Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/435

 The next Thing to be recommended to the Gentlemen of England has a near Kindred with the other; and that is the Philosophy of Nature and Arts. For the want of such an easy Course of Studies, so many of them have miscarried in their first Years, and have ever after abhorr'd all manner of sober Works. What else do signify the universal Complaints of those who direct the Education of great Men's Children? Why do they find them so hard to be fix'd to any manner of Knowledge? Their Teachers indeed are wont to impute it to the delicacy of their Breeding, and to their Mother's fondness: But the chief Cause of the Mischief lies deeper: They fill their Heads with difficult and unintelligible Notions, which neither afford them Pleasure in Learning, nor Profit in remembring them; they chiefly instruct them in such Arts, which are made for the beaten Tracts of Professions, and not for Gentlemen. Whereas their Minds should be charm'd by the allurements of sweeter and more plausible Studies; and for this purpose Experiments are the fittest: Their Objects they may feel and behold, their Productions are most popular; their Method is intelligible, and equal to their Capacities; so that in them they may soon become their own Teachers.

Nor are they to contemn them for their Plainness, and the homely Matters about which they are often employed. If they shall think scorn to foul their Fingers about them on this Account, let them call their Eyes back on the Original Nobility of all Countries. And if that be true, that every Thing is preserv'd and restor'd by the same Means which did beget it at first; they may then be taught, that their present Honour cannot be maintain'd by intemperate Pleasures, or the gawdy Shews of Pomp, but by true Labours, and Rh