I am of Plutarch’s mind, that Aristotle did not so much trouble his great disciple with the knack of forming syllogisms, or with the elements of geometry; as with infusing into him good precepts concerning valour, prowess, magnanimity, temperance, and the contempt of fear; and with this ammunition, sent him, whilst yet a boy, with no more than thirty thousand foot, four thousand horse, and but forty-two thousand crowns, to subjugate the empire of the whole earth.  For the other acts and sciences, he says, Alexander highly indeed commended their excellence and charm, and had them in very great honour and esteem, but not ravished with them to that degree as to be tempted to affect the practice of them In his own person: 

“Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque,
Finem ammo certum, miserisque viatica canis.”

["Young men and old men, derive hence a certain end to the mind,
and stores for miserable grey hairs.”—­Persius, v. 64.]

Epicurus, in the beginning of his letter to Meniceus,—­[Diogenes Laertius, x. 122.]—­says, “That neither the youngest should refuse to philosophise, nor the oldest grow weary of it.”  Who does otherwise, seems tacitly to imply, that either the time of living happily is not yet come, or that it is already past.  And yet, a for all that, I would not have this pupil of ours imprisoned and made a slave to his book; nor would I have him given up to the morosity and melancholic humour of a sour ill-natured pedant.

I would not have his spirit cowed and subdued, by applying him to the rack, and tormenting him, as some do, fourteen or fifteen hours a day, and so make a pack-horse of him.  Neither should I think it good, when, by reason of a solitary and melancholic complexion, he is discovered to be overmuch addicted to his book, to nourish that humour in him; for that renders him unfit for civil conversation, and diverts him from better employments.  And how many have I seen in my time totally brutified by an immoderate thirst after knowledge?  Carneades was so besotted with it, that he would not find time so much as to comb his head or to pare his nails.  Neither would I have his generous manners spoiled and corrupted by the incivility and barbarism of those of another.  The French wisdom was anciently turned into proverb:  “Early, but of no continuance.”  And, in truth, we yet see, that nothing can be more ingenious and pleasing than the children of France; but they ordinarily deceive the hope and expectation that have been conceived of them; and grown up to be men, have nothing extraordinary or worth taking notice of:  I have heard men of good understanding say, these colleges of ours to which we send our young people (and of which we have but too many) make them such animals as they are.—­[Hobbes said that if he Had been at college as long as other people he should have been as great a blockhead as they.  W.C.H.] [And Bacon before Hobbe’s time had discussed the “futility” of university teaching.  D.W.]