And, if there be use and value in such things, how shall our ingenuous youth be tinctured with a right sense of them, but by early and well-conducted travel? For what discipline, what examples, what encouragements, have we at home? what academies for the genteel exercises? what conferences for the improvement of art or language? what societies for the cultivation of the liberal character?
The contemplation of these defects carries me still further; to the source and fountain of them all, which I make no scruple to lay open to you.
“Time was, Sir, when philosophy herself could appear with grace even in courts, when the great and noble, nay and princes themselves, were not ashamed to be of her train, but frequented her studious schools and walks, and were even ambitious of her company in their hours of leisure and recreation.
See now to what unpractised cells and ignoble societies she is degraded! her graceful form faded and shrunk; her ingenuous sprightly air deadened into I know not what gloom and austerity of the cloyster.
You, who have done more than any other, to retrieve her credit and bring her back to the world, can best tell her present degenerate condition. You know where she lies, unapproached by her former suitors; her liberal manner soured into disdain and hate; her persuasive voice, which spoke the language of the Gods, broken into untuned numbers and discordant harshness; and her very sense corrupted into empty sophisms and unintelligible jargon. The Graces, those companions of her better days, are all fled: and in their room, a riotous band of fauns and satyrs dance around her. Yet still she assumes a sort of mock-sovereignty; and, under the new name of Genius of the Schools, presides, in sullen majesty, over her numerous, servile, awe-struck votaries.”
In some such way as this, were I at liberty to pursue the figured speech, and to adopt the higher tone of the ancient masters, would I presume to represent the present state of Erudition, as we see it managed in certain sublime seats and authorized nurseries amongst us.
And would you invite our liberal and noble youth to resort thither? could you expect that their free spirits would stoop to be lectured by bearded boys; or that their minds could ever be formed and tutored by such pedants, in a way that fits them for the real practice of the world and of mankind?
Have we not long enough submitted to the inconveniencies of this monkish education? Look on the generality of those persons who have had their breeding in those seminaries. What principles in morals, in government, in religion, have sprouted thence! what dispositions have we known corrupted by their discipline! what understandings perverted by their servile and false systems! Has truth, or liberty, or reason, fair play from that quarter? Nay, has not truth, and liberty, and reason, though speaking by ONE of their own sons, been calumniated and rejected! In a word, have they not always set themselves to obstruct the progress of true knowledge, and the cause of freedom?
If such then be the state of our own seats of literature and education, what more needs be alleged in the behalf of Foreign Travel; which is the only means left to remedy these mischiefs, or at least to palliate and correct them?