Your letter of August 3 came by this day's post. I find it very
convenient to be so handy. I can receive a letter at night, sit down and
reply to it, and send it off in the morning.
You remark upon the deficiency of education in your countrymen. It
never, I believe, was in a worse state, at least for many years. The
college is not in the state one could wish. The scholars complain that
their professor in philosophy is taken off by public business, to their
great detriment. In this town I never saw so great a neglect of
education. The poorer sort of children are wholly neglected, and left
to range the streets, without schools, without business, given up to all
evil. The town is not, as formerly, divided into wards. There is either
too much business left upon the hands of a few, or too little care to do
it. We daily see the necessity of a regular government.
You speak of our worthy brother. I often lament it, that a man so
peculiarly formed for the education of youth, and so well qualified as
he is in many branches of literature, excelling in philosophy and the
mathematics, should not be employed in some public station. I know not
the person who would make half so good a successor to Dr. Winthrop. He
has a peculiar, easy manner of communicating his ideas to youth; and the
goodness of his heart and the purity of his morals, without an affected
austerity, must have a happy effect upon the minds of pupils.[153]
If you complain of neglect of education in sons, what shall I say with
regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it? With
regard to the education of my own children, I find myself soon out of my
depth, destitute and deficient in every part of education.
I most sincerely wish that some more liberal plan might be laid and
executed for the benefit of the rising generation, and that our new
Constitution may be distinguished for encouraging learning and virtue.
If we mean to have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should have
learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me and accuse me of
vanity, but you, I know, have a mind too enlarged and liberal to
disregard the sentiment. If much depends, as is allowed, upon the early
education of youth, and the first principles which are instilled take
the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments
in women.
Excuse me. My pen has run away with me. I have no thoughts of coming to
Philadelphia. The length of time I have and shall be detained here would
have prevented me, even if you had no thoughts of returning till
December; but I live in daily expectation of seeing you here. Your
health, I think, requires your immediate return. I expected Mr. G----
would have set off before now, but he perhaps finds it very hard to
leave his mistress. I won't say harder than some do to leave their
wives. Mr. Gerry stood very high in my esteem. What is meat for one is
not for another. No accounting for fancy. She is a queer dame and leads
people wild dances.
But hush! Post, don't betray your trust and lose my letter.