_Private_ is that which hath respect in all circumstances to some
particular case; _public_ in all circumstances regardeth every
one alike. _Education_ is the bringing up of one, not to live
alone, but amongst others, because company is our natural medium;
whereby he shall be best able to perform all those functions in
life which his position shall require, whether public or private,
in the interest of his country in which he was born, and to which
he owes his whole service. All these functions are in reality
public, and concern everyone, even when they seem most private,
because individual ends must be adjusted to wider social ends;
and yet people give the preference to private education where
all the circumstances are peculiar to one learner; as if he who
was brought up alone were always to live alone, or as if one
should say, ‘I will have you to deal with all, but never to see
all; your end shall be public, but your means shall be private.’
How can education be private? It is an abuse of the name as well
as of the thing. This isolation, for a pretended advantage in
education, of those who must afterwards pass on together, is
very mischievous, as it allows every parent to follow out his
own whims, relying on the privacy of his own house to be free
from criticism, on the subserviency of the teacher whom he may
choose to suit his own purposes, and on the submission of his
child who is bound to obey him on pain of meeting his displeasure.
In public schools such swerving from what is generally approved
is impossible. The master is always in the public eye, what he
teaches is known to all; the child is not alone, and he learns
only what has been submitted to the judgment of the community.
Whatever inconveniences may be inseparable from schools, still
greater arise in private education. It puffs up the recluse with
pride; it is an enemy to sympathy between those who have unequal
opportunities; it fosters self-conceit in the absence of comparison
with others; it encourages contempt in the superior, and envy
in the inferior. This kind of education which soweth the seed
of dissension by discovering differences, where the fruits of a
common upbringing should be seen in the firm knitting of social
bonds, should be discouraged owing to its effect in instilling
the poison of spite. Certainly the thing doth naturally tend this
way, though its influence may be often interrupted in time by the
pressure of public opinion. But if the child turn out better then I
have forecast, and show himself courteous, it will be due to his
natural goodness, or to his experience outside, not to the kind of
education which brings no such courtesy, though the child may see
it in his parents, and read of it in his books. Sometimes it maketh
him too sheepishly bashful when he comes to the light, owing to
his being unaccustomed to company. More commonly, however, he is
too childishly bold through noting nothing except what he breeds
in his own mind in his solitary training, where he thinks only of
himself, and has none to control him, not even his master, whatever
show there may be of obedience to authority in this private
cloistering. Surely it is reasonable for one in his childhood to
become acquainted with other children, seeing he has to live with
them as men in his manhood. Is it good for the ordinary man to be
brought up on a well-regulated public system, and not good for the
man of higher position? By ‘private’ I do not mean what is done
at home for public uses--in that case almost everything might be
called private--but what is kept at home by preference, in order
to serve the better the interest of a particular individual. It
would seem to be generally a question not of the matter or the
method of education, but of the select privacy of the place where
it is given. I must beg leave to say that the results are in favour
of public training, which from the midst of mediocrity brings up
scholars of such excellence that they take a worthy place in all
ranks, even next to the highest, whereas private education with all
its advantages of wealth, doth rarely show anything in learning
and judgment above bare mediocrity. There is no comparison between
the two kinds, if prejudice be set aside. If the privately-taught
pupil chance to come to speak, it mostly falleth out dreamingly,
because seclusion in education is a punishment to the tongue;
and in teaching a language to exclude companions to speak to, is
like seeking to quench thirst, yet closing the mouth so that no
moisture can get in. If such a pupil come to write, it is lean,
and nothing but skin, betraying the great pains the master hath
had to take, in default of any helping circumstances through the
pupil’s intercourse with companions. The boy can but repeat what he
hears, and he hears only one person who, though he knew everything,
cannot say much, for he hath no sufficient audience to provoke
him to utterance. If the master made an effort to deliver himself
of anything weighty, methinks an unobserved listener would hear a
strange discourse, and would find the boy asleep; or, if he had a
companion, playing with his hands or feet under the table, with one
eye on his talking master and the other on his playmate.
But why is private education so much in vogue? There may be some
excuse for those of very high position, especially for the prince
himself, who standing alone, cannot well mix with his subjects,
and must do what he can to surpass them without this advantage.
Yet if even the greatest could have his education so arranged that
he might have the company of a good choice number, wherein to see
all the differences of capacity and learn to judge of all, as he
hath afterwards to deal with all, would it be any sacrilege? But
why do the gentry in this respect rather ape their superiors in
rank, than follow the class below, who are really liker to them,
and who form the chief supporters of the State? To have the child
learn better manners and have more virtuous surroundings! As bad
at home as outside; evil manners are brought into school, not bred
there. To avoid the distraction of large numbers? The child shall
notice the more, and so prove the wiser, the multitude of examples
offering the means of sound judgment. Nay, in a number, though he
find some undesirable, whom he should avoid, he shall find many
apt and industrious, whom to follow. In school, moreover, he shall
perceive that vice is punished, and virtue praised, as needs must
where all is done in the public view. Is it to keep the child in
health by making him bide at home, for fear of infection outside?
Death is within doors also, and dainties at home have destroyed
more children than dangers outside. Is it from affection, because
ye cannot bear to let the child out of your presence? That is too
foolish. Emulation is a great inspirer of virtue. If your child do
well at home alone, how much better would he do with company? It
quickens the spirits, and enlivens the whole nature, to have to
compete with others--to have perhaps one companion ahead of him to
follow and learn from, another below him to teach and vaunt over,
and a third of his own standing with whom to strive for praise of
forwardness.
To sum up this question, I do take public education to be better
than private, as being more upon the stage, where faults are more
readily seen and so are sooner amended, and as being the best means
of acquiring both virtue and learning, which flourish according
to their first planting. What virtue is private? Wisdom, to
foresee what is good for a desert? Courage, to defend where there
is no assailant? Temperance, to be modest where there is none to
challenge? Justice, to do right when there is none to demand it?
What should a Gentleman learn?
As for the education of gentlemen, at what age shall I suggest
that they should begin to learn? Their minds are the same as
those of the common people, and their bodies are often worse. The
same considerations in regard to time must apply to all ranks.
What should they learn? I know of nothing else, nor can I suggest
anything better, than what I have already suggested for all. Only
young gentlemen must have some special studies that will help them
to govern under their prince in positions of trust. They should
have always before them the virtues that belong to the government
of others, and to the wise direction of their own conduct. However,
the general matter of duty being taught to all, each one may apply
it to his own particular case, without the need for any special
reference outside the ordinary school course, especially seeing
that the duties of government just as often fall into the hands of
those of lower rank whose virtue and capacity win them promotion.
What exercises shall young gentlemen have? The very same as other
children. What masters? The same. What difference of arrangements?
All one and the same, except where private education is preferred,
though, as I have said, they are none the better for the want
of good fellowship. And if they are as well taught and as well
exercised as should follow from the general plan laid down for all
young children, they shall have no cause to complain of public
education. For it is no mean stuff which is provided even for the
meanest to be stored with.
The children of gentlemen have great advantages, which they may
thank God for; they can carry on their education to the end,
whereas those of the humbler class have to give it up sooner, and
they have many opportunities which are denied to ordinary learners.
If they fail to use these advantages aright they are all the more
to blame, just as the greater credit is due to those who in spite
of hindrances make such advancement that they win the preferments
forfeited by the negligence of those to whom they naturally belong.
As for rich men, who not being of gentle birth, but growing to
wealth by some means or other, imitate gentlemen in the education
of their children, as if money made equality, and the purse were
the ground of preferment, without any other consideration, who
contemn the lower ranks from which they sprang, and cloister up
their children as a support to their position, they are in the
same case as regards freedom of choice, but far behind in true
gentility. As they were of lower condition themselves, they might
with more acceptance continue their children in the same kind of
training which brought up the parents and made them so wealthy,
and not try to push themselves into a rank too far beyond their
humble origin. For of all the means to make a gentleman, money is
the most vile. All other means have some sign of virtue, but this
is too bad to mate either with high birth, or with great worth. For
to become a gentleman is to bear the cognisance of virtue, to which
honour is companion; the vilest devices are the readiest means to
become most wealthy and ought not to look honour in the face. It
may be pretended that intelligence and capacity have enabled them
to make their way, but it is not denied that these qualities may be
turned to the worst uses, may only once in a thousand times make
a gentleman. It is not intelligence that deserves praise, but the
matter to which it has been directed, and the manner in which it
has been employed. When it is bestowed wisely on the good of the
community, it deserveth all praise; if devoted wholly to filling
a private purse, without regard to the means, so long as nothing
evil is disclosed, then it deserveth no praise for the result,
but rather suspicion as to the method of bringing it about. These
people in their business will not scruple to bring poverty to
thousands, and for giving a penny to one of these thousands they
will be accounted charitable. They will give a scholar some pretty
exhibition, in order to seem religious, and under a slender veil of
counterfeit liberality will hide the spoil of ransacked poverty.
And though they do not profess to be impoverishing people of set
purpose, yet their kind of dealing doth pierce as it passeth.
But of these kind of folks I intend not to speak. My purpose is to
employ my pains upon such as are gentlemen indeed. Yet it is worth
that gives name and note to nobility; it is virtue that must endow
it, or vice will undo it. As I wish well to this class, so I wish
their education to be good, and if it were possible, even better
than that of ordinary people. But that cannot be, for the common
training, if it be well appointed, is the best and fittest for
them, especially as they may have it in full, while those of meaner
rank have to be content with it incomplete.
What makes a Gentleman.
Before I enter upon the training of gentlemen and show what is
specially suitable for them, I will examine those points which
are best got by good education, and being once got do adorn them
most, which two considerations are not foreign to my purpose. I
must first ask what it is to be a gentleman or a nobleman, and what
qualities these terms assume to be present in the persons of those
to whom they are applied, and afterwards, what are the causes and
uses of gentility, and the reasons why it is so highly thought of.
But ere I begin to deal with any of these points, once for all I
must recommend to those of gentle birth exercise of the body, and
chiefly such kinds as besides benefiting their health shall best
serve their calling and place in their country. Just as those
qualities which I have set forth for the general training, being
most easily compassed in their perfection by them, may very well
beseem a gentlemanly mind, so may the physical exercises without
exception be found useful, either to make a healthy body, seeing
that our constitution is all the same, or to prepare them for such
occupations as belong to their position. Is it not for a gentleman
to follow the chase and to hunt? Doth their place reprove them if
they have skill to dance? Is skill in sitting a horse no honour
at home, no help abroad? Is the use of a weapon suitable to their
calling any blemish to them? Indeed those great exercises are most
proper to such persons and are not for those of meaner rank.
What is it then to be a nobleman or a gentleman? The people of this
country are either gentlemen or of the commonalty. The latter is
divided into those who are engaged in trade, and those who work
with their hands. Their distinction is by wealth, for some of them,
who have enough and more, are called rich men, some who have no
more than enough, poor men, and some who have less than enough,
beggars. There are also three ranks in gentility, the gentlemen,
who are the cream of the common people, the noblemen, who are the
flower of gentility, and the prince, who is the primate and pearl
of nobility. Their difference is in authority, the prince having
most, the nobleman coming next, and the gentlemen under both. To
be virtuous or vicious, to be rich or poor, are no peculiar badge
of either kind; a gentleman or a common man may alike be virtuous
or vicious, rich or poor, with land or without it. But as the
gentleman in any position must have the power of exercising his
lawful authority there are some virtues that seem to belong to him
specially, such as wisdom in policy, valour in execution, justice
in forming decisions, modesty in demeanour. Whether gentility come
by descent or desert makes no difference; he that giveth fame to
his family first, or he that deserveth such honour, or he that adds
to his heritage by noble means, is the man whom I mean. He that
continueth what he received through descent from his ancestry, by
desert in his own person, hath much to thank God for, and doth
well deserve double honour among men, as bearing the true coat of
arms of the best nobility, when desert for virtue is quartered
with descent in blood, seeing that ancient lineage and inheritance
of nobility are in such credit among us, and always have been.
As gentility argueth a courteous, civil, well-disposed, sociable
constitution of mind in a superior degree, so doth nobility imply
all these and much more, in a higher rank with greater authority.
And do not these distinctive qualities deserve help by good and
virtuous education?
Learning useful to Noblemen.
Excellent wisdom, which is the means of advancing grave and politic
counsellors, is but a single cause of preferment; likewise valour,
which is the means of making a noble and gallant captain, is but a
single cause of advancement; but where these two qualities, wisdom
and courage, are combined in the same man, the merit is doubled.
The means of preferment which depend upon learning are either
martial, for war and defence in relation to foreign countries, or
political, for peace and tranquillity at home. The warrior seems to
depend most on his personal courage and experience, which without
any learning or reading at all, have often brought forth excellent
leaders, but with those helps in addition produce most rare and
famous generals. Those who use the pen most in taking part in the
direction of public government, or in filling the necessary offices
in the administrative or judicial service of the State, for the
common peace and quietness, without profession of further learning,
though they have their chief instrument of credit from books, are
not debtors to book-knowledge only, because industry, experience,
and discretion have much to do with their success. It is those who
depend wholly upon learning that I am most concerned with, when I
ask how gentlemen should be trained to have them learned.
The highest position to which learned valour doth give advancement,
is that of a wise counsellor, the fruit of whose learning
is policy, not in the limited sense where it is opposed to
straightforwardness, but in the philosophical sense, as meaning
the general skill to judge things rightly, to see them in their
due proportions, to adapt them to any given circumstances, with as
little disturbance as possible to existing arrangements, whether it
be in matters religious or secular, public or private, professional
or industrial. Such a man is, in the sphere of religion, a _divine_
who is able to judge soundly of the general principles and
applications of divinity; in the sphere of government, a _lawyer_
who makes the laws in the first instance, and knows best how to
have them kept; in short he is the man, whether he be concerned
with ecclesiastical or temporal affairs, and whatever his rank or
his profession may be, who is most sound and able, and sufficient
in all points. And though the specialist may know more than he in
any particular matter which he has not leisure to get up thoroughly
himself, yet he will be able to make such skilful and methodical
enquiries of the special student that he will probe his knowledge
to the bottom, and then handle the material he gains to better
purpose than the other could with all his scholarship. Of all those
that depend upon learning I hold this kind of man worthiest to be
preferred, in divinity a chief among divines, though he do not
preach, in law, the first of lawyers, though he do not plead, and
similarly in all the other departments of public direction. But
wherefore is all this? To show how necessary a thing it is to have
young gentlemen well brought up. For if these causes do make the
man of mean birth noble, what will they do in him whose honour is
augmented with perpetual increase, if he add personal worth to his
nobility in blood? Wherefore the necessity of the training being
evidently so great, I will handle that as well as I can, by way
of general precept, with reference to those whose wisdom is their
weight, learning their line, justice their balance, honour their
armour, and all the different virtues their greatest ornaments in
the eyes of all men.
Course of Study for a Gentleman.
As I have already said, I know no better training for the gentleman
than that which is provided under proper conditions for the
ordinary man; but while the latter learns first for necessity,
and afterwards for advancement, the greater personage ought to
study for his credit and honour as well. For which be gentlemanly
accomplishments, if these be not--to read, to write, to draw, to
sing, to play, to have language and learning, health and activity,
nay, even to profess Divinity, Law, Medicine, or any other worthy
occupation? These things a gentleman hath most leisure to acquire,
and not being too much under the spur of necessity he can practise
them with uprightness. These so-called “liberal” professions are
too commonly now in the hands of meaner men, who make a trade
of their high calling, and only seek to enrich themselves. Doth
Divinity teach to scrape, or Law to scratch, or any other kind of
learning to which the epithet “liberal” is applied? The practice
of these callings crieth for help to ransom it from the pressure
of selfish needs to which it hath fallen a prey, owing to the
indifference of the nobility, who think anything far more seemly to
bestow their time and wealth upon than the learned professions. But
if young gentlemen of parts would be pleased to be so well affected
toward their country as to shoulder out mercenary professional
men by themselves taking their places, how fortunate it would
be for the country, and for the young gentlemen as well! Enough
might be spared for such employment without unduly lessening the
numbers that fill the court and carry on military and judicial
functions only too abundantly. If the warlike gentlemen betook
themselves to arms and paid more attention to exercise, and if the
more peacefully-inclined took their books and fell to learning,
recalling by diligence those faculties which they have for so long
allowed to run waste, should not the change be welcomed? This were
better than vain foppery and travelling about.
Foreign Travel.
What is this travelling? I do not ask in regard to merchants,
whom necessity obliges to travel and to tarry long from home
for the sake of their own trade and often of our benefit, nor
in regard to soldiers, who when there is peace at home must go
abroad to learn in foreign wars how to defend their country when
it is necessary. Nor do I refer to such travellers as Solon, or
Pythagoras, or Plato, who sought knowledge where it was, in order
to bring it where it was not. We have no need to travel in search
of learning as they did. We have at this day, thanks to printing,
as much of that as any country needs to have,--nay, as much as
the ancient world ever possessed, if we would use it aright. And
young gentlemen, if they made the best use of their wealth, might
procure and maintain such excellent masters and companions and
libraries, that they might acquire all the best learning far better
by studying quietly at home than by stirring about, if the desire
for knowledge were the cause of their travelling. And this excuse
is made even by people of meaner rank, who love to look abroad for
instruction that they could get quite well at home from competent
persons who never crossed the seas. If there be defects in our own
country, they can be remedied out of our own resources by giving
good heed to the matter, without the need of borrowing from other
lands. What, then, is travel, interrupting education as it does,
and raising the question whether young gentlemen in choosing it
are benefiting their country and themselves? To travel is to see
countries abroad, to mark their singularities, to learn their
languages, and to return thence with an equipment of wisdom that
will serve the needs of one’s own country.
There may be some who gain all these advantages from travel; but
for one whose natural excellence and virtue will turn such a
hazardous experience to profit, there are many to whom it will
prove pernicious, owing to their impetuous temper and their command
of money beyond the discretion of their years. And while these are
engaged in travel, what might they have been acquiring at home?
Sounder learning, the same study of language, and, above all, the
love of their native land, which groweth by familiarity, but is
mightily impaired by absence and an acquired fancy for foreign
customs.