standing, and render the knowledge of them much more easy. (2.) These studies are so pleasant, that they will make the dry labour of learning words, phrases, and languages, more tolerable to boys in a Latin school by this most agreeable mixture. The employment of youth in these studies will tempt them to neglect many of the foolish plays of childhood, and they will find sweeter entertainment for themselves and their leisure hours by a cultivation of these pretty pieces of alluring knowledge. (3.) The knowledge of these parts of science are both easy and worthy to be retained in memory by all children when they come to manly years, for they are useful through all the parts of human life; they tend to enlarge the understanding early, and to give a various acquaintance with useful subjects by times. And surely it is best, as far as possible, to train up children in the knowledge of those things which they should never forget, rather than to let them waste. years of life in trifles, or in hard words which are not worth remembering. And here by the way I cannot but wonder, that any author, in our age should have attempted to teach any of the exploded physics of Descartes, or the nobler inventions of Sir Isaac Newton, in his hypothesis of the heavenly bodies and their motions, in his doctrine of light and colours, and other parts of his physiology, or to instruct children in the knowledge of the theory of the heavens, earths, and planets, without any figures or diagrams. Is it possible to give a boy or a young lady the clear, distinct, and proper apprehensions of these things, without lines and figures to describe them? Does not their understanding want the aid of fancy and images to convey stronger and juster ideas of them to the inmost soul? or do they imagine that youth can penetrate into all these beauties and artifices of nature without these helps which persons of maturer age find necessary for that purpose? I would not willingly name the books, because because some of the writers are said to be gentlemen of excellent acquirements. VII. AFTER we have first learnt and gone through any of those arts or sciences which are to be explained by diagrams, figures, and schemes, such as geometry, geopraphy, astronomy, optics, mechanics, &c. we may best preserve them in memory, by having those schemes and figures in large sheets of paper hanging always before the eye in closets, parlours, halls, chambers, entries, stair-cases, &c. Thus the learned images will be perpetually imprest on the brain, and will keep the learning that depends upon them alive and fresh in the mind through the growing years of life the mere diagrams and figures will ever recall to our thoughts those theorems, problems, and corollaries which have been demonstrated by them. : It is incredible how much geography may be learnt this way by the two terrestrial hemispheres, and by particular maps and charts of the coasts and countries of the earth happily disposed round about us. Thus we may learn also the constellations, by just projections of the celestial sphere, hung up in the same manner. And I must confess, for the bulk of learners of astronomy, I like that projection of the stars best which includes in it all the stars in our horizon, and therefore it reaches to the 38 degree of southern latitude, though its centre is the north-pole. This gives us a better view of the heavenly bodies as they appear every night to us, and it may be made use of with a little instruction, and with ease to serve for a nocturnal, and shew the true hour of the night. But remember, that if there be any colouring upon these maps or projections, it should be laid on so thin as not to obscure or conceal any part of the lines, figures, or letters: whereas most times they are daubed so thick with gay and glaring colours, and hung up so high above the reach of the eye that should survey and read them, as though their only design were to make a gaudy show upon the wall, and they hung there merely to cover the naked plaster or wainscot. as, Those sciences, which may be drawn out into tables, may also be thus hung up and disposed in proper places, such brief abstracts of history, chronology, &c. and indeed the schemes of any of the arts or sciences may be analyzed in a sort of skeleton, and represented upon tables, with the various dependencies and connexions of their several parts and subjects that belong to them. Mr Solomon Lowe has happily thrown the grammar of several languages into such tables; and a frequent review of these abstracts and epitomes would tend much to imprint them on the brain, when they have been once well learned; this would keep those learned traces always open, and assist the weakness of a labouring memory. In this manner may a scheme of the scripture history be drawn out, and perpetuate those ideas in the mind with which our daily reading furnishes us. VIII. EVERY man who pretends to the character of a scholar should attain some general and superficial idea of most or all the sciences: for there is a certain connexion among the various parts of human knowledge, so that some notions borrowed from any one science may assist our acquaintance with any other, either by way of explication, illustration, or proof: though there are some sciences conjoined by a much nearer affinity than others. IX. LET those parts of every science be chiefly studied at first, and reviewed afterward, which have a more direct tendency to assist our proper profession as men, or our general profession as Christians, always observing what we ourselves have found most necessary and useful to us in the course of our lives. Age and experience will teach us to judge which of the sciences, and which parts of them, have been of greatest use, and are most valuable; but in younger years of life we are not sufficient judges of this matter, and therefore should seek advice from others who are elder. X. THERE are three learned professions among us, viz. divinity, law, and medicine. Though every man who pretends to be a scholar or a gentleman should so far acquaint himself with a superficial scheme of all the sciences, as not to stand amazed like a mere stranger at the mention of the common subjects that belong to them, yet there is no necessity for every man of learning to enter into their difficulties and deep recesses, nor to climb the heights to which some others have arrived. The knowledge of them in a proper measure may be happily useful to every profession, not only because all arts and sciences have a sort of comTM munion and connexion with each other, but it is an angelic pleasure to grow in knowledge, it is a matter of honour and esteem, and renders a man more agreeable and acceptable in every company. But let us survey several of them more particularly with regard to the learned professions; and first of the mathematics. XI. THOUGH I have so often commended mathematical studies, and particularly the speculations of arithmetic and geometry, as a means to fix a wavering mind, to beget an habit of attention, and to improve the faculty of reason, yet I would by no means be understood to recommend to all a pursuit of these sciences, to those extensive lengths to which the moderns have advanced them. This is neither necessary nor proper for any students, but those few who shall make these studies their chief profession and business of life, or those gentlemen whose capacities and turn of mind are suited to these studies, and have all manner of advantage to improve in them. The general principles of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, of geography, of modern astronomy, mechanics, statics, and optics, have their valuable and excellent uses, not only for the exercise and improvement of the faculties of the mind, but the subjects themselves are very well worth our knowledge in a moderate degree, and are often made of admirable service in human life. So much of these subjects as Dr Wells has given us in his three volumes, entitled, The Young Gentleman's Mathematics, is richly sufficient for the greatest part of scholars or gentlemen; though perhaps there may be some single treatises, at least on some of these subjects, which may be better written and more useful to be perused than those of that learned author. But a penetration into the abstruse difficulties and depths of modern algebra and fluxions, the various methods of quadratures, the mensuration of all manner of curves, and their mutual transformation, and twenty other things that some modern mathematicians deal in, are not worth the labour of those who design either of the three learned professions, divinity, law, or physic, as the business of life. This is the sentence of a considerable man, viz. Dr George Cheyne, who was a very good proficient and writer on these subjects: he affirms that they are but barren and airy studies for a man entirely to live upon, and that for a man to indulge and riot in these exquisitely bewitching contemplations is only proper for public professors, or for gentlemen of estates, who have a strong propensity this way, and a genius fit to cultivate them. But, says he, to own a great but grievous truth, though they may quicken and sharpen the invention, strengthen and extend the imagination, improve and refine the reasoning faculty, and are of use both in the necessary and the luxurious refinement of mechanical arts, yet having no tendency to rectify the will, to sweeten the temper, or mend the heart, they often leave a stiffness, a positiveness and sufficiency on weak minds, which is much more pernicious, to society, and to the interests of the great end of our being, than all their advantages can recompense. He adds further, concerning the launching into the depth of these studies, that they are apt to beget a secret and refined pride, and over-weening and over-bearing vanity, the most opposite temper to the true spirit of the gospel. This tempts them |