inutiae', without repeating to
you the necessity of your carving well; which is an article, little as it
is, that is useful twice every day of one's life; and the doing it ill is
very troublesome to one's self, and very disagreeable, often ridiculous,
to others.

Having said all this, I cannot help reflecting, what a formal dull
fellow, or a cloistered pedant, would say, if they were to see this
letter: they would look upon it with the utmost contempt, and say that
surely a father might find much better topics for advice to a son. I
would admit it, if I had given you, or that you were capable of
receiving, no better; but if sufficient pains have been taken to form
your heart and improve your mind, and, as I hope, not without success, I
will tell those solid gentlemen, that all these trifling things, as they
think them, collectively, form that pleasing 'je ne sais quoi', that
ensemble, which they are utter strangers to both in themselves and
others. The word aimable is not known in their language, or the thing in
their manners. Great usage of the world, great attention, and a great
desire of pleasing, can alone give it; and it is no trifle. It is from
old people's looking upon these things as trifles, or not thinking of
them at all, that so many young people are so awkward and so ill-bred.
Their parents, often careless and unmindful of them, give them only the
common run of education, as school, university, and then traveling;
without examining, and very often without being able to judge, if they
did examine, what progress they make in any one of these stages. Then,
they carelessly comfort themselves, and say, that their sons will do like
other people's sons; and so they do, that is, commonly very ill. They
correct none of the childish nasty tricks, which they get at school; nor
the illiberal manners which they contract at the university; nor the
frivolous and superficial pertness, which is commonly all that they
acquire by their travels. As they do not tell them of these things,
nobody else can; so they go on in the practice of them, without ever
hearing, or knowing, that they are unbecoming, indecent, and shocking.
For, as I have often formerly observed to you, nobody but a father can
take the liberty to reprove a young fellow, grown up, for those kinds of
inaccuracies and improprieties of behavior. The most intimate friendship,
unassisted by the paternal superiority, will not authorize it. I may
truly say, therefore,