'I can read and understand a Latin
author,' said young Edward, with the self-confidence and rash reasoning
of fifteen, 'and Scaliger or Bentley could not do much more.' Alas!
while he was thus permitted to read only for the gratification of his
amusement, he foresaw not that he was losing for ever the opportunity of
acquiring habits of firm and assiduous application, of gaining the art
of controlling, directing, and concentrating the powers of his mind
for earnest investigation,--an art far more essential than even that
intimate acquaintance with classical learning, which is the primary
object of study.
I am aware I may be here reminded of the necessity of rendering
instruction agreeable to youth, and of Tasso's infusion of honey into
the medicine prepared for a child; but an age in which children are
taught the driest doctrines by the insinuating method of instructive
games, has little reason to dread the consequences of study being
rendered too serious or severe. The history of England is now reduced
to a game at cards,--the problems of mathematics to puzzles and
riddles,--and the doctrines of arithmetic may, we are assured, be
sufficiently acquired, by spending a few hours a week at a new and
complicated edition of the Royal Game of the Goose.
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