My consistency in this representation, I doubt, is less questionable,
than my civility. For the ladies, on whom I bestowed those high, but
just encomiums, were chiefly such as I had known in my younger days,
before the passion for travel had got among them. Now indeed the case
is altering apace, and the effects are answerable. The virtues of the
_English_ ladies, when they staid at home, were more conspicuous than
those of our travelled gentlemen. Now that they, too, begin to travel,
their follies are, also, more glaring: in either case, I am willing
to own, for the credit of my civility, from the same reason, that both
good and ill qualities strike us most, when _set_ in the precious metal
of that sex.
However, from the whole of my experience, I must needs conclude, that
this finishing of a travelled education only serves to corrupt good
qualities, or inflame bad ones.
But the ladies are not in my province. If they were, a knowledge of
the world is not the leading virtue I might wish to see them possessed
of. In the men, I confess, this accomplishment is of more importance;
and I am therefore solicitous, that no well-meaning youth, whom it so
much concerns to gain a knowledge of the world, should be misled in his
search of it.
Seriously, my Lord, the WORLD, which I am forced to repeat so often, is
a solemn word, and the study of it has an air of something plausible
and imposing. But those, who know what the world is, will think it best
that a young man begin with what is the first and last concern of every
man, the study of himself; and if, in due time, he come to understand,
and, still more, to value as they deserve, the characters of the great
and good men of his own country, the opprobrious name of _home-bred_
will not hinder him from acquiring the best fruit, with which a
knowledge of the world, rightly understood, can furnish him.
For, my Lord, I must not, on so inviting an occasion as this, conceal
an odd fancy of mine from your Lordship.
The affair of _knowing the world_, about which weak and fantastic
people make so much noise, and which one hears them perpetually
insisting upon with so much sufficiency, is of all others the nicest
and most momentous step that is made in education. And, though volumes
have been written to teach us how we may best become scholars, orators,
courtiers, what not; yet not one leaf do I ever remember to have seen,
composed by any capable man, that instructs us in the proper way of
getting into this great secret.
It is not a matter to be entered upon, if I were vain enough to think
myself capable of it, in this casual conversation; but thus much I may
presume to say, that whoever designs to let a young man into a safe and
useful knowledge of the world, must do it in a way very remote from
that which has hitherto been taken.
A young man, they tell us, must know the world; therefore, say they,
push him into it at once, that he may acquire that knowledge, which his
own experience, and not another’s, must procure for him.
I, on the other hand, take upon me to say, Therefore keep him out of
that world, as long as you can; and when you commit him to it, let the
ablest friend or tutor lend him his best experience, to conduct him
gradually, cautiously, imperceptibly, into an acquaintance with it.
You ask the reason of this mysterious procedure; yet methinks it should
be obvious enough. From _sixteen to one and twenty_ (a period, in which
the cares of an ordinary education cease, or are much relaxed) is that
precise season of life, which requires all the attention of the most
vigilant, and all the address of the wisest, governor. The passions are
then opening; curiosity awake; and the young mind ready to take its ply
from the seducements of fashion, and creditable example.
Nor is this the worst. An education, that deserves the name, has
inculcated maxims of honour and probity; has inspired the noblest
sentiments of moral duty; has impressed on the mind a veneration for
all the virtues, and an equal horror for all the vices, of humanity.
Full of these sublime ideas, which his parents, his tutors, his books,
and even his own ingenuous heart has rendered familiar to him, the
fatal time is at hand, when our well-instructed youth is now to make
his entrance into the world: but, good God, what a world! not that
which he has so long read, or dreamt of; but a world, new, strange, and
inconsistent with all his former notions and expectations.
He enters this scene with awe; and contemplates it with astonishment.
Vice, he sees assured, prosperous, and triumphant; virtue
discountenanced, unsuccessful, and degraded. He joins the first croud,
that presents itself to him: a loud laugh arises; and the edge of their
ridicule is turned on sobriety, industry, honesty, generosity, or some
other of those qualities, he has hitherto been most fond of.
He quits this clamorous set with disdain; and is glad to unite himself
with _another_, better dressed, better mannered, in all respects more
specious and attractive. His simplicity makes him for some time the
dupe of this plausible society: but their occasional hints, their
negligent sarcasms, their sallies of wit, and polite raillery on all
that he has been accustomed to hold sacred, shew him at last that he
has only changed his company, not mended it.
This discovery leads him to another. He attends to the lives of these
well-bred people, and finds them of a piece with their manners and
conversation; shewy indeed, and, on first view, decorous; but, in
effect, deformed by every impotent and selfish passion; wasted in
sloth and luxury; in ruinous play; criminal intrigues; or, at best,
unprofitable amusements.