Part 18

I have here enlarged on the Steps necessary to be taken for educating three Classes of People, and now proceed to treat of the fourth; which comprehends a very large Part of the Kingdom, but _London_ particularly; _viz._ all the inferior Trades, and many others, that, according to the Custom of associating together, we may consider as forming one Division. Men, very valuable in their Way, and of boundless Use to Society: tho’ by the Wisdom of Providence born rather to Labour than to Idleness; to be obedient to the Laws, than to be the Dispensers of them.

I am well aware that Difficulties will occur to me on this Head, and thereby sometimes break the Order of my Design; but, as I have elsewhere observed, when Exceptions from general Rules are reasonable, it is perfectly right to adhere to them. It would be Affectation in me to call myself such a Stranger to the World, as not to know the Influence of Money: Mankind is apt to contract a Degree of Esteem for all who possess it; and the Possessor seldom fails to set a sufficient Value on himself for it. Thus it often happens that Men, whose Business is but mean, grow wealthy, have perhaps an only Child, and think they have a Right to educate it as they please; for my own Part I do not mean expressly to oppose it, because it may be nipping a promising Fruit in the Bud; but Parents of this Class stand in need of more Knowledge to conduct themselves herein than commonly speaking they are possess’d of.

Nothing is more frequent than for Men in different Stations to ruin themselves by rashly aspiring; and he who has Reputation and Credit in one Sphere, is perhaps undone if he moves beyond it. But while we see that Money is apt to make Men even of good Understanding and good Education giddy, no wonder that those of obscure Birth, no Education, and a Life of ordinary Employment, spent mostly in ordinary Company, value themselves for their Possessions far beyond Desert. To this is owing that vain Strut, that supercilious Air, and Contempt of others, so frequent in People of this Class; and hence too arise those Errors they daily commit, by an ostentatious Education of their Children; by vainly aspiring to equal their Betters, and often to surpass them, at least in Appearance. I had occasion, some Years ago, to make a Visit to a young Lady of Fashion and Fortune at one of our Boarding-Schools near Town, where the best dress’d Girl in the whole House was a Poulterer’s Daughter. Can there be any thing more absurd than this? yet is there any thing more common? It is a general Observation, that ordinary People dress their Children finer than People of Fashion; and why? only because they will shew the World they are able to do it, and therefore will not be outdone. Parents are not aware how destructive this false Pride, this vain mistaken Fondness is to their Children: and the first Effect it has on them is, to make them ashamed of their Parents, those very People who thus mislead them. Can any thing be more preposterous and unnatural? yet is it undeniably true.

There is an unhappy Propensity among Mankind in general of being ashamed of their poor and mean Relations, even among the Good; it is a Spark of Pride very hard to be extinguished, yet it may and ought to be done. And considering that scarcely a Family in the Kingdom is without them, more or less, it is Matter of Surprise that such Pains should be taken to stifle and conceal them: especially too if we reflect how much real Honour it does ourselves to cherish, to countenance, and to espouse them. Still it is true, that there is this Propensity, this Weakness in Men, either from their Nature, or their Education. Shall we then, instead of keeping under this Pride in ourselves, lead our Children into it too? shall we deck them out so far above themselves only to despise us? and to make them falsely happy, make ourselves truly wretched? nothing can be a greater Folly, and nothing requires more the Parents Care to avoid. I remember I once called to see a Friend who was an Apothecary; a young Fellow, my Friend’s Apprentice, was at Work behind the Counter, and out peep’d a laced Waistcoat. (I must observe it was in those Days when a laced Waistcoat stood for something, for it has now, I think, lost all it’s Significance.) As the Appearance was unusual, I enquired who that young Gentleman was; and, to my great Surprise, was informed he was the Son of a Coachman; and the Lace he wore was taken off his Father’s Livery. Thus what was before no better than the Badge of Dependence, is now turned into an Instrument of Contempt and Ridicule. In how many of these things do the Weakness and Folly of Parents appear? would such a Boy own his Father on the Coach-box? or would he not rather, with an audacious Cock of his Hat, pass contemptuously by him? nothing better could be expected. And yet People who take these Steps wonder their Children are not good; wonder they are proud, vain, and untoward, when they themselves have made them so.

Another Effect attending this misplaced Indulgence, this false Education, besides the making them ashamed of their Parents and Relations, is, the Influence it has on the Children’s future Lives: the Parents, it is true, are often made wretched, but the Children are not happy. Every thing raised above itself is in a precarious tottering State; the Building, whose Foundation is weak, is every Day liable to fall; and the Man who pretends to what he cannot maintain or support, is in perpetual Danger of Ruin. Self-sufficiency and Money may make his Outside passable; but if he is all Meanness, all Ignorance within, he can never procure a Grain of Esteem, nor ever be solidly happy. Children may in time discover their Parents Mistakes and their own Misfortune, but will then perhaps have no Remedy to apply. Happy had it been for them had their Education suited their Condition in Life; they would then have laboured with honest Chearfulness; and by keeping within their proper Sphere, have had their Labours crown’d with Success.

My Readers of this Class will, I am afraid, be apt to mistake me, and think I design to keep them in a low dependent State; such an one as they call being unhappy; far from it: I would not have undertaken this Treatise at all, had I not designed the real, the universal Good of Mankind. Without Vanity I can say it, no one has a more disinterested, a more general Love of human Nature than myself; thousands have superior Abilities, but few, perhaps none, have superior good Wishes for the Happiness of Society; and should this very Performance prove a Trifle, the Fault may be in my Head, but it is not in my Heart: my Intention is good, if my Power is weak. Let this then serve as an Apology to all my Readers, but let those of this Class in particular be persuaded, that my Design is to augment the Happiness of their Children, not to lessen it. But then, they must resolve to seek Happiness where it can be found; if they wander into a Maze of Difficulties, and get into a Sphere they are utter Strangers to, they will most probably miss of it; but if they confine themselves within their own proper Orb, they need not fear to find it. Still there is Reason to apprehend, that Men of every Rank, and even among the lowest, will value themselves not for what they are, but for what they have; and while People mistake Head for Brains, and Money for Merit, the best Advice will often be useless.

But great as this Folly is, there is a much greater reigning. Money, as I have already observed, is extremely apt to intoxicate Mankind; and it’s Influence is but too visible both in high and low Life: but there are thousands of this Class of People who pride themselves in educating their Children learnedly and expensively, without the least Pretensions upon Earth. If a Gentleman upon the Decay can get his Son educated suitable to his Birth, Regard to his Family, and Regard to his Education, may obtain him a genteel and profitable Employment: so too, if a Man in an inferior Station is convinced he can purchase his Son a Place or a Commission suitable to his superior Education, there is certainly room to justify him, tho’ we blame his Vanity; but that People without the least Expectations, that are conscious they cannot give their Children a Shilling, who have not the Honour of a Family to support, nor a Reputation to maintain, should run these strange Lengths, is amazing! The Truth is, Pride and Ignorance are their Guides; they scorn to be outdone by their Neighbours, tho’ all the while they really don’t know what it is they are doing.

It is to be presumed that Children while Children, and while educating, are in general Strangers to what may be their future Fortune on the part of their Parents: now if they are taught to think themselves equal to their Betters, taught to expect mighty things, and at length find nothing, it is, I think, a grievous Calamity on one side, and gross Injustice on the other: and yet is this evidently a daily Error.

The same things that yield us great Good, are often productive of great Evil. Food, designed by the Laws of Nature to preserve Life and Health, is often made the Instrument to destroy it. Education, designed to lead us to Happiness, by enlarging and improving our Understandings in some certain Way, is often made the Instrument of our Destruction. Hence appears the Necessity of a temperate and a judicious Use of both; and hence too we see, that the Education suitable for one, is very unfit for another. But I will now point out what Education appears to me to be generally proper for People of this Class; and where solid Reasons make particular Exceptions necessary, it is my Advice that Reason take place of general Rules.

I will suppose then that my Readers design with me the real Good of their Children; and neither mean to neglect them, nor to hazard their Ruin by overdoing things. To this End Boys are to be taught Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, and Drawing; to which may be added, a Knowledge of Maps. This Plan, tho’ comprized in a few Words, contains all they need, nay all they ought to learn. It is usual in the common Businesses to put Boys Apprentice at about fourteen Years old; now supposing they begin to learn at seven, they have Work enough cut out for seven Years at least; which if well attended to, and their Time be well employed, is capable of turning to great account. I mean not to give offence to any one, but as the Province I am engaged in obliges me to speak my Thoughts, I may offend without Intention: and honest Truth, in a Matter of this Importance, is not to be disguised. My Advice then is, that Boys of this Class never once attempt to learn _Latin_. What do they want with it? or what use can they make of it? will it enable a Man to make better Shoes? will it assist a Taylor in cutting out a Coat? or will it give a Barber a keener Edge to his Razor? Parents, when they send a Boy to School, are often guided by the Master what he shall learn; he, naturally fond of advancing his Scholar, puts him into _Latin_; and thinks him shabby without it. But is it not possible that this Gentleman may be a Man of real Merit, a good Grammarian, nay a compleat classic Scholar, yet a very bad Judge of Life? most certainly. The Boy is thrust headlong into things he does not want, and neither Parents nor Master consider the End: for tho’ it is certain that Parents cannot always tell what their Children will be, yet those of this Class are pretty sure they want not deep Learning.

Of all the Mistakes committed in Education, none is equal to that of our being thrust into an Employment for which we are unqualified; especially too if it be one of a serious important Nature; now no People on Earth are so liable to this as the Class we are treating of; for as they are apt to take a Remove beyond themselves for profound Knowledge, they plunge their Children into a Labyrinth of Difficulties, by engaging them in a Profession or Science far beyond their Power to reach.

I have already urged, that, in the Case before us, a learned Education is needless and improper; but this is saying too little of it, and treating it too mildly: we may go farther, and shew that it is even hurtful, by being an Impediment to more useful Knowledge: and farther still, that it is not always what it is taken for. A Boy in common Life has perhaps about seven Years Schooling; the greatest Part whereof is employed in learning _Latin_: his _English_ is notoriously neglected; and Writing and Arithmetic he gains but imperfectly. Now I beg leave to ask, whether these three last are not more useful to a Boy of this Stamp than _Latin_? and whether it is not a Misfortune to spend his Time in gaining what he has no use for, and omitting what he wants? But it is an Error in me to call it gaining, when in Reality it is losing: for after a Boy has been puzling his poor Brains, and been tortured with _Latin_ for several Years, it is ten to one that, comparatively speaking, he knows nothing: that is, nothing radical, and to the Bottom; nothing, in short, but what one Year’s Apprenticeship will entirely efface. As a Proof that this is no Exaggeration, losing Learning is not only the Fate of Boys in common Life, who seldom get more than a Smattering, but it is confessed by every Gentleman, by the deepest Scholars, that a long Disuse of a Language, or almost any Branch of Learning, will in great measure wear it out of our Memories: or at least take off that Facility which constitutes Perfection. A Relation of mine was sent to _London_ some Years ago to be educated fit for Business; a Friend had the Care of him; who, after sending him to learn Reading, Writing, and Accompts for some Time, resolved to compleat him by putting him for a Year to _Merchant-Taylors_ School to learn _Latin_. He did so; and that finished, he was put Apprentice to a Cabinet-maker. But what availed his _Latin_? just nothing. In three Months time he saw’d and planed it all away; he was not a Pin the better for it; but he lost a Year of precious Time, that might have been very usefully employed in improving what he had before learn’d, and in applying himself to Drawing: a thing absolutely necessary for the very Business he was put to, and which, to my own Knowledge, he has often lamented the Want of. Now this is not a single Instance, an accidental Mistake, but a general Error; hundreds and thousands of which might be every day produced: the Consequences whereof are always more or less wrong, and sometimes very fatal.

I have observed that useful things are neglected, to run in pursuit of what to them is useless; that is, they leave a certain Good for a precarious one. But we may reason still farther on this Head with great Utility. Mankind is by Nature aspiring and ambitious; and where Wisdom and Prudence accompany our Steps herein, they are highly laudable. But if, instead of these, Ignorance and Vanity are our Guides, we are pretty sure of going wrong. A Man of mean Extraction, and illiterate, takes these mistaken Steps already pointed out, in bringing up his Son; whence a false Pride is stamped on both, and is sure to increase with the Boy’s Learning. The Father’s Care is to keep his Boy from disgracing his Education. “_Jack_, (says he) I have bestowed Learning on you, to make you a Man; look forward, and I don’t fear but you will make your Fortune.” And the Son at the same time takes care to think himself a better Man than his Father. But let us conduct him on; he is now a Gentleman; because he has, or fancies he has, Learning. He must dress fine, and keep Company with his Betters; this leads him to Expences he cannot afford; no matter, he is a Gentleman, and must appear like one. His Father, after rumaging his Brains for a genteel Employment, at length puts his Son to an Attorney. But that’s a dull Life, he likes the Stage better; and after having seen Plays by the hundred, he concludes himself equal to any thing, and turns Player: where perhaps his highest Character is to speak the Prologue in _Hamlet_’s mock Play, or to be the rueful Apothecary in _Romeo and Juliet_. It is too well known what kind of Lives these Gentlemen lead; they are mostly riotous, extravagant, miserable, and short. Now can it be denied that these, and such as these, are the fatal Consequences of this false Education? surely daily Experience convinces us it cannot. But as I labour for the public Good, so I desire to do the strictest Justice. I will grant then that a Boy of this Stamp, and thus trained, does all on his Part to advance himself; that he is prudent, temperate, and virtuous; still he has neither Bottom, Interest, nor Friends; it is an hundred, perhaps a thousand to one, if he arrives at any thing higher than being a Hackney-Writer, an Usher to a School, or at most the slavish Master of an insignificant one.

Permit me here a short Digression. There are no People in the World, whom I at the same time both honour and pity, so much as Schoolmasters and Preceptors; those particularly to whom we owe the most essential, the most solid Part of our Education. There is something strangely inconsistent in Mankind, or they could not see a Master incessantly slave, and toil, and sweat to instruct others, and leave him at last without Reward. The Man who is qualified for a Teacher, must have laboured many Years in the Pursuit of Knowledge. If we would wish this Man to do Justice to our Sons, we certainly should do Justice to him; that is, we should prove, at the same time that we desire our Children to be made wise, that we have so much Gratitude as to make him happy, by rewarding him as he deserves. From this ungrateful Disposition, or, from a very misplaced Frugality, it often happens that Parents do not seek the best Teachers, but the cheapest; whence not only follow the fatal Consequences attending a bad Education, by a seeming one passing for real, but also that many, who are by no means qualified, undertake the important Task. To return then to my Subject, we cannot doubt but that some of these unqualified Teachers are the Fruits of this false Education we have been speaking of; Men, who tho’ unequal to the Task they are engaged in, would have been distinguished as eminent Proficients in another Way, and been very valuable to Society; while in this, the highest Honour they arrive at, is perhaps the holding forth with a dictatorial Air in an Ale-house.

Many are the evil Effects this false Education produces; for thro’ the Mistakes of Parents, the Pride of Children shews itself very early, and daily gathers Strength: they soon look down with Scorn and Contempt on the mean Business of their Father; and soon aspire to what they have not the least Chance to reach. But as they have been injudiciously taught to aspire, we cannot greatly wonder at their mistaken Conduct: hence we see them spending their Lives not merely in Trifles, but in Riot, Extravagancies, and Debauchery: averse to Employment, averse to Labour; too learned to be industrious, too ignorant to be wise. But how much happier would they be to know themselves, and keep within that Self-knowledge! How sweet is that Bread which is earn’d with honest Industry! How much happier is the Man that labours at his Loom, than he who with mistaken Pride, despising it, is perhaps reduced to be dependent on others! Could then Parents in general of this Rank, but learn Content in their Stations, and keep their Children from soaring beyond their Reach, they would secure much Comfort to both, besides contributing to the Happiness of Posterity.

My Readers will remember that the Scheme of Education for Boys of this Class, is Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, Drawing, and a Knowledge of Maps. I will now shew what Advantage may be made of these, and endeavour to prove, that this is so far from being a contemptible Education, that when attained to Perfection, it is not only useful, but very extensively so.

Mr. _Addison_ says, that every Man who reasons is a Logician, tho’ he has never studied the Rules of Logic: so too we may say, that every Man who speaks grammatically is a Grammarian, tho’ he has not been taught Grammar. What I here mean is, that a due Attention to Children, and proper Instructions with regard to _English_ only, will enable them to make a very considerable Figure both in Reading and Speaking. Nature furnishes us with the Faculty of Speech, but the Mode of it in great measure depends on the Place we are born in, and the Language we are accustomed to hear. The Court, and the learned Part of a Nation, certainly speak the purest Language; the Vulgar and the Illiterate speak the coarsest, and the most corrupt: but there are many Degrees between, who may be said to have the Power of choosing, as they frequently hear both. It is then the Parents Business to be greatly attentive in this important Point; especially as Experience shews us that a great Man can be vulgar, and a little one polite, and the Medium can neglect the Advantages in his Power by adhering to the wrong Side, when with equal Ease he may attain the right. I have already cautioned the Great never to sink beneath their Quality; and while they learn to be humble, they must carefully avoid being mean. I have also recommended to the Gentry to approach as near to the Quality in good Behaviour and polite Language as possible: and to those of this Class, I strongly urge, that every thing coarse, vulgar, and incorrect, is not only improper, but highly unbecoming; is not only abusing the Faculties Providence has furnished them with, but is debasing their Nature. If then the Parents of this Class enter upon the Education of their Children with just Reflections (which all, more or less, are capable of making) the natural Consequence will be, that they will seek such Methods as are most conducive to their acquiring a thorough Knowledge of their Mother-tongue.