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
on him when sick and many other occasions will be suggested of honestly insinuating into his affections But take heed you flatter him not nor praise him too much yea tho he deserve very well for many times immoderate praise makes him proud and insolent many times also lasch and negligent thinking he hath got applause enough and needs no more endeavour but as if he hath already hit the mark unbends and throws away his bow Indeed the moderate suffering of praise is as great a tryal of wisedome and prudence as the cupel is of silver 5. STRIVE also to enamour him of what you would teach him For to him that doth willingly what he must of necessity the proficiency is certain To be a good and virtuous man consists almost solely in the will Quid tibi opus est ut sis bonus velle Sen. ep 80. He that desires to be so wants little of being so And this is done by recommending your commands instructions with the reason of them for when the judgment is convinced the Will surrenders of her self I cannot deny but this is contrary to the practise of too many of our great Schools where Children learn only because it is minus malum tho painful and troublesome yet not so much altogether as perpetual chastisement Many have doubted whether Children of Person of quality should at all be beaten pretending it is slavish and if in another age injurious that he who will not reform with chiding will be also obstinate against beating Tho there is no justifying those Masters who think every thing lawful against that unresisting age who being overburdened with numbers make cruelty pass for diligence and supply their want of care with plenty of the rod as if they who are committed to their charge are abandoned to their passion or as if reason were not to be used to those who are not yet Masters of it Yet corporal chastisement is necessary even for great Mens Children also especially for such stubborn dispositions as care not for shame but are afraid of pain But not this till last of all For the Educator is to try all means before he comes to that Exhorting examples employments praise and shame promising threatning rewards alwaies before punishments Divers laudable crafts also and deceits are to be practised as to commend him sometimes more then he deserves or for what he hath not done but you feign to believe he hath done it To let him know that you pass-by many failings in compassion to his age to seem not to believe the evil related of him but to nourish a better opinion to put his faults upon another and exaggerate them in his presence to declare the punishment deserved or inflicted to watch over him so as to hinder the acting of his evil intention without taking notice of it It was also the custome to punish the young Prince's Favorite for the Prince If these suffice not try smart chiding wherein take heed of unbeseeming words which a noble nature many times resents long after but all are apt to imitate towards others Beware also of too importunate or unseasonable reprehensions as either when the offender is in passion or in public or your self in passion tho it be not amiss sometimes to seem so Neither be alwayes chiding for that breeds insensibility and carelesnes and authorizeth his fault by your own Nescio quomodo hoc ipsum quod concupiscitur jucundius fit cum vetatur contumax est animus maxime puerorum in contrarium atque arduum nitens Indiscreet reprehension is many times recommendation of the vice Let corporal punishments be the last refuge and when the rest tryed are found insufficient for what is done willingly is best done Horses and Beasts are subdued by the rod but man hath a free-will which if possible is to be gained by reason What we do for fear of punishment we really detest and were we left to our selves we would not do it Yet by accustoming to do it though for fear the bugbear that caused our hatred is driven away and by little and little we acquire an habit of and by degrees a love to it 6. TAKE all faults vices especially at the beginning by preventing as much as you can all occasions and opportunities of ill-doing as let him not frequent suspected places not be abroad tho with a friend nor be late from his lodging and the like For tho he do at such time nothing blame-worthy yet that irregularity indulged will breed inconveniencies first and faultines afterwards Plato having chid a young man for a slight fault and he replying 't was no great matter answered But the custome of it is Tho he cannot amend all at once yet he must not settle in any one Many times also we see a word cast in by chance or in merriment to have greater force then a formal admonition Quintilian if any of his young Scholars commited a fault especially too bold and venturous would tell him that for the present he disliked it not but for the future he would not endure it so he both indulged their wit and corrected theit errours aegre enim reprehendas quae sinis consuescere ESPECIALLY beware of all obscene discourse and those equivocal phrases which the wicked invent to express their lust ingeniously as they think most plausibly i. e. dangerously As likewise of all filthy Songs and of Libels wherein either the Magistrate or other person is taxed Forbear also chiefly if the Child be naturally timorous all discourse of witches Spirits Fayries and the like which intimidate the spirit and fill the head with vain and frightful imaginations Also all fond Romances whether of Giants or Love Those seem to have taken their original about the time of the Holy-War when all Europe was upon the gog of fighting to which they thought those fond Stories were very conducing but these from later times when Courtship and lust were in greater account then Arms and Valour But whatever they be being but Castles in the Aire it matters not whether they are built for Palaces or Prisons thay have both a bad effect For they impress upon Children and which is almost the same upon Women and weak silly men also false notions They are to the mind what a Feaver is to the body filling the Soul with preternatural irregular conceits and hindering the true understanding and reall notion of things as they are in the World which true Histories set forth They represent actions by a false glass as in the idle imaginations of silly and loose people If wandring and insignificant fancies in the brain Romances in the thought be so troublesome to all well-minded people to have such in writing is certainly much worse What a madness is it to increase these by suggesting more non-sense by printing our follies and publishing our resveries They shew us lust instead of love false honour and valour instead of true the World in imagination for that in reality agreeable