and the _gymnasia_ of foreign countries.
The number of learned persons in these celebrated seats is still
considerable, and more conveniencies and opportunities for study still
subsist in them, than in any other place. There is at least one very
powerful incentive to learning; I mean the GENIUS _of the place_. It is
a sort of inspiring deity, which every youth of quick sensibility and
ingenious disposition creates to himself, by reflecting, that he is
placed under those venerable walls, where a HOOKER and a HAMMOND, a
BACON and a NEWTON, once pursued the same course of science, and from
whence they soared to the most elevated heights of literary fame. This
is that incitement which Tully, according to his own testimony,
experienced at Athens, when he contemplated the porticos where Socrates
sat, and the laurel-groves where Plato disputed[2].

But there are other circumstances, and of the highest importance, which
render our colleges superior to all other places of education. Their
institutions, although somewhat fallen from their primaeval simplicity,
are such as influence, in a particular manner, the moral conduct of
their youth; and in this general depravity of manners and laxity of
principles, pure religion is no where more strongly inculcated. The
_academies_, as they are presumptuously styled, are too low to be
mentioned; and foreign seminaries are likely to prejudice the unwary
mind with Calvinism. But English universities render their students
virtuous, at least by excluding all opportunities of vice; and, by
teaching them the principles of the Church of England, confirm them in
those of true Christianity.

[1] Mr. Thomas Warton.

[2] A rich assemblage of examples, of the "influence of perceptible
objects in reviving former thoughts and former feelings," is
collected in Dr. Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. 2,
Lecture 38.

No. 34. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1758.

To illustrate one thing by its resemblance to another, has been always
the most popular and efficacious art of instruction. There is indeed no
other method of teaching that of which any one is ignorant, but by means
of something already known; and a mind so enlarged by contemplation, and
inquiry, that it has always many objects within its view, will seldom be
long without some near and familiar image through which an easy
transition may be made to truths more distant and obscure.

Of the parallels which have been drawn by wit