rot; - when we have got upon the shoulders of the ancients, we must look over their heads. The man who forgets the friends of his childhood in real life, is base; but he who clings to the props of his childhood in literature, must be content to remain as ignorant as he was when a child. His business is to forget, disown, and deny- to think himself above every thing which has been of use to him in time past and to cultivate that exclusively from which he expects. future advantage: in short, to do every thing for the advancement of his knowledge, which it would be infamous to do for the advancement of his fortune. If mankind still derive advantage from classical literature proportionate to the labour they bestow upon it, let their labour and their study proceed; but the moment we cease to read Latin and Greek for the solid utility we derive from them, it would be a very romantic application of human talents to do so from any feeling of gratitude, and recollection of past service.

To almost every Englishman up to the age of three or four and twenty, classical learning has been the great object of existence; and no man is very apt to suspect, or very much pleased to hear, that what he has done for so long a time was not worth doing. His classical literature, too, reminds every man of the scenes of his childhood, and brings to his fancy several of the most pleasing associations which we are capable of forming. A certain sort of vanity, also, very naturally grows among men occupied in a common pursuit. Classical quotations are the watch-words of scholars, by which they distinguish each other from the ignorant and illiterate; and Greek and Latin are insensibly become almost the only test of a cultivated mind.

Some men through indolence, others through ignorance, and most through necessity, submit to the established education of the times; and seek for their children that species of distinction which happens, at

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the period in which they live, to be stamped with the approbation of mankind. This mere question of convenience every parent must determine for himself. poor man, who has his fortune to gain, must be a quibbling theologian, or a classical pedant, as fashion dictates; and he must vary his error with the error of the times. But it would be much more fortunate for mankind, if the public opinion, which regulates the pursuits of individuals, were more wise and enlightened than it at present is.

All these considerations make it extremely difficult to procure a candid hearing on this question; and to refer this branch of education to the only proper criterion of every branch of education- its utility in future life.

There are two questions which grow out of this subject: 1st, How far is any sort of classical education useful? 2d, How far is that particular classical education, adopted in this country, useful?

Latin and Greek are, in the first place, useful, as they inure children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young student what it ought to be, a life of considerable labour. We do not, of course, mean to confine this praise exclusively to the study of Latin and Greek; or to suppose that other difficulties might not be found which it would be useful to overcome: but though Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and sciences, still they have it; and, if they do nothing else, they at least secure a solid and vigorous application at a period of life which materially influences all other periods.

To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly is of great use for the mastery of every other grammar; because there obtains, through all languages, a certain analogy to each other in their grammatical construction. Latin and Greek have now mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of modern Europe

and with none more than our own; so that it is necessary to read these two tongues for other objects than themselves.

The two ancient languages are as mere inventions—

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