I have ever thought that advice to the young, unaccompanied by the routine of honest employments, is like an attempt to make a shrub grow in a certain direction, by blowing it with a bellows. The way to regulate the growth of a vegetable is to confine it to the proposed direction. The only effectual method perhaps is to keep young persons from childhood busy in some employment of use and reputation. It is very immaterial what that employment is; the mind will grow in the direction given it at first; it will bend and attach itself to the business, and will not easily lose that bent or attachment afterwards: The mind will attach itself to something; its natural disposition is to pleasure and amusement. This disposition may be changed or overcome by keeping the mind, from early life, busy in some useful occupation, and perhaps by nothing else. Advice will not produce the effect.
I suspect, Sir, that your young friend has been bred a trifler; that he has had money to support him without the labor of acquiring it; that he has never been anxious about his future subsistence. If so, his education must be pronounced erroneous. Whether worth twenty pounds or twenty thousand, it should make no difference in his attention to business while young. We are the creatures of habit; a habit of acquiring property should always precede the use of it, otherwise it will not be used with credit and advantage. Besides, business is almost the only security we have for moral rectitude and for consequence in society. It keeps a young person out of vicious company; it operates as a constant check upon the passions, and while it does not destroy them, it restrains their intemperance; it strengthens the mind by exercise, and puts a young person upon exerting his reasoning faculties. In short, a man bred to business loves society, and feels the importance of the principles that support it. On the other hand, mankind respect him; and whatever your young friend may think of the assertion, it is true that the ladies uniformly despise a man who is always dangling at their apron strings, and whose principal excellence consists in singing a good song.
If, Sir, your friend is still so young, as to undergo the discipline of a professional or other employment, his habits of trifling may be changed by this means; but if he is so far the gentleman as to disdain business, his friends have only to whistle advice in his ears, and wait till old age, experience, and the death of his passions, shall change the man.
Accept of my thanks, Sir, for this communication, and be assured that my opinion on any subject of this kind will always be at your service.
E.
No. XXIII.
BOSTON, MARCH, 1789.
An Enquiry into the Origin of the Words DOMESDAY, PARISH, PARLIAMENT, PEER, BARON; with Remarks, New and Interesting.
In the course of my etymological investigations, I hav been led to suspect that all the writers on the laws and constitution of England, hav mistaken the origin and primitiv signification of several words of high antiquity, and in consequence of the mistake, hav adopted some erroneous opinions, respecting the history of parliaments and trial by peers. Whether my own opinions are wel supported by history and etymology, must be hereafter decided by able and impartial judges of this subject.