both for the care of his education and the just | schools, employing or rather casting away and civil usage of him. That the scholar shall understand Latin very well, and be moderately initiated in the Greek, before he be capable of being chosen into the service; and that he shall not remain in it above seven years. That his lodging shall be with the professor whom he serves. That no professor shall be a maried man, or a divine, or lawyer in practice; only physic he may be allowed to prescribe, because the study of that art is a great part of the duty of his place, and the duty of that is so great, that it will not suffer him to lose much time in mercenary practice. That the professors shall, in the college, wear the habit of ordinary masters of art in the universities, or of doctors, if any of them be so. That they shall all keep an inviolable and exemplary friendship with one another; and that the assembly shall lay a considerable pecuniary mulct upon any one who shall be proved to have entered so far into a quarrel as to give uncivil language to his brother-professor; and that the perseverance in any enmity shall be punished by the governors with expulsion. That the chaplain shall eat at the master's table (paying his twenty pounds a year as the others do); and that he shall read prayers once a day at least, a little before supper-time; that he shall preach in the chapel every Sunday morning, and catechize in the afternoon the scholars and the school-boys: that he shall every month administer the holy sacrament; that he shall not trouble himself and his auditors with the controversies of divinity, but only teach God in his just commandments, and in his wonderful works. THE SCHOOL. THAT the school may be built so as to contain about two hundred boys. That it be divided into four classes, not as others are ordinarily into six or seven; because we suppose that the children sent hither, to be initiated in things as well as words, ought to have past the two or three first, and to have attained the age of about thirteen years, being already well advanced in the Latin grammar, and some authors. That none, though never so rich, shall pay any thing for their teaching; and that, if any professor shall be convicted to have taken any money in consideration of his pains in the school, he shall be expelled with ignominy by the governors; but if any persons of great estate and quality, finding their sons much better proficients in learning here, than boys of the same age commonly are at other schools, shall not think fit to receive an obligation of so near concernment without returning some marks of acknowledgment, they may, if they please, (for nothing is to be demanded) bestow some little rarity or curiosity upon the society, in recompense of their trouble. And, because it is deplorable to consider the loss which children make of their time at most six or seven years in the learning of words only, and that too very imperfectly That a method be here established, for the infusing knowledge and language at the same time into them; and that this may be their apprenticeship in natural philosophy. This, we conceive, may be done, by breeding them up in authors, or pieces of authors, who treat of some parts of nature, and who may be understood with as much ease and pleasure, as those which are commonly taught; such are, in Latin, Varro, Cato, Columella, Pliny, part of Ce'sus and of Seneca, Cicero de Divinatione, de Naturâ Deorum, and several scattered pieces, Virgil's Georgics, Grotius, Nemesianus, Manilius: And the truth is, because we want good poets (1 mean we have but few), who have purposely treated of solid and learned, that is, natural matters (the most part indulging to the weakness of the world, and feeding it either with the follies of love or with the fables of gods and heroes), we conceive that one book ought to be compiled of all the scattered little parcels among the ancient poets that might serve for the advancement of natural science, and which would make no small or unuseful or unpleasant volume. To this we would have added the morals and rhetorics of Cicero, and the institutions of Quinctilian; and for the comedians, from whom almost all that necessary part of common discourse, and all the most intimate proprieties of the language, are drawn, we conceive, the boys may be made masters of them, as a part of their recreation, and not of their task, if once a month, or at least once in two, they act one of Terence's Comedies, and afterwards (the most advanced) some of Plautus's; and this is for many reasons one of the best exercises they can be enjoined, and most innocent pleasures they can be allowed. As for the Greek authors, they may study Nicander, Opianus, (whom Scaliger does not doubt to prefer above Homer himself, and place next to his adored Virgil) Aristotle's history of animals, and other parts, Theophrastus and Dioscorides of plants, and a collection made out of several of both poets and other Grecian writers. For the morals and rhetoric, Aristotle may suffice, or Hermogenes and Longinus be added for the latter. With the history of animals they should be showed anatomy as a divertisement, and made to know the figures and natures of those creatures which are not common among us, disabusing them at the same time of those errours which are universally admitted concerning many. The same method should be used to make them acquainted with all plants; and to this must be added a little of the ancient and modern geography, the understanding of the globes, and the principles of geometry and astronomy. They should likewise use to declaim in Latin, and English, as the Romans did in Greek and Latin, and in all this travail be rather led on by familiarity, encouragement, and emulation, than driven by severity, punishment, and terrour. Upon festivals and play-times, they should exercise themselves in the fields, by riding, leaping, sencing, mustering, and training, after the manner of soldiers, &c. And, to prevent all dangers and all disorder, there should always be two of the scholars with them, to be as witnesses and directors of their actions; in foul weather, it would not be amiss for them to learn to dance, that is, to learn just so much (for all beyond is superfluous, if not worse) as may give them a graceful comportment of their bodies. - Upon Sundays, and all days of devotion, they are to be a part of the chaplain's province. That, for all these ends, the college so order it, as that there may be some convenient and pleasant houses thereabouts, kept by religious, discreet, and careful persons, for the lodging and boarding of young scholars; that they have a constant eye over them, to see that they be bred up there piously, cleanly, and plentifully, according to the proportion of the parents' expenses. And that the college, when it shall please God, either by their own industry and success, or by the benevolence of patrons, to enrich them so far, as that it may come to their turn and duty to be charitable to others, shall, at their own charges, erect and maintain some house or houses for the entertainment of such poor men's sons, whose good natural parts may promise either use or ornament to the commonwealth, during the time of their abode at school; and shall take care that it shall he done with the same conveniences as are enjoyed even by rich men's children (though they maintain the fewer for that cause), there being nothing of eminent and illustrious to be expected from a low, sordid, and hospital-like education. CONCLUSION. IF I be not much abused by a natural fondness to my own conceptions (that σοργή of the Greeks, which no other language has a proper word for), there was never any project thought upon, which deserves to meet with so few adversaries as this; for who can without impudent folly oppose the establishment of twenty well-selected persons in such a condition of life, that their whole business and sole profession may be to study the improvement and advantage of all other professions, from that of the highest general even to the lowest artisan? who shall be obliged to employ their whole time, wit, learning, and industry, to these four, the most useful that can be imagined, and to no other ends; first, to weigh, examine, and prove, all things of nature delivered to us by former ages; to detect, explode, and strike a censure through, all false monies with which the world has been paid and cheated so long; and (as I may say) to set the mark of the college upon all true coins, that they may pass hereafter without any farther trial: secendly, to recover the lost inventions, and, as it were, drowned lands of the ancients: thirdly, to improve all arts which we now have; and lastly, to discover others which we have not: and who shall besides all this (as a benefit by the by), give the best edur ation in the world (purely gratis) to as many men's children as shall think fit to make use of the obligation? Neither does it at all check or interfere with any parties in a state or religion; but is indifferently to be embraced by all differences in opinion, and can hardly be conceived capable (as many good institutions have done) even of degeneration into any thing harmful. So that, all things considered, I will suppose this Proposition shall encounter with no enemies: the only question is, whether it will find friends enough to carry it on from discourse and design to reality and effect; the necessary expenses of the beginning (for it will maintain itself well enough afterwards) being so great (though I have set them as low as is possible, in order to so vast a work), that it may seem hopeless to raise such a sum out of those few dead relics of human charity and public generosity which are yet remaining in the world. : THE LIFE OF DENHAM, BY DR JOHNSON. OF SIR JOHN DENHAM very little is known but what is related of him by Wood, or by himself. He was born at Dublin in 1615; the only son of Sir John Denham, of Little Horsely in Essex, then chief baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, and of Eleanor, daughter of sir Garret More, baron of Mellefont. Two years afterwards, his father, being made one of the barons of the Exchequer in England, brought him away from his native country, and educated him in London. In 1631 he was sent to Oxford, where he was considered as "a dreaming young man, given more to dice and cards than study:" and therefore gave no prognostics of his future eminence; nor was suspected to conceal, under his sluggishness and laxity, a genius born to improve the literature of his country. When he was, three years afterwards, removed to Lincoln's Inn, he prosecuted the common law with sufficient appearance of application; yet did not lose his propensity to cards and dice; but was very often plundered by gamesters. Being severely reproved for this folly, he professed, and perhaps believed, him. self reclaimed; and to testify the sincerity of his repentance, wrote and published An Essay upon Gaming. He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for, iu 1636, he translated the second book of the Æneid. Two years after, his father died; and then, notwithstanding his resolutions and professions, he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost several thousand pounds that had been left him. In 1642, he published The Sophy. This seems to have given him his first hold of the public attention; for Waller remarked, "that he broke out like the Irish rebellion, three-score thousand strong, when no body was aware, or in the least suspected it;" an observation which could have had no propriety, had his poetical abilities been known before. |