is more usual than to see forty or
fifty Boys of several Ages, Tempers and Inclinations, ranged together
in the same Class, employed upon the same Authors, and enjoyned the
same Tasks? Whatever their natural Genius may be, they are all to be
made Poets, Historians, and Orators alike. They are all obliged to
have the same Capacity, to bring in the same Tale of Verse, and to
furnish out the same Portion of Prose. Every Boy is bound to have as
good a Memory as the Captain of the Form. To be brief, instead of
adapting Studies to the particular Genius of a Youth, we expect from
the young Man, that he should adapt his Genius to his Studies. This, I
must confess, is not so much to be imputed to the Instructor, as to
the Parent, who will never be brought to believe, that his Son is not
capable of performing as much as his Neighbours, and that he may not
make him whatever he has a Mind to.

If the present Age is more laudable than those which have gone before
it in any single Particular, it is in that generous Care which several
well-disposed Persons have taken in the Education of poor Children;
and as in these Charity-Schools there is no Place left for the
over-weening Fondness of a Parent, the Directors of them would make
them beneficial to the Publick, if they considered the Precept which I
have been thus long inculcating. They might easily, by well examining
the Parts of those under their Inspection, make a just Distribution of
them into proper Classes and Divisions, and allot to them this or that
particular Study, as their Genius qualifies them for Professions,
Trades, Handicrafts, or Service by Sea or Land.

How is this kind of Regulation wanting in the three great
Professions!

Dr. South complaining of Persons who took upon them Holy Orders, tho
altogether unqualified for the Sacred Function, says somewhere, that
many a Man runs his Head against a Pulpit, who might have done his
Country excellent Service at a Plough-tail.

In like manner many a Lawyer, who makes but an indifferent Figure at
the Bar, might have made a very elegant Waterman, and have shined at
the Temple Stairs, tho he can get no Business in the House.

I have known a Corn-cutter, who with a right Education would have
been an excellent Physician.

To descend lower, are not our Streets filled with sagacious Draymen,
and Politicians in Liveries? We have several Taylors of six Foot