purposes which it was originally
best qualified to effect.

A numerous school is that mint from which the worst and most flagrant
libels on our nature are incessantly issued. Hence it is that we are
taught, by a judgment everlastingly repeated, that the majority of our
kind are predestinated blockheads.

Not that it is by any means to be recommended, that a little writing and
arithmetic, and even the first rudiments of classical knowledge, so far
as they can be practicably imparted, should be withheld from any. The
mischief is, that we persist, month after month, and year after year,
in sowing our seed, when it has already been fully ascertained, that no
suitable and wholsome crop will ever be produced.

But what is perhaps worse is, that we are accustomed to pronounce, that
that soil, which will not produce the crop of which we have attempted to
make it fertile, is fit for nothing. The majority of boys, at the very
period when the buds of intellect begin to unfold themselves, are so
accustomed to be told that they are dull and fit for nothing, that
the most pernicious effects are necessarily produced. They become half
convinced by the ill-boding song of the raven, perpetually croaking in
their ears; and, for the other half, though by no means assured that
the sentence of impotence awarded against them is just, yet, folding
up their powers in inactivity, they are contented partly to waste their
energies in pure idleness and sport, and partly to wait, with minds
scarcely half awake, for the moment when their true destination shall be
opened before them.

Not that it is by any means to be desired that the child in his earlier
years should meet with no ruggednesses in his way, and that he should
perpetually tread "the primrose path of dalliance." Clouds and tempests
occasionally clear the atmosphere of intellect, not less than that
of the visible world. The road to the hill of science, and to the
promontory of heroic virtue, is harsh and steep, and from time to time
puts to the proof the energies of him who would ascend their topmost
round.

There are many things which every human creature should learn, so far
as, agreeably to the constitution of civilised society, they can be
brought within his reach. He should be induced to learn them, willingly
if possible, but, if that cannot be thoroughly effected, yet with half a
will. Such are reading, writing, arithmetic, and the first principles of
grammar; to which shall be