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[blocks in formation]

M

1873

No. 215. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1711.

Ingenuas didicissè fideliter artes

Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.

Ovid.

Ingenuous arts, where they an entrance find,
Soften the manners, and subdue the mind.

I CONSIDER a human soul without education like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties, till the skill of the polisher fetches out the colours, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein, that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance.

If my reader will give me leave to change the allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use of the same instance to illustrate the force of education, which Aristotle has brought to explain his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells us, that a statue lies hid in a block of marble; and that the art of the statuary only clears away the superfluous matter, and removes the rubbish. The figure is in the stone, the sculptor only finds it. What sculpture is to a block of marble, education

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