I take your meaning. These researches, you would say, are so little
profound, that I might have spared myself the trouble of making them
at all, at least in conversation with a philosopher. Be that as it
will; provided the principles themselves, I am contending for, be
well founded. For the conclusion necessarily follows, “That therefore
FOREIGN TRAVEL is, of all others, the most important and essential part
of Education.”
The youth of the most accomplished people in _Europe_ would have much
to correct in themselves, and something, perhaps, to learn, in their
voyages into the neighbouring nations; however inferior to their own,
in the general state of knowledge and politeness. What then must be
the case of our _English_ youth, confined in this remote corner among
themselves, and indulged in their own rustic and licentious habits?
Our country has never been famous for the civility of its inhabitants.
We have, rather, been stigmatized in all ages, and are still considered
by the rest of _Europe_, as proud, churlish, and unsocial. The very
circumstance of our Island-situation seems to expose us to the just
reproach of inhospitality. And if, with this disadvantage, we should
cherish, and not correct, those vices which so naturally spring from
it, what less could we expect than to be distinguished by such names,
as our ill-manners would well deserve, though our pride might suffer
from the application of them?
It seems then to be an inevitable consequence of what has been said,
that we of this country have a more than ordinary occasion for the
benefits of _foreign travel_. And the reason of the thing shews,
they cannot be obtained too soon. Young minds are the fittest to take
the ply of civility and good manners. The task is less easy, and the
success more uncertain, when we enter upon this business late in life;
when intractable humours have gathered strength, and the unsocial
manner is become habitual to us. Whatever may be objected to the
incapacity of this age in other respects, youth is out of question the
time for acquiring right propensities and virtuous habits.