Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/66

 People to reform, could only institute such a Kind of Government, as their pre-established Habits, Vices, and Forms of Polity could admit.

Here we discover the Foundation of that striking Remark of himself. "That he gave not the Athenians the best Laws that could be given, but the best they were capable of receiving. "

The first and ruling Defect in the Institution of this Republic seems to have been "the total Want of an established Education, suited to the Genius of the State." There appears not to have been any public, regular, or prescribed Appointment of this Kind, beyond what Custom had accidentally introduced. 'Tis true, that the Parents often had Masters to instruct their Children in the gymnastic Arts, and in Music. Which last, in the ancient Acceptation of the Word, included Poem as well as Melody: 'Tis farther true, that the Poems thus taught