Yes; now your Lordship comes to an important point indeed. From the
polish of manners, the least considerable, and the easiest to be
attained of all the parts of good breeding, your Lordship, as I now
remember, rose at once to a subject of real consequence, I mean, THE
KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD; a science, as you well termed it, the most
profound and useful. And if this MASTER-SCIENCE were to be acquired by
means of early travel, our young gentleman should have my consent to
shut up his books, and set forth on his adventures, directly.
But, good my Lord, consider with yourself the difficulty of this study;
the ripeness of age and judgment necessary for entering upon it; much
more, for making a real progress in it.
And why, as I before hinted, will your Lordship be so impatient to come
at the end, without the means? Why, in such haste to build up men, when
nature has allotted a season for their being boys?
Without doubt, if our youth could start up men, at once, armed at all
points, as the fable has it, and thoroughly furnished for the business
of life, we should gladly accept this benefit, and might then be
content to overlook or suppress all the cares of education. But this
is not the condition of humanity. Its improvements of every kind are
slow and gradual. Time and attention form each; and it is only through
the right application of preceding states, that we arrive, at length,
at the maturity of human wisdom. Let the child and boy be allowed to
perfect themselves in what belongs to those conditions, and it will
then be time enough to provide for the manly character.
Reflect with yourself, my Lord. When the young unfurnished traveller is
carried out into the world, with no principles to poize his conduct, no
maxims to direct his judgment, what can be expected from this untimely
enterprize? what, but fluctuating morals, and fortuitous deliberations?
He has not so much as the idea of what constitutes _man_. How then
should he obtain any real and useful knowledge of the human character?
If by a knowledge of the world, be only meant a knowledge of the
external modes and customs of it, this, no doubt, were best acquired
by surveying them as they present themselves in the various tribes
and societies of mankind. But your Lordship means more than this:
you understand a knowledge of a higher kind; such as respects the
creature _man_, considered in his essential parts, his _reason_ and
his _passions_. This is a different kind of study, my Lord, from that
other. Any one that has eyes, is qualified to observe the shapes and
masks of men; but to penetrate their interior frame, to inspect their
proper dispositions and characters, is the business of a well-informed
and well-disciplined understanding.
Can your Lordship seriously expect that a young boy should comprehend
the effect, which government, policy, institution, and other
circumstances of life, have on the pliant reason of mankind? or that he
should have the skill to disentangle the various folds and intricacies,
in which their real characters lie involved, through the insidious and
discordant working of the passions? He should surely know what truth
and reason is, before he can derive any benefit to himself from the
discourse of men: and he should have carefully watched the movements of
his own heart, before he presume to analyze, as your Lordship expressed
it, the characters of others.
You see, then, the unseasonableness and inutility of foreign travel,
as to the case in hand, even on the supposition that our traveller
were admitted into what is called, the best company. But how shall
this privilege be obtained? In what country can it be thought that
the politeness of eminent men will condescend to a free and intimate
communication with boys, of whatever promising hopes, or illustrious
quality? Certain slight and formal civilities, your Lordship knows, are
the utmost that can be looked for; and are indeed the whole of what our
ill-prepared traveller is capable.
Your Lordship did well to remind me of such societies as those in which
you and I have, at times, been engaged. The recollection is, of course,
flattering and agreeable. But let us presume upon ourselves, my Lord;
the LIMBORCHS and LE CLERCS are not so obvious to every body, as they
were to us; or, if they were, every body would not profit so well by
them. And if private scholars be thus inaccessible, how shall we think
to intrude on the business and occupations of experienced magistrates
and ministers? And, putting both these out of the question, who remain
for the tutorage and instruction of these travelled boys, but such raw,
unaccomplished companions, as they left at home, and may find every
where in abundance?
Still my objections go further. What if, by uncommon sagacity and
good luck, some acquaintance be made with superior persons, and some
little insight at length be gained into their real characters? Of
what mighty advantage will this be in life, when their business lies
amongst other men; and when the same industry and attention had brought
them acquainted with the characters of those, they must act and live
with? Foreigners are neither an easier study than our own countrymen,
nor a more useful one. The very modes and forms of external breeding
catch the attention of unexperienced youth; and are so many obstacles
to their real progress in this science. And, when all is done, the
modifications of the human character, as existing at home, and
exhibited in the lives and actions of their fellow-citizens, are, as I
said, the proper objects of their curiosity.
In short, the utmost I can allow to this discipline of foreign travel,
under the idea of its furnishing _a knowledge of the world_, is,
That it may possibly wear a young man into some studied and apish
resemblance of the models, he copies from, in his deportment and
manners; or that the various scenes, he has passed through, may furnish
matter, at his return, for much unprofitable babble in conversation:
but, that he should come back fraught with any solid information
concerning men and things, such as, in your Lordship’s sublime phrase,
may fit him to appear with lustre in the court or senate of his own
country, is what I can never promise myself from this fashionable mode
of education.
I am even disposed to promise myself the less from it, for an
_observation_, I have sometimes had the opportunity of making.
An old man has so little about him to provoke envy, that he may be
allowed to make the best of his former successes. And though I pride
myself in _one_, of a very delicate nature, the boast of it will not be
ill taken even there, where your Lordship, with all your pretensions,
would be heard with no patience. In short, I indulge myself in the
vanity of saying that I have, in my time, been well with the fair sex,
and have even been countenanced so far as to be admitted into a degree
of acquaintance and familiarity with some ladies of the highest quality
and distinction. And of these, I have constantly observed, that, though
bred up at home, they had a manifest advantage over their travelled
brothers, I was going to say, in learning and science, but certainly in
true politeness, good sense, and even a knowledge of the world.