Now if the opening of the understanding, and the improvement of the heart, be the great objects to be attained, it will follow, that both knowledge and wise prohibitions should always be component parts of the education of youth.  The latter the Quakers have adopted ever since the institution of their society.  The former they have been generally backward to promote, at least to any considerable extent.  That they have done good, however, by their prohibitions, though unaccompanied by any considerable knowledge, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge.  But this goad has been chiefly confined to the children of those who have occupied middle stations in the society.  Such children have undoubtedly arrived at the true wisdom of life at an early age, as I described in the first volume, and have done honour to the religion they professed.  But prohibitions, without knowledge, have not been found to answer so well among the children of those who have had the prospect of a large moneyed independence before them, and who have not been afraid either of the bad opinion of their own society, or of the bad opinion of the world.  It has been shewn, however, that knowledge with prohibitions would, in all probability, be useful to these; that it would have a tendency to enable them, in the perilous situation in which they are placed, to stand against the corrupt opinions and fashions, and while they were living in the world, to live out of it, or to deny it.

Peculiarly situated as the Quakers are, they have opportunities, beyond any other people, of ingrafting knowledge into their system of education without danger, or, in other words, of giving knowledge to their children with the purity which Christianity would prescribe.  The great misfortune in the world is, that a learned education is frequently thought more of than a virtuous one; that youth, while they are obtaining knowledge, are not properly watched and checked; and that they are suffered to roam at large in the pursuit of science, and to cultivate or not, at their own option, the science, if I may so call it, of religion.  Hence it will happen, that, where we see learned men, we shall not always see these of the most exemplary character.  But the Quakers have long ago adopted a system of prohibitions, as so many barriers against vice, or preservatives of virtue.  Their constitution forbids all indulgences that appear unfriendly to morals.  The Quakers therefore, while they retain the prohibitions which belong to their constitution, may give encouragement to knowledge, without a fear that it will be converted to the purposes of vice.