I know where it is the fashion of some schools, to prescribe to a lad, for his evening refreshment, out of COMMENIUS, all the Terms of Art [technical terms] belonging to Anatomy, Mathematics, or some such piece of Learning. Now, is it not a very likely thing, that a lad should take most absolute delight in conquering such a pleasant task; where, perhaps, he has two or three hundred words to keep in mind, with a very small proportion of sense thereunto belonging: whereas the use and full meaning of all those difficult terms would have been most insensibly obtained, by leisurely reading in particular, this or the other science?
Is it not also likely to be very savoury, and of comfortable use to one that can scarce distinguish between Virtue and Vice, to be tasked with high and moral poems? It is usually said by those that are intimately acquainted with him, that HOMER's Iliad and Odyssey contain, mystically, all the Moral Law for certain, if not a great part of the Gospel (I suppose much after that rate that RABELAIS said his Gargantua contained all the Ten Commandments!); but perceivable only to those that have a poetical discerning spirit: with which gift, I suppose, few at school are so early qualified.
Those admirable verses, Sir, of yours, both English and others, which you have sometimes favoured me with a sight of, will not suffer me to be so sottish as to slight and undervalue so great and noble an accomplishment. But the committing of such high and brave sensed poems to a schoolboy (whose main business is to search out cunningly the Antecedent and the Relative; to lie at catch for a spruce Phrase, a Proverb, or a quaint and pithy Sentence) is not only to very little purpose, but that having gargled only those elegant books at school, this serves them instead of reading them afterwards; and does, in a manner, prevent their being further looked into. So that all improvement, whatsoever it be, that may be reaped out of the best and choicest poets, is for the most part utterly lost, in that a time is usually chosen of reading them, when discretion is much wanting to gain thence any true advantage. Thus that admirable and highly useful morality, TULLY's Offices, because it is a book commonly construed at school, is generally afterwards so contemned by Academics, that it is a long hour's work to convince them that it is worthy of being looked into again; because they reckon it as a book read over at school, and, no question! notably digested.
If, therefore the ill methods of schooling do not only occasion a great loss of time there, but also do beget in lads a very odd opinion and apprehension of Learning, and much disposes them to be idle when they are got a little free from the usual severities; and that the hopes of more or less improvement in the Universities very much depend hereupon: it is, without all doubt, the great concernment of all that wish to the Church, that such care and regard be had to the management of schools, that the Clergy be not so much obstructed in their first attempts and preparations to Learning.
I cannot, Sir, possibly be so ignorant as not to consider that what has been now offered upon this argument, has not only been largely insisted on by others; but also refers not particularly to the Clergy (whose welfare and esteem, I seem at present in a special manner solicitous about), but in general to all learned professions, and therefore might reasonably have been omitted: which certainly I had done, had not I called to mind that of those many that propound to themselves Learning for a profession, there is scarce one in ten but that his lot, choice, or necessity determines him to the study of Divinity.
Thus, Sir, I have given you my thoughts concerning the orders and customs of common schools. A consideration, in my apprehension, not slightly to be weighed: being that upon which to me seems very much to depend the learning and wisdom of the Clergy, and the prosperity of the Church.
The next unhappiness that seems to have hindered some of our Clergy from arriving to that degree of understanding that becomes such a holy office, whereby their company and discourses might be much more, than they commonly are, valued and desired, is the inconsiderate sending of all kinds of lads to the Universities; let their parts be ever so low and pitiful, the instructions they have lain under ever so mean and contemptible, and the purses of their friends ever so short to maintain them there. If they have but the commendation of some lamentable and pitiful Construing Master, it passes for sufficient evidence that they will prove persons very eminent in the Church. That is to say, if a lad has but a lusty and well bearing memory, this being the usual and almost only thing whereby they judge of their abilities; if he can sing over very tunably three or four stanzas of LILLY's Poetry; be very quick and ready to tell what is Latin for all the instruments belonging to his father's shop; if presently [at sight], upon the first scanning, he knows a Spondee from a Dactyl, and can fit a few of those same, without any sense, to his fingers' ends; if, lastly, he can say perfectly by heart his Academic Catechism, in pure and passing Latin, i.e., "What is his Name?" "Where went he to School?" and "What author is he best and chiefly skilled in?" "A forward boy!" cries the Schoolmaster: "a very pregnant child! Ten thousand pities, but he should be a Scholar; he proves a brave Clergyman, I'll warrant you!"
Away to the University he must needs go! Then for a little Logic, a little Ethics, and, GOD knows! a very little of everything else! And the next time you meet him, he is in the pulpit!
Neither ought the mischief which arises from small country schools to pass unconsidered. The little mighty Governors whereof, having, for the most part, not sucked in above six or seven mouthsful of University air, must yet, by all means, suppose themselves so notably furnished with all sorts of instructions, and are so ambitious of the glory of being counted able to send forth, now and then, to Oxford or Cambridge, from the little house by the Churchyard's side, one of their ill-educated disciples, that to such as these ofttimes is committed the guidance and instruction of a whole parish: whose parts and improvements duly considered, will scarce render them fit Governors of a small Grammar Castle.
Not that it is necessary to believe, that there never was a learned or useful person in the Church, but such whose education had been at Westminster or St. Paul's. But, whereas most of the small schools, being by their first founders designed only for the advantage of poor parish children, and also that the stipend is usually so small and discouraging that very few who can do much more than teach to write and read, will accept of such preferment: for these to pretend to rig out their small ones for a University life, proves ofttimes a very great inconvenience and damage to the Church.