THE following ftatements were delivered to a deceafed friend of mine, by the late Mr. Howard, who brought them over from Vienna; and as I have every reafon to believe that they are authentic, they may not perhaps form Auftrian Lombardy, 2,800 Tyrol, Vienna, Friuli, Whole number of Diffenters, 1,530 550 4.00 282,582 4,693,582 12,841 In the German and Hungarian Pro- 156 Abbeys In all 1450 an improper addition to your valuable In all the Religious Houses, the number Mifcellany. M. N of fouls is 44,280 State of the Population of the Auftrian Domi. In the whole of the Auftrian dominions there nions, fince the firft military confcription, in 1772. 2,000,000 Bohemia, Moravia, 1,138,000 Lower Auftria, Carinthia, 8,948 1,200,000 Carniola, Moravia, 750,000 15,95057,362 Silefia, 9,803 THE ENQUIRER. No. II. QUESTION: Is it defirable that the State fhould interfere in the Education of Youth? WERE THERE NO PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS FOR EDUCATION, A GEN 93 of Adam Smith has detected the errors of former fpeculators, and his ingenious Difquifition on the Caufes of the Wealth of Nations, has almoft convinced even ftatefmen themselves, that the lefs interference there is on the part of government, in the affairs of commerce, the better. It is only requifite that fimilar TLEMAN, AFTER GOING THROUGH, modes of reafoning be applied to other WITH APPLICATION AND ABILI- THE grand error of governments has hitherto been, that they have attempted too much. Not having correctly afcertained the object of government, or finding it convenient to command a large field of action, governors have every where taken under their direction, things with which they have had no concern. Under the pretence, or, to make the more candid fuppofition, with the defign of benefitting the community, they have taken upon them to regulate affairs, which, from their nature, could only fucceed in proportion as they were free. Inftead of adering to the fingle point of the falus populi, in the most retricted fenfe of the phrafe, and contenting themselves with employing their power in defending the community from foreign affaults, or protecting its members from internal violence or fraud, they have affumed the office of general agents for the public good. From the cagernefs with which governments have feized the management of every perfonal intereft, and employed their authority in the regulation of mechanical labour, intellectual ingenuity, commercial enterprize, fpeculative refearch, and even religious belief and worship, it might feem not reasonable to infer, that they have conceived all the wildom and power of the nation to be transferred from the people to their rulers, and have looked upon individuals in private life in no other light, than as puppets, to be moved at pleasure by the grand machinery of legiflation. This fundamental miftake is, how ever, at length difcovered, and beginning to be corrected. On the fubject of commerce, particularly, the penetration fubjects, in order to produce an equal conviction of the impolicy of legislative interference on other perfonal tranfactions, and to establish a general conviction, that governments have properly no other duty than that which was prefcribed by the Roman people to their dictator, to take care that the commonwealth foffer no detriment. Whether the education of youth is one of those concerns in which it is not defirable that the ftate fhould interfere, is a queftion of moment, and, in fome points of view, not without its difficulties. Towards the folution of this question, we may advance one step with confidence. The authoritative interference of the stare to establish, exclufively, an uniform mode of education, is an infringement of perfonal liberty, which no plea of expediency can justify.-The early charge of education is evidently thrown by nature upon parents. The mother, whether the intends it or not, must be the child's first preceptor; and the leffons fhe teaches are, perhaps, of greater importance in forming the future man, than all the fabfequent inftruction of pedagogues. The father, too, as the plant of reafon unfolds, naturally takes his fhare in the delightful task" of "rearing the tender mind, and teaching the young idea how to fhoot." Imperious indeed must be that ftate-neceffity, which fhall require the facrifice of thefe parental rights and pleasures. It is a poor compenfation which is made to individuals, when the ftate, in order to accomplish its ambitious or romantic defigns, compels its members to accept the dazzling promife of public glory, or public utility, instead of the fubftantial poffeffion of domeftic liberty. When the Spartan was deprived of the power of educating his children, and youths at feven years old were enrolled in companies, put under a courfe of public discipline, and obliged to eat at a public table, the plan might well enough ferve the purpose of forming a race of hardy warriors, whofe life was to be devoted to their country; but a violence 94 The Enquirer. No. II. a violence was herein offered to the rights of nature, fcarcely less injurious than when, at the birth, the child was brought before an affembly of old men, to determine whether it thould be preferved and educated for the state, or thrown into the cavern at the foot of mount Taygetas *. Parents may want ability or leifure to educate their own children: but to deny, them the liberty of choofing their affiftants in this work-to fhut up all fchools which are not conducted upon plans, and by mafters appointed by the ftate, would be a moft oppreffive fpecies of intolerance. If it be faid that this is the only way to prevent the spread of mifchievous errors, the fame plea has been urged in fupport of every eftablishment for the coercion of opinion, which bigotry, prieftcraft, or flate-policy has ever invented. Until the people can have fome better affurance than the experience of paft ages affords them, that their rulers poffefs infallible witdom, and are always difpofed to employ it faithfully for the public good, it must be their intereft to commit to the regulation of the ftate as few of their concerns as poffible; and, particularly, it must be the best fecurity, which parents can have for the good education of their children, to keep the management of this weighty affair in their own hands. [March, with independent endowments, and con-, ducted under the fanction of the state, poffefs peculiar advantages, which no private inftitution can boaft. Large emoluments will always have powerful attractions. High patronage, like a large convex lens, cannot fail to collect into its focus, numerous rays. Stately edifices, large libraries, valuable collections, and inftruments in aid of physical science, with every other kind of academical convenience and luxury, are certainly provided more eafily by the vote of a national affembly, than by the exertions of private munificence. It must be admitted, too, that the weight of the civil authority is, or might be, a powerful fupport of academical difcipline, and that honorary and lucrative diftinctions, impartially and judicioufly beftowed, may, under fuch establishments, operate very advantageoufly in foftering fcientific and literary merit. Notwithstanding all this, however, national inftitutions for education are liable to inconveniences, perhaps more than fufficient to counterbalance their advantages. In eftablishments which the ftate has inftituted, it will, of course, claim, either directly, or indirectly, the nomination to offices, and it may fometimes happen, in the election of fuperintendants or preceptors, that political interefts may clash with thofe of the inBut, though it be admitted that com- ftitution. It is even a poffible fuppopulfory plans of education are injudi- fition, that offices, originally efficient, cious, and even injurious, many perfons fhall become mere finecures, convenient are difpofed to think it defirable, that enough, it may be, to the poffeffors, but governments fhould fo far interfere in of no other ufe to the infiitution, than the education of youth, as to provide to increase its cumbrous magnificence. public fchools, with liberal endowments, The fcrupulous caution of a fuperftitious and a regular eftablishment of inftruction age may fubje& infitutions of this kind and difcipline. Such eftablishments, it is to forms and reftrictions, which, in a faid, are more likely to bring forward more enlightened period, may become into the fervice of the public, men of exceedingly burdenfome, but which, nefuperior learning and ability; to excite vertheless, it may not be thought fafe to and reward literary excellence; to ex- alter. Public academical establishments clude upftart pretenders; to give fta- have, perhaps unavoidably, a degree of bility to thofe modes of inftruction which ftability in their inftitutions and forms, are fanctioned by experience; to afford neither confiftent with the perpetual a plentiful fupply of books and other fluctuation of human affairs, nor favourneceffary aids of learning; and, by means able to the advancement of knowledge. of the two powerful ftimulants of rewards It is from this circumftance, poffibly, and punishment, to form young men to that in a long courfe of years, instead habits of induftry, fobriety, and regularity, of nurseries of fcience, they may become than any temporary inftitution, the ephe-"fanctuaries of exploded fyftems and meral offspring of private exertion and voluntary contribution. It will be readily acknowledged, that eftablishments for education, provided *Plut. Vit. Lycurg. obfolete prejudices." As the boundaries of fcience are extended, à proportional enlargement becomes neceffary in the field of inftruction. Great alterations in the ftate of fociety must require correfpondent changes in the method of quali 1796.] The Enquirer. No. II. Were we to ranfack the pages of ancient hiftory, we fhould eafily find facts in fupport of thefe obfervations: for, though, in the early period of Greece, we fcarcely meet with any traces, except in Sparta, of national education; each philosopher being the founder of his own fchool, and fupporting it at his own expence, or by the contributions of his fcholars; we find, at later periods, fchools in Alexandria, Athens, and Rome, maintained by the state; and numerous eftablifhments of a fimilar kind, both among Chriftians and Mahometans. But the neceffity of hiftorical refearch is entirely fuperfeded by facts, which force them felves upon our notice, in our own age and country. In thofe grammar-fchools, which have been founded by the public, it is a fact well known, and by many perfons painfully remembered, that in the midft of the refinements of modern civilization, a mode of difcipline ftill keeps its ground, which could only have originated in an age of barbarifm. Another fact, of ftill greater importance to the public, is, that the pertin city of the mafters, in adhering to the old methods of claffical inftructions has almost entirely precluded the introduction of other at least equally ufeful branches of education: whence it has not unfrequently happened, that a youth who has acquired great honour by his fchool-exercifes, has gone to the univer, fity without knowing how to work a fum in common arithmetic, and without being able to write, in his native language, with grammatical, or even with orthographical propriety. In the English universities-with all due refpect for those ancient and venerable inftitutions, be it remarked-the mifchievous effects of national interference in education are but too vifible. It is impoffible to caft the most curfory, or the most candid, glance over the prefent ftate of these renowned feminaries, without obferving many defects, which could fcarcely have arifen in an inftitu tion free from the incumbrances of legal 95 It establishment. To what other caufe can it be ascribed, that its system of inftruction and difcipline has not undergone fuch alterations, and received fuch improvements, as were neceffary to suit it to the ftate of knowledge and manners at the clofe of the eighteenth century? Were a new plan of public education to be formed, at the prefent time, by an affembly of the wifeft and most enlightened men which the nation could furnifh, it cannot be doubted that it would differ in many material points from the prefent academical establishments. might be pretty confidently predicted, for example, that fuch an affembly would not retain thofe unprofitable modes of disputation, which the schools long ago learned from Ariftotle, nor fuffer the public halls to be difgraced with the formal repetiton of frings of fyllogifms, which either prove nothing, or nothing, worth knowing;-that they would not bestow liberal endowments on profeffors, who fhould be too indolent to teach the fciences they profefs;-that they would not leave any useful branch of academic. inftruction unprovided with competent preceptors, and altogether dependent upon the cafual exertions of enterprizing individuals;-that they would not encourage indolence and felfifhnefs, by making the fchools a luxurious retreat for an ignatum pecus, who, if, perchance, they ftudy themselves, will do nothing towards fuperintending the ftudies of others;-that they would not require from youths, at their matriculation, or graduation, fubfcription to articles of religious belief, which many of them may have never read, and certainly have never understood;-in fine, that they would not adopt, as the basis of their system of difcipline, ancient ftatutes, which modern changes in opinions and manners muft necceffarily render intolerably burthenfome. In the inftitution of a new establishment for public education, it might reafonably be expected, that the errors and defects of the old fyftems would be carefully avoided. Whence, then, is it, but from the combined force of prescription and authority, that, in the old establishments, fuch defects are suffered to remain, year after year, uncorrected, and almost unnoticed; while those from whom the public might reasonably expect fome efforts towards the reformn ation of abufes, and the correction of errors, only thake their heads, and whifper among themfelves" puder bæc ope probia nobis ?” When 96 On the Primeval Form of Europe. What ftronger proof can be required of the impolicy of legal establishments for the education of youth? If any kind of national interference in the bufinefs of education be admiffible, it can only extend to the provifion of free inftruction for the poor in the arts of reading, writing, and accompts, and, perhaps, of public buildings for fchools and colleges, to be occupied by preceptors chofen by the different claffes of fociety, for whofe benefit they are defigned. Every thing beyond this, tends to create a monopoly in education, which, however beneficial to individuals, muft always be injurious to the public, by preventing improvements in the art of inftruction; an art, which after all the experiments which have been made, and the volumes which have been written upon it, is ftill in its infancy. For the Monthly Magazine. WHETHER the earth's motion have a tendency progreffively to gather the ocean about the equator, as theorists have maintained Whether fome great convulfion of nature, breaking down the fouthern mound of the Cafpian, occafioned a vaft mafs of fea to flow fouthward along the courfe of the Dejleh and the Forât (Tigris and Euphrates) deluging whole provinces, and forming, or deforming, with its alluvion fand, much of the plainy peninfula of Arabia, as various traditional and natural evidence confpire to prove Whether, by an unrelenting procefs, the water on this globe, is gradually metamorphofed into folid and into atmof pheric fubftance, without being reproduced with correfponding celerity; as, from experiment, is poffible, and, from obfervation, highly probable Certain, it is, that the European feas, north of forty five degrees latitude, have greatly diminished in extent. Linnæus obferves upon this fubject: "It is evident, from ocular infpection, *Select Differtations from the Amænitates Academicæ, p. 82. [March that the land increafes from year to year, and that the bounds of our continent are extended. "We fee the fea-ports of East and Weft Bothnia every year decreafing, and becoming incapable of admitting veffels, by the fand and foil thrown up, which are always adding new increments to the fhore. The inhabitants of the ports are obliged to change their feats, and fometimes remove a quarter of a mile nearer to the fea; of this we have feen examples at Pithea, Lulea, and Hudwickval. the eastera fide of Gothland, near Hoburg, the increase of the continent, for the last hundred years, is diftinctly visible, being from two to three toifes annually. Near Slite and Kyle, in the fame country, are enormous ftones, which rudely reprefent temples, giants, and coloffal ftatues in their magnitude, yet worked out of the moft folid rock, by the force of the water. On "The two very tall mountains of Torfburg and Hoburg, in Gothland, are formed of calcareous rock, and were marked and hollowed out by the force of the water, at the fame time that all Gothland lay immerfed in the fea, except thefe two mountains, which raised their heads out of the deep in the fame manner, and with a fimilar appearance to the Carolinian iflands (Carlfo) in their prefent itate." "The inhabitants of Weft Bothnia have obferved, by marks upon rocks, that the fea decreases every ten years, five inches and five or fix lines perpendicularly, which amounts, in an age, to about four feet and a half. According to which calculation, 6000 years ago, the fea was two hundred and feventy feet deeper than it is at this present." Not only in the Gulf of Bothnia, but in that of Finland, is the withdrawment of the Baltic very fenfible. Profeffor Pallas obferves: "As foon as from the marfhes of Ingria, which forms toward the Baltic a fort of gulf of low lands, you begin afcending the elevated foil of Ruffia, the inclination of which forms what are called the mountains of Valdais, ancient traces of the fea occur at every step. At first, in a foil interfected with ravines, which has vifibly fuffered by an inundation of the greatest violence, or rather by the flowing off of an enormous mafs of water: afterwards, in whole calcareous beds, which can only refult +A. Celffii. Obf. in Act. Acad. &c. Sueciæ. 1743. from |