Observations upon Liberal Education. George Turnbull
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should be tenderly hearkened to. Austerity in refusing to hearken to them, far from serving any good purpose, must have this very hurtful effect, that it will quickly cool the affection which should be between them. But are not those two very different things, to say, “I am hungry,” and to say, “I must have such a particular good thing, or I won’t eat.” Parents are bound to supply the necessary wants of their children, but children ought not to be allowed to choose for themselves, but should be inured to leave the choice and ordering of their food and cloaths, and every thing, to their parents or tutors. In truth, the more our children can be brought by mild discipline to endure pains, arising even from the necessities of nature, the better for them. Such endurance will make them stronger in body, and which is still better, stronger in mind. But whatever compliances the necessities of nature may require, the cravings of fancy ought never to be gratified; unless we would teach and encourage fancy to be ever inventing new wants. For in proportion as it is humoured and indulged, does it not become more impatient, more exorbitant and insatiable? Consider well, Strephon, how few the wants of nature are, in comparison of those of indulged, wanton, capricious fancy; and whence it is that virtue receives the fiercest assaults; nay, how far superior in number, as well as in force, imaginary evils in life are to real ones, and you will, by no means, think the discipline I have been recommending, cruel, tho’ it were to cost children a great deal more pain than it can possibly do, if early begun. Take care to prevent the false associations of ideas that inflame the desires from which virtue runs the greatest risk; and you will by this means reduce the wants of children into a very narrow compass; you will early lead them to place their chief happiness where it is only to be found, i.e. in things wholly within their own power, the eternal goods of the mind. Wisdom and virtue are immortal as the soul, and nothing else is such. I remember, continued he, my tutor used to say, “That the great business of education was to teach youth early to distinguish between objects of industry, and objects quite beyond our power, and therefore objects of resignation to the divine will. Till the goddess Minerva, said he, had driven away the mist that overcast the eyes of Diomede,33 and had cleared his sight, his bravery stood him in very little stead, for he could not distinguish between gods and men, but promiscuously attacked whatever opposed him.” We cannot, without long and costly experience, except by the early help of a wise teacher, discern what things are the proper objects of our pursuit, care and industry; and what things nature hath put beyond our power to obtain. Education ought therefore to open the eyes of youth, dispel the mist which hinders us from observing this essential, important difference of things, and thus direct our labour and resolution towards the objects wherein they can have success; and teach and inure us to submit the things above our reach or power to the kind will of heaven, which manages all these to the best end, the greater good of intelligent beings. The former are men’s, i.e. they are human things, things subjected by the laws of our nature to human power and industry: The latter are God’s, i.e. divine things, objects not subjected to our command, but which the divinity hath reserved the disposal of to his own wisdom, that alone can comprehend the universal good the disposition of them is to promote.
STR. The similitude is admirable and full of instruction. For indeed if one does not keep this difference of things in his view, he cannot possibly direct his industry aright; that industry to which, it must be owned, heaven is not niggardly: For, as every thing we do, or can obtain, is done and obtained by it alone, so it hath abundant room to exert itself: It is able to make large conquests, or to acquire a very extensive and glorious dominion, if it be rightly applied and directed.
DAM. You fully comprehend my meaning. And if this be the rule in life, ought it not also to be the rule in education?
STR. It ought, and I can now see, how happy and wise due attendance to it in the instruction and discipline of children would very early make them, with much less trouble to themselves, or their parents and tutors, than the correction of any one passion costs, which, if suffered to prevail, would be of very fatal consequence. I can now see, how the love of liberality, justice, and every virtue, may be early formed in young minds, by practising them in these virtues, and giving them just notions of their beauty and excellence.
DAM. You have yourself laid down the principle that ought always to be kept in view, and by which education should be directed, in your excellent definition of virtue, when you said it consisted in bearing and forbearing as reason dictates. Whence can virtue be in danger but from pleasure or pain? But if that be the case, then to breed virtue in a young mind, can be nothing else but to nurse the habit of hearkening to reason, and of not suffering pain or pleasure to lead us as they will, without controul. Now to do this, it is evident that the mind must be early accustomed to look upon every immoral indulgence as more contrary to nature, and a greater evil than any bodily pain.
STR. Alas! Damocles, how few arrive at this pitch of fortitude!
DAM. And whence is it so rare, but because men are not thus educated, but contrariwise, are taught and inured to prefer bodily pleasure to virtue, and to dread the smallest corporal pain more than the greatest vice? Let us not charge human nature with incapacity of such virtuous strength and resolution, as we have been discoursing of. For upon what pains and dangers do not men rush to gratify avarice, ambition, or revenge? Do not these passions by their strength often get the ascendant of self-love? Or why else do we so often wonder that men should run with their eyes open to their manifest ruin? But if persons can expose themselves to hunger, want of rest, nay, poverty, shame, racking torments, and even to death itself, commonly thought the greatest of evils, in pursuit of some imaginary good, that cannot stand the test of cool examination; how can we pronounce it impossible to beget by proper institution and discipline in young minds, true courage, even that which fears nothing so much as acting contrary to reason and virtue? We know it hath been attained, and that maugre the worst education, the most inveterate evil habits. And we know that falsely directed courage is not uncommon. The human mind must therefore be capable of true fortitude and magnanimity. But, Strephon, you will easily perceive, that in order to form this habit in the mind, children must not on the one hand be taught and inured to look on bodily pain as the greatest evil, or punishment; and therefore they must not be beaten for their faults; nor upon bodily pleasure as the greatest good, as the greatest reward; and therefore bodily gratifications must not be the recompenses of their good behaviour. For such discipline is diametrically opposite to the lesson and habit we have agreed is the main thing.
STR. How then, Damocles, would you have no rewards or punishments used?
DAM. In order to find an answer to this question, you need only ask your own heart, Strephon, what are its motives to good actions? What, for instance, makes you so concerned to do your duty to your son, and to give him a good education; to place more satisfaction in this laborious task, than in the pursuits of pleasure most other fathers indulge themselves in, without any thoughts about, not to say the public, even their own offspring? What motives do you think consistent with virtue?
STR. He alone is truly virtuous, who sincerely abhors moral evil as such, and places his supreme satisfaction in acting conformably to his reason and moral conscience.
DAM. Are there no other motives, which may concur with this principle, that is indeed the genuine spring of truly virtuous deeds?
STR. I know but one, and that is the desire of the esteem and love of wise and good men. This, I think, is very near a-kin to the love of virtue for its own sake, if it be not inseparable from it. It seems to me to grow up and strengthen in the mind, as virtue waxes stronger and more ardent.
DAM. Well then, Strephon, only consider what must be the natural effects of the rewards and punishments we use with children, and you will easily discover what they ought to be. Will not what is used as a reward be esteemed a great good, and what is used as a punishment be esteemed a great evil?
STR. They will, and therefore we ought to employ no rewards which ought not to be considered as goods, and no punishments which ought not to be considered as evils, and be motives.
DAM. What then are we to make use of as motives to excite children to virtue, besides the excellence of virtue and the deformity of vice?
STR. None other but what I have named as the only other motive consistent with virtue, viz. good reputation and disgrace.
DAM. And hath not nature implanted