rescribed the age of ten years, as the most eligible for the
commencement of classical education, I conceive there would be no
impropriety in taking up the modern language so early as nine.

Such then is the kind of subjection, that the learning of languages
demands. The question that recurs upon us is; How far this subjection
may fairly be considered as exceptionable, and whether its beneficial
consequences do not infinitely outweigh the trifling inconveniences that
may still be ascribed to it?

But there is another subject that demands our consideration. Modern
education not only corrupts the heart of our youth, by the rigid slavery
to which it condemns them, it also undermines their reason, by the
unintelligible jargon with which they are overwhelmed in the first
instance, and the little attention, that is given to the accommodating
their pursuits to their capacities in the second.

Nothing can have a greater tendency to clog and destroy the native
activity of the mind, than the profuseness with which the memory of
children is loaded, by nurses, by mothers, by masters. What can more
corrupt the judgment, than the communicating, without measure, and
without end, words entirely devoid of meaning? What can have a more
ridiculous influence upon our taste, than for the first verses to which
our attention is demanded, to consist of such strange and uncouth
jargon? To complete the absurdity, and that we may derive all that
elegance and refinement from the study of languages, that it is
calculated to afford, our first ideas of Latin are to be collected from
such authors, as Corderius, Erasmus, Eutropius, and the Selectae. To
begin indeed with the classical writers, is not the way to smooth the
path of literature. I am of opinion however, that one of the
above-mentioned authors will be abundantly sufficient. Let it be
remembered, that the passage from the introductory studies to those
authors, that form the very essence of the language, will be much
facilitated by the previous acquisition of the French.

Having spoken of the article of memory, let me be permitted to mention
the practice, that has of late gained so great a vogue; the instructing
children in the art of spouting and acting plays. Of all the qualities
incident to human nature, the most universally attractive is simplicity,
the most disgusting is affectation. Now what idea has a child of the
passions of a hero, and the distresses of royalty? But he is taught th