PRIZE BOOK.

LIBERAL EDUCATION.

By the common consent of the eminent statesmen and lawgivers, as well as the learned in the most polished nations of Europe, a good education, whether designed for an accomplished gentleman, or for him who is destined to the labour of a professional life, must be founded upon what is emphatically called Classical Learning. So well established has this opinion long been throughout Europe, that no one dares to assume the rank of a well educated man, unless the foundation of his education has been deeply laid in that part of human knowledge. The soundness of this opinion has been much confirmed by the failure of the experiment made in France during the Revolution; when an unfortunate attempt was made to cultivate the sciences, to the neglect of classical learning. It is now understood, that the enlightened statesmen and scholars of that distinguished nation, have, for some time past, been directing their efforts to the reestablishing of clas

sical learning in the rank which it held before the Revolution.

From these remarks, however, it must not be inferred, that the sciences are to be excluded from a course of liberal study; on the contrary, a certain portion of them constitutes an essential part of it. All our knowledge is classed under the two great divisions of Science and Literature; and if it were possible for any human being to master all science and all literature, undoubtedly such a man would be possessed of the most thorough education. But as this degree of knowledge is unattainable even by the most highly favoured of mortals, it becomes necessary in a practical course of study to make some apportionment of the science and literature, in which a young man is to be instructed; and, according as their relative proportions, and the periods of life when they should be respectively pursued, are the more or less accurately adjusted to each other, in the same degree will education be the more or less complete. Now, if we would qualify a young man to discharge, to the most advantage, his duties as a member of an enlightened society, whether in the learned professions or in other walks of life, a very small portion of science (in the popular acceptation of the term) will be found necessary; and the great objects of his pursuit should be acquisitions in useful literature, of which classical learning is the broad and solid basis. "The truth is," to adopt the

forcible language of Johnson, "that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is, the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples, which may be said to embody truth and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues and excellencies of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one may know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools, that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians."*

It is for the solid reasons, which are here so closely condensed by this great man-it is for the intrinsic value of the matter as well as the manner, which are

* Johnson's Life of Milton.

so conspicuous in the classic writers-it is because their poets, and orators, and historians are models of thought and of writing, as their sculptors and architects are models in the fine arts-it is, because their thoughts and writings are so interwoven with the whole body and texture of all elegant and useful learning as to be inseparable from it without destroying the fabric itself-it is for these reasons, and not for the mere purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the languages of Greece and Rome, that the study of these immortal writers is so constantly urged upon us by the precepts and example of the greatest and most accomplished men.

To add any thing to the weight of Johnson's arguments and authority would be no easy task; but the following remarks of a distinguished British statesman and scholar of the present day, who knows the practical utility of a classical education, contain so just an estimate of these studies, that we cannot forbear presenting them to the reader.

"What (says Sir James Mackintosh, with an ardour and indignation, that overwhelmed his adversary in the debate on purchasing the classical library of Dr. Burney) "what would the inmates of that University [Oxford] say, when they heard, that they and all others who studied classical learning, were trained in frivolous questions respecting minute and unimportant distinctions? Was not the honourable member

aware, that in that classical education, to which so many superficial objections might be made, was comprised a course of indirect, but not the less forcible moral and political instruction, which had the greatest effect in the formation of the character? Were the lawgivers of this and other countries mere drivellers, when they recommended a degree of minute accuracy in these studies? But did not this accuracy form the criterion of a perfect familiarity with those authors who were the models of thought, the masters of moral teaching and of civil wisdom, and above all things, of CIVIL LIBERTY? He was ashamed to hear any part of knowledge treated as a luxury, or an amusement. Classic learning was in reality much more important than others, which had more direct connexion with the business of life, as it tended more to raise higher sentiments and to fix principles in the minds of youth than the sciences." The same elegant scholar, also, in the splendid introduction to his Lectures on the Law of Nations, thus beautifully characterizes a most important class of the ancient writers-"All these relative duties of private life have been so copiously and beautifully treated by the moralists of antiquity, that few men will now choose to follow them, who are not actuated by the wild ambition of equalling Aristotle in precision, or rivalling Cicero in eloquence. The ancients (he adds) examined the foundations of our duty, but they felt and cherished a most seemly, a most rational