ir own country. Clarendon
draws a sad picture of the return of the native who was ashamed to be
present at the public and private meetings for the administration of
justice, because he had spent in dancing the time when he might have
been storing knowledge, and who now passed his days a-bed, reading
French romances of which he was tired.

Locke also set forth the fallacies of the Grand Tour in his _Essay of
Education_. He admitted that fencing and riding the Great Horse were
looked upon as "so necessary parts of breeding that it would be thought
a great omission to neglect them," but he questioned whether riding the
Great Horse was "of moment enough to be made a business of."[387]
Fencing, he pointed out, has very little to do with civil life, and is
of no use in real warfare, while music "wastes so much of a young man's
time, to gain but a moderate skill in it, and engages often in such odd
company, that many think it much better spared."[388] But the feature of
travel which was most mercilessly analysed by Locke was the Governor. He
exposed the futility of sending a boy abroad to gain experience and to
mingle with good society while he was so young as to need a guardian.
For at the age when most boys were abroad--that is, from sixteen to
twenty-two--they thought themselves too much men to be governed by
others, and yet had not experience and prudence enough to govern
themselves. Under the shelter of a Governor they were excused from being
accountable for their own conduct and very seldom troubled themselves
with inquiries or with making useful observations of their own.

While the Governor robbed his pupil of life's responsibilities on one
hand, he hampered him, on the other, in any efforts to get into good
company:

"I ask amongst our young men that go abroad under tutors what one is
there of an hundred, that ever visits any person of quality? much less
makes an acquaintance with such from whose conversation he may learn
what is good breeding in that country and what is worth observation in
it.... Nor indeed is it to be wondered. For men of worth and parts will
not easily admit the familiarity of boys who yet need the care of a
tutor: though a young gentleman and stranger, appearing like a man, and
shewing a desire to inform himself in the customs, laws, and government
of the country he is in, will find welcome, assistance and entertainment
everywhere."[389]

These, and many comments of the same sort from other o