But to complete the disgust we seem so careful to inspire, the learned languages are ever surrounded with the severity verity of discipline; and it would probably be thought little short of sacrilege to discompose their features with a smile.  Such a mode of proceeding can never be sufficiently execrated.

Indeed, I shall be told, “this is the time to correct the native vices of the mind.  In childhood the influence of pain and mortification is comparatively trifling.  What then can be more judicious than to accumulate upon this period, what must otherwise fall with tenfold mischief upon the age of maturity?” In answer to this reasoning, let it be first considered, how many there are, who by the sentence of nature are called out of existence, before they can live to reap these boasted advantages.  Which of you is there, that has not at some time regretted that age, in which a smile is ever upon the countenance, and peace and serenity at the bottom of the heart?  How is it you can consent to deprive these little innocents of an enjoyment, that slides so fast away?  How is it you can find in your heart to pall these fleeting years with bitterness and slavery?  The undesigning gaiety of youth has the strongest claim upon your humanity.  There is not in the world a truer object of pity, than a child terrified at every glance, and watching, with anxious uncertainty, the caprices of a pedagogue.  If he survive, the liberty of manhood is dearly bought by so many heart aches.  And if he die, happy to escape your cruelty, the only advantage he derives from the sufferings you have inflicted, is that of not regretting a life, of which he knew nothing but the torments.

But who is it that has told you, that the certain, or even the probable consequences of this severity are beneficial?  Nothing is so easily proved, as that the human mind is pure and spotless, as it came from the hands of God, and that the vices of which you complain, have their real source in those shallow and contemptible precautions, that you pretend to employ against them.  Of all the conditions to which we are incident, there is none so unpropitious to whatever is ingenuous and honourable, as that of a slave.  It plucks away by the root all sense of dignity, and all manly confidence.  In those nations of antiquity, most celebrated for fortitude and heroism, their youth had never their haughty and unsubmitting neck bowed to the inglorious yoke of a pedagogue.  To borrow the idea of that gallant assertor of humanity, sir Richard Steele:  I will not say that our public schools have not produced many great and illustrious characters; but I will assert, there was not one of those characters, that would not have been more manly and venerable, if they had never been subjected to this vile and sordid condition.

Having thus set aside the principal corruptions of modern education, the devising methods for facilitating the acquisition of languages will not be difficult.  The first books put into the hands of a pupil should be simple, interesting, and agreeable.  By their means, he will perceive a reasonableness and a beauty in the pursuit.  If he be endowed by nature with a clear understanding, and the smallest propensity to literature, he will need very little to stimulate him either from hope or fear.