as that of dragging the governor of a town after his chariot. I know this is generally ascribed to his passion for Homer; but I lately met with a passage in Plutarch, which, if I am not very much mistaken, still gives us a clearer light into the motives of this action. Plutarch tells us, that Alexander in his youth had a master named Lysimachus, who, though he was a man destitute of all politeness, ingratiated himself both with Philip and his pupil, and became the second man at court, by calling the king Peleus, the prince Achilles, and himself Phoenix. It is no wonder if Alexander, having been thus used not only to admire but to personate Achilles, should think it glorious to imitate him in. this piece of cruelty and extravagance.

To carry this thought yet further, I shall submit it to your consideration, whether, instead of a theme or copy of verses, which are the usual exercises, as they are called in the school phrase, it would not be more proper that a boy should be tasked, once or twice a week, to write down his opinion of such persons and things as occur to him by his reading; that he should descant upon the actions of Turnus, or Æneas; shew wherein they excelled, or were defective; censure or approve any particular action; observe how it might have been carried to a greater degree of perfection, and how it exceeded or fell short of another. He might at the same time mark what was moral in any speech, and how far it agreed with the character of the person speaking. This exercise would soon strengthen his judgment in what is blameable or praise-worthy, and give him an early seasoning of morality.

Next to those examples which may be met with in books, I very much approve Horace's way of setting before youth the infamous or ho

nourable characters of their contemporaries. That poet tells us, this was the method his father made use of to incline him to any particular virtue, or give him an aversion to any particular vice. "If," says Horace," my father advised me to live within bounds, and be contented with the fortune he should leave me; 'Do you not see,' says he, the miserable condition of Burrus, and the son of Albus? Let the misfortunes of those two wretches teach you to avoid luxury and extravagance.' If he would inspire me with an abhorrence to debauchery, Do not,' says he, 'make yourself like Sectanus, when you may be happy in the enjoyment of lawful pleasures. How scandalous,' says he, is the character of Trebonius, who was lately caught in bed with another man's wife!" To illustrate the force of this method, the poet adds, that as a head-strong patient, who will not at first follow his physician's prescriptions, grows orderly when he hears that the neighbours die all about him; so youth is often frighted from vice, by hearing the ill report it brings upon others.

6

Xenophon's schools of equity, in his Life of Cyrus the Great, are sufficiently famous. He tells us, that the Persian children went to school, and employed their time as diligently in learning the principles of justice and sobriety, as the youth in other countries did to acquire the most difficult arts and sciences: their governors spent most part of the day in hearing their mutual accusations one against the other, whether for violence, cheating, slander, or ingratitude: and taught them how to give judgment against those who were found to be any ways guilty of these crimes. I omit the story of the long and short coat, for which Cyrus himself was punished, as a case equally known with any in Littleton.

The method which Apuleius tells us the Indian Gymnosophists took to educate their disciples, is still more curious and remarkable. His words are as follow: "When their dinner is ready, before it is served up, the masters inquire of every particular scholar how he has employed his time since sun-rising some of them answer, that, having been chosen as arbiters between two persons, they have composed their differences, and made them friends: some, that they have been executing the orders of their parents; and others, that they have either found out something new by their own application, or learnt it from the instructions of their fellows. But if there happens to be any one among them who cannot make it appear that he has employed the morning to advantage, he is immediately excluded from the company, and obliged to work while the rest are at dinner."

It is not impossible, that from these several ways of producing virtue in the minds of boys some general method might be invented. What I would endeavour to inculcate is, that our youth cannot be too soon taught the principles of virtue, seeing the first impressions which are made on the mind are always the strongest.

The archbishop of Cambray makes Telemachus say, that, though he was young in years, he was old in the art of knowing how to keep both his own and his friends' secrets.' "When my father," says the prince, "went to the siege of Troy, he took me on his knees, and, after having embraced and blessed me, as he was surrounded by the nobles of Ithaca, O my friends,' says he, ' into your hands I commit the education of my son: if ever you loved his father, shew it in your care towards him; but, above all, do not omit to form him just, sincere, and faithful in keeping a

secret.'

These words of my father," says Telemachus, "were continually repeated to me by his friends in his absence; who made no scruple of communicating to me their uneasiness to see my mother surrounded with lovers, and the measures they designed to take on that occasion." He adds, that he was so ravished at being thus treated like a man, and at the confidence reposed in him, that he never once abused it; nor could all the insinuations of his father's rivals ever get him to betray what was committed to him under the seal of secrecy.

There is hardly any virtue which a lad might not thus learn by practice and example.

'I have heard of a good man, who used at certain times to give his scholars sixpence apiece, that they might tell him the next day how they had employed it. The third part was always to be laid out in charity, and every boy was blamed, or commended, as he could make it appear he had chosen a fit object.

In short, nothing is more wanting to our public schools, than that the masters of them should use the same care in fashioning the manners of their scholars, as in forming their tongues to the learned languages. Wherever the former is omitted, I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Locke, that a man must have a very strange value for words, when, preferring the languages of the Greeks and Romans to that which made them such brave men, he can think it worth while to hazard the innocence and virtue of his son for a little Greek and Latin.

'As the subject of this essay is of the highest importance, and what I do not remember to have seen treated by any author, I have sent you w occurred to me on it from my own observation

VOL. Y

I

reading, and which you may either suppress or publish, as you think fit.

X.

'I am, SIR,

'Yours, &c.'

No 338. FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 1712.

-Nil fuit unquam

Tum dispar sibi.

HOR. 1 Sat. iii. 16.

Made up of nought but inconsistencies.]

I FIND the tragedy of The Distrest Mother is published to-day. The author of the prologue t, I suppose, pleads an old excuse I have read somewhere, of being dull with design;' and the gentleman who writ the epilogue has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than any body, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it.

*The original motto to this paper, at its first publication in folio, was likewise from Horace:

-Servetur ad imum,

Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet.

Hor. A. P.

+ Steele was the author of the prologue to The Distrest Mother. The excuse alludes to a passage at the end of Tat. No. 38.

+ The author of the epilogue to the play of A. Phillips, called the Distrest Mother, first published in 1712, was Mr. Eustace Budgell.