A tour through Holland

by Sir John Carr

To the choirs of this cathedral, the scholars of the charity schools of the city, attended by their masters and professors, repair twice a year to undergo a public examination, in the presence of the principal officers of the state resident in the city, who are distinguished for their learning, attended by some of the clergy. The rector, or first professor, opens the meeting with a short speech in praise of Literature and the Civil Magistracy: such of the pupils as are about to remove to the university, pronounce an oration in praise of some illustrious prince, or of Erasmus; on the dignity, ornament, and utility of sound learning to a state; in praise of commerce and industry; on the baneful consequence of passion and indolence; on fortitude, patience, concord, and other moral virtues; they then conclude with a compliment to their masters for their care of them, and to the magistrates for honouring them with their presence; and finally, take leave of their school-fellows, whom they exhort to pursue their studies indefatigably, and to live in amity with each other.

The principal magistrates then present each of them with some classical author, superbly bound and gilt: the juniors, who are to remove to the higher classes, then come forward, and compliment the magistrates and their masters in a sentence or two either of verse or prose. The effect of this ceremony is increased by the organ playing at its commencement and close.

The reader will, I am sure, be gratified with this brief description of a plan so generative of every good to the nation which adopts it. Children, as soon as they can think, discover that they are the peculiar care of their country; they are taught to respect its laws, and by descanting upon, to imitate its most shining examples, and to repay the paternal solicitude of the government, by becoming useful or ornamental members of its community.

Amidst the political storms which have agitated Holland for so many years, more fatal to its prosperity than those of the ocean, in which it almost appears to float, education has never been neglected: to bestow upon his children decent and useful instruction, has ever formed the anxious care of the Hollander: he feels that whilst he trains their minds to habits of investigation and industry, he secures to them, under any form of government, the sources of support and advancement.

This general diffusion of useful instruction made Holland what she was in the most shining periods of her history, and whenever its enlightening influence shall cease to be felt, as a commercial country she must decline.

The very few instances of cruelty which occurred in Holland during the late revolution, have been very justly attributed to the happy effects of education. Whenever any disposition to severity evinced itself, an appeal to reason and humanity inclined it to forgive: a memorable proof of this statement will hereafter appear in the account of some of the revolutionary movements which occurred at Amsterdam.

Even an English merchant would be astonished to see the wonderful arithmetical attainment of stripling clerks in any of the Dutch compting-houses, and the quantity of complicated business which they discharge in the course of the day, the order of their books, the rapidity and certainty of their calculation, according to the commercial habits and exchange of different countries, and the variety of languages which they speak; to which may be added, the great regularity and length of their attendance, and the decency and propriety of their deportment.

With proper modifications, what an example for our own government, with respect to the sister kingdom, does Holland present! And here I cannot but lament my inability to do justice to the illustrious nobleman, to whose care his majesty has with sound wisdom and discrimination committed the administration of his government in Ireland. In his Grace the Duke of Bedford, that unhappy and long neglected island has found an able, zealous, and resolute friend and patron; who, shunning every ostentatious display, and almost the eye of observation, has conferred upon that country the salutary benefits of those measures which do honour to the christian, the statesman, and the governor.

To this nobleman, and to Lord Somerville, the British nation is indebted for having discerned the utility, and encouraged the progress of a system of education, which has entirely originated from the benevolent zeal and ability of Mr. Lancaster, a member of a religious community long known, as well for the purity of their minds as for the simplicity of their dress and deportment, who, after many arduous experiments, has matured a plan by which one thousand poor children may be taught and governed by one master, for the trifling expense of five shillings per annum for each child: a plan which is eminently honourable to its meritorious discoverer, and promises fair to effect an incalculable amelioration in the habits and condition of the rising generation.

We are not allowed upon the continent to be a people of much creative faculty, but this plan is solely of British growth, and till lately wholly unknown to political economists of every other country. This cheap and efficacious system, which has received, to their lasting honour, the cordial approbation and support of their Majesties and the Royal Family, his Grace the Duke of Bedford is anxious to introduce into Ireland, wholly free from religious proselytism, and which would powerfully accelerate those comprehensive and enlightened measures, to which another great friend to Ireland has, with uncommon promptitude and assiduity, obtained the assent of the imperial parliament; I allude to that amiable and able statesman Sir John Newport, the present chancellor of the exchequer of Ireland.