Observations upon Liberal Education. George Turnbull
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have equally base and pernicious effects, as all who have studied human nature have agreed.—But how else, said he, can they be prepared for launching into a contagious world, and learn how to steer their course through its snares and dangers, without being made acquainted with them. The sailor, in order to avoid rocks and shelves, must know how they ly. To go into life without any knowledge of its temptations and perils, is like venturing to sea without a sea chart. If young men are bred up in ignorance of what the world really is, is it any wonder, that soon finding it quite another thing than what they were taught it should be, and so imagined it was, they are easily persuaded by other kind of tutors, which they are sure to meet with, that the discipline they were kept under was but the restraints of school-boys, or the austere formality of education; and that the freedom of men is to take their swing in a full enjoyment of what was before forbidden them? Shewing youth the world as it really is, before they come wholly into it, is the only way, I think, of preventing this mischief. It is not possible, now a-days at least, whatever it may formerly have been, to keep a young gentleman from vice by a total ignorance of it, if he is not cloister’d for life, and never suffer’d to peep out of the cell in which he is mewed up. And therefore he should be early shewn the prevailing vices of the world, of his own country, and of the age he has fallen into, in particular. He should be informed of the traps that are laid for youth, and the arts that are used to seduce and corrupt them, and have the tragical or ridiculous examples set before him, of those who are ruined, or in the way to it by these guileful ruses. The plainest, easiest, and most efficacious way of teaching young people, is to exhibit to their eyes examples of what you would have them to avoid, as well as of what you would have them to do.28 Virtues and vices can by no words be so forcibly set before their understandings as the actions of others will shew them, when you direct their observation to this or that good quality in the examples you lay before them, by some proper reflections on their beauty or unbecomingness, their merit or vileness, and their good or bad consequences. These are the lessons that sink deepest into the mind, and make the most vivid and lasting impressions upon it.—Besides, said he, could you secure their virtue, without letting them know that they will hear it called an empty name, a political trick and imposition to restrain man’s natural liberty, and confine our enjoyment of life within very scanty and severe bounds, yet you cannot secure them from being dupes to the birds of prey that are ever upon the wing hunting for so easy a booty, as such an honest novice must be to the cunning sharpers of various sorts, with which the world abounds. Those who have wicked ends to promote, well know how to put on very deceitful appearances of different kinds, as may best serve their knavish purposes. Youth therefore ought to be learned to pull off the masks with which artful men may cover their designs, and be taught not to judge by the outside, but to discern through it into the filthy views that so often lurk under the most specious semblances.
“This skill in men and manners, is not the product of a few superficial thoughts, or even of much reading, but is the effect of experience and observation, in a man who has lived in the world with his eyes open, and conversed with men of all sorts: And to instil this knowledge into young minds with due precaution, to open this scene to them gradually, with a gentle and wary hand, and thus conduct them, as it were by the arm, into a world of dangers, by proper degrees, or step by step, requires great prudence, great dexterity. But he who thinks not this knowledge of mankind of more moment to his son than abstract speculations about the essences and modes of spirit and matter, than all the languages and all the learned sciences, forgets that the art of living right with men, and of managing one’s affairs with prudence, is the most necessary of all arts and sciences.
“Oh! my friend, said he, to one who desired to hear him on this subject, how large, how extensive, how profound, how difficult is this lesson, for it must comprehend all the dangers, temptations and snares that environ a young man from his first entrance upon the stage of the world, from all the several degrees, tempers, callings, professions, designs, and clubs or factions of men! A virtuous youth of birth and fortune must be prepared to be flattered and caressed by some, and ridiculed, affronted and shocked by others: He must be warned who are like to mislead, who to undermine, who to sooth and cajole, and who to banter and oppose him, and taught to distinguish the plain upright friend from the smooth officious villain.—But he must be taught thus to beware of the designs of men he hath to do with, and to distinguish realities from pretences and appearances, without contracting a too suspicious temper. For it is indeed hard to decide on which side the greater danger lies, in being too ready to confide, or too jealous and mistrustful. Both are extremes carefully to be avoided in forming youth: yet hood-winked they must not be, but accustomed to distinguish men, and to form right judgments of them, and to conceive of the world as they will really find it to be, so soon as they come into it. And therefore examples from history, from present times, and from just imitations of human manners, of men and things as they are, must be fairly set before them. In these faithful mirrors are they often to be shewn by a prudent teacher gradually, the whole of human life, all the various characters of mankind, all their different ruling passions, and all their different pursuits and arts.—And why indeed should we fear to shew virtue and vice together, or to set the one over against the other? Are not all the charms on the side of honesty and worth, till the mind is sadly corrupted by bad example; or till some appetite that might early have been directed into a very proper course, hath taken a very wrong one, and by indulgence is become too strong for precept, for reason, nay almost for suffering itself and fatal experience to conquer?—I say for fatal experience itself to subdue or reform. For have all the bad consequences Curio has suffered by his intemperance and debauchery been able to render him chaste and sober? And so is it with ambition, avarice, and every vice. Such is the fascination of habit. But what does this teach us, but that the great business of education is to form betimes good habits29 in the mind, that thinking and acting aright may by practice early become natural to young people. Accustom them to a graceful air in walking, in speaking, in the whole of their deportment, in all their motions from their childhood, and it will never leave them. And for the same reason, if we inure them to think well before they act, and to act prudently and virtuously, they will ever continue so to behave, as it were, by impulse: The first thoughts and motions of their minds on every occasion will be virtuous.
“They are strangers to human nature, continued he, who think it sufficient to give rules to their children: many good habits may be formed by exercise or practice, before precepts can be understood or retained: And rules without practice can never form habits. These can only be acquired by repeated acts. Therefore, what you think necessary for them to do, inure them to do it by frequent practice, as often as proper occasions return; nay, as much as is possible make occasions. By this method may the mind be made liberal, humane, compassionate, grateful, obedient and pliable to reason, long before the easiest reasonings can be fully comprehended.—Yet mistake me not, as if I were for delaying reasoning with children so long as is commonly done. They love and are pleased to be treated as rational creatures, much sooner than we are apt to imagine. And this is a noble pride that ought to be carefully cherished in them, and indeed made one of the principal handles for turning them into a right mould. Reason is called forth, strengthened and perfected by reasoning. And why is it, that it is so long of beginning to dawn in most children, but because we think it too early to draw it out, or invite it to disclose itself? As often as the kind experiment has been tried by such as understand how to make the young idea shoot, it hath been found that reasoning is understood by children almost as early as language. I do not mean that an infant should be argued with as a grown man, nay nor as one of six years old. Every thing in nature opens and expands itself gradually, and in proportion to the friendly aid it receives from art and culture. But when I say they should from the beginning be used to hear and obey reason, and so be treated like rational creatures, I mean, that they should always be made sensible, by the mildness of their managers, that it is not out of caprice or passion they desire or forbid them to do, but because it is useful and good for them so to do. This they are capable of understanding. And I think there is no virtue they should be excited to, nor no vice they should be kept from, of the fitness or unreasonableness of which they may not be convinced by arguments suited to their capacity and apprehension. To gain and preserve the parent’s and the tutor’s favour and love, and to avoid their displeasure, or falling into discredit or disgrace with them, are motives that will be intelligible from the earliest dawn of understanding. And this is always a very proper one to work by, while the instructor aims at nothing