CHAP.  X.

Imperfect traits in the Quaker character—­Some of these may be called intellectually defective traits—­First imputation of this kind is, that the Quakers are deficient in learning compared with other people—­This trait not improbable on account of their devotion to trade—­and on account of their controversies and notions about human learning—­and of other causes.

The world, while it has given to the Quakers as a body, as it will have now appeared, a more than ordinary share of virtue, has not been without the belief that there are blemishes in their character.  What these traits or blemishes are, may be collected partly from books, partly from conversation, and partly from vulgar sayings.  They are divisible into two kinds, into intellectually defective, and into morally defective traits; the former relating to the understanding, the latter to the heart.

The first of the intellectually defective traits consists in the imputation, that the Quakers are deficient in the cultivation of the intellect of their children, or that, when they grow up in life, they are found to have less knowledge than others in the higher branches of learning.  By this I mean, that they are understood to have but a moderate classical education, to know but little of the different branches of philosophy, and to have, upon the whole, less variety of knowledge than others of their countrymen in the corresponding stations of life.

This trait seems to have originated with the world in two supposed facts.  The first is, that there has never been any literary writer of eminence born in the society, Penn, Barclay and others having come into it by convincement, and brought their learning with them.  The second is, that the society has never yet furnished a philosopher, or produced any material discovery.  It is rather a common remark, that if the education of others had been as limited as that of the Quaker, we should have been probably at this day without a Newton, and might have been strangers to those great discoveries, whether of the art of navigation, or of the circulation of the blood, or of any other kind, which have proved so eminently useful to the comfort, health, and safety of many of the human race.

This trait will be true, or it will be false, as it is applied to the different classes, which may be found in the society of the Quakers.  The poor, who belong to it, are all taught to read, and are therefore better educated than the poor belonging to other bodies of men.  They who spring from parents whose situation does not entitle them to rank with the middle class, but yet keeps them out of the former, are generally educated, by the help of a[38] subscription, at Ackworth school, and may be said to have more school learning than others in a similar situation in life.  The rest, whatever may be their situation, are educated wholly at the expence of their parents, who send them