[XX. THE EDUCATION OF AN HEIR]
[No. 123. Saturday, July 21, 1711. Addison.]
Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam,
Rectique cultus pectora roborant:
Utcunque defecere mores,
Dedecorant bene nata culpae.
Hor.
As I was yesterday taking the air with my friend Sir Roger, we were met by a fresh-coloured, ruddy young man, who rid by us full speed, with a couple of servants behind him. Upon my inquiry who he was, Sir Roger told me {15} that he was a young gentleman of a considerable estate, who had been educated by a tender mother, that lives not many miles from the place where we were. She is a very good lady, says my friend, but took so much care of her son's health, that she has made him good for nothing. She quickly found that reading was bad for his eyes, and that writing made his head ache. He was let loose {[5]} among the woods as soon as he was able to ride on horse-back, or to carry a gun upon his shoulder. To be brief, I found by my friend's account of him, that he had got a great stock of health, but nothing else; and that, if it were a man's business only to live, there would not be a {10} more accomplished young fellow in the whole country.
The truth of it is, since my residing in these parts I have seen and heard innumerable instances of young heirs and elder brothers who—either from their own reflecting upon the estates they are born to, and therefore {15} thinking all other accomplishments unnecessary; or from hearing these notions frequently inculcated to them by the flattery of their servants and domestics; or from the same foolish thought prevailing in those who have the care of their education—are of no manner of use but to keep {20} up their families, and transmit their lands and houses in a line to posterity.