matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of the two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both."

Going in a boat from the Temple to Greenwich, Boswell asked Dr. Johnson if he really thought a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages an essential requisite to a good education. JOHNSON. "Most certainly, sir; for those who know them have a very great advantage cver those who do not. Nay, sir, it is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the commor interccurse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it." BOSWELL. "And yet people go through the world very well, and carry on the business of life to good advantage, without learning." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly be of any use; for instance, this boy rows us as well without learning as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Argonauts, who were the first sailors." He then called to the boy, "What would you give, my lad, to know about the Argonauts ?" "Sir," said the boy, "I would give what I have." Johnson was much pleased with his answer, and we gave him a double fare. Then turning to Boswell, he explained, "Sir, a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge."

Of Garrick he said: "He has not Latin enough. He finds out the Latin by the meaning rather than the meaning by the Latin."

He once remarked he had known several good scholars among the Irish gentlemen, but scarcely any of them. correct in quantity; and he extended the same observation to Scotland.

Of a schoolmaster of his acquaintance, a native of Scotland, he said: "He has a great deal of good about him; but he is also

very defective in some respects. His inner part is good, but his outer part is mighty awkward. You in Scotland do not attain that nice critical skill in languages which we get in our schools in England. I would not put a boy to him, whom I intended for a man of learning: but for the sons of citizens, who are to learn a little, get good morals, and then go to trade, he may do very well."

Boswell once asked him whether a person, whose name he had then forgotten, studied hard. He answered: "No, sir, I do not believe he studied hard. I never knew a man who studied hard. I conclude, indeed, from the effects, that some men have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke."

Idleness, he observed, “is a disease that must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge."

For general improvement a man, he said, "should read whatever his immediate inclination prompts him to ; though to be sure, if a man has a science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. What we read with inclination makes a stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention, so there is but half to be employed on what we read. I read Fielding's Amelia through, without stopping.* If a man begins to read in the middle of

* Johnson appears to have been particularly pleased with the character of the heroine of this novel. "His attention to veracity," says Mrs. Piozzi, "was without equal or example; and when I mentioned Clarissa as a perfect character, 'On the contrary,' said he, 'you may observe there is always something which she prefers to truth.' 'Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances,' he said, 'but that vile broken nose, never cured, ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, which being printed off [published] betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night."

a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. Perhaps he may not again feel the inclination."

Of application he remarked: “Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now. My judgment, to be sure, was not so good; but I had all the facts. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for, when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task." And, on another occasion: "Much may be done if a man puts his whole mind to a particular object. By so doing, Sir Fletcher Norton has made himself the great lawyer he is allowed to be."

A schoolmaster in Scotland was, by a Court of inferior jurisdiction, deprived of his office for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars. The Court of Session, considering it to be dangerous to the interest of learning and education to lessen the dignity of teachers and make them afraid of too indulgent parents, instigated by the complaints of their children, restored him. His enemies appealed to the House of Lords, though the salary was only twenty pounds a year.

Boswell was the schoolmaster's counsel on the occasion, and wrote to Dr. Johnson on the subject. On his arrival in London, the doctor received him with a hearty welcome; saying, “I am glad you are come upon such an errand:" alluding to the cause of the schoolmaster. BosWELL. "I hope, sir, he will be in no danger. It is a very delicate matter to interfere between a master and his scholars; nor do I see how you can fix the degree of severity that a master may use." JOHNSON. "Why sir, till you can fix the degree of obstinacy and negligence of the scholars, you cannot fix the degree of severity of the master.

* His great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of eighteen, as he told Langton, who communicated the information to Malone.

Severity must be continued till obstinacy be subdued, and negligence be cured." On a subsequent day he dictated the following series of arguments on the subject:

"The charge is, that he has used immoderate and cruel correction. Correction, in itself, is not cruel : children, being not reasonable, can be governed only by fear. To impress this fear is therefore one of the first duties of those who have the care of children. It is the duty of a parent, and has never been thought inconsistent with parental tenderness. It is the duty of a master, who is in his highest exaltation when he is loco parentis. Yet, as good things become evil by excess, correction, by being immoderate, may become cruel. But when is correction immoderate? When it is more frequent or more severe than is required ad monendum et docendum, for reformation and instruction. No severity is cruel, which obstinacy makes necessary; for the greatest cruelty would be to desist, and leave the scholar too careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof. Locke, in his treatise of Education, mentions, with applause, a mother who whipped an infant eight times before she had subdued it; for had she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he, would have been ruined. The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very different: as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A stubborn scholar must be corrected till he is subdued. The discipline of a school is military. There must be either unbounded licence or absolute authority. The master who punishes, not only consults the future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction, but he propagates obedience through the whole school; and establishes regularity by exemplary justice. The victorious obstinacy of a single boy would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction totally ineffectual. Obstinacy, therefore, must never be victorious. Yet it is well known that there sometimes occurs a sullen and hardy resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids defiance to all common degrees

It

of pain. Correction must be proportioned to occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of scholastic, as of military, punishment no stated rules can ascertain. must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness becomes flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have, indeed, set some bounds to scholastic penalties. The schoolmaster inflicts no capital punishments, nor enforces his edicts by either death or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined that a master who strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as criminal. But punishments, however severe, that produce no lasting evil, may be just and reasonable, because they may be necessary. Such have been the punishments used by the respondent. No scholar has gone from him either blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired. They were irregular, and he punished them: they were obstinate, and he enforced his punishment. But, however provoked, he never exceeded the limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain; and how much of that was required no man is so little able to determine as those who have determined against him-the parents of the offenders. It has been said that he used unprecedented and improper instruments of correction. Of this accusation the meaning is not very easy to be found. No instrument of correction is more proper than another, but as it is better adapted to produce present pain without lasting mischief. Whatever were his instruments, no

lasting mischief has ensued; and therefore, however unusual, in hands so cautious they were proper. It has been objected that the respondent admits the charge of cruelty, by producing no evidence to confute it. Let it be considered that his scholars are either dispersed at large in the world, or continue to inhabit the place in which they were bred. Those who are dispersed cannot be found; those who remain are the sons of his prosecutors, and are not likely to support a man to whom their