vague, indefinite dread of knowledge, as if it were capable of producing these effects. It might almost be supposed, from the dread which the propagation of knowledge has excited, that there was some great secret which was to be kept in impenetrable obscurity,

that all moral rules were a species of delusion and imposture, the detection of which, by the improvement of the understanding, would be attended with the most fatal consequences to all, and particularly to women. If we could possibly understand what these great secrets were, we might perhaps be disposed to concur in their preservation; but, believing that all the salutary rules which are imposed on women are the result of true wisdom, and productive of the greatest happiness, we cannot understand how they are to become less sensible of this truth in proportion as their power of discovering truth in general is increased, and the habit of viewing questions with accuracy and comprehension established by education. There are men, indeed, who are always exclaiming against every species of power, because it is connected with danger: their dread of abuses is so much stronger than their admiration of uses, that they would cheerfully give up the use of fire, gunpowder, and printing, to be freed from robbers, incendiaries, and libels. It is true, that every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power; and its value depends on its application. But, trust to the natural love of good where there is no temptation to be bad -it operates nowhere more forcibly than in education. No man, whether he be tutor, guardian, or friend, ever contents himself with infusing the mere ability to acquire; but, giving the power, he gives with it a

taste for the wise and rational exercise of that power; so that an educated person is not only one with stronger and better faculties than others, but with a more useful propensity a disposition better cultivated and associations of a higher and more important class. In short, and to recapitulate the main points upon which we have insisted. Why the disproportion in knowledge between the two sexes should be so great, when the inequality in natural talents is so small; or why the understanding of women should be lavished upon trifles, when nature has made it capable of higher and better things, we profess ourselves not able to understand. The affectation charged upon female knowledge is best cured by making that knowledge more general and the economy devolved upon women is best secured by the ruin, disgrace, and inconvenience which proceeds from neglecting it. For the care of children, nature has made a direct and powerful provision; and the gentleness and elegance of women is the natural consequence of that desire to please, which is productive of the greatest part of civilisation and refinement, and which rests upon a foundation too deep to be shaken by any such modifications in education as we have proposed. If you educate women to attend to dignified and important subjects, you are multiplying, beyond measure, the chances of human improvement, by preparing and medicating those early impressions, which always come from the mother; and which, in a great majority of instances, are quite decisive of character and genius. Nor is it only in the business of education that women would influence the destiny of men. — If women knew more, men must learn more for ignorance would then be shameful and it would become the fashion to be instructed. The instruction of women improves

the stock of national talents, and employs more minds for the instruction aud amusement of the world; it increases the pleasures of society, by multiplying the topics upon which the two sexes take a common interest; and makes marriage an intercourse of understanding as well as of affection, by giving dignity and importance to the female character. The education of women favours public morals; it provides for every season of life, as well as for the brightest and the best; and leaves a woman when she is stricken by the hand of time, not as she now is, destitute of every thing, and neglected by all; but with the full power and the splendid attractions of knowledge, diffusing the elegant pleasures of polite literature, and receiving the just homage of learned and ac complished men.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS. (E. REVIEW, 1810.)

Remarks on the System of Education in Public Schools. 8vo. Hatchard. London, 1809.

THERE is a set of well-dressed, prosperous gentlemen, who assemble daily at Mr. Hatchard's shop;-clean, civil personages, well in with people in power, — delighted with every existing institution and almost with every existing circumstance: - and, every now and then, one of these personages writes a little book; and the rest praise that little book -- expecting to be praised, in their turn, for their own little books: - and of these little books, thus written by these clean, civil personages, so expecting to be praised, the pamphlet before us appears to be one.

The subject of it is the advantage of public schools; and the author, very creditably to himself, ridicules the absurd clamour, first set on foot by Dr. Rennel, of the irreligious tendency of public schools: he then proceeds to an investigation of the effects which public schools may produce upon the moral character; and here the subject becomes more difficult, and the pamphlet worse.

In arguing any large or general question, it is of infinite importance to attend to the first feelings which the mention of the topic has a tendency to excite; and the name of a public school brings with it immediately the idea of brilliant classical attainments : but, upon the importance of these studies, we are not now offering any opinion. The only points for consideration are, whether boys are put in the way

of becoming good and wise men by these schools; and whether they actually gather, there, those attainments which it pleases mankind, for the time being, to consider as valuable, and to decorate by the name of learning.

By a public school, we mean an endowed place of education, of old standing, to which the sons of gentlemen resort in considerable numbers, and where they continue to reside, from eight or nine, to eighteen years of age. We do not give this as a definition which would have satisfied Porphyry or Duns Scotus, but as one sufficiently accurate for our purpose. The characteristic features of these schools are, their antiquity, the numbers, and the ages of the young people who are educated at them. We beg leave, however, to premise, that we have not the slightest intention of insinuating any thing to the disparagement of the present discipline or present rulers of these schools, as compared with other times and other men: we have no reason whatever to doubt that they are as ably governed at this, as they have been at any preceding period. Whatever objections we may have to these institutions, they are to faults, not depending upon present administration, but upon original construction.*

At a public school (for such is the system established by immemorial custom), every boy is alternately tyrant and slave. The power which the elder part of these communities exercises over the younger,

* A public school is thought to be the best cure for the insolence of youthful aristocracy. This insolence, however, is not a little increased by the homage of masters, and would soon meet with its natural check in the world. There can be no occasion to bring 500 boys together to teach to a young nobleman that proper demeanour which he would learn so much better from the first English gentleman whom he might think proper to insult.