though the depravity, luxury, and corruption of the times, form just subjects of complaint for the grave, the thoughtful, and the aged, yet i cannot help believing, that many of these complainants are themselves lending a helping hand to render the rising generation as effeminate and corrupt as the present.
i am now appealing to parents on the education of their children, which appears to me a subject that ought to attract the serious attention of those who wish longevity, peace, and happiness to their children, and prosperity, repose, and a reformation of manners to the rising generation.
"the first seasoning," says plato, "sticks longest by the vessel. thus those, who are permitted from their earliest periods to do wrong, will hardly ever be persuaded, when they arrive at maturity, to do right." it is a maxim with some people, a maxim surely founded only on pride, that their children shall not be checked in their early years, but be indulged in whatever their little hearts shall pant after; and for this reason, because they will grow wiser as they grow older. but, since the love of ease, finery, and pleasure, is natural to almost every youthful mind, how careful ought each parent to be to check those juvenile sallies, which, if encouraged, will in time be productive of the very evils they complain of in the present generation.
it is not only in childhood, but also in their progress through school, and during their apprenticeship, that these indulgences are continued; and an excuse is always ready, that their children must not be more hardly treated than others. hence it follows, that you often meet the apprentice of eighteen strutting through the streets in his boots on an errand of business, or screening himself from the dew of heaven under the shade of a large silken umbrella!—it would be worse than sacrilege, in their opinions, to appear abroad with an apron before them, or in their working dress.
their evenings are too often spent abroad at chair clubs, in alehouses, at the theatres, or in some gardens. "to know the world," as they call it, is more their study than the attainment of their profession, by which they are hereafter to live. but of what does this knowledge of the world consist?—to despise virtue, to laugh at morality, and to give way to the most shocking scenes of folly and dissipation. their sundays, part of which, at least, ought to be spent in acts of piety, are passed in revelling and drunkenness; and the exploits and excesses of that day furnish plenty of boastful conversation for the rest of the week.
what can be expected from a youth, when he shall arrive at manhood, who has thus passed the morning of his life? and with what reason can either parents or masters complain of the depravity of the times, since they themselves take so little care of the morals of the rising generation?
the youth who has been long accustomed to revel through the dangerous wilds of gaiety and pleasure, and has once given a loose to the excesses of the town, will hardly ever be prevailed on to quit them, for what he considers as the dull enjoyments of a calm, peaceable, and virtuous life. deaf to all remonstrances, he pursues his pleasures, and perishes in the midst of his delusive enjoyments.
to check these evils, and thereby prevent the fatal consequences, the infant mind must be carefully watched, and the unruly passions made to give way to the reason and authority of the parent. nothing can be so pleasing and delightful, and, at the same time, more the duty of the parent, than to watch over the tender thought, and teach the young ideas to flow in a proper channel. to leave these cares to the vain hope, that reason and maturity will gradually fix the wandering mind, and bring it to a proper sense of its duty, is as absurd and ridiculous as to expect that the fiery steed, who has never felt the spur nor the curb, the saddle nor the bridle, will with age become the peaceful, the quiet, and the obedient animal.
nature seems, in some instances, to have given to the inferior class of beings that degree of instinct, which sometimes puts human reason to the blush. shall inferior beings, merely by the power of instinct qualities, show more care and prudence in rearing their tender offspring, than proud man, with all his lordly and boasted superiority of human reason?
