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MS has not survived. Previously published: Monthly Magazine, 2 (December 1796), 854–855 [from where the text is taken] under pseudonym ‘DIOGENES’. New attribution to Southey; in a letter to John May, 12 January 1798, Southey referred to ‘some reflections upon public schools’ which he had composed shortly after leaving Westminster School in 1792 and had ‘printed since in the Monthly Magazine’.
These letters were edited with the assistance of Carol Bolton, Tim Fulford and Ian Packer
For permission to publish the text of MSS in their possession, the editor wishes to thank the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University; Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Bodleian Library Oxford University; the British Library; Boston Public Library; the Syndics of Cambridge University Library; the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge; Haverford College, Connecticut; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Hornby Library, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services; the Houghton Library, Harvard University; the John Rylands Library, Manchester; the Kenneth Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas; Luton Museum (Bedfordshire County Council); Massachusetts Historical Society; McGill University Library; the National Library of Scotland; the Newberry Library, Chicago; the New York Public Library (Pforzheimer Collections); the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; the Public Record Offices of Bedford, Suffolk (Bury St Edmunds) and Northumberland, the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge; the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne; the Trustees of the William Salt Library, Stafford, the Wisbech and Fenland Museum; the University of Virginia Library.
A research grant from the British Academy made much of the archival work possible, as did support from the English Department of Nottingham Trent University.
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“TRAIN up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
An ancient Greek author, whose name has perished, after expatiating on the advantages of knowledge, concludes with a sentiment not unlike that of the royal wise one. “Learning,” says he, “is a possession of which no force can bereave us. It renders us placid; it is the staff of life.” He enumerates more of its advantages, but he adds, “he who has not been flogged is not learned.”
Our seminaries for the promulgation of sound and orthodox learning, as they open to us the stores of ancient literature, seem to have adopted the prejudices of ancient scholasticity.
At a time when the young mind becomes capable of receiving what form the mould of instruction shall apply, it is deemed improper to suffer it to remain in ignorance, or gather ideas which might possibly differ from the maxims of polished society. A well judged precaution; for ill will he be fitted to “make his way in the world,” who is permitted to imbibe those principles of benevolence, humanity, and independence, inseparable from goodness of disposition and quickness of perception. Usually therefore, at this age, and on this account, the child is taken from his parents.
I will not inspect the various seminaries and academies, whose sign-posts stare us in the face on every road from London, and whose bills of fare adorn the chimney-pieces of every inn in the country: I shall examine the education of a public school. Let it be remembered that, in using this word, I do not include such as combine the evils of both, without possessing the advantages of either.
The child, at eight, ten, or twelve years of age, if his education till that period has been any-wise tolerable, may be imagined at least free from vice; but if he has been fostered in his mother’s bosom, and accustomed to receive the lessons of paternal affection, it is reasonable to suppose, that the only ideas yet impressed upon his mind are those of piety, duty, and love. He has been taught to blush at falsehood, to feel for the worm he may unwittingly have trodden on; and is perhaps unwilling to lie down at night without thanking that power who has protected him through the day.
With a mind thus trained, behold him placed at a public school. Scarcely has he taken possession of his new habitation, than the summons of some despot of sixteen calls him from his rational and innocent employments, to make a fire or clean shoes; an aukward discharge of offices to which he is so totally unaccustomed, is recompensed by blows and curses. A lye may perhaps save him from this; and thus the child has to encounter the strongest possible temptation to falsehood. Accustomed to the purity of domestic life, his ear is assailed by gross and horrible ribaldry. If he can blush, the conversation is renewed with added obscenity; if he cannot, he has already profited by public education.
The persecution of decency is followed by that of humanity. The impaled cock-chafer, and the mangled cat, are daily presented to his eyes; and these barbarities, which at first agonize the human heart, lose that effect by frequent repetition.
Learning is made altogether a task to him. Steep as is the path of science, ought the difficulties of the ascent to be increased? ought the path to be perplexed by needless intricacies? if, however, he is diligent, he is assailed by ridicule. They who are destitute of emulation, the most paltry of virtues, are yet possessed of envy, its closely-connected vice. Youth must naturally be averse to harsh and unpleasant duties. To counteract his own playful propensities, and his comrades’ malicious railleries, what inducements are held out by the fatherly attention of the preceptor? Is the cup sugared? one argument is used, be he idle, be he stupid; proceed the fault from disgust, negligence, or inability, the rod is the panacea.
Suppose we him, however, possessed of industry and genius; his genius is fettered in dactyls and spondees, and his eloquence exercised in languages which none but the learned can understand, and which, when produced by a modern, the learned themselves care not to examine. Shall I lead on the pupil through many a scene of riot and brutality? Shall I paint the leisure hours of a boarding-school, where every one is taught to become the tyrant, by being treated as the slave? our time will be better employed in enquiring how far such an education is consonant with the prudence supposed to recommend it.
The child, as soon as he can use his limbs, pants for exercise: it is the instinct that seeks future welfare in present gratification; he flies with eagerness from the nursery to the garden; so Nature wisely stimulates to firm the limbs, and brace the whole system of the future man. But Man, forsooth, knows better! he can improve upon Nature, or, rather, Nature is out of fashion! The poor victim of custom is dragged to school; his temper probably to be soured; his health probably to be injured; his morals inevitably to be sullied. He, indeed, will be reading the Metamorphoses of Ovid, or the Eclogues of Virgil,
But, at a public school, he will form connections that will be of service to him in life. As if he may not likewise form connections that will be ruinous! as if, amid such a crowd, friendships improperly formed are not more rationally to be dreaded, than those upon the ground of mutual goodness are to be hoped. May not the indolent meet with his fellow-loiterer? may not the intemperate join the drunken party? may not the libertine find associates in vice? Nay, more than this; the votary of voluptuousness glories to initiate the inexperienced.
Thus it is, that the majority of our senators, our peers, and our priests, are educated. Hence it is, that we recruit our army with officers, who escape from the rod of their schoolmaster, to tyrannize over their soldiers; who show their loyalty, by calling for “God save the King,” at the theatres; and their courage, by drawing their swords upon those who will not “bow the knee to Baal.”
As for private academies and seminaries, for “Pleasant Halls, Health Houses, and Paradise Lodges,” they differ only, in these respects, from the royal foundations of immorality, because the herd is smaller, the quantum of evil and of good must be less; and because the power of the master is greater, he is likely to make a worse use of it.
That female education is better than the methods I have been exposing, I may wish, but I do not believe. Woman, however, has not yet thrown off the restraints of decency; and much as our sex labour to verify the illiberal sarcasm of Pope, at present it is only disgraceful to its author.
On this subject, Mr. Editor, I will transmit you my strictures for your next Number.
Sept. 12, 1796