tors, should we blame a thoughtful, attentive, and well-informed
pupil, because his mind did not at once acquiesce in our interpretation
of some difficult passage; because he consulted other authorities on the
subject, and was unsatisfied in his judgment; the reason of his
hesitation being, that our interpretation appeared to him to give an
unsatisfactory sense, or to be obtained by violating the rules of
language? Is he proud, rebellious, puffed up, wanting in a teachable
spirit, without faith, without humility, because he so ventures to judge
for himself of what his teacher tells him? Does such a judging for
himself interfere, in the slightest degree, with the relation between us
and him? Does it make him really cease to respect us? or dispose him to
believe that he is altogether beyond the reach of our instruction? Or
are we so mad as to regard our authority as wholly set at nought,
because it is not allowed to be infallible? Doubtless, it would be
wholly set at nought, if we had presumed to be infallible. Then it would
not be merely that, in some one particular point, our decision had been
doubted, but that one point would involve our authority in all; because
it would prove, that we had set up beforehand a false claim: and he who
does so is either foolish, or a deceiver; there is apparent a flaw
either in his understanding, or in his principles, which undoubtedly
does repel respect.

Let me go on a step farther still. It has been my happiness to retain,
in after years, my intercourse with many of those who were formerly my
pupils; to know them when their minds have been matured, and their
education, in the ordinary sense of the term, completed. Is not the
relation between us altered then still more? Is it incompatible with
true respect and regard, that they should now judge still more freely,
in those very points, I mean, in which heretofore they had received my
instructions all but implicitly? that on points of scholarship and
criticism, they should entirely think for themselves? Or does this
thinking for themselve mean, that they will begin to question all they
had ever learnt? or sit down to forget purposely all their school
instructions, and make out a new knowledge of the ancient languages for
themselves? Who does not know, that they whose minds are most eager to
discern truth, are the very persons who prize their early instruction
most, and confess how much they are indebted to it; and that the
exercise of th