Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub
[ocr errors]

it was opened by the poor man himself, who, knowing him at first sight to be the man he had robbed the evening before, fell at his feet, and implored his mercy, pleading the extreme distress of his family, and begging that he would forgive his first crime. M. de Sallo desired him to make no noise, for he had no intention to hurt him. "You have a good character among your neighbours,' said he, "but must expect that your life will soon be cut short, if you are now so wicked as to continue the freedom you took with me. Hold your hand; here are thirty pistoles to buy leather; husband it well, and set your children a commendable example. To put you out of farther temptations to commit such ruinous and fatal actions, I will encourage your industry; I hear you are a neat workman, and you shall take measure of me, and of this boy, for two pair of shoes each, and he shall call upon you for them." The whole family appeared struck with joy, amazement, and gratitude. M. de Sallo departed, greatly moved, and with a mind filled with satisfaction, at having saved a man, and perhaps a family, from the commission of guilt, from an ignominious death, and perhaps from eternal perdition. Never was a day better begun; the consciousness of having performed such an action, whenever it recurs to the mind of a reasonable being, must be attended with pleasure, and that self-complacency and secret approbation, which is more desirable than gold, and all the pleasures of the earth.

For the Monthly Visitor.

ON EDUCATION,

BY PRATT.

I see too plainly custom forms us all:
Our thoughts, our morals, our most fix'd belief,
Are consequences of our place of birth:
Born beyond Ganges-I had been a Pugan!
In France, a Christian-I am here a Saracen.
'Tis but instruction all! Our parent's hand
Writes on our hearts the first faint characters,
Which time retracing deepens into strength
That nothing can efface but death or heaven.

L

ZARA.

Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclin❜d.

POPE.

ET us imagine, as an elucidation of the above assertions, a child born under every favour able event of temporal prosperity; the father rich, and the mother beautiful; its cradle is soft and downy, its pap is made of the whitest bread; and every accommodation that the little stranger demands, is furnished with the most pompous parade, and in the highest perfection. It will not be long before these softnesses will have so great an influence on the body, that the infant must imbibe from these blessings an idea of luxury. This idea will be constantly recurring, and every day's illustration of the points which first produced it, will expand on the imagination, which, like the passions and appetites, is no foe to delicacies. Voluptuous images, thus associated, are easily admitted into the young heart, and every thing that did not correspond with those images, would, in

proportion, be rejected. Accustomed to the light and spacious apartments, he would not venture into a dark passage without his nurse or governante. Suppose, on the other hand, a child, the off. spring of laborious and indigent parents; its birth is effected upon the straw, or upon sacking, without curtains; the wind blows hard through the casement; the mother lies down contented with her small beer caudle, and on the third and fourth day she is up, and dandling the babe upon her knee, or dancing it in her arms.

The mother of the other, meanwhile, is gradu ally recovering from the pains of labour, upon a couch of down; stops up every crevice of air, "lest the breeze of heaven should visit her too roughly." Dares not rise till she is sufficiently weakened by the forms of a fashionable lying-in, as it is, in this case, emphatically called; and, at last, after much effort, and more ceremony, she ventures abroad, on some auspicious, sun-shiny day, under the fortification of cloaks, hoods, and handkerchiefs, just to take an airing, with the glasses of her carriage drawn up, and then returns to her chamber, shivering at those gales which fan the face of the poor woman, who inhales them as the most natural restoratives of health and beauty.

About the time that the rich child begins to know the delicacy of its condition, the poor one would find itself promising and hardy, and, in some degree inured to the storms of life. Let them be at this period each five years old; the one has acquired a sensation of softness, the other an habit of hardiness. Suppose then, about this time, it were possible for them to change situations. The pennyless lad shall go into the warm villa, the rich stripling into the cold cottage;-what would be the consequence? Exactly the same as if the two mothers and fathers were to exchange. All would be

distress, dilemma, confusion, and awkwardness: the pampered youth would crowd over the wretched bit of a blaze, made by two sticks laid across a brick; and the lad who was bred in a tempest, and seasoned to wind and weather, would very probably toss his plaything against the fine sash-window to let in the air, and prevent suffocation.

Thus far I have spoken respecting the influence of early habits on the body. Let us now see what effect they have on the mind. The connection betwixt our mortal and immortal part, is far closer than betwixt man and wife. Nothing can befal the one that is indifferent to the other: sympathy implanted by nature is powerfully reciprocated; and the tie is at once tender and forcible. Consequently, the minds of those two boys, must be affected very sensibly by their respective educations and customs. As they grow up, those customs will so strengthen, that nothing but "death or heaven" can reconcile them to an innovation, either in thought, word, or deed. The poor boy having heard nothing but unpolished language, ate nothing but coarse food, and passed his day amongst clowns and cattle, will continue in the track, and if, by an unlucky stroke of chance, he be called to new pursuits, his misery must be dated from the day on which he deserted the spade, the ploughshare, or the flail. The rich boy, in the mean time, rises into man, amidst the clash of carriages, the comfort of couches, and the luxuries of laziness. His ears are accustomed to music, fashion, and flattery; his eyes are daily charmed with ob jects of dissipation or delight. No possible accident could be more fatal to his peace, than a sudden deprivation of these pleasures. Take him again into the hat, he finds himself like a fish upon land, out of his element: the greatest transports of the peasant, are to him agony; and every thing

around, and within him, is as strange as if he had stepped into a new world. Why is all this?— Merely because they have been taught to think, and feel, and act differently.

We will proceed, gentle reader, if you please, to further familiar illustrations. Imagine that when these children were five weeks old, the mother of the poorest, reduced to extreme necessity, puts her infant in a basket, and lays it at the door of a person equally celebrated for wealth and benevolence-the gentleman takes it into his house, clothes, feeds, and educates it as his own-that very infant, which with the parent would be the lout I have described, would, with its protector, be as different a creature as could exist. His pains, passions, pleasures, and ideas, totally reversed-imagine likewise that some gipsy steals, or kidnaps, as it is called, the rich child from the cradle, and strolls with it up and down the country; it will have its education in the open air, its lodging in a barn, and its dirty diet under a hedge. Probably it will imbibe the craft and subtlety of the gipsy, and limit its utmost ambition to trick the traveller out of sixpence, cross the palm with silver, and tell the events which have happened (or are still to be brought forward) by the line of life. Thus in every other instance (with a few peculiar exceptions, that have nothing to do with general rules), habit and education form the mind, and colour the human character.

There are, doubtless, some constitutions so adapted by nature to virtue, that no troubles, situat ons, nor temptations, can subdue or extirpate their amiable propensities-but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a character takes its bias and bearing from mere tuition, and the line it is either led or thrown into in the first stage of the human journey. If there be no innate ideas, it follows

« ПредишнаНапред »