Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... ADVICE TO A SON I. STUDIES, cVc. i. THOUGH I can never pay enough to your Grandfathers Memory, for his tender care of my Education, yet I must observe in it this Mistake; That by keeping me at home, where I was one of my young Masters, I lost the advantage of my most docile time. For not undergoing the same Discipline, I must needs come short of their experience, that are bred up in Free Schools; who, by plotting to rob an Orchard, &c. run through all the Subtilties required in taking of a Town; being made, by use, familiar to Secresie, and Compliance with Opportunity; Qualities never after to be attained at cheaper rates than the hazard of all: whereas these see the danger of trusting others, and the Rocks they fall upon, by a too obstinate adhering to their own imprudent resolutions; and all this under no higher penalty than a Whipping: And 'tis possible this indulgence of my Father might be the cause I afforded him so poor a Return for all his Cost. But But though Children attain to an exacter Knowledge, both of themselves and the World, in Free and populous Schools, than under a more solitary Erudition; yet I think the Charity of our Forefathers in nothing so much mistaken, as in the vast Sums they imployed in these (more seeming than real) pious uses, which now much redounds to the prejudice of the Plough, and the more beneficial Manufactures of our Nation; The Sons of the Menu lying so long under this lazy Course, that they are rendred ever after resty to Labour and Travel: which fills the Common-wealth with Thieves and Beggars; no way to be prevented, but by garbling out of them all Boys of an incapacity, and retaining none that make not more than an ordinary demonstration of an extraordinary propensity to Learning: since...