Reliquiae Wottonianae, or, A collection of lives, letters, poems with characters of sundry personages : and other incomparable pieces of language and art : also additional letters to several persons, not before printed / by the curious pencil of the ever memorable Sir Henry Wottan ...

A SURVEY OF EDUCATION.

THis Treatise (vvell may it now proceed) having since the first Conception thereof been often tra∣versed vvith other thoughts, yea and sometimes utterly forsaken, I have of late resumed again, out of hope (the common flatterer) to find at least some indulgent interpretation of my pains; especially in an honest Endeavour of such publick conse∣quence as this is above all other. For if any shall think Education (because it is conversant about Children) to be but a private and domestick duty; He vvill run some danger, in my opinion, to have been ignorantly bred himself. Certain it is, that anciently the best composed Estates did commit this care more to the Magistrate then to the Parent. And certain likewise, That the best Authors have

chosen rather to handle it in their Politicks, then in their Oeconomicks. As both Writers and Ru∣lers vvell knowing vvhat a stream and influence i•…•… hath into Government. So great indeed, and so diffusive, that albeit good Laws have been reputed alwayes the Nerves or Ligaments of humane Socie∣ty; Yet are they (be it spoken vvith the peace of those grave Professors) no vvay comparable in their effects to the rules of good Nurture: For it is in civil, as it is in natural Plantations, vvhere young tender trees (though subject to the injuries of Air, and in danger even of their own Flexibili∣ty) vvould yet little vvant any after-underprop∣pings and shoarings, if they vvere at first vvell fast∣ned in the root.

Now my present labour vvill (as I foresee) consist of these pieces.

First, there must proceed a vvay how to discern the Natural Capacities and inclinations of chil∣dren.

Secondly, Next must ensue the culture and fur∣nishment of the Mind.

Thirdly, the moulding of behaviour, and decent forms.

Fourthly, the tempering of affections.

Fifthly, the quickning and exciting of Observa∣tions and practical Judgement.

Sixthly, And the last in Order, but the princi∣pal in Value, being that vvhich must knit and con∣solidate all the rest, is the timely instilling of con∣scientious Principles and seeds of Religion.

These six branches vvill, as I conceive, embrace the vvhole business: through vvhich I shall run in as many several Chapters or Sections: But before I lanch from the shoars, let me resolve a main

question vvhich may be cast in my vvay; Whe∣ther there be indeed such an infallible efficacy, as I suppose, in the care of Nurture and first Produ∣ction; For if that supposal should fail us, all our Anchorage vvere loose, and vve should but vvan∣der in a vvilde Sea.

Plutarch, I remember to the same purpose, in the first of his Tractates, vvhich place this subject vvell deserved, endeavoureth by sundry similitudes, vvhere in that man had a prompt and luxurious fan∣cy, to shew us the force of Education; All vvhich, in sooth, might have been vvell forborn, had he but known vvhat our own Countrey-men have of late time disclosed among their Magnetical Experi∣ments. There they tell us, that a rod or bar of iron having stood long in a window, or else∣where, being thence taken, and by the help of a cork or the like thing, being ballanced in water, or in any other liquid substance where it may have a free mobility, will bewray a kind of unquietude and discontentment till it attain the former positi∣on. Now it is pretty to note, how in this Natu∣ral Theorem is involved a Moral conclusion of di∣rect moment to the point we have in hand.

For if such an unpliant and stubborn mineral as Iron is above any other, will acquire by meer con∣tinuance a secret appetite, and (as I may term it) an habitual inclination to the site it held before. Then how much more may we hope, through the very same means, (Education being nothing else but a constant plight and Inurement) to induce by custome good habits into a reasonable creature? And so having a little smooth'd my passage, I may now go on to the Chapters.