MR. LOCKE.
I understand your Lordship. I know, that, for want of better arguments in support of this foreign breeding, weak or unworthy parents are ready to take up with such as these:
They tell us, especially if of rank and quality, that their children have suffered more than enough already, in their passage through our public and vulgar schools; that, together with many illiberal habits, they have contracted many low and illiberal friendships, which are, in all reason, to be shaken off; that these unworthy companions follow them to the University, and are, if not the bane, yet the dishonour and incumbrance of their future lives; that an absence of some years abroad loosens these hasty and ill-timed connexions; and leaves them, on their return, at full liberty to contract others, more suitable to their birth and quality, and more conducive to their views of fortune, as well as of reputation, in the world; that indeed they might remove the young man immediately from his school into their own house; but that much of their time is necessarily spent in the metropolis, the licence of which is not to be guarded against by any care of their own, or of the best governor; that his low illiberal acquaintance would haunt him even there; at least, that the youth of his own age and rank would naturally flock about him, and, under a thousand pretences of civility or amusement, engage him in all the follies, and perhaps the vices, of this great town; that, on the whole, his only refuge from these mischiefs is in the way of foreign travel; whence, at length, he may return in riper age and with better judgement to take his station in the world.
To this popular talk (which your Lordship, I suppose, glanced at, but would not condescend to enforce directly) it is enough to reply, that part of the inconveniences, here enumerated, are feigned at pleasure, and the rest exaggerated; that the authority of a father, if he deserve that name, in concurrence with honest friends and an ordinary governor, will prevent them all, or at least palliate them; and that, to take matters at the worst, his son will be exposed to still greater inconveniences any where else. But in truth I cannot see, if a college be excepted against, and the business be to see the world, as it is called, why London should not be esteemed as fit a scene for the purpose, as any other great town in Europe. I think it contains as much good company as any other; and I doubt whether it be more licentious; or, if it be, there are three restraints upon it, which, I am sure, will not be found abroad: I mean, “the parental authority;” “domestic government;” and “a regard to reputation, under the eye and notice of his friends.”
So that, in every view, whether on your Lordship’s plan, of entering directly on the great study of the world, or on mine, of only preparing for it, our young man cannot possibly do better, at his years, than stay at home; where, if your Lordship please, we will then leave him; at least, till we have tried the force of your next, and, as I remember, LAST argument in behalf of foreign travel, “which arose out of the mighty benefits, supposed to attend the study and cultivation of what are called the FINE ARTS; in short, from the lustre and importance of the virtuoso character.”
Your Lordship, who has so acknowledged a taste in these things, and of course has so exquisite a sense of their value, may be excused for enlarging so particularly on this head. But to me, who am of a plainer make and cooler disposition, they appear, if not frivolous, yet of little importance, when compared with those other things, which are the proper and more immediate objects of education.
It would, I doubt, disgust your Lordship, should I speak my mind freely of them; or even insinuate, that I take these studies, when entered upon in early youth, and proposed as matters of serious pursuit and application, to have indeed the most pernicious tendency; as breaking the nerves and force of the mind, and inspiring I know not what of a trifling and superfluous vanity.
To render these pursuits serviceable in any degree, or even harmless, they should in all reason be postponed to riper years, when the confirmed judgment will of course take them but for what they are, for nothing more than elegant and polite amusements.
Not to insist, that to excel in this species of taste, as in all others, a previous foundation is required, of reflexion and good sense: for I agree with your favourite poet; of every polite study and indulgence even of the imagination,
Sapere, est et principium et fons.