Observations upon Liberal Education. George Turnbull
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Let the examples of others be set before youth, to warn them against dangers of this kind. As Plato, when he observed an error in the conduct of any person, used to retire and narrowly examine his own heart, whether there were any disposition or tendency in himself to such a fault: so let youth learn from the follies of others what they ought to avoid, chiefly indeed with respect to vice or misconduct, but likewise with regard to bodily disturbances. For is it not duty to ourselves and to the public, to guard against whatever may incapacitate us for being serviceable by our honest, well-directed industry? And must not the instruments and utensils be found and in good condition, as well as the head that is to employ them? Above all, said the same philosopher, let youth, if they would have sound minds in sound bodies, which two comprehend the whole of human felicity, be used to plain diet, and to look upon the art which racks its invention to contrive provocatives of appetite, with the same abhorrence the most voluptuous persons hear stories of the love-potions and charms practised by lewd women to inflame the blood of their galants. For at bottom where is the difference?
By such care as hath been described, from these schools came robust vigorous bodies, fit for any honest or useful labour, and equally strong minds to govern them. Young men entered upon life fit for it, and not novices to the world, in consequence of these excellent methods of education, so different from what are now established into practice, that the whole tribe of tutors and school-masters will hiss at the scheme, if they have as little wit as virtue, and if more of the former than the latter, endeavour to make appear ridiculous. Before I leave the subject, I will give you, my friend, a specimen of the railery I have heard thrown out against such methods of education. Mean time I tell you, till virtue can be made the object of true ridicule, this plan of education cannot be dressed in a fool’s coat, or be turned into a jest. For virtue is its scope, and virtue can only be taught and formed by virtuous instruction, united with virtuous discipline and practice. If there be any such thing as truth, that must be true. There are several diseases of the mind I have not yet considered, such as timorousness, and which is the worst, the most dangerous of all bad habits in youth, sauntering. But I should weary you, did I not as often change the scenes as the unity of my subject permits me. And therefore, before I proceed to treat of them, I shall just observe, that what Plato and Aristotle have so much recommended, and did themselves put in practice in teaching (for they were both professed educators of youth, and gloried in the employment) was generally taken care of by all the other best masters among the ancient Greeks in education.
“’Tis ridiculous, said they, 36 not to suit education to the form of government established in the state. For if the manner of education be not congruous to it, the state builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.” And accordingly from the schools throughout Greece, the youth went early into the world, fit not only to manage their private affairs, but qualified for the highest trusts and employments in the public service: well acquainted with the constitution and laws of their country, and highly enamoured of the liberty and happiness, which, whatever civil government hath not for its aim, is not government, but tyranny and oppression. Under tyrannies education was ever neglected, not merely because the more ignorant and dissolute men are, they are the better, i.e. the tamer and more submissive slaves; but because, as Alcaeus was wont to say, tyranny is sagacious enough to know, that arguments are nowise its proper weapons: You may subject minds to it, but you can never persuade into the love and approbation of what is so directly repugnant to virtue and human happiness. The picture of it may please by its likeness, as the images of the deceitful crocodile, or the savage tyger do. But the better drawn such pictures are, the more will they raise our abhorrence of the original monsters themselves. The liberty and general good aimed at by the constitutions of Sparta and Athens, however different these constitutions were, made pleasing representations. It was no difficult matter to breed an early liking to them in a breast where there were any seeds of public spirit. But the tutors of youth in those days did not satisfy themselves with making general panegyrics upon this or the other form of free government, but taught their pupils to attend carefully to the various changes different forms of government had passed through, and to distinguish the internal and the external causes of such revolutions. From such masters had Polybius learned to do more than pass right judgments upon the past, that is, to foresee changes and revolutions yet hid in their causes, and to foretel them, as, you know, he did with respect to Rome, at a very considerable distance of time before the causes, whence the fatal change of government sprung, began to develop themselves, and shew their direful prognostics, or were, so to speak, yet come to a head. This foresight into distant times has nature granted to us, i.e. put within our power to acquire, if we will apply ourselves to get it by looking carefully into history. For perhaps the moon and planets are not more regular in their motions, to the eyes of an astronomer, than human affairs are to those, who being conversant in ancient history, know how to discern futurity in the past, in consequence of the likeness of man to man, and of the sameness of human nature in all ages, i.e. the sameness or likeness of causes in moral productions and events. This is true political wisdom. And this wisdom were youth early taught how to learn from history, and the comparison of times and events.—“Such circumstances happened at a certain period, and such was the successful expedient or cure, or such was the fatal mistake and misapplication, and such were its direful consequences; and when these or the like circumstances shall again concur, the effects will be nearly the same.” This was a lesson duly37 inculcated by ancient preceptors upon their pupils from history and experience, so soon as they had imbibed just notions of the end of government, the design of magistracy and laws, and of the true grandeur and happiness of man, and of society, which is but a greater one; and by this means a clear idea of internal security in a civil constitution against mal-administration, by a just division and balance of power.
Now that I am upon this subject, I can’t choose but tell you; for at this moment the amiable, venerable sage is full in my view.—I cannot, I say, forbear telling you, how my own tutor, who had survived several revolutions in the Roman state, and was throughly acquainted with all that history hath preserved to us, concerning ancient republicks or monarchies, and their struggles, commotions and vicissitudes—how he used to talk to his pupils on matters of government, which we observed to warm him more than any other subject.
“I know, said he, all that happened to Sparta, to Athens, to Carthage, to Syracuse, to Rome in particular. I have studied their respective constitutions, I will explain them all to you, and impartially compare them with you in the course of my lectures. And let me tell you, I do not wonder men were so long of understanding, or being able to find out the best model of civil society. For how can men, how indeed can any creatures, learn causes and the effects of causes, but from observation and experience? As costly as the teacher is, there is, there can be no other. And tho’ the more complex the lesson be, the more danger there is in mistaking and judging wrong, yet a complex lesson must be as difficult as it is complex, and therefore it must require long and various experience to teach, i.e. to illustrate and confirm it. The happiness38 of mankind depends greatly upon their falling into rightly modelled society or good government. Men can do very little singly, or without confederacy and union. Yet if civil union be not rightly constituted, it were better to live disunitedly, or without any other links but the links of humanity or pure nature. But the best form of social union is the most complex and difficult of all lessons. It is a lesson which many dismal catastrophes in human affairs alone can teach. As many revolutions of the moon are requisite in order to learn such a knowledge of that planet’s motions as men can render subservient to their uses, in navigation and otherwise, so many vicissitudes and revolutions of various kinds in different states, are absolutely necessary to shew men to men, and to develop fully to them the nature and operations of moral causes. The lesson is in itself difficult, setting aside all other considerations, as how, for instance, the passions of men blind them or shut their eyes, and hinder them from discerning truths, again and again confirmed to them by the most evident and indisputable experiments.—But as complex and difficult as it is, yet the sagacious penetrating Aristotle,39 tho’ born and bred up in a republic, was able, by his skill in political history and theory, to see there was another form of government, the world had not yet seen, which alone can stand firm and unshaken, and which when once rightly poised and fixed on its basis, will never totter.—A government compounded of democracy and monarchy, so as to make a perfect equilibre. And, said he, raising his voice, and with a warmth like one inspired, surely after long experience