Philosophy in Fashion § 182. Though the Systems of Physick that I have met with afford little encouragement to look for Certainty or Science in any Treatise which shall pretend to give us a body of Natural Philosophy from the first Principles of Bodies in general yet the incomparable Mr. Newton has shewn how far Mathematicks applied to some Parts of Nature may upon Principles that matter of fact justifie carry us in the knowledge of some as I may so call them particular Provinces of the incomprehensible Universe And if others could give us so good and clear an account of other parts of Nature as he has of this our Planetary World and the most considerable Phoenomena observable in it in his admirable Book Philosophiae naturalis principia Mathematica we might in time hope to be furnished with more true and certain Knowledge in several Parts of this stupendious Machin than hitherto we could have expected And though there are very few that have Mathematicks enough to understand his Demonstrations yet the most accurate Mathematicians who have examined them allowing them to be such his Book will deserve to be read and give no small light and pleasure to those who willing to understand the Motions Properties and Operations of the great Masses of Matter in this our Solar System will but carefully mind his Conclusions which may be depended on as Propositions well proved § 183. This is in short what I have thought concerning a young Gentleman's Studies wherein it will possibly be wondred that I should omit Greek since amongst the Grecians is to be found the Original as it were and Foundation of all that Learning which we have in this part of the World I grant it so and will add That no Man can pass for a Scholar that is ignorant of the Greek Tongue But I am not here considering of the Education of a profess'd Scholar but of a Gentleman to whom Latin and French as the World now goes is by every one acknowledged to be necessary When he comes to be a Man if he has a mind to carry his Studies farther and look into the Greek Learning he will then easily get that Tongue himself And if he has not that Inclination his learning of it under a Tutor will be but lost Labour and much of his Time and Pains spent in that which will be neglected and thrown away as soon as he is at liberty For how many are there of an hundred even amongst Scholars themselves who retain the Greek they carried from School or ever improve it to a familiar reading and perfect understanding of Greek Authors § 184. Besides what is to be had from Study and Books there are other Accomplishments necessary to a Gentleman to be got by exercise and to which time is to be allowed and for which Masters must be had Dancing being that which gives graceful Motions all the life and above all things Manliness and a becoming Confidence to young Children I think it cannot be learn'd too early after they are once of an Age and Strength capable of it But you must be sure to have a good Master that knows and can teach what is gracefull and becoming and what gives a freedom and easiness to all the Motions of the Body One that teaches not this is worse than none at all Natural Unfashionableness being much better than apish affected Postures and I think it much more passable to put off the Hat and make a Leg like an honest Country-Gentleman than like an ill-fashion'd Dancing-Master For as for the jigging part and the Figures of Dances I count that little or nothing farther than as it tends to perfect graceful Carriage § 185. Musick is thought to have some affinity with Dancing and a good Hand upon some Instruments is by many People mightily valued but it wastes so much of a young Man's time to gain but a moderate Skill in it and engages often in such odd Company that many think it much better spared And I have amongst Men of Parts and Business so seldom heard any one commended or esteemed for having an Excellency in Musick that amongst all those things that ever came into the List of Accomplishments I think I may give it the last place Our short Lives will not serve us for the attainment of all things nor can our Minds be always intent on something to be learn'd The weakness of our Constitutions both of Mind and Body requires that we should be often unbent and he that will make a good use of any part of his Life must allow a large Portion of it to Recreation At least this must not be denied to young People unless whilst you with too much haste make them old you have the displeasure to see them in their Graves or a second Childhood sooner than you could wish And therefore I think that the Time and Pains allotted to serious Improvements should be employ'd about Things of most use and consequence and that too in the Methods the most easie and short that could be at any rate obtained And perhaps it would be none of the least Secrets in Education to make the Exercises of the Body and the Mind the Recreation one to another I doubt not but that something might be done in it by a prudent Man that would well consider the Temper and Inclination of his Pupil For he that is wearied either with Study or Dancing does not desire presently to go to sleep but to do something else which may divert and delight him But this must be always remembred that nothing can come into the account of Recreation that is not done with delight § 186. Fencing and Riding the Great Horse are look'd upon as so necessary parts of Breeding that it would be thought a great omission to neglect them The latter of the two being for the most part to be learn'd only in Great Towns is one of the best Exercises for Health which is to be had in those Places of Ease and Luxury and upon that account makes a fit part of a young Gentleman's Employment during his abode there And as far as it conduces to give a Man a firm and graceful Seat on Horseback and to make him able to teach his Horse to stop and turn quick and to rest on his Haunches is of use to a Gentleman both in Peace and War But whether it be of moment enough to be made a Business of and deserve to take up more of his time than should barely for his Health be employed at due intervals in some such vigorous Exercise I shall leave to the Discretion of Parents and Tutors who will do well to remember in all the Parts of Education that most time and application is to be bestowed on that which is like to be of greatest consequence and frequentest use in the ordinary course and occurrences of that Life the young Man is designed for § 187. As for Fencing it seems to me a good Exercise
Apples and Pears too which are through ripe and have been gathered some Time I think may be safely eaten at any Time and in pretty large Quantities especially Apples which never did any Body hurt that I have heard after October Fruits also dried without Sugar I think very wholesome But Sweet-meats of all Kinds to be avoided which whether they do more Harm to the Maker or Eater is not easie to tell This I am sure It is one of the most inconvenient Ways of Expence that Vanity hath yet found out and so I leave them to the Ladies § 21. Of all that looks soft and effeminate nothing is more to be indulged Children than Sleep In this alone they are to be permitted to have their full Satisfaction nothing contributing more to the Growth and Health of Children than Sleep All that is to be regulated in it is in what Part of the Twenty four Hours they should take it Which will easily be resolved by only saying That it is of great Use to accustom them to rise early in the Morning It is best so to do for Health And he that from his Childhood has by a setled Custom made Rising betimes easie and familiar to him will not when he is a Man waste the best and most useful Part of his Life in Drowziness and Lying a bed If Children therefore are to be called up early in the Morning it will follow of Course that they must go to Bed betimes where by they will be accustomed to avoid the unhealthy and unsafe Hours of Debauchery which are those of the Evenings And they who keep good Hours seldom are guilty of any great Disorders I do not say this as if your Son when grown up should never be in Company past Eight nor ever chat over a Glass of Wine till Midnight You are now by the Accustoming of his tender Years to indispose him to those Inconveniences as much as you can And that will be no small Advantage that Contrary Practice having made Sitting up uneasie to him it will make him often avoid and very seldom propose Mid-night-Revels But if it should not reach so far but Fashion and Company should prevail and make him live as others do about Twenty 't is worth the while to accustom him to Early Rising and Early Going to Bed between this and that for the present Improvement of his Health and other Advantages § 22 Let his Bed be hard and rather Quilts than Feathers Hard Lodging strengthens the Parts whereas being buried every Night in Feathers melts and dissolves the Body is often the Cause of Weakness and the Fore-runner of an early Grave And besides the Stone which has often its Rise from this warm wrapping of the Reins several other Indispositions and that which is the Root of them all a tender weakly Constitution is very much owing to Downe-Beds Besides He that is used to hard Lodging at home will not miss his Sleep where he has most need of it in his Travels abroad for want of his soft Bed and his Pillows laid in order and therefore I think it would not be amiss to make his Bed after different Fashions sometimes lay his Head higher sometimes lower that he may not feel every little Change he must be sure to meet with who is not design'd to lie always in my young Master's Bed at home and to have his Maid lay all Things in print and tuck him in warm The great Cordial of Nature is Sleep he that misses that will suffer by it And he is very unfortunate who can take his Cordial only in his Mother's fine Gilt Cup and not in a Wooden Dish He that can sleep soundly takes the Cordial and it matters not whether it be on a soft Bed or the hard Boards 't is Sleep only that is the Thing necessary § 23. One thing more there is which has a great Influence upon the Health and that is Going to Stool regularly People that are very loose have seldom strong Thoughts or strong Bodies But the Cure of this both by Diet and Medicine being much more easie than the contrary Evil there needs not much to be said about it for if it come to threaten either by its Violence or Duration it will soon enough and sometimes too soon make a Physician be sent for and if it be moderate or short it is commonly best to leave it to Nature On the other Side Costiveness has too its ill Effects and is much harder to be dealt with by Physick purging Medicines which seem to give Relief rather increasing than removing the Evil. § 24. It having been an Inconvenience I had a particular Reason to enquire into and not finding the Cure of it in Books I set my Thoughts on work believing that greater Changes than that might be made in our Bodies if we took the right Course and proceeded by Rational Steps 1. Then I considered that Going to Stool was the effect of certain Motions of the Body especially of the Perristaltick Motion of the Guts 2. I considered that several Motions that were not perfectly voluntary might yet by Use and constant Application be brought to be Habitual if by an unintermitted Custom they were at certain Seasons endeavoured to be constantly produced 3. I had observed some Men who by taking after Supper a Pipe of Tabaco never failed of a Stool and began to doubt with my self whether it were not more Custom than the Tabaco that gave them the benefit of Nature or at least if the Tabaco did it it was rather by exciting a vigorous Motion in the Guts than by any purging Quality for then it would have had other Effects Having thus once got the Opinion that is was possible to make it habitual the next thing was to consider what Way and Means was the likeliest to obtain it 4. Then I guessed that if a Man after his first Eating in the Morning would presently sollicite Nature and try whether he could strain himself so as to obtain a Stool he might in time by a constant Application bring it to be Habitual § 25. The Reasons that made me chuse this time were 1. Because the Stomach being then empty if it received any thing grateful to it for I would never but in case of necessity have any one eat but what he likes and when he has an Appetite it was apt to imbrace it close by a strong Constriction of its Fibres which Constriction I supposed might probably be continued on in the Guts and so increase their peristaltick Motion as we see in the Ileus that an inverted Motion being begun any where below continues it self all the whole length and makes even the Stomach obey that irregular Motion 3. Because when Men eat they usually relax their Thoughts and the Spirits then free from other Imployments are more vigorously distributed into the lower Belly which thereby contribute to the same effect 3. Because when ever Men have leisure to eat they have
by too strict an hand over them they lose all their Vigor and Industry and are in a Worse State than the former For extravagant young Fellows that have Liveliness and Spirit come sometimes to be set right and so make Able and Great Men But dejected Minds timorous and tame and low Spirits are hardly ever to be raised and very seldom attain to any Thing To avoid the danger that is on either hand is the great Art and he that has found a way how to keep up a Child's Spirit easy active and free and yet at the same time to restrain him from many things he has a Mind to and to draw him to things that are uneasy to him he I say that knows how to reconcile these seeming Contradictions has in my Opinion got the true Secret of Education § 46. The usual lazy and short way by Chastisement and the Rod which is the only Instrument of Government that Tutors generally know or ever think of is the most unfit of any to be used in Education because it tends to both those Mischiefs which as we have shewn are the Sylla and Charybdis which on the one hand or other ruine all that miscarry § 47. 1. This kind of Punishment contributes not at all to the mastery of our Natural Propensity to indulge Corporal and present Pleasure and to avoid Pain at any rate but rather encourages it and so strengthens that in us which is the root of all vitious and wrong Actions For what Motives I pray does a Child Act by but of such Pleasure and Pain that drudges at his Book against his Inclination or abstains from eating unwholsome Fruit that he takes pleasure in only out of fear of whipping He in this only preferrs the greater Corporal Pleasure or avoids the greater Corporal Pain and what is it to govern his Actions and direct his Conduct by such Motives as these What is it I say but to cherish that Principle in him which it is our Business to root out and destroy And therefore I cannot think any Correction usefull to a Child where the Shame of Suffering for having done Amiss does not more work upon him than the Pain § 48. 2. This sort of Correction naturally breeds an Aversion to that which 't is the Tutor's Business to create a liking to How obvious is it to observe that Children come to hate things liked at first as soon as they come to be whipped or chid and teased about them And it is not to be wonder'd at in them when grown Men would not be able to be reconciled to any thing by such ways Who is there that would not be disgusted with any innocent Recreation in it self indifferent to him if he should with blows or ill Language be haled to it when he had no Mind Or be constantly so treated for some Circumstance in his application to it This is natural to be so Offensive Circumstances ordinarily infect innocent things which they are joined with and the very sight of a Cup wherein any one uses to take nauseous Physick turns his Stomach so that nothing will relish well out of it tho' the Cup be never so clean and well shaped and of the richest Materials § 49. 3. Such a sort of slavish Discipline makes a slavish Temper The Child submits and dissembles Obedience whilst the fear of the Rod hangs over him but when that is removed and by being out of sight he can promise himself impunity he gives the greater scope to his natural Inclination which by this way is not at all altered but on the contrary heightned and increased in him and after such restraint breaks out usually with the more violence or § 50. 4. If Severity carried to the highest pitch does prevail and works a Cure upon the present unruly Distemper it is often by bringing in the room of it a worse and more dangerous Disease by breaking the Mind and then in the place of a disorderly young Fellow you have a low spirited moap'd Creature who however with his unnatural Sobriety he may please silly People who commend tame unactive Children because they make no noise nor give them any trouble yet at last will probably prove as uncomfortable a thing to his Friends as he will be all his life an useless thing to himself and others § 51. Beating then and all other Sorts of slavish and corporal Punishments are not the Discipline fit to be used in the Education of those we would have wise good and ingenuous Men and therefore very rarely to be applied and that only in great Occasions and Cases of Extremity On the other side to flatter children by Rewards of things that are pleasant to them is as carefully to be avoided He that will give his Son Apples or Sugar-plumbs or what else of this kind he is most delighted with to make him learn his Book does but authorize his love of pleasure and cocker up that dangerous propensitie which he ought by all means to subdue and stifle in him You can never hope to teach him to master it whilst you compound for the Check you give his Inclination in one place by the Satisfaction you propose to it in another To make a good a wise and a vertuous Man 't is fit he should learn to cross his Appetite and deny his Inclination to riches finery or pleasing his Palate c. when ever his Reason advises the contrary and his Duty requires it But when you draw him to do any thing that is fit by the offer of Money or reward the pains of learning his Book by the pleasure of a luscious Morsel When you promise him a Lace-Crevat or a fine new Suit upon the performance of some of his little Tasks what do you by proposing these as Rewards but allow them to be the good Things he should aim at and thereby encourage his longing for them and accustom him to place his happiness in them Thus People to prevail with Children to be industrious about their Grammar Dancing or some other such matter of no great moment to the happiness or ufefullness of their Lives by misapplied Rewards and Punishments sacrifice their Vertue invert the Order of their Education and teach them Luxury Pride or Covetousness c. For in this way flattering those wrong Inclinations which they should restrain and suppress they lay the Foundations of those future Vices which cannot be avoided but by curbing our Desires and accustoming them early to submit to Reason § 52. I say not this that I would have Children kept from the Conveniences or pleasures of Life that are not injurious to their Health or Vertue On the contrary I would have their Lives made as pleasant and as agreeable to them as may be in a plentiful enjoyment of whatsoever might innocently delight them Provided it be with this Caution that they have those Enjoyments only as the Consequences of the State of Esteem and Acceptation they are in with their
only to be the more foolish or worse Men. I say this that when you consider of the Breeding of your Son and are looking out for a School-Master or a Tutor you would not have as is usual Latin and Logick only in your Thoughts Learning must be had but in the second place as subservient only to greater Qualities Seek out some-body that may know how discreetly to frame his Manners Place him in Hands where you may as much as possible secure his Innocence cherish and nurse up the Good and gently correct and weed out any Bad Inclinations and settle in him good Habits This is the main Point and this being provided for Learning may be had into the Bargain and that as I think at a very easie rate by Methods that may be thought on § 141. When he can talk 't is time he should begin to learn to read But as to this give me leave here to inculcate again what is very apt to be forgotten viz. That a great Caâ—e is to be taken that it be never made as a Business to him nor he look on it as a Task We naturally as I said even from our Cradles love Liberty and have therefore an aversion to many Things for no other Reason but because they are enjoyn'd us I have always had a Fancy that Learning might be made a Play and Recreation to Children and that they might be brought to desire to be taught if it were propos'd to them as a thing of Honour Credit Delight and Recreation or as a Reward for doing something else and if they were never chid or corrected for the neglect of it That which confirms me in this Opinion is that amongst the Portugueses 't is so much a Fafhion and Emulation amongst their Children to learn to Read and Write that they cannot hinder them from it They will learn it one from another and are as intent on it as if it were forbidden them I remember that being at a Friend's House whose younger Son a Child in Coats was not easily brought to his Book being taught to Read at home by his Mother I advised to try another way then requiring it of him as his Duty we therefore in a Discourse on purpose amongst our selves in his hearing but without taking any notice of him declared That it was the Privilege and Advantage of Heirs and Elder Brothers to be Scholars that this made them fine Gentlemen and beloved by every body And that for Younger Brothers 't was a Favour to admit them to Breeding to be taught to Read and Write was more than came to their share they might be ignorant Bumpkins and Clowns if they pleased This so wrought upon the Child that afterwards he desired to be taught would come himself to his Mother to learn and would not let his Maid be quiet till she heard him his Lesson I doubt not but some way like this might be taken with other Children and when their Tempers are found some Thoughts be instilled into them that might set them upon desiring of Learning themselves and make them seek it as another sort of Play or Recreation But then as I said before it must never be imposed as a Task nor made a trouble to them There may be Dice and Play-things with the Letters on them to teach Children the Alphabet by playing and twenty other ways may be found suitable to their particular Tempers to make this kind of Learning a Sport to them § 142. Thus Children may be cozen'd into a Knowledge of the Letters be taught to read without perceiving it to be any thing but a Sport and play themselves into that others are whipp'd for Children should not have any thing like Work or serious laid on them neither their Minds nor Bodies will bear it It injures their Healths and their being forced and tied down to their Books in an Age at enmity with all such restraint has I doubt not been the reason why a great many have hated Books and Learning all their Lives after 'T is like a Surfeit that leaves an Aversion behind not to be removed § 143. I have therefore thought that if Play-things were fitted to this purpose as they are usually to none Contrivances might be made to teach Children to Read whilst they thought they were only Playing For example What if an Ivory-Ball were made like that of the Royal-Oak Lottery with Thirty two sides or one rather of Twenty four or Twenty five sides and upon several of those sides pasted on an A upon several others B on others C and on others D. I would have you begin with but these four Letters or perhaps only two at first and when he is perfect in them then add another and so on till each side having one letter there be on it the whole Alphabet This I would have others play with before him it being as good a sort of Play to lay a Stake who shall first throw an A or B as who upon Dice shall throw Six or Seven This being a play amongst you tempt him not to it least you make it Business for I would not have him understand 't is any thing but a play of older People and I doubt not but he will take to it of himself And that he may have the more reason to think it is a play that he is sometimes in favour admitted to when the Play is done the Ball shall be laid up safe out of his reach that so it may not by his having it in his keeping at any time grow stale to him To keep up his eagerness to it let him think it a Game belonging to those above him And when by this means he knows the Letters by changing them into Syllables he may learn to Read without knowing how he did so and never have any chiding or trouble about it nor fall out with Books because of the hard usage and vexation they have caused him Children if you observe them take abundance of pains to learn several Games which if they should be enjoined them they would abhorr as a Task and Business I know a Person of great Quality more yet to be honoured for his Learning and Vertue than for his Rank and high Place who by pasting on the six Vowels for in our language Y is one on the six sides of a Die and the remaining eighteen Consonants on the sides of three other Dice has made this a play for his Children that he shall win who at one cast throws most Words on these four Dice whereby his eldest Son yet in Coats has play'd himself into Spelling with great eagerness and without once having been child for it or forced to it § 144. I have seen little Girls exercise whole Hours together and take abundance of pains to be expert at Dibstones as they call it Whilst I have been looking on I have thought it wanted only some good Contrivance to make them employ all that Industry about something that might be more useful
the easiest and plainest and surest Method that can be made use of in Chronology To this Treatise of Strauchius Helvicus's Tables may be added as a Book to be turned to on all occasions § 173. As nothing teaches so nothing delights more than History The first of these recommends it to the Study of Grown-Men the latter makes me think it the fittest for a young Lad who as soon as he is instructed in Chronology and acquainted with the several Epochs in use in this part of the World and can reduce them to the Julian Period should then have some Latin History put into his Hand The choice should be directed by the easiness of the Stile for where-ever he begins Chronology will keep it from Confusion and the pleasantness of the Subject inviting him to read the Language will insensibly be got without that terrible vexation and uneasiness which Children suffer where they are put into Books beyond their Capacity such as are the Roman Orators and Poets only to learn the Roman Language When he has by reading Master'd the easier such perhaps as Justin Eutropius Quintus Curtius c. the next degree to these will give him no great Trouble And thus by a gradual Progress from the plainest and easiest Historians he may at last come to read the most difficult and sublime of the Latin Authors such as are Tully Virgil and Horace § 174. The Knowledge of Vertue all along from the beginning in all the Instances he is capable of being taught him more by Practice than Rules and the love of Reputation instead of satisfying his Appetite being made habitual in him I know not whether he should read any other Discourses of Morality but what he finds in the Bible or have any System of Ethicks put into his Hand till he can read Tully's Offices not as a School-Boy to learn Latin but as one that would be informed in the Principles and Precepts of Vertue for the Conduct of his Life § 175. When he has pretty well digested Tully's Offices it may be seasonable to set him upon Grotius de Jure Belli Pacis or which I think is the better of the two Puffendorf de Jure naturali Gentium wherein he will be instructed in the natural Rights of Men and the Original and Foundations of Society and the Duties resulting from thence This general Part of Civil-Law and History are Studies which a Gentleman should not barely touch at but constantly dwell upon and never have done with A Vertuous and well behaved young Man that is well versed in the general Part of the Civil-Law which concerns not the chicane of private Cases but the Affairs and Intercourse of civilized Nations in general grounded upon Principles of Reason understands Latin well and can write a good hand one may turn loose into the World with great assurance that he will find Imployment and Esteem every where § 176. It would be strange to suppose an English Gentleman should be ignorant of the Law of his Country This whatever station he is in is so requisite that from a Justice of the Peace to a Minister of State I know no Place he can well fill without it I do not mean the chicane or wrangling and captious part of the Law a Gentleman whose Business it is to seek the true measures of Right and Wrong and not the Arts how to avoid doing the one and secure himself in doing the other ought to be as far from such a study of the Law as he is concerned diligently to apply himself to that wherein he may be serviceable to his Country And to that purpose I think the right way for a Gentleman to study Our Law which he does not design for his Calling is to take a view of our English Constitution and Government in the ancient Books of the Common Law and some more modern Writers who out of them have given an account of this Government And having got a true Idea of that then to read our History and with it join in every King's Reign the Laws then made This will give an insight in to the reason of our Statutes and shew the true ground upon which they came to be made and what weight they ought to have § 177. Rhetorick and Logick being the Arts that in the ordinary method usually follow immediately after Grammar it may perhaps be wondered that I have said so little of them The reason is because of the little advantage young People receive by them For I have seldom or never observed any one to get the Skill of reasoning well or speaking handsomly by studying those Rules which pretend to teach it And therefore I would have a young Gentleman take a view of them in the shortest Systems could be found without dwelling long on the contemplation and study of those Formalities Right Reasoning is founded on something else than the Predicaments and Predicables and does not consist in talking in Mode and Figure it self But 't is besides my present Business to enlarge upon this Speculation To come therefore to what we have in hand if you would have your Son Reason well let him read Chillingworth and if you would have him speak well let him be conversant in Tully to give him the true Idea of Eloquence and let him read those things that are well writ in English to perfect his Style in the purity of our Language If the use and end of right Reasoning be to have right Notions and a right Judgment of things to distinguish betwixt Truth and Falshood Right and Wrong and to act accordingly be sure not to let your Son be bred up in the Art and Formality of Disputing either practising it himself or admiring it in others unless instead of an able Man you desire to have him an insignificant Wrangler Opiniater in Discourse and priding himself in contradicting others or which is worse questioning every thing and thinking there is no such thing as truth to be sought but only Victory in Disputing Truth is to be found and maintained by a mature and due Consideration of Things themselves and not by artificial Terms and Ways of Arguing which lead not Men so much into the discovery of Truth as into a captious and fallacious use of doubtful Words which is the most useless and disingenous Way of talking and most unbecoming a Gentleman or a lover of Truth of any thing in the World Natural Philosophy as a speculative Science I think we have none and perhaps I may think I have reason to say we never shall The Works of Nature are contrived by a Wisdom and operate by ways too far surpassing our Faculties to discover or Capacities to conceive for us ever to be able to reduce them into a Science Natural Philosophy being the Knowledge of the Principles Properties and Operations of Things as they are in themselves I imagine there are Two Parts of it one comprehending Spirits with their Nature