reshment, out of COMMENIUS, all the Terms of Art
[_technical terms_] belonging to Anatomy, Mathematics, or some such piece
of Learning. Now, is it not a very likely thing, that a lad should take
most absolute delight in conquering such a pleasant task; where, perhaps,
he has two or three hundred words to keep in mind, with a very small
proportion of sense thereunto belonging: whereas the use and full meaning
of all those difficult terms would have been most insensibly obtained, by
leisurely reading in particular, this or the other science?

Is it not also likely to be very savoury, and of comfortable use to one
that can scarce distinguish between Virtue and Vice, to be tasked with
high and moral poems? It is usually said by those that are intimately
acquainted with him, that HOMER's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ contain,
mystically, all the Moral Law for certain, if not a great part of the
Gospel (I suppose much after that rate that RABELAIS said his _Gargantua_
contained all the Ten Commandments!); but perceivable only to those that
have a poetical discerning spirit: with which gift, I suppose, few at
school are so early qualified.

Those admirable verses, Sir, of yours, both English and others, which you
have sometimes favoured me with a sight of, will not suffer me to be so
sottish as to slight and undervalue so great and noble an accomplishment.
But the committing of such high and brave sensed poems to a schoolboy
(whose main business is to search out cunningly the Antecedent and the
Relative; to lie at catch for a spruce Phrase, a Proverb, or a quaint and
pithy Sentence) is not only to very little purpose, but that having
gargled only those elegant books at school, this serves them instead of
reading them afterwards; and does, in a manner, prevent their being
further looked into. So that all improvement, whatsoever it be, that may
be reaped out of the best and choicest poets, is for the most part
utterly lost, in that a time is usually chosen of reading them, when
discretion is much wanting to gain thence any true advantage. Thus that
admirable and highly useful morality, TULLY's _Offices_, because it is a
book commonly construed at school, is generally afterwards so contemned
by Academics, that it is a long hour's work to convince them that it is
worthy of being looked into again; because they reckon it as a book read
over at school, and, no question! notably digested.

If, therefore the ill methods of schooling do not o