do not overturn the principles
delivered in the preceding Essay respecting the duration of human life,
though they certainly interpose additional boundaries to limit the
prospects of individual improvement.

ESSAY IX. OF LEISURE.

The river of human life is divided into two streams; occupation and
leisure--or, to express the thing more accurately, that occupation,
which is prescribed, and may be called the business of life, and that
occupation, which arises contingently, and not so much of absolute and
set purpose, not being prescribed: such being the more exact description
of these two divisions of human life, inasmuch as the latter is often
not less earnest and intent in its pursuits than the former.

It would be a curious question to ascertain which of these is of the
highest value.

To this enquiry I hear myself loudly and vehemently answered from
all hands in favour of the first. "This," I am told by unanimous
acclamation, "is the business of life."

The decision in favour of what we primarily called occupation, above
what we called leisure, may in a mitigated sense be entertained as true.
Man can live with little or no leisure, for millions of human beings
do so live: but the species to which we belong, and of consequence
the individuals of that species, cannot exist as they ought to exist,
without occupation.

Granting however the paramount claims that occupation has to our regard,
let us endeavour to arrive at a just estimate of the value of leisure.

It has been said by some one, with great appearance of truth, that
schoolboys learn as much, perhaps more, of beneficial knowledge in their
hours of play, as in their hours of study.

The wisdom of ages has been applied to ascertain what are the most
desirable topics for the study of the schoolboy. They are selected for
the most part by the parent. There are few parents that do not feel a
sincere and disinterested desire for the welfare of their children. It
is an unquestionable maxim, that we are the best judges of that of which
we have ourselves had experience; and all parents have been children.
It is therefore idle and ridiculous to suppose that those studies
which have for centuries been chosen by the enlightened mature for the
occupation of the young, have not for the most part been well chosen. Of
these studies the earliest consist in the arts of reading and writing.
Next follows arithmetic, with perhaps some rudiments of algebra and
geometry