Supper were asking him what the Romans should do for a General after his Death) Take Marius. Marius was then a very Boy, and had given no Instances of his Valour; but it was visible to Scipio from the Manners of the Youth, that he had a Soul formed for the Attempt and Execution of great Undertakings.  I must confess I have very often with much Sorrow bewailed the Misfortune of the Children of Great Britain, when I consider the Ignorance and Undiscerning of the Generality of Schoolmasters.  The boasted Liberty we talk of is but a mean Reward for the long Servitude, the many Heart-aches and Terrors, to which our Childhood is exposed in going through a Grammar-School:  Many of these stupid Tyrants exercise their Cruelty without any manner of Distinction of the Capacities of Children, or the Intention of Parents in their Behalf.  There are many excellent Tempers which are worthy to be nourished and cultivated with all possible Diligence and Care, that were never designed to be acquainted with Aristotle, Tully, or Virgil; and there are as many who have Capacities for understanding every Word those great Persons have writ, and yet were not born to have any Relish of their Writings.  For want of this common and obvious discerning in those who have the Care of Youth, we have so many hundred unaccountable Creatures every Age whipped up into great Scholars, that are for ever near a right Understanding, and will never arrive at it.  These are the Scandal of Letters, and these are generally the Men who are to teach others.  The Sense of Shame and Honour is enough to keep the World itself in Order without Corporal Punishment, much more to train the Minds of uncorrupted and innocent Children.  It happens, I doubt not, more than once in a Year, that a Lad is chastised for a Blockhead, when it is good Apprehension that makes him incapable of knowing what his Teacher means:  A brisk Imagination very often may suggest an Error, which a Lad could not have fallen into, if he had been as heavy in conjecturing as his Master in explaining:  But there is no Mercy even towards a wrong Interpretation of his Meaning, the Sufferings of the Scholar’s Body are to rectify the Mistakes of his Mind.

I am confident that no Boy who will not be allured to Letters without Blows, will ever be brought to any thing with them.  A great or good Mind must necessarily be the worse for such Indignities; and it is a sad Change to lose of its Virtue for the Improvement of its Knowledge.  No one who has gone through what they call a great School, but must remember to have seen Children of excellent and ingenuous Natures, (as has afterwards appeared in their Manhood) I say no Man has passed through this way of Education, but must have seen an ingenuous Creature expiring with Shame, with pale Looks, beseeching Sorrow, and silent Tears, throw up its honest Eyes, and kneel on its tender Knees to an inexorable Blockhead, to be forgiven the