Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/218

204 the moſt uſeful facts from Grecian, Roman, European and American hiſtory. The firſt elements of morality too may be inſtilled into their minds; ſuch as, when further developed as their judgments advance in ſtrength, may teach them how to work out their own greateſt happineſs, by ſhewing them that it does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed them, but is always the reſult of a good conſcience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all juſt purſuits.—Thoſe whom either the wealth of their parents or the adoption of the ſtate ſhall deſtine to higher degrees of learning, will go on to the grammar ſchools, which conſtitute the next ſtage, there to be inſtructed in the languages. The learning Greek and Latin, I am told, is going into diſuſe in Europe. I know not what their manners and occupations may call for: but it would be very ill-judged in us to follow their example in this inſtance. There is a certain period of life, ſay from eight to fifteen or ſixteen years of age, when the mind like the body is not yet firm enough for laborious and cloſe operations. If applied to ſuch, it falls an early victim to p r emature exertion: exhibiting indeed at firſt, in theſe young and tender ſubjects, the flattering appearance of their being men while they are yet children, but ending in reducing them to be children where they ſhould be men. The memory is then moſt ſuſceptible and tenacious of impreſſions; and the learning of languages being chiefly a work of memory, it ſeems preciſely fitted to the powers of this period, which is long enough too for acquiring the moſt uſeful languages ancient and modern. I do not pretend that language is ſcience. It is only an inſtrument for the