A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings

4

Great caution should be observed in teaching children to pronounce the letters of the alphabet. The labials are easily pronounced; thus the first words a child can speak are papa and mama. But there are some letters, particularly l and r, which are of difficult pronunciation, and children should not be pressed to speak words in which they occur. The difficulty may produce a habit of stammering.

5

How different this practice from the manner of educating youth in Rome, during the flourishing ages of the republic! There the attention to children commenced with their birth; an infant was not educated in the cottage of a hireling nurse, but in the very bosom of its mother, whose principal praise was, that she superintended her family. Parents were careful to choose some aged matron to take care of their children; to form their first habits of speaking and acting; to watch their growing passions, and direct them to their proper objects; to guard them from all immodest sports, preserve their minds innocent, and direct their attention to liberal pursuits.

"—Filius—non in cella emptæ nutricis sed gremio ac sinu matris educabatur, cujus præcipua laus, tueri domum, et inservire liberis. Eligebatur autem aliqua major natu propinqua, cujus probatis spectatisque moribus, omnis cujuspiam familiæ soboles committeretur, coram qua neque dicere fas erat quod turpe dictu, neque facere quod inhonestum factu videretur. Ac non studia modo curasque, sed remissiones etiam lusus que puerorum, sanctitate quadam ac verecundia temperabat." In this manner were educated the Gracchi, Cæsar, and other celebrated Romans. "Quæ disciplina ac severitas eo pertinebat, ut sincera et interga et nullis pravitatibus detorta unius cujusque natura, toto statem pectore, arriperet artes honestas."– Tacitus de Orat. Dial. 28.

The historian then proceeds to mention the corruption of manners, and the vicious mode of Education, in the later ages of Rome. He says, children were committed to some maid, with the vilest slaves; with whom they were initiated in their low conversation and manners. "Horum fabulis et erroribus teneri slatim et rudes animi imbuuntur; nec quis quam in toto domo pensi habet, quid coram infante domino aut dicat aut faciat."– Ibid. 29.

6

The practice of employing low characters in schools is not novel—Ascham, preceptor to Queen Elizabeth, gives us the following account of the practice in his time. "Pity it is that commonly more care is had; yea and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse, than a cunning man for their children. They say, nay, in word; but they do so, in deed. For to one they will give a stipend of two hundred crowns, and loth to offer the other two hundred shillings. God, that sitteth in the Heaven, laugheth their choice to scorn and rewardeth their liberality as it should: for he suffereth them to have tame and well ordered horses; but wild and unfortunate children: and therefore in the end they find more pleasure in their horse, than comfort in their child."

This is old language, but the facts stated are modern truths. The barbarous Gothic practice has survived all the attacks of common sense, and in many parts of America, a gentleman's groom is on a level with his schoolmaster, in point of reputation. But hear another authority for the practice in England.

"As the case now stands, those of the first quality pay their tutors but little above half so much as they do their footmen."—Guardian, No. 94.

"'Tis monstrous indeed that men of the best estates and families are more solicitous about the tutelage of a favorite dog or horse, than of their heirs mate."—Ibm.

7

The fact related by Justin, of an ancient people, will apply universally. "Tanto plus in illis proficit victiorum ignoratio, quam in his cognitio virtutis." An ignorance of vice has a better effect, than a knowlege of virtue.

8

Plus ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bonæ leges.

Tac. de Mor. Germ. 19.

9

Spirit of Laws. Book 4.

10

The power of entailing real estates is repugnant to the spirit of our American governments.

11

I have known instructions from the inhabitants of a county, two thirds of whom could not write their names. How competent must such men be to decide an important point in legislation!

12

Middleton's life of Cicero, volume 1, page 14.

13

It is worthy of remark, that in proportion as laws are favorable to the equal rights of men, the number of crimes in a state is diminished; except where the human mind is debased by extreme servitude, or by superstition. In France, there are but few crimes; religion and the rigor of a military force prevent them; perhaps also, ignorance in the peasantry may be assigned as another reason. But in England and Ireland the human mind is not so depressed, yet the distribution of property and honors is not equal; the lower classes of people, bold and independent, as well as poor, feel the injuries which flow from the feudal system, even in its relaxed state; they become desperate, and turn highwaymen. Hence those kingdoms produce more culprits than half Europe besides.

The character of the Jews, as sharpers, is derived from the cruel and villanous proscriptions, which they have suffered from the bigotry of Christians in every part of Europe.

Most of the criminals condemned in America are foreigners. The execution of a native, before the revolution, was a novelty. The distribution of property in America and the principles of government favor the rights of men; and but few men will commence enemies to society and government, if they can receive the benefits of them. Unjust governments and tyrannical distinctions have made most of the villains that ever existed.

14

It has been already observed that a child always imitates what he sees and hears: For this reason, he should hear no language which is not correct and decent. Every word spoken to a child, should be pronounced with clearness and propriety. Banish from children all diminutive words, all whining and all bad grammar. A boy of six years old may be taught to speak as correctly, as Cicero did before the Roman Senate.

15

Nothing can be more fatal to domestic happiness in America, than a taste for copying the luxurious manners and amusements of England and France. Dancing, drawing and music, are principal articles of education in those kingdoms; therefore every girl in America must pass two or three years at a boarding school, tho her father cannot give her a farthing when she marries. This ambition to educate females above their fortunes pervades every part of America. Hence the disproportion between the well bred females and the males in our large towns. A mechanic or shopkeeper in town, or a farmer in the country, whose sons get their living by their father's employments, will send their daughters to a boarding school, where their ideas are elevated, and their views carried above a connexion with men in those occupations. Such an education, without fortune or beauty, may possibly please a girl of fifteen, but must prove her greatest misfortune. This fatal mistake is illustrated in every large town in America. In the country, the number of males and females, is nearly equal; but in towns, the number of genteelly bred women is greater than of men; and in some towns, the proportion is, as three to one.

The heads of young people of both sexes are often turned by reading descriptions of splendid living, of coaches, of plays, and other amusements. Such descriptions excite a desire to enjoy the same pleasures. A fortune becomes the principal object of pursuit; fortunes are scarce in America, and not easily acquired; disappointment succeeds, and the youth who begins life with expecting to enjoy a coach, closes the prospect with a small living, procured by labor and economy.

Thus a wrong education, and a taste for pleasures which our fortune will not enable us to enjoy, often plunge the Americans into distress, or at least prevent early marriages. Too fond of show, of dress and expense, the sexes wish to please each other; they mistake the means, and both are disappointed.

16

Cicero was twenty eight years old when he left Italy to travel into Greece and Asia. "He did not stir abroad," says Dr. Middleton, "till he had completed his education at home; for nothing can be more pernicious to a nation, than the necessity of a foreign one."—Life of Cicero, vol. 1. p. 48.

Dr. Moore makes a remark precisely in point. Speaking of a foreign education, proposed by a certain Lord, who objected to the public schools in England, he says, "I have attended to his Lordship's objections, and after due consideration, and weighing every circumstance, I remain of opinion, that no country but Great Britain is proper for the education of a British subject, who proposes to pass his life in his own country. The most important point, in my mind, to be secured in the education of a young man of rank of our country, is to make him an Englishman; and this can be done no where so effectually as in England." See his View of Society and Manners, &c. vol. 1, page 197, where the reader will find many judicious remarks upon this subject. The following are too pertinent to be omitted.—"It is thought, that by an early foreign education, all ridiculous English prejudices, will be avoided. This may be true; but other prejudices, perhaps as ridiculous, and much more detrimental, will be formed. The first cannot be attended with many inconveniencies; the second may render the young people unhappy in their own country when they return, and disagreeable to their countrymen all the rest of their lives." These remarks, by a change of names are applicable to America.

17

Not that the English nation was originally in slavery; for the primitiv Saxons and Germans were free. But the military tenures, established by the Gothic conquests, depressed the people; so that under the rigor of the feudal system, about the date of Magna Charta, the King and Nobles held their tenants in extreme servitude. From this depression, the English have gradually emerged into ancient freedom.

18

The first convention of deputies in a state, is usually designed to direct the mode in which future legislatures shall be organized. This convention cannot abridge the powers of future legislatures, any further than they are abridged by the moral law, which forbids all wrong in general.

19

The nominal distinction of Convention and Legislature was probably copied from the English; but the American distinction goes farther, it implies, in common acceptation, a difference of power. This difference does not exist in G. Britain. The assembly of Lords and Commons which restored Charles II, and that which raised the Prince of Orange to the throne, were called Conventions, or parliamentary Conventions. But the difference between these Conventions and an ordinary Parliament, is merely a difference in the manner of assembling; a Convention being an assembly or meeting of Lords and Commons, on an emergency, without the King's writ, which is the regular constitutional mode of summoning them, and by custom necessary to render the meeting a Parliament. But the powers of this assembly, whether denominated a Convention or a Parliament, have ever been considered as coextensive and supreme. I would just remark further, that the impossibility of establishing perpetual, or even permanent forms of government, is proved already by the experience of two States in America. Pensylvania and Georgia, have suffered under bad Constitutions, till they are glad to go thro the process of calling a new Convention. After the new forms of government have been tried some time, the people will discover new defects, and must either call a third Convention, or let the governments go on without amendment, because their Legislatures, which ought to have supreme power, cannot make altertations.–[1789.]

20

This is the date of the first writs now extant, for summoning the Knights and Burgesses.

21

In Pensylvania, after the late choice of Delegates to Congress by the people, one of the Gentlemen sent his resignation to the President and Council, who refered it to the Legislature then sitting. This body, compozed of the servants of the people, I suppoze, solemnly resolved, that there was no power in the State which could accept the resignation. The resolv was grounded on the idea that the power of the people is paramount to that of the Legislature; whereas the people hav no power at all, except in choosing representativs. All Legislativ and Executiv powers are vested in their Representativs, in Councilor Assembly, and the Council should have accepted the resignation and issued a precept for another choice. Their compelling the man to serve was an act of tyranny.

22

This pernicious error subverts the whole foundation of government. It resembles the practice of some Gentlemen in the country, who hire a poor strolling vagabond to keep a school, and then let the children know that he is a mere servant. The consequence is, the children despise him and his rules, and a constant war is maintained between the master and his pupils. The boys think themselves more respectable than the master, and the master has the rod in his hand, which he never fails to exercise. A proper degree of respect for the man and his laws, would prevent a thousand hard knocks. This is government in miniature. Men are taught to believe that their rulers are their servants, and then are rewarded with a prison and a gallows for despising their laws.

23

"In a democracy there can be no exercise of sovereignty but by suffrage: In England, where the people do not debate in a collective body, but by representation, the exercise of this sovereignty consists in the choice of Representatives." Blackstone's Com. b. 1. ch. 2. This is the sole power of the people in America.

24

The septennial act was judged the only guard against a Popish reign, and therefore highly popular.

25

Notes on Virginia, page 197. Lond. Edit. Query 13.

26

Contracts, where a Legislature is a party, are excepted.

27

Some jealous people ignorantly call the proposed Constitution of Federal Government, an aristocracy. If such men are honest, their honesty deserves pity: There is not a feature of true aristocracy in the Constitution; the whole frame of Government is a pure Representativ Republic.

28

Calvini Lexicon Juridicum.

29

See Laws of the Saxon Kings.

30

Such is the article, which excludes the clergy from a right to hold civil offices. The people, might, with the same propriety, have declared, that no merchants nor lawyers should be eligible to civil offices. It is a common opinion that the business of the clergy is wholly spiritual. Never was a grosser error. A part of their business is to inform the minds of people on all subjects, and correct their morals; so that they have a direct influence on government. At any rate they are subjects of law, and ought as freemen to be eligible to a seat in the Legislature; provided the people incline to choose them.

31

No. II. IV. V.

32

It is a capital defect in some of the States, that the government is so organized as not to admit subordinate acts of legislation in small districts. In these States, every little collection of people in a village must petition the Legislature for liberty to lay out a highway or build a bridge; an affair in which the State at large has very little interest, and of the necessity and utility of which the Legislature are not suitable judges. This occasions much trouble for the State; it is a needless expense. A State should be divided into inferior corporations, veiled with powers competent to all acts of local police. What right have the inhabitants of Suffolk to interfere in the building of a bridge in Montgomery?

[This was written in New York] Who are the most competent judges of a local convenience; the whole State, or the inhabitants of the particular district?

33

An error, originating in mistake, is often pursued thro obstinacy and pride; and sometimes a familiarity with falsehood, makes it appear like truth.

34

New York.

35

Some have suspected from these sentiments, that I favor the insurrection in Massachusetts. If it is necessary to be more explicit than I have been in the declaration, "I reprobate, &c." I must add, that in governments like ours, derived from the people, I believe there is no possible situation in which violent opposition to laws can be justified; because it can never be necessary. General evils will always be legally redressed, and partial evils must be borne, if the majority require it. A tender law, which interferes with past contracts, is perhaps the wickedest act that a Legislature can be guilty of; and yet I think the people in Rhode Island have done right, in not opposing their's, in a violent manner.

36

Pensylvania.