Selected quad for the lemma: friend_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A67252
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Of education, especially of young gentlemen in two parts, the second impression with additions.
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Walker, Obadiah, 1616-1699.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing W400; ESTC R3976
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157,156
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310
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follow the track of those he undervalues but loves the generous tast of liberty Whereas the soft wax that melts with every ones fingers keeps no impression But if this harshness be extream and increase with age consider whether it grow from pride and then the root is to be digged up or from natural inclination and then let him frequent facetious and merry company let him converse with Strangers with whom he must stand upon his guard Womens acquaintance also if discreet persons is not ill for this disease With the froward and perverse begin to use severity betimes and master him before he know his own strength Let him not be humored or gain by his sturdiness but let him know by experience that his tricks are not only undecent but vain also and uneffectual Imitate God Almighty who to the meek sheweth himself gentle but to the perverse froward that he may humble the high looks and thoughts of the proud For indeed this sullen humor which against all reason will be guided only by its own opinions and will brook no contradiction is the effect of the greatest pride and is too frequently found in Persons of quality when cockered by Parents or flattered by Servants When they are children rough usage is good for them but afterwards it irritates them the more Then if sober reasoning open not their eyes they must be as wild Trees often transplanted and removed into strange company For where unacquainted they dare not shew their humor especially before such as will not brook their impertinencies but answer them with laughter scorn or somewhat more severe Indeed generally all bad dispositions are reclaimed by conversation and the example of other persons especially such as are eminent in the virtue you would produce Afflictions also have a wonderful force which are discreetly to be menaged by the Educator for then the humors are ripe for purgation CHAP. X. Of parts or capacities in general and of their diversity and how to be ordered and rectified HITHERTO we have spoken of Dispositions in order to the regulation of life and manners In the next place we must treat of what concerns Knowledge and Science And in order to this we must resume that there are three faculties of which we shall speak by and by more copiously naturally implanted in us Wit Judgment and Memory Concerning which that you may the better understand my intention I will set down the most common and usual differences of capacities And first take notice that the goodness of Wit is seen in first quick apprehending what is proposed and 2ly ready pertinent and copious invention A Memory then is counted excellent when it quickly embraceth and long retaineth what is committed to it And that Judgment is commended which subtilly compareth and accurately discerns between things that are like Next that Wits some are ordinary others extraordinary Extraordinary such are 1. IMAGINATIVE persons who 1. either have their fancy so volatil and skipping from one thing to another that they cannot fix long upon any one subject Sometimes this proceeds from levity and impatience of the labor of thinking non est enim minor lassitudo animi quam corporis sed occultior sometimes from Melancholy And such a degree there is of this as is incurable but only by Medicine that is frenzy and madness Or 2ly who have great and ready variety of fancies or suggestions but little of Judgment Even as Cisterns whereinto the water continually flows are never clear These catch at and sit down with their fullest apprehensions without weighing or considering the contrary and are called Phantastical The best way to cure both these is to fix them by setting them to Mathematicks Geometry especially where they are not suffered to tast a second dish till they have perfectly digested the former and by employing their memory Disputations also in public are very profitable 2. PRECOCIOUS persons whom the Proverb hath branded to be of small duration Perhaps because these sine Tempers are usually less strong and durable their spirits either exhaling and spending or fixing and thickning So that like corn upon stony ground they spring up upon a suddain shew all they can do are in admiration for their forwardnes but wanting root they bring forth yellow and emty eares before the Harvest and so vanish Thus Hermogenes the Orator was heard with admiration at 12. years old at 24. with laughter Yet by the good leave of the Proverb I have not seen many of precocious parts except by their own or Educators fault miscarry For many times it happens that those persons seeing their advantage in the race above their companions slacken their speed betaking themselves to pleasure and idlenes or as they say of Rablais who not finding his good parts and serious studies encouraged according to his expectation abandoned himself to buffoonery These pregnant wits being much courted for their plausible conversation endanger their ruin from those who pretend to woe their friendship It would be better for them to consider that they are not matched only with those who started at the same time with them but with those also who had advantage and that he is to be crowned not who doth as well as others but as well as he can But because of the prejudice most men have against precociousnes it will not be amiss to shew some late examples of those who begun betimes have proved admirable and lasted a long while The great Card. Bellarmine whilst at School interpreted publicly Cicero's Oration pro Milone at 16. began to preach and openly read the grounds of Divinity Card. du Perron read over the Almagest of Ptolemy in 13. days before he was 18. years old Torquato Tasso spoke plain at 6. months old at 3. years went to School at seven he understood Latin and Greek and made Verses before 12. he finished his Cours of Rhetoric Poetry Logic and Ethics at 17. he received his degrees in Philosophy Laws and Divinity and then printed his Rinaldo And tho of prodigious natural parts yet the writer of his life observes that he writ his Poëms especially by the force of indefatigable study rather then vivacity of wit or fruitfulnes of invention which rendered them admirable for he began there where others would have ended Augustus Caesar at 19. years old contrary to the advice of his Friends put himself upon the menagement of affairs claimed and entred upon the inheritance and succession to his great Uncle Julius So did Cosmo the great Cosmo Medici at 17. years old contrary also to the counsel of his kindred take upon him the government of the Republic of Florence after the murder of his cousin Duke Alexander By the bye also 't is observed that to both of these the first day of Augustus was fortunate to the one for the Battel at Actium to the other for the two victories over the two Strozzi Father and Son Vesalius began when a child to cut up Mice and Rats Mich. Angelo
profited to admiration and grew very famous and eminent in those studies Or if his Genius be accompanied with a noble and generous wit let great endeavor be used to teach him other Sciences and if that he is inclined to be not the noblest to take him off from it also Omnino iniquum est nobiliora ingenia dehonestari studiis minoribus Yet many times it is difficult to bring such off their inclination as in Monsieur Pascal out of the Preface to whose last book I will transcribe some passages very memorable both concerning the precociousnes of his wit and strong inclination to Mathematics Monsieur Pascal was observed in his childhood to have had an admirable understanding to pierce into the profundity and depth of things and to discern solid reason from superficial words In so much that when they offered him words only his understanding was restles and unsetled until he had discovered reason At 11. years old at table having struck an earthen dish and observed it to make a sound which ceased as soon as touched with his hand he was very earnest to know the cause thereof and from that began to demand many other questions concerning sounds in so much that he made then a small but very ingenious treatise concerning sounds This his strange inclination to ratiocination made his Father fear that if he should give him any insight into Geometry and Mathematics he would be so much taken with them that he would neglect all other studies especially Languages He therefore resolved to hinder him to lock up all Books of those Sciences and not so much as to speak of them in his presence But all this cautiousnes served only to excite his curiosity so that he often intreated his Father to teach him Mathematics or at least to tell him what they were His Father to satisfy him somewhat in general said they were Sciences which taught how to make figures equal or proportional one to another and withal forbad him to speak to him or think any more of them A command impossible for such a wit For upon this hint he began to revolve them continually in his mind especially at his times of recreation Once especially being in a large Hall where he used to divertise himself he began to make figures with a coal on the pavement as a circle a triangle of equal sides or of equal angles and the like and this he did easily Afterwards he began to search out and make propositions But all Books and instruction being by his Fathers diligence concealed from him he was forced to give names and definitions after his own invention A circle he called a round a line a bar c. After this he framed also to himself Axiomes and upon them Demonstrations after his own manner till he arrived to the 32. Prop. E. l. 1. His Father surprizing him in this posture was mightily astonished when he heard him discourse and as it were analize his propositions And hereupon by the advice of friends he put into his hands Euclides Elements which he read and comprehended at 12. years old with as great pleasure and facility as other Children do Romances he read and understood it all by himself without any Master and advanced so much in that knowledg that a while after at Paris he entred into the Conferences of learned Men held once a week concerning Mathematical questions Thither he brought his own inventions examined others propositions c. and yet was all this knowledg only the product of his leasure hours At 16. years old he composed a treatise of Conics which Monsieur Descartes would not believe but to have bin the work of his Father endeavoring to procure reputation to his Son At 19. years old he invented that Instrument of Arithmetic which is in print and at 23. having seen the experiments of Torricelli he also added to them a great number of his own This example of Monsieur Pascal is very extraordinary as was that of Pet. Damianus to piety who being a Boy and almost starved and naked by the churlish and unnatural usage of his Brother yet having found a piece of mony not regarding his own necessities he bestowed it upon a Priest to pray for his Fathers Soul Most men are fit for many Sciences and that inclination which they have to one more then another is ordinarily from their ability to perform one more then another as memory is for some wit for others courage and bodily strength for others c. or from their own imitation or others recommendation by word or example to one thing more then another or from some external and accidental effect they have seen or known of any one or some such like But tho all men have not or scarce any have all faculties excellent in an equal degree it will be the Teachers care and Educateds endeavor to better that wherein they are most defective but so all waies that you conduct them by that way they will go Too much strained-wits as forced grounds badly correspond to our hopes Unusquisque suum noscat saith Tully ad quas res aptissimi erimus in iis potissimum elaborabimus Seneca saith that Virgil was as unfortunate in Prose as Cicero in Verse But I am rather perswaded that both the one and the other proceeded from want of practise For Tasso was eminent in both and Ovid was an acute and eloquent Declamator as well as a fluent Poët And Sen. l. 2. Cont. 3. stories of him that being importuned by his Friends for liberty to expunge three verses out of his Writings he yeilded upon condition he might except three and named those they would have blotted out 5. BESIDES what I have already mentioned there are in teaching Sciences two great rules to be observed 1. Begin not to teach a new science till your Scholar understand all that is necessary to it as not Rhetoric till he know Grammar and the Latin Tongue for so he will learn both more and cheerfuller Whereas the mind cannot to purpose intend many things at once Tho such studies as have correspondence and affinity may well be conjoined for the comparing illustrates both and variety takes off the tediousnes See Quint. l. 2. c. 12. Be not too hasty with your Scholar advance him not too fast lay the foundation sure and stable For he that eats faster then he digests breeds crudities and work for the Physician to purge away Besides he that understands goes on cheerfully and securely Which I take to be the reason why Men of age make greater progress in learning then Children Jul. Scaliger began not to learn Greek till 40. years old and then mastered it in a very few months as he did French and Gascon in three Pet. Damianus learn'd not to read till mans estate yet proved one of the eminentest Scholars of his time Balaus entred so late upon the Law that they told him he intended to be an Advocate in the other World 2. Teach not too much at