574 ON THE EDUCATION OF YOÓTH. is hardly more remarkable in any thing, than in the strict and severe education of out fathers a century ago, and in the most profuse and unlimited liberty that is indulged to children in our age. In those days, the sons were bred up to learning by terrible discipline ; every Greek and Latin author they conversed with, was attended with one or many new scourges, to drive them into acquaintance with him ; and not the least misdemeanor in life could escape the lash ; as though the father would prove this daily love to his son by never sparing his rod : Prov. xiii. 24. Now -a -days young master must be treated with a foolish fondness, till he is grown to the size of a man ; and let his faults be ever so heinous, and his obstinacy ever so great, yet the preceptor must not let him hear the name of the rod, lest the child should . be frighted or hurt ; the advice of the wisest of men is utterly. forgotten, when he tells us, that due correction shall drive out the folly that is bound up in the heart of a child ; Prov. xxii. 15. Or else they boldly reverse his divine counsel ; Prov. xiii. 24. as though they would make the rule of their practice a direct contradiction to the words of Solomon, namely, He that spareth the rod loveth his son, but he that hateth hire chastens him betimes. In that day many children were kept in a most servile sub- jection, and not suffered to sit down, or to speak, in the pre- sence of their father, till they were come to the age of one and twenty. The least degree of freedom was esteemed a bold pre- sumption, and incurred a sharp reproof. Now they are made familiar companions to their parents, almost from the very uur.. sery ; and therefore they will hardly bear a check or rebuke at their hand. In the beginning of the last century, and so onward to the middle of it, the children were usually obliged to believe what their 'parents and their misters taught them, whether they were principles of science, or articles of faith and practice ; they were tied down almost to every punctilio, as though it were necessary to salvation ; they were not suffered to examine or enquire whe- ther their teachers were in the right, and scarcely knew upon what grounds they were to assent to the things that were taught them ; for it was a maxim of all teachers, that the learner must believe, Discentem operte credere. Then an ipse dixit, or Aris- totle said so, was a sufficient proof of any proposition in the col- leges ; and for a roan of five and twenty to be a christian and a protestant, a dissenter or at churchman, it was almost reason enough to say, that his father was so. But in this century, when the doctrine of a just and reasonable liberty is better known, too many of the present youth break all the bondsof nature and duty, and run to the wildest degrees of looseness, both in belief and
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