It may be objected to this Method, that Conversation is not the only thing necessary, but that unless it be a Conversation with such as are in some measure their Equals in Parts and Years, there can be no room for Emulation, Contention, and several of the most lively Passions of the Mind; which, without being sometimes moved by these means, may possibly contract a Dulness and Insensibility.

One of the greatest Writers our Nation ever produced observes, That a Boy who forms Parties, and makes himself Popular in a School or a College, would act the same Part with equal ease in a Senate or a Privy Council; and Mr. Osborn speaking like a Man versed in the Ways of the World, affirms, that the well laying and carrying on of a design to rob an Orchard, trains up a Youth insensibly to Caution, Secrecy and Circumspection, and fits him for Matters of greater Importance.

In short, a private Education seems the most natural Method for the forming of a virtuous Man; a Publick Education for making a Man of Business.  The first would furnish out a good Subject for Plato’s Republick, the latter a Member for a Community over-run with Artifice and Corruption.

It must however be confessed, that a Person at the head of a publick School has sometimes so many Boys under his Direction, that it is impossible he should extend a due proportion of his Care to each of them.  This is, however, in reality, the Fault of the Age, in which we often see twenty Parents, who tho each expects his Son should be made a Scholar, are not contented altogether to make it worth while for any Man of a liberal Education to take upon him the Care of their Instruction.

In our great Schools indeed this Fault has been of late Years rectified, so that we have at present not only Ingenious Men for the chief Masters, but such as have proper Ushers and Assistants under them; I must nevertheless own, that for want of the same Encouragement in the Country, we have many a promising Genius spoiled and abused in those Seminaries.

I am the more inclined to this Opinion, having my self experienced the Usage of two Rural Masters, each of them very unfit for the Trust they took upon them to discharge.  The first imposed much more upon me than my Parts, tho none of the weakest, could endure; and used me barbarously for not performing Impossibilities.  The latter was of quite another Temper; and a Boy, who would run upon his Errands, wash his Coffee-pot, or ring the Bell, might have as little Conversation with any of the Classicks as he thought fit.  I have known a Lad at this Place excused his Exercise for assisting the Cook-maid; and remember a Neighbouring Gentleman’s Son was among us five Years, most of which time he employed in airing and watering our Masters grey Pad.  I scorned to Compound for my Faults, by doing any of these Elegant Offices, and was accordingly the best Scholar, and the worst used of any Boy