Is it then, when his travels are already begun? And is the sage tutor, your Lordship anxiously flies to, as to some god, on every occasion of distress, to charge himself with the solution of this difficulty? Alas! now it is too late. You have brought the boy into the scene. He will see and judge for himself. The torrent bears him away: the instant impression is too strong to be counteracted by the feeble and, now, disgusting admonitions of a tutor.
See then, if the proper way, to secure him from these inconveniences, be not, To keep him yet at a distance from the world; and, when you let him into some knowledge of it, to do it seasonably, gradually, and circumspectly: to take the veil off from some parts, and leave it still upon others; to paint what he does not see, and to hint at more than you paint: to confine him, at first, to the best company, and prepare him to make allowances even for the best: to preserve in his breast the love of excellence, and encourage in him the generous sentiments, he has so largely imbibed, and so perfectly relishes: yet temper, if you can, his zeal with candour; insinuate to him the prerogative of such a virtue, as his, so early formed, and so happily cultivated; and bend his reluctant spirit to some aptness of pity towards the ill-instructed and the vicious: by degrees to open to him the real condition of that world, to which he is approaching; yet so as to present to him, at the same time, the certain inevitable misery of conforming to it: last of all, to shew him some examples of that vice, which he must learn to bear in others, though detest in himself; to watch the effect these examples have upon him; and, as you find his dispositions incline, to fortify his abhorrence of vice, or excite his commiseration of the vicious: in a word (for I am not now directing a tutor, but suggesting, in very general terms, my ideas of his office) to inform the minds of youth with such gradual intelligence, as may prepare them to see the world without surprize, and live in it without danger.
This is that important chapter, which I presumed to say no institutor of youth had yet composed, or so much as touched upon, in a treatise of education. You will learn from this brief summary of its contents, what, in my opinion, should be the employment of those precious years, which are usually thrown away upon foreign travel.
In earnest, my Lord, there is a fatal mistake in this matter. People speak of a knowledge of the world, as what may be acquired at any time, and, for its importance, cannot be acquired too soon. Alas! they forget, that a long and careful preparation is necessary, before we are qualified so much as to enter on this task; and that they, who are latest in setting out, will arrive the soonest, certainly the safest, at their journey’s end.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
But where shall this mighty work of preparation be carried on? And in what privileged sanctuary shall our good young man be kept from the sight and contagion of this wicked world, and yet be gradually forming for the use and practice of it?
MR. LOCKE.
Where, does your Lordship ask? Why, in his college; in a friend’s, or his father’s house; any where, in short, rather than in a foreign country, where every wholesome restraint is taken off, and the young mind left a prey to every ill impression.
LORD SHAFTESBURY.
And are there no inconveniences, on the other hand, which a provident parent may be supposed to foresee, and may be willing to guard against?