*Had we continued perfect, as God created the first man, perhaps the perfection of our nature had been a sufficient self-instruction for every one. But as sickness and diseases have created the necessity of medicines and physicians, so the disorder of our rational nature has introduced the necessity of education and tutors.
*And as the only end of the physician is, to restore nature to its own state; so the only end of education is, to restore our rational nature to its proper state. Education therefore is to be considered as reason borrowed at second hand, which is, as far as it can, to supply the loss of original perfection. And as physic may justly be called the art of restoring health, so education should be considered in no other light, than as the art of recovering to man the use of his reason.
2. Now as the instruction of every art or science is founded upon the wisdom, experience, and maxims of the several great men that have laboured in it; so that right use of our reason, which young people should be called to by their education, is nothing but the best experience, and finest reasonings of men, that have devoted themselves to the improvement of human nature.
All therefore that great saints and dying men, when the fullest light and conviction, and after the highest improvement of their reason, have said of the necessity of piety, of the excellency of virtue, of the emptiness of riches, of the vanity of the world; all the sentences, judgments, reasonings and maxims of the wisest philosophers, when in their highest state of wisdom, should constitute the common lessons of instruction for youthful minds.
This is the only way to make the young and ignorant part of the world the better for the wisdom and knowledge of the wise and ancient.
3. *The youths that attended upon Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and Epictetus, were thus educated. Their every day lessons and instructions were so many lectures upon the nature of man, his true end, and the right use of his faculties; upon the immortality of the soul, its relation to God, the beauty of virtue, and its agreeableness to the divine nature; upon the necessity of temperance, fortitude, and generosity, and the shame and folly of indulging our passions.
*Now as Christianity has, as it were, new-created the moral and religious world, and set every thing that is reasonable, wise, holy and desirable, in its true point of light: so one would expect, that the education of youth should be as much bettered and amended by Christianity, as the doctrines of religion are amended by it.
*As it has introduced a new state of things, and so fully informed us of the nature of man, and the end of his creation; as it has fixed all our goods and evils, taught us the means of purifying our souls, pleasing God, and becoming eternally happy; one might naturally suppose, that every Christian country abounded with schools, not only for teaching a few questions and answers of a catechism, but for the forming, training and practising youths in such a course of life, as the highest precepts, the strictest rules, and the sublimest doctrines of Christianity require.
4. *An education under Pythagoras, or Socrates, had no other end, but to teach youth to think, judge, and act as Pythagoras and Socrates used.
And is it not as reasonable to suppose, that a Christian education should have no other end, but to teach youth how to think, and judge, and act according to the strictest laws of Christianity?