With respect to the education of that class of society who have wealth and time for the acqui sition of the highest measure of intelligence, there is one question as to which every body must be ripe for a decision. If it be asked, whether, in the constitution of any establishment for their educa tion, call it university, call it college, school, or any thing else, there ought to be a provision made for perpetual improvement,—a provision to make it keep pace with the human mind ; or if, on the other hand, it ought to be so constituted as that there shall not only be no provision for, but a strong spirit of resistance to all improvement,—a passion of ad herence to whatever was established in a dark age, and a principle of hatred to those by whom im provement is proposed;—all indifferent men will de clare that such institutions would be a curse rather than a blessing. That he is a progressive being, is the grand distinction of man; he is the only pro gressive being upon this globe; when he is the most rapidly progressive, then he most completely fulfills his destiny : an institution for education which is hos tile to progression, is, therefore, the most preposte rous and vicious thing, which the mind of man can conceive.
There are several causes which tend to impair the utility of old and opulent establishments for educa tion. Their love of ease makes them love easy things, if they can derive from them as much cre dit, as they would from others which are more diffi cult. They endeavour, therefore, to give an artifi cial value to trifles. Old practices, which have become a hackneyed routine, are commonly easier than to make improvements: accordingly, they oppose improvements, even when it happens that they have no other interest in the preservation of abuses. Hardly is there a part of Europe in which the Universities are not recorded, in the annals of of education, as the enemies of all innovation.
A peine la compagnie de Jesus," says d'Alembert, " commenca-t-elle a se montrer en France, qu'elle essuya des difficultes sans nombre pour s' y etablir. Les universites sur tout firent les plus vends efforts, pour ecarter ces nouveaux venus. Les Jesuites s annoncaient pour enseigner gratuitement, ils comp toient deja parmieux des hommes sevens et celebres, superieurs peut-etre a ceux dont les universites pouvaient se glorifier; 1' interet et la Vanite pou vaient done suffire I leurs adversaires pour chercher a les exclure. Ou se rapelle les contradictions sem blables que les ordres mendians essuyerent de ces memes universites quand ils voulurent s' y introduire ; contradictions fondees a peu pres sur les memes mo tifs." (Destruction des Jesuites in France.) The ce
lebrated German Philosopher Wolf remarks the aver sion of the universities to all improvement, as a noto rious thing, founded upon adequate motives, in the following terms: " Non adeo impune turbare licet scholarum quieten, et docentibus lucrosam, et disentibus jucundam." (Wolfii Logica, Dedic. p. 2.) But though such and so great are the evil tenden cies which are to be guarded against in associated seminaries of education,-.evil- tendencies which are apt to be indefinitely increased when they are united with an ecclesiastical establishment, because, what ever the vices of the ecclesiastical system, the uni versities have in that case an interest to bend the whole force of their education to the support of them all, and the human mind can only be rendered the friend of abuses in proportion as it is vitiated intel lectually, or morally, or both; it must, notwithstand ing, be confessed, that there are great advantages in putting it in the power of the youth to obtain all the branches of their education in one place ; even in as sembling a certain number of them together, when the principle of emulation acts with powerful effect; and in carrying on the complicated process accord ing to a regular plan, under a certain degree of dis cipline, and with the powerful spur of publicity. All this ought not to be rashly sacrificed ; nor does there appear to be any insuperable difficulty in devising a plan for the attainment of all these advantages, with out the evils which have more or less adhered to all the collegiate establishments which Europe has yet enjoyed.
After the consideration of these questions, we ought next to describe, and prove by analysis, the exercises which would be most conducive m form ing those virtues which we include under the name of intelligence. But it is very evident, that this is It mat ter of detail far too extensive for so limited a design as ours. And though education, in common lan guage, means hardly any thing more than Making the youth perform those exercises; and a treatise on education means little more than an account of them, we must content ourselves with marking the place which the inquiry would occupy in a complete system, and proceed to offer a few remarks on the two remaining branches of the subject, Social Edu cation, and Political Education.
The branches of moral education, heretofore spoken of, operate upon the individual in the first period of life, and when he is not as yet his own master. The two just now mentioned operate upon the whole pe riod of life, but more directly and powerfully after the technical education is at an end, and the youth is launched into the world under his own control.