The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 37 pages of information about The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650).

The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 37 pages of information about The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650).

You have offered to mee that which I confess I did not reflect upon, when I wrote the discours you have Published under the name of a Reformed School; which is, that som may think by the waie of Education, which I propose all Universities and eminent places of Learning might subtilly bee undermined and made useless, becaus therein a waie is shew’d how to initiate youths not onely to the Principles of all Religious and Rational knowledg, and in the Exercises of all Moral virtues, but in the grounds of all Civil emploiments, so far, as will make them fit for all profitable undertakings in humane societies, whence this will follow (in their apprehensions) that they shall have no advantage by beeing sent to anie Universities, to attein anie further perfection:  becaus the Universities will not bee able to add anie thing unto them, which by their own Industrie, they may not afterward attein anie where els, as well as there.  Truly it never came into my thoughts, either directly or indirectly to make Universities useless; nor can it bee rationally infer’d from anie thing in the matter form or end of that discours of mine:  but I will grant that such as can see no farther then what wee now ordinarily attein unto; and withal think that there is no Plus ultra in nature atteinable above that which they have conceived, such as I saie may frame to themselv’s this jealousie against that discours:  but if they would rais their thoughts with mee a little above the ordinarie pitch, and consider what the Nature of man is capable off:  and how far it may, by diligent instruction, by Method and Communication, bee improved:  they might rather bee induced to make this inference, if the natural abilities of youths in a School (when reformed) may bee thus far improved:  how far more may they bee improved, when they are past the age of Youth, and com to Manhood in Colleges and Universities, if namely Colleges and Universities, could in the sphere of their activities bee proportionally Reformed, as the Schools may bee in their sphere:  for it is rational to conclude thus:  if the first step of our Reformation will lead us thus far, how far will the second and third lead us? and if Scholastical Exercises in Youths of eighteen or twentie years, will advance them to that perfection of Learning and Virtues, which few of double their age or none almost ever attein unto, what will Collegial and Academical Exercises (if reformed and set upon their proper Objects) bring them unto?  I shall therefore to eas you, or such as may have this scruple and jealousie over mee, declare that my purpose is so far from making Colleges and Universities useless, that if I might have my desire in them, they should becom a thousand times more useful then now they are, that is, as far above the ordinarie State wherein they are set, as this School is above the ordinarie waie of Schooling:  for if wee look upon the true and proper ends of School, College and Universitie-studies and Exercises, wee shall see that as in nature they are in a gradual proportion, distant from, and subordinate unto each other, so they ought to rise one out of another, and bee built upon each other’s Foundations.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.