Al tSSAY ON CHARITY- SCHOOiS. 17 Then several of these shift their places ofservice, or leave them in hopes to find better ; and by this means it comes to pass, that the very servants that are out of place in London, perhaps would sometimes be sufficient to plough up half, a country or a diocese: Far be it from me to blame all those gentlemen; whochange the country-seat of their ancestors, for a habitation in the city : Many of them may have a just call of providence for this change. It is not my province nor pretence to directothers in the choice of their dwellings : Yet I cannot but think if this practice should increase and become universal among the more sòber and religious part of the gentry, perhaps it may have an unhappy tendency to weaken their good influenceon the adja- cent country, todiminish the true strength of the nation, and endanger our civil liberties. But I recai myself from this hint: My present business is only to shew, that it is not our charity- schools, but thisconduct of many rich men in the country; whe- ther it be tightor wrong, that calls off such a multitude of hands from husbandry. 3. Suppose it should be granted for once, which is not always true, that none hut the ignorant will be brought to per- form the meanest services ; yet after all the education that is provided for children in our charity- schools, there will be stupid and ignorant creatures enough for those lower offices of life: There will be many in every country; who live not within the reach of these schools ; and there will be some whose parts, and study, and improvement in these schools; or in better, will never arrive above a fitness for the meanest services.- I confess I ant not of the opinion of these gentlemen, that none but blockheads will follow the'plough : But if I were of that mind; yet I might venture to say, the plough will never want hands, if it does not stand still till there be no blockheads. I add further, with regard to the charity-schools of this great city ; that those chil- dren of the poor who are born in London, are not born in a place to make ploughmen of them, even if they were left in the highest degrees of their native ignorance.' They would not leave the city, nor be tempted to go down to country pa- rishes to be employed in the business of the husbandman, though they should never have opportunity to learn their letters. 4. But you say, " They grow haughty and proud, by means of the little knowledge they attain in those schools." I would ask are there not as many as haughty and as proud, whohave no learning at all? I have seen some servants who have been blessed with a happy education, and have attained far greater degrees of knowledge bothof the things of God and men, than any of the rest of the family, and 'yet they have been morehum- ble, more diligent, more ready to put their hands to mean servile Vol- VI. I
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