indulgences. Yet this miserable piece of sophistry, the offspring of
parental weakness, is in constant use, to the incalculable injury of the
rising generation. What so amiable as a steady, trust-worthy boy? He is
of _real use_ at an early age: he can be trusted far out of the sight of
parent or employer, while the 'pickle,' as the poor fond parents call
the profligate, is a great deal worse than useless, because there must
be some one to see that he does no harm. If you have to choose, choose
companions of _your own rank in life_ as nearly as may be; but, at any
rate, none to whom you acknowledge _inferiority_; for, slavery is too
soon learned; and, if the mind be bowed down in the youth, it will
seldom rise up in the man. In the schools of those best of teachers the
JESUITS, there is perfect equality as to rank in life: the boy, who
enters there, leaves all family pride behind him: intrinsic merit alone
is the standard of preference; and the masters are so scrupulous upon
this head, that they do not suffer one scholar, of whatever rank, to
have more money to spend than the poorest. These wise men know well the
mischiefs that must arise from inequality of pecuniary means amongst
their scholars: they know how injurious it would be to learning, if
deference were, by the learned, paid to the dunce; and they, therefore,
take the most effectual means to prevent it. Hence, amongst other
causes, it is, that their scholars have, ever since the existence of
their Order, been the most celebrated for learning of any men in the
world.

37. In your _manners_ be neither boorish nor blunt, but even these are
preferable to simpering and crawling. I wish every English youth could
see those of the United States of America; always _civil_, never
_servile_. Be _obedient_, where obedience is due; for, it is no act of
meanness, and no indication of want of spirit, to yield implicit and
ready obedience to those who have a right to demand it at your hands. In