XXIX. In the present age, what is our practice? The infant is
committed to a Greek chambermaid, and a slave or two, chosen for the
purpose, generally the worst of the whole household train; all utter
strangers to every liberal notion. In that worshipful society [a] the
youth grows up, imbibing folly and vulgar error. Throughout the house,
not one servant cares what he says or does [b] in the presence of his
young master: and indeed how should it be otherwise? The parents
themselves are the first to give their children the worst examples of
vice and luxury. The stripling consequently loses all sense of shame,
and soon forgets the respect he owes to others as well as to himself.
A passion for horses, players, and gladiators [c], seems to be the
epidemic folly of the times. The child receives it in his mother's
womb; he brings it with him into the world; and in a mind so
possessed, what room for science, or any generous purpose?

In our houses, at our tables, sports and interludes are the topics of
conversation. Enter the places of academical lectures, and who talks
of any other subject? The preceptors themselves have caught the
contagion. Nor can this be wondered at. To establish a strict and
regular discipline, and to succeed by giving proofs of their genius,
is not the plan of our modern rhetoricians. They pay their court to
the great, and, by servile adulation, increase the number of their
pupils. Need I mention the manner of conveying the first elements of
school learning? No care is taken to give the student a taste for the
best authors [d]; the page of history lies neglected; the study of men
and manners is no part of their system; and every branch of useful
knowledge is left uncultivated. A preceptor is called in, and
education is then thought to be in a fair way. But I shall have
occasion hereafter to speak more fully of that class of men, called
rhetoricians. It will then be seen, at what period that profession