THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH.

BY CHARLES ROLLIN,

Principal of the University of Paris, Professor of Eloquence in the Royal College, etc.

INTRODUCTION.

This introduction will contain two articles. In the first I shall show the importance of the good education of youth. In the second I shall inquire whether public instruction is preferable to private.

1. Importance of Good Education.

The education of youth has been ever considered by the great philosophers and the most famous lawgivers as the most certain source of the tranquility and happiness, both of private families and of states and empires. For what else, in short, is a republic or kingdom but a large body, whose health and strength depend upon the like circumstances of private families which are the members and parts of it, and none of which can fail in the discharge of their function but the whole body must suffer for it? Now what is it but good education which enables all the citizens and great men, and princes above the rest, to perform their different functions in a deserving manner? Is it not evident that youth are as the nursery of the state? That it is renewed and perpetuated by them? That from among them all the fathers of families, all magis trates and ministers; in a word, all persons placed in authority and power are taken? And is it not certain that the good education of those who are one day to fill those places will have an influence over the whole body of the state, and become, in a manner, the spirit and general character of the whole nation?

The laws, indeed, are the foundation of empires, and by preserving a regularity and good order in them, they keep them in peace and tranquility. But whence have the laws themselves that force and vigor, but from good education, which trains up men in subjection to them, without which they are but a feeble barrier against the passions of mankind?

Quid leges sine moribus vanæ proficiunt ? *

Plutarch makes a judicious reflection on this subject which well deserves to be considered: 'Tis in speaking of Lycurgus. "This wise lawgiver," says he, "did not think it convenient to set down his laws in writing, as judging that the strongest and most effectual means of making cities happy and people virtuous, was the impression that was *Horat. Od. xxv. lib. 3. + In vit. Lycurg.

Arist. lib. 5, v. Polit. cap. 9.

made in the manners of the citizens, and rendered familiar and easy to them by custom and habit. For the principles which education has engraven in their minds continue firm and unshaken, as being founded upon an inward conviction, and even upon the will, which is always a much stronger and more lasting tie than that of force; insomuch that this education becomes the rule of youth, and serves them instead of a lawgiver." Here we have the justest notion that can be given of the difference there is between the laws and education.

The law, when it stands alone, is a severe and imperious mistress, άváyκŋ, which lays a man under restraint in what he holds most dear, and whereof he is most jealous, I mean his liberty; which torments and contradicts him in everything, is deaf to his remonstrances and desires, never yields to any relaxation, speaks always in a threatening tone, and presents him only with correction. Thus it is not surprising that men should shake off this yoke as soon as ever they can without punishment, and that, giving ear no longer to its troublesome directions, they should give themselves up to follow their natural inclinations, which the law had only restrained without changing or destroying them.

But the case is far otherwise with education. "Tis a mistress that is gentle and engaging, an enemy to violence and constraint, which loves only to act by motives of persuasion, which endeavors to make its instructions relished, by speaking always with reason and truth, and tends only to make virtue more easy by making it more amiable. Its lectures, which begin almost as soon as the child is born, grow up and gather strength with it, in time take deep root, soon pass from the memory and understanding to the heart, are daily imprinted in his manners, by practice and habit become a second nature in him, which is scarce possible to be changed, and do the office of a present legislator all the rest of his life, putting him in mind of his duty upon every occasion, and engaging him to the practice of it. 'II raidevais voμobétw διάθεσιν ἀπεργάζεται περὶ ἕκαστον αὐτῶν.

We must not wonder, after this, that the ancients have recommended the education of youth with so much care, and looked upon it as the surest means of making an empire stable and flourishing. It was a capital maxim with them that children are more the property of the republic than of their parents;* and that thus their education should not be given up to their fancies, but be intrusted to the care of the republic; that for this reason children ought to be brought up, not in private and in their fathers' houses, but in public, by common masters, and under the same discipline, that they may be early inspired with a love for their country, respect for its laws and relish for the principles and maxims of the state wherein they are to live. For every kind of government has its peculiar genius. The spirit and character of a republic is very different from that of a monarchy. Now this spirit and character are only to be imbibed by the appropriate education of children.

It is in consequence of the principles I have laid down, that Lycurgus,

Arist. Polit. lib. 8, cap. 1.

Plato, Aristotle, and, in a word, all that have left us any rules of government, have declared that the principal and most essential duty of a magistrate, a minister, a lawgiver, and a prince, is to watch over the good education, first of their own children, who often succeed in their stead, and then of the citizens in general who form the body of the republic; and they observe that the whole uisorder of states arises only from the negligence of this twofold duty.

Plato* quotes an illustrious example of it in the person of the famous Cyrus, the most accomplished prince we read of in ancient history. He wanted none of the talents which were requisite to make a great man, excepting that we are here speaking of. Being wholly taken up with his conquests, he intrusted the education of his children with the women. These young princes were therefore brought up, not after the rough and severe discipline of the Persians, which had so well succeeded in Cyrus their father, but after the manner of the Medes; that is, in luxury, softness, and pleasures. Nobody ventured to contradict them in anything. Their ears were open only to praise and flattery; everything bent their knee and bowed low before them. And it was thought to become their grandeur to put an infinite distance between them and the rest of mankind, as though they had been of a different species from them. "Such an education, so remote from all reproof and education, had," says Plato, "the success which was to be expected from it. The two princes, presently after the death of Cyrus, took up arms against each other, as not being able to bear either a superior or an equal; and Cambyses, grown absolute master by the death of his brother, ran furiously into all sorts of excess, and reduced the Persian empire to the brink of ruin. Cyrus left him a vast extent of provinces, immense revenues, and armies without number; but all this turned to his ruin, for want of another benefit far more valuable, which he neglected to leave him,-I mean a good education.

This judicious remark of Plato concerning Cyrus entirely escaped me in reading the history of him by Xenophon. Nor did I reflect that this historian is absolutely silent upon the education of this prince's children, whereas, he largely describes the excellent manner in which the Persian youth were brought up, and Cyrus himself amongst the rest, 'Tis the greatest fault a prince can be guilty of,

Philip, king of Macedon, behaved in a very different manner. Upon the birth of his son, when engaged in the midst of his conquests and at the time of his greatest achievements, he wrote Aristotle the following letter: "I give you notice that I have a son born to me, but I am not so much obliged to the gods for his birth, as for the happiness that he has come into the world whilst there is an Aristotle living. For I hope that, being brought up under your direction and by your care, , he may deserve the glory of his father and the empire which I shall leave him." This was talking and thinking like a great prince who was thoroughly acquainted with the importance of a good education. Alexander had

Plat. lib. 3, de leg.

+ Aul. Gel. lib. 9, cap. 3.

the same sentiments. An historian observes that he loved Aristotle no less than his own father because, he said, he was indebted to the one for living, and the other for living well.

If it is a great fault in a prince not to take care of the education of his own children, it is no less blamable to accept that of the citizens in general. Plutarch very judiciously observes in the parallel he draws between Lycurgus and Numa, that it was a like negligence which rendered all the good designs and great intuitions of the latter useless. The passage is very remarkable. "All the labor of Numa," says he, * who took pains only to maintain the peace and tranquillity of Rome, vanished with him; and he was no sooner dead than the temple of Janus, which he had constantly kept shut as if he had really held there the demon of war confined in chains, was immediately opened again, and all Italy filled with blood and slaughter. Thus the most beautiful and best of his institutions was but of short continuance, as it wanted the sole tie capable of maintaining it, which was the education of youth.

It was the opposite conduct which so long preserved the laws of Lycurgus in full force. For, "as the same Plutarch observes, the religion of an oath which he required of the Lacedæmonians would have been a feeble support after his death, if by education he had not imprinted the laws in their manners. It had made them suck in the love of his form of government almost with their milk, by making it in a manner familiar and natural to them. Thus we see the principal of his ordinances were kept for above five hundred years like a good and a strong dye which had penetrated the very substance of the soul."

All these great men of antiquity were therefore persuaded, as Plutarch observes of Lycurgus in particular, that the most essential duty of a lawgiver, and so of a prince, was to establish good rules for the education of youth, and to see that they were exactly observed. It is surprising to see how far they carried their care and watchfulness upon this point. They advised to use precautions in the choice of such persons as were to take care of children from their very birth, and it is plain that Quintilian has taken what he has said upon this subject from Plato and Aristotle, especially in what relates to nurses. He requires, with those wise philosophers, that in the choice that is made of them, care should not only be taken that they had no bad ways of speaking, but, withal, that a special regard should be had to their manners and disposition; and the reason he gives for it is admirable.* "For what is learnt," says he, “at that age is easily imprinted in the mind, and leaves deep marks behind it which are not easily to be obliterated. As in the case of a vessel, which long preserves a tincture of the first liquor that was poured into it; and like wool, which can never recover its first whiteness after it has been once dyed, and the misfortune is that bad habits last longer than good ones."

"Tis for the same reason, that these philosophers look upon it as one of the most essential duties of those who are entrusted with the education

* Quint. lib. 1, c. 1.

of children, to remove from them, as far as possible, the slaves and domestics, whose discourses and examples may be predudicial to them.*

To this they add a piece of advice which will condemn a great many Christian fathers and masters. They require that not only the boys should be disallowed to read any comedies or be present at any theatrical show before they arrive at a certain age, but that all pictures, sculptures, or tapestry, which may lay any indecent and dangerous image before the eyes of their children, should be absolutely banished their cities. They desire that the magistrates should carefully watch over the execution of this ordinance, and that they should oblige the workmen, even such as were most industrious, who refused to submit to it, to carry their fatal skill to some other place. They were persuaded that from such objects as these, that were adapted to flatter the passions and feed the desire, there arose a kind of contagion and pestilential air that was at length indefinably capable of infecting the masters themselves who breathe it every moment without fear and precaution, and that these objects were like so many poisoned flowers which exhale a deadly odor, that was the more to be feared as it was the less distrusted and even appeared agreeable. These wise philosophers require, on the other hand, that everything in a city should teach and inspire virtue -inscriptions, pictures, statues, plays, and conversations-and that from everything that is presented to the senses and strike the eyes and ears, there should be formed a kind of salutary air and breath which should imperceptibly insinuate itself into the souls of the children, and aided and assisted by the instruction of the master, should incline them from their tenderest years to the love of probity and a regard for honesty. There is a beauty and delicacy in the original expression which no other language is capable of, and though this passage be somewhat long, I have thought proper to quote a greater part of it to give some idea of Plato's style.

I shall now return to my subject, and conclude this first article with desiring the reader to consider how the pagans themselves ever looked upon the care of the education of the children as the most essential duty of parents, magistrates, and princes, as it is of last importance for all the rest of their lives to have good principles instilled into them from the beginning. In short, where their minds are yet tender and flexible, they may be turned and managed as we please, whereas, age and long habit will make faults almost incorrigible. Frangas enim citius quam corrigas, quæ in pravum induruerunt.‡

2. Relative Value of Public and Private Instruction. During the whole time I have been engaged in the education of youth, being thoroughly sensible of the dangers which occur both in privatė houses and great schools, I have never presumed to give advice upon this subject, and have ever been content with applying myself as carefully as I could to the instruction of the boys which Divine Providence committed * Arist. Polit. lib. 7, c. 17. + Piut. lib. 3, de Rep.

§ Quintil. lib. 1, cap. 3.