And what is that _due time_, your Lordship sets apart for this delicate
operation?
Is it, before the young boy commences his travels? But that, according
to your Lordship’s scheme, is so early, that the regimen, you would now
abate, has not taken its full effect, and his weak unconfirmed virtue
would die under the experiment.
Is it then, when his travels are already begun? And is the sage tutor,
your Lordship anxiously flies to, as to some god, on every occasion
of distress, to charge himself with the solution of this difficulty?
Alas! now it is too late. You have brought the boy into the scene. He
will see and judge for himself. The torrent bears him away: the instant
impression is too strong to be counteracted by the feeble and, now,
disgusting admonitions of a tutor.
See then, if the proper way, to secure him from these inconveniences,
be not, To keep him yet at a distance from the world; and, when you
let him into some knowledge of it, to do it seasonably, gradually, and
circumspectly: to take the veil off from some parts, and leave it still
upon others; to paint what he does not see, and to hint at more than
you paint: to confine him, at first, to the best company, and prepare
him to make allowances even for the best: to preserve in his breast the
love of excellence, and encourage in him the generous sentiments, he
has so largely imbibed, and so perfectly relishes: yet temper, if you
can, his zeal with candour; insinuate to him the prerogative of such a
virtue, as his, so early formed, and so happily cultivated; and bend
his reluctant spirit to some aptness of pity towards the ill-instructed
and the vicious: by degrees to open to him the real condition of that
world, to which he is approaching; yet so as to present to him, at the
same time, the certain inevitable misery of conforming to it: last of
all, to shew him some examples of that vice, which he must learn to
bear in others, though detest in himself; to watch the effect these
examples have upon him; and, as you find his dispositions incline, to
fortify his abhorrence of vice, or excite his commiseration of the
vicious: in a word (for I am not now directing a tutor, but suggesting,
in very general terms, my ideas of his office) to inform the minds of
youth with such gradual intelligence, as may prepare them to see the
world without surprize, and live in it without danger.
This is that important chapter, which I presumed to say no institutor
of youth had yet composed, or so much as touched upon, in a treatise
of education. You will learn from this brief summary of its contents,
what, in my opinion, should be the employment of those precious years,
which are usually thrown away upon foreign travel.
In earnest, my Lord, there is a fatal mistake in this matter. People
speak of a knowledge of the world, as what may be acquired at any
time, and, for its importance, cannot be acquired too soon. Alas! they
forget, that a long and careful preparation is necessary, before we are
qualified so much as to enter on this task; and that they, who are
latest in setting out, will arrive the soonest, certainly the safest,
at their journey’s end.