Axt ESSAY ON CNARITY-SCFIOOLS, 2: ehari {.y, and will not suffer thoseof the lower rank of people, to learn to use the pen of .the writer. Objection VI. .But if we grant that the art of wt4ting may bea convenience both to masters and servants, what necessity is there, that the poor should learn arithmetic, or be acquainted with accounts ? Their poor fathers managed their little affairs without figures, and why may not their childrendo so too ? Answer I. All that is pleaded for of this kind, is, that they may be taught to add and subtract little parcels of money, such as may come within their possession, Or may be entrusted with them. Let it be considered, that it is the customof the nation in our day, to run much deeper in debt, and deal more generally upon trust andcredit, than was done in the days of our fathers ; and even poor labourers are seldom paid every night, nor per- haps every week now-a-days : And is it not a hard case, if they may not have leave to learn to help their memories by short ac- counts of the money that is due to them, that in their demands they may neither do injury to their masters nor themselves? I am well assured that for want of this many mistakes have arisen, sometimes to the prejudice of the poor, and sometimes to the damageof those that employed them. 2. Or, suppose one of these poor unlearned children become a servant in a family, and the master entrust him with a small matter of money, to lay out for the common little necessaries of ik week, how unable is he to account even for this little, without a pen end figures to help his memory ? What lame and broken accounts must the master receive ? Or, he must take it upon content that his servant is honest, and accept of thegeneral story, that so much is expended, without any notice of the particular detail of the things which are bought or paid for : Or else he must be troubled often in a days for every little necessary expenee of life, and perhaps sometimes have his servant in- terrupt him, in his great affairs, with the narrative how he hash disposed of pence and farthings; and all this, because his servant was never taught to add or subtract a few shillings. Objection VII. But if it should be allowed that charity- schools may teach- the poor to write a little, and instruct them to .make a few figures, and to add and substract little sums of Money, a few months would be sufficient for this. There is no need of three er four years schooling; no need of their learning to handle the pen in a nice and artful manner, to write a fine hand and to excel is curious penmanship ; no needof their enter- ing into the learned languages, or the deeps of arithmetic, which are proper for divines and physicians, for merchants and their clerks, for accoinptants and mathematicians, and the children of gentlemen. Answer. I perfectly agree to all this objection, and acknow,.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=