(seq. 169)

An attempt to prove, that the time usually spent
in learning the Latin, Greek, and Oriental languages,
is not usefully occupied.

Among the numerous errors which disgrace hu-
manity, none are so productive of pernicious consequen-
ces as those of education. If the mind in the infancy
of its existence be habituated to wrong conceptions, if
those seasons in which it seems alike of any impressions
be devoted to the study of false and useless theories, it
can never be moulded in that form, for which nature
seems originally to have designed it. It is the early,
proper and assiduous cultivating of each blossom of ge-
nius, that unfolds the many noble faculties of the soul
and gives lustre to the human character.

Perhaps none ever yet arrived to that degree of ex-
cellence, to which he might have attained, by a dif-
ferent mode of education. So much depends upon our
first impressions, so much upon our being early ac-
customed to contemplate objects through a proper
medium, and so imperfect are the most improved
modes of education, that, I presume, we have no
conceptions of those acquisisions, for which, nature
has formed man.

But while we contemplate with wonder and admiration,
the surprising progress, which the human mind
has made in science and civilization, though per-
petually exposed to conflicts with prejudice, and

cramped