THE PROPER AGE FOR ENTERING COLLEGE.

"YOUR son is fit for college, and as the least evil in your apprehension, must go, although scarce fourteen years old. Could he stay at school or under suitable private instruction one or two years more, it would seem to be a safer course. He has good talents; promising dispositions; the ambition of being a scholar; and an aptitude to literature. Having such pleasing augury respecting him, you hope he will prove a student and a scholar, and be qualified for entering with advantage upon his professional preparation; or if he take another walk, will yet secure to himself the benefits and pleasures of lettered knowledge. He is accordingly to be thorough in all the elementary parts of instruction; and to be especially able to read the classics with ease, as well as descrimination and taste. It is affirmed, ‘that an enlarged and liberal system of education in the present age must embrace the principle, that our youth should be taught one language at least in each principal family of languages of the polished nations of the world. The Greek and Latin, in such a plan, will constitute the basis of all the modern languages of the south of Europe; for the northern languages the Ger

man should be studied: and for the oriental family, either the Hebrew or Arabick, as opportunity of instruction in the one or the other shall be found. Thus by the aid of only four or five languages, which may be easily acquired in the common period allowed for completing an education, and without interrupting the necessary attention to the sciences, a young man may place within his command all the various dialects which have an affinity with them, and consequently be enabled to possess himself of all the treasures of science and literature, which are locked up in those various tongues ; and will thus have within his power the means of directing his attention to any of the numerous departments of knowledge to which his taste may lead him. In regard to the oriental tongues, it should be observed, that so far are they from being the exclusive prerogative of theologians, that in a liberal system of education some knowledge of them is necessary to every scholar; and no man, who is either ambitious of literary eminence, or desirous of prosecuting his studies in any department of literature with the greatest advantage to himself, will be content to remain ignorant of them; for in these, as in other studies, no man can free himself from the slavish dependence, which is ever the consequence of receiving knowledge at second hand from ill-informed or prejudiced translators, nor can he feel that manly confidence in himself, which is essential to a sure and steady progress in learning, unless he

resolves to master the languages themselves. Whether or not our pupil is to make such extensive philological acquisitions, which, however, he can and will make if he have the proper means and incitements, he is, nevertheless, to be well initiated in the classick tongues;-to be versed at least, if not eminent, in Greek-to be at home in Latin; and he is to do this without sacrificing any of the other important parts of education, or an inordinate portion of time. This being proposed, is not

the chance of success in favour of his continuing longer under the school system of instruction? Is he not too young, and too much in the elementary stage of his learning, to enter upon the independent mode of study appropriate to college? Minutiæ of idiom, syntax and prosody are yet to be learned and fixed in the memory-acquaintance with the vocabulary to be extended; both requiring much explanation and repetition. Let the scholar then have the advantage of an instructer present to remove difficulties, to secure attention, and to look to the particular exigences of the individual mind. Continual exercise in translation and composition, in prose and verse, is considered indispensable to stamping in the youthful mind the fine passages of the ancients, and 'cherishing that richness and enthusiasm of classical allusion, which is not among the least advantages of a liberal education.'

"Having gone through a suitable preparatory training at school, the student is ready for the next stage of his

education; where his intercourse with his teacher is only periodical, and not constant; where he is to find the meaning of his author by patient and solitary study, and to endeavour to give a correct and elegant translation of the classick in hand. The difference that one or two years make in the power to grasp the abstract studies that belong to the college course is very important. As respects morals, the habit of application, the capacity of self-direction and selfrestraint, the calculation is in favour of a later matriculation at the university. The will and passions indeed are more intense; but discretion and reason are also more in exercise. It is one objection to keeping your son back, that he is eager to press forward, and desires to accompany his classmates to college, although they are generally older than he. You may perhaps convince him that improvement is better than mere rank, and that thorough scholarship is of much more value to him than the distinction of being graduated young. If you cannot induce him to acquiesce in your views, and are unwilling to meet the consequence of controlling his wishes in this respect, it may be better, with the good instruction you can procure for him, to have him join the college at the beginning of the sophomore year. It cannot be difficult to furnish him valuable and interesting employment for one or two years more, however active his genius. The classicks, with the auxiliary knowledge of geography, mythol

ogy, history, and antiquities; the modern languages, not to mention natural history in its several branches, and mathematicks, will be sufficient to keep him fully engaged. If he is ever to learn French, Spanish, Italian, or German, this is the time, while the organs are flexible and the memory is quick and retentive."