The Essays, vol 5 | Page 6

as for example, Lipsius, in that learned and laborious
contexture of his Politics.
But, be it how it will, and how inconsiderable soever these ineptitudes
may be, I will say I never intended to conceal them, no more than my
old bald grizzled likeness before them, where the painter has presented
you not with a perfect face, but with mine. For these are my own
particular opinions and fancies, and I deliver them as only what I
myself believe, and not for what is to be believed by others. I have no
other end in this writing, but only to discover myself, who, also shall,

peradventure, be another thing to-morrow, if I chance to meet any new
instruction to change me. I have no authority to be believed, neither do
I desire it, being too conscious of my own inerudition to be able to
instruct others.
Some one, then, having seen the preceding chapter, the other day told
me at my house, that I should a little farther have extended my
discourse on the education of children.--[" Which, how fit I am to do,
let my friends flatter me if they please, I have in the meantime no such
opinion of my own talent, as to promise myself any very good success
from my endeavour." This passage would appear to be an interpolation
by Cotton. At all events, I do not find it in the original editions before
me, or in Coste.]--
Now, madam, if I had any sufficiency in this subject, I could not
possibly better employ it, than to present my best instructions to the
little man that threatens you shortly with a happy birth (for you are too
generous to begin otherwise than with a male); for, having had so great
a hand in the treaty of your marriage, I have a certain particular right
and interest in the greatness and prosperity of the issue that shall spring
from it; beside that, your having had the best of my services so long in
possession, sufficiently obliges me to desire the honour and advantage
of all wherein you shall be concerned. But, in truth, all I understand as
to that particular is only this, that the greatest and most important
difficulty of human science is the education of children. For as in
agriculture, the husbandry that is to precede planting, as also planting
itself, is certain, plain, and well known; but after that which is planted
comes to life, there is a great deal more to be done, more art to be used,
more care to be taken, and much more difficulty to cultivate and bring
it to perfection so it is with men; it is no hard matter to get children; but
after they are born, then begins the trouble, solicitude, and care rightly
to train, principle, and bring them up. The symptoms of their
inclinations in that tender age are so obscure, and the promises so
uncertain and fallacious, that it is very hard to establish any solid
judgment or conjecture upon them. Look at Cimon, for example, and
Themistocles, and a thousand others, who very much deceived the
expectation men had of them. Cubs of bears and puppies readily

discover their natural inclination; but men, so soon as ever they are
grownup, applying themselves to certain habits, engaging themselves in
certain opinions, and conforming themselves to particular laws and
customs, easily alter, or at least disguise, their true and real disposition;
and yet it is hard to force the propension of nature. Whence it comes to
pass, that for not having chosen the right course, we often take very
great pains, and consume a good part of our time m training up children
to things, for which, by their natural constitution, they are totally unfit.
In this difficulty, nevertheless, I am clearly of opinion, that they ought
to be elemented in the best and most advantageous studies, without
taking too much notice of, or being too superstitious in those light
prognostics they give of themselves in their tender years, and to which
Plato, in his Republic, gives, methinks, too much authority.
Madam, science is a very great ornament, and a thing of marvellous use,
especially in persons raised to that degree of fortune in which you are.
And, in truth, in persons of mean and low condition, it cannot perform
its true and genuine office, being naturally more prompt to assist in the
conduct of war, in the government of peoples, in negotiating the
leagues and friendships of princes and foreign nations, than in forming
a syllogism in logic, in pleading a process in law, or in prescribing a
dose of pills in physic. Wherefore, madam, believing you will not omit
this so necessary feature in the education of your children, who
yourself have tasted its sweetness,