PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

228
In civilized life, every thing is effected by art and
skill. Whence a person who is provided with neither
(and neither can be acquired without exercise
and instruction) will be useless; and he that is useless,
will generally be at trJe same time mischeivous
to the community. So that to send an uneducated
child into the world is injurous to the rest of man ..
kind; it il little better than to tum out a mad dog,
or a wild beast into the streets.
In the inferior classes of the community, this principle
condemns the neglect of parents, who do not
inure their cllildren betimes to labour and restraint,
by pr{)\;ding them with apprenticeships, service~, or
other J 4egular employment, but who suffer theJl1 to
w~te their youth in idleness and vagrancy, or to betake
themselves to some lazy, trifling, and precarious
caliing: for the consequence of having thus tasted the
sweets of natural liberty, at an age when their passion
and relish for it are at -the highest, is, that they
become incapable for the remainder of their lives of
continued industry, or of preserving attention to
any thing; spend their time in a miserable struggle
between the importunity of want, and the irksomeness
of reguiar application; and are prepared to emhI-ace
eycry expedient, which presents a hope of supplying
lh""ir necessities without confining them to the
plough, tllc loom, the shop, or the counting--house.
III the Iniddle orders of societ.y, those parents are
:llost l-cprehensible, .who neither qualify their cllil.
dren for a profession, nor enable them to live without
l)ne :. and those ill the hif;[lest, who, from indolence,­
indulgence, or avarice, omit to procure their children
those liberal attainments, which are necessary to
lIlake them useful in tIle stations to which the}' are dt·s ..
tined. A man of fortune, who permits his son to con ..
sume the season of education, in hunting, shooting, or
in frequenting horse-races, assemblies, or other uned.
• ,,\mongst the AlhtniollJ, if the parent did not put his child iuto:1 way
of getting a livelihooc!, the rhiJd was Dot bound to make provision fot
t he parent when oltl and necessitous.