THE ENGLISH REVIEW, For DECEMBER 1789, ART. I. Lectures on Education, read to a Society for promoting reasonable and humane Improvements in the Difcipline and Inftruction of Youth. By the Rev. David Williams. 8vo. 3 vols. 15s. boards. Be!l. London, 1789. TH HAT a fubject fo interefting to man as the improvement of his moral ftate by the culture and direction of his talents and propenfities, fhould draw forth an unwearied fucceffion of endeavours to illuftrate it with new arguments and fresh experiments, is a confequence both natural and advantageous. For how little foever particular plans and propofitions may tend directly and intrinfically to promote the end in view, yet every new fpeculation that is laid before us, with fome exceptions, of which we shall presently make mention, demonftrates that it is ftill an object of public care and solicitude, excites in the breafts of the community a general ardour for the cause, and gives a fort of fashion to fentiments that must, for the most part, terminate in fome benefit to humanity, however capricioufly directed by the defects of judgment, and the illufions of imagination. It is plain, however, that no collateral advantages can weigh against the injury refulting from any attempt to relax our motives to care and circumfpection, by propagating abfurd notions refpecting the efficacy of unaffifted nature, or a contrary perfuafion of the incorrigible depravity of the human. ENG. REV. VOL. XIV. DEC. 1789. Cc heart; heart; nor ought we to regard without abhorrence any corrupt endeavours to loofen the foundations of morality by pretending to teach it feparately from religion. Taking up the subject in a general view, it may be doubted whether any confiderable improvements have obtained in our practice at this advanced period, in comparison of former ages, of ages lefs favoured by the influence of religion and philofophy. Thefe confiderations lead us to conclude that fome radical and univerfal defect must have entered into all our schemes and plans for this purpose, to disappoint the tendency of such an accumulation of excellent advice, that appeals to every man's experience, and is connected with every man's intereft. The great advantages held out to us by many of these proposals must be felt by all, and none can deny the powerful recommendations to notice which most of them poffefs, if their parts be separately attended to; but when, with that avidity which is fo natural to human reason, we aim at embracing the whole system, we find all our efforts to reduce it to practice attended with provoking disappointments, and followed by defpair and mortification. Thofe particular parts which, when separately viewed, produced in our minds conviction and regard, when confidered with a reference to the whole, put on an appearance of difproportion and deformity, we wonder at the ftrange deductions to which they are made fubfervient, and condemn ourselves for listening to propofitions that are fufceptible of fuch extravagant conclufions, and are capable of lending their aid to a system of opinions fo contrary to common experience and common-sense. Thefe confequences are, however, feldom imputable to the propofitions which firft gained our affent and approbation; they are artificially and impofingly attached to them by the ingenuity of the author, who, fetting out perhaps with the upright intention of inveftigating truth, and promoting the good of mankind, no fooner gets fight of a fyftem, however indistinct and remote, than every wish to elucidate the fubject makes room for the vanity of raifing himself to a fort of fovereign authority, and of ftretching his laws and empire over fome entire province in the regions of philofophy, where his fancy may exert an uncontrolled domination. There is another tribe of fyftem-makers, whofe errors are of deeper criminality, and more malignant and fatal in their origin and refults; who live in perpetual hoftility with their own understandings, their own interefts, and their own repofe, and facrifice the fure and lasting enjoyment of honeft fame and felf-approbation, for the vain and perilous glory of paradoxical eminence and audacious fingularity. Though the operation of this fatal propenfity has, in no fmall degree, multiplied our labour and retarded our progress in our fearch Tearch after phyfical truths, yet the firm oppofition of sense and experience, together with the irrefiftible power of scientific deductions, have been nearly able to expel it from those parts of human knowledge. Its influence therefore, at prefent, is almoft totally confined to metaphyfics and morality. These provinces, however, thanks be to God, are not left to the mercy of fuch arrogant ufurpers; a great and steady light is held out to us, fufficient to enable our reason to preserve itself untainted in its fearch after truth, by human vanity or human error. It has been, therefore, at all times, peculiarly the interest of these proud schemers to violate the facred league that fubfifts between morals and religion, to burst asunder the bonds which united them, and, having once deprived morality of those great and awful fanctions by which it was explained and guarded, eafily subject it to a mere human and fluctuating philosophy, and variously perplex and torture its principles to accommodate their various fyftems of grofs infidelity or faftidious refine ment. When this fpirit of fyftem-making was once gone abroad, it was impoffible for fo inviting a field as education to remain long uninvaded. The fluctuating ftate of men's opinions concerning it, the multiplicity of objects it refpected, the endless variety of ways by which the genius and faculties are to be drawn forth, according to the various conftitution of his mind and predominancy of his paffions, the mixt confiderations that arife from taking into view the relations fubfifting between the external and internal condition of a human being, the fhort infight we have into the nature of ideas and the progrefs of the mind; all these dark and intricate circumstances, which attend the theory of education, gave but too much room for vifionaries of all complexions to refine and fyftematise to whatever degree the turn of their thoughts and principles might carry them. It ftood equally expofed to the regardlefs fury and barbarous attacks of the licentious Mandeville, and the foft and seductive graces of the penfive Rouffeau. At the head of fyftem-makers in this branch of human inquiry, we place thefe oppofite vifionaries, diametrically oppofite indeed in their premises, but conspiring in their conclufions to promote the fame destructive ends. The one, with a ftrange and affected excess of romantic refinement, attempting to deprive the helplefs nature of infancy. of all correction and culture; the other, urging with desperate audacity the natural and inborn wickednefs of man as a reason for withholding inftruction for fear of increasing his power of doing evil. This proposes to poftpone all culture as useless, when we are most open to impreffions, and moft undetermined in our course; and, because our difpofitions are naturally corrupt, C6 2 the the other would advife to leave them to themselves, at the moment when they are most eafily oppofed and fuppreffed: the one would ruin the caufe, like Fabius, by delay, the other carries defolation and flaughter before him with the fword of Marcellus. The injury therefore, which education and humanity fuffer from fuch corrupt fyftems, can be compenfated by no excellence or ingenuity displayed in particular parts of them; and there is no man, who is actuated by a fincere love of the fpecies, but muft look with indignation upon all those who value the poffeffion of a dishonest fame above the great and common cause of truth and religion. The writings of Mandeville, indeed, if read at all, are read with contempt and abhorrence; Rouffeau has ftill his votaries; and we fear that few of thofe who pretend to refpect his system only in part, are in reality poffeffed of judgments fevere enough to reject thofe feducing theories which give to his work an irrefiftible power of the imagination. Thefe obfervations will juftify a conclufion that a principal caufe of the ill fuccefs with which every scheme hitherto propofed for the improvement of our plans of education has been attended, has been the prevailing fondnefs for fingularity and fyftem, and the too little regard fhewn to that almost boundless extent to which human life is diverfified, and that vast variety of relations and attributes, natural and moral, through which the condition and wants of our nature are modified. For thefe reafons we think a few plain rules are beft, which may keep in view the great and manifeft duties of humanity, univerfally intelligible, univerfally practicable, divefted of the parade of principles, and inculcating a fimple and natural courfe of proceeding. When once we bring the fubject into abftruse and metaphyfical difcuffions we presently lofe fight of practice and utility, and seek only how we may conftruct a fyftem lofty and impofing, and appearing to be the refult of deep refearches into human nature. After treating the fyftems of others with fo little ceremony, the reader will admire our boldness in venturing to bring forward one of our own; in defiance, however, of those who would leave uninftructed nature to produce her fruits without cultivation; or those who contend that the imagination fhould alone be regarded in tender infancy; or thofe who, with greater plaufibility, direct us to hold before it nothing but those pure and perfect forms of morality, fuch as it was taught in ancient Ichools, and furnifhed by man's unaided reafon. In oppofition to all thefe, we venture to propofe that religion be made the great and leading object in the education of youth; that every inftruction, as far as poffible, be brought in aid of this greatest good to mankind; that on this every principle of morality be built, every habit formed, and every opinion adjufted. Here we find a boundless scope for the natural and sprightly curiofities of childhood, an excellent exercise to their opening faculties, and a fufficient incitement to all the virtuous fenfibilities and ardours of their minds. We confider religion as the fun in the fyftem of education, the great and mighty difpenfer of light and life to the whole, and capable, by its attractive power, of maintaining to every part its proper place and deftination in the order of things. It is the pride of our reason, which delights in a false notion of independence, that has prevented us from profiting by the fimple aid of religion; and hence have arifen all that refinement and perplexity in those parts of every fyftem of education which refpect morality. The cold propofitions of ethics, arguments about the beauty of virtue and the fitness of moral obligations, can make but small impreffion on the feelings or understandings of children, and require a thousand artifices and expedients to enforce them. But the injunctions of religion are plain to the apprehenfions, and interefting to the hearts, of youth; they make a ftrong appeal to their fenfibilities, and demand thofe emotions of gratitude and admiration with which the bofoms of children are apt to overflow. Befides all which, they furnish a folution to every moral queftion that can arise in their minds, and are a fafe guide in every critical case and anxious dilemma. To give to religion its due and permanent effect on the mind is then the great art of education; and every effort is to be used to strengthen its influence till it grows into a deep and refolute habit, that no accidents or viciffitudes can in future diflodge. This habit, rightly called a fecond nature, is an excellent forerunner of reafon; it is from noble and ingenuous prejudices formed by early use and inftruction in the minds of children, that the reason infenfibly receives a happy bias, and is pre-engaged on the fide of truth and religion. Without, attempting, therefore, to lay before the reader any fpeculations of our own, we will venture to propose this general rule: Let the great stress of education be laid on habit as the most active and univerfal principal of excellence or depravity*. It is a principle that always gets the ftart of reason in every emergence and temptation of life; and when early engaged in the service of vice, it is that which gives our bad propenfities that irrefiftible preponderancy which has induced fome to arraign the * There is not a quality or function of body or mind which does not feel the influence of this great law of animated nature. Payley's Principles of Philofophy, p. 40. Cc3 justice |