EDUCATION
The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature
somewhat desultory. In infancy his health suffered, or was
supposed to suffer (which is quite the same thing), by the air of
London. As soon, therefore, as official duties, attendance on
Parliament, or the prosecution of any of his plans of interest or
ambition, called his father to town, which was his usual residence
for eight months in the year, Edward was transferred to Waverley-
Honour, and experienced a total change of instructors and of
lessons, as well as of residence. This might have been remedied
had his father placed him under the superintendence of a permanent
tutor. But he considered that one of his choosing would probably
have been unacceptable at Waverley-Honour, and that such a
selection as Sir Everard might have made, were the matter left to
him, would have burdened him with a disagreeable inmate, if not a
political spy, in his family. He therefore prevailed upon his
private secretary, a young man of taste and accomplishments, to
bestow an hour or two on Edward's education while at Brerewood
Lodge, and left his uncle answerable for his improvement in
literature while an inmate at the Hall. This was in some degree
respectably provided for. Sir Everard's chaplain, an Oxonian, who
had lost his fellowship for declining to take the oaths at the
accession of George I, was not only an excellent classical
scholar, but reasonably skilled in science, and master of most
modern languages. He was, however, old and indulgent, and the
recurring interregnum, during which Edward was entirely freed from
his discipline, occasioned such a relaxation of authority, that
the youth was permitted, in a great measure, to learn as he
pleased, what he pleased, and when he pleased. This slackness of
rule might have been ruinous to a boy of slow understanding, who,
feeling labour in the acquisition of knowledge, would have
altogether neglected it, save for the command of a taskmaster; and
it might have proved equally dangerous to a youth whose animal
spirits were more powerful than his imagination or his feelings,
and whom the irresistible influence of Alma would have engaged in
field-sports from morning till night. But the character of Edward
Waverley was remote from either of these. His powers of
apprehension were so uncommonly quick as almost to resemble
intuition, and the chief care of his preceptor was to prevent him,
as a sportsman would phrase it, from over-running his game--that
is, from acquiring his knowledge in a slight, flimsy, and
inadequate manner. And here the instructor had to combat another
propensity too often united with brilliancy of fancy and vivacity
of talent--that indolence, namely, of disposition, which can only
be stirred by some strong motive of gratification, and which
renounces study as soon as curiosity is gratified, the pleasure of
conquering the first difficulties exhausted, and the novelty of
pursuit at an end. Edward would throw himself with spirit upon any
classical author of which his preceptor proposed the perusal, make
himself master of the style so far as to understand the story,
and, if that pleased or interested him, he finished the volume.
But it was in vain to attempt fixing his attention on critical
distinctions of philology, upon the difference of idiom, the
beauty of felicitous expression, or the artificial combinations of
syntax. 'I can read and understand a Latin author,' said young
Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning of fifteen,
'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas! while he
was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his
amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the
opportunity of acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application,
of gaining the art of controlling, directing, and concentrating
the powers of his mind for earnest investigation--an art far more
essential than even that intimate acquaintance with classical
learning which is the primary object of study.
I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey
into the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which
children are taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating method
of instructive games, has little reason to dread the consequences
of study being rendered too serious or severe. The history of
England is now reduced to a game at cards, the problems of
mathematics to puzzles and riddles, and the doctrines of
arithmetic may, we are assured, be sufficiently acquired by
spending a few hours a week at a new and complicated edition of
the Royal Game of the Goose. There wants but one step further, and
the Creed and Ten Commandments may be taught in the same manner,
without the necessity of the grave face, deliberate tone of
recital, and devout attention, hitherto exacted from the well-
governed childhood of this realm. It may, in the meantime, be
subject of serious consideration, whether those who are accustomed
only to acquire instruction through the medium of amusement may
not be brought to reject that which approaches under the aspect of
study; whether those who learn history by the cards may not be led
to prefer the means to the end; and whether, were we to teach
religion in the way of sport, our pupils may not thereby be
gradually induced to make sport of their religion. To our young
hero, who was permitted to seek his instruction only according to
the bent of his own mind, and who, of consequence, only sought it
so long as it afforded him amusement, the indulgence of his tutors
was attended with evil consequences, which long continued to
influence his character, happiness, and utility.
Edward's power of imagination and love of literature, although the
former was vivid and the latter ardent, were so far from affording
a remedy to this peculiar evil, that they rather inflamed and
increased its violence. The library at Waverley-Honour, a large
Gothic room, with double arches and a gallery, contained such a
miscellaneous and extensive collection of volumes as had been
assembled together, during the course of two hundred years, by a
family which had been always wealthy, and inclined, of course, as
a mark of splendour, to furnish their shelves with the current
literature of the day, without much scrutiny or nicety of
discrimination. Throughout this ample realm Edward was permitted
to roam at large. His tutor had his own studies; and church
politics and controversial divinity, together with a love of
learned ease, though they did not withdraw his attention at stated
times from the progress of his patron's presumptive heir, induced
him readily to grasp at any apology for not extending a strict and
regulated survey towards his general studies. Sir Everard had
never been himself a student, and, like his sister, Miss Rachel
Waverley, he held the common doctrine, that idleness is
incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing
the alphabetical characters with the eye is in itself a useful and
meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas or
doctrines they may happen to convey. With a desire of amusement,
therefore, which better discipline might soon have converted into
a thirst for knowledge, young Waverley drove through the sea of
books like a vessel without a pilot or a rudder. Nothing perhaps
increases by indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading,
especially under such opportunities of gratifying it. I believe
one reason why such numerous instances of erudition occur among
the lower ranks is, that, with the same powers of mind, the poor
student is limited to a narrow circle for indulging his passion
for books, and must necessarily make himself master of the few he
possesses ere he can acquire more. Edward, on the contrary, like
the epicure who only deigned to take a single morsel from the
sunny side of a peach, read no volume a moment after it ceased to
excite his curiosity or interest; and it necessarily happened,
that the habit of seeking only this sort of gratification rendered
it daily more difficult of attainment, till the passion for
reading, like other strong appetites, produced by indulgence a
sort of satiety.
Ere he attained this indifference, however, he had read, and
stored in a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious, though ill-
arranged and miscellaneous information. In English literature he
was master of Shakespeare and Milton, of our earlier dramatic
authors, of many picturesque and interesting passages from our old
historical chronicles, and was particularly well acquainted with
Spenser, Drayton, and other poets who have exercised themselves on
romantic fiction, of all themes the most fascinating to a youthful
imagination, before the passions have roused themselves and demand
poetry of a more sentimental description. In this respect his
acquaintance with Italian opened him yet a wider range. He had
perused the numerous romantic poems, which, from the days of
Pulci, have been a favourite exercise of the wits of Italy, and
had sought gratification in the numerous collections of novelle,
which were brought forth by the genius of that elegant though
luxurious nation, in emulation of the 'Decameron.' In classical
literature, Waverley had made the usual progress, and read the
usual authors; and the French had afforded him an almost
exhaustless collection of memoirs, scarcely more faithful than
romances, and of romances so well written as hardly to be
distinguished from memoirs. The splendid pages of Froissart, with
his heart-stirring and eye-dazzling descriptions of war and of
tournaments, were among his chief favourites; and from those of
Brantome and De la Noue he learned to compare the wild and loose,
yet superstitious, character of the nobles of the League with the
stern, rigid, and sometimes turbulent disposition of the Huguenot
party. The Spanish had contributed to his stock of chivalrous and
romantic lore. The earlier literature of the northern nations did
not escape the study of one who read rather to awaken the
imagination than to benefit the understanding. And yet, knowing
much that is known but to few, Edward Waverley might justly be
considered as ignorant, since he knew little of what adds dignity
to man, and qualifies him to support and adorn an elevated
situation in society.
The occasional attention of his parents might indeed have been of
service to prevent the dissipation of mind incidental to such a
desultory course of reading. But his mother died in the seventh
year after the reconciliation between the brothers, and Richard
Waverley himself, who, after this event, resided more constantly
in London, was too much interested in his own plans of wealth and
ambition to notice more respecting Edward than that he was of a
very bookish turn, and probably destined to be a bishop. If he
could have discovered and analysed his son's waking dreams, he
would have formed a very different conclusion.