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years to it , will not exhaust the resources of pleasure and information which it yields . You have as yet only tasted of the fountain ; it sends forth a copious and constant
stream , of which you may drink , without fear of drought or satiety . The style which characterises every author , and the idioms peculiar to every language , will ever give a novelty to this kind of reading . The writers of Greece and Rome
are so various and numerous , that there is no reason to fear that you will grow weary with turning over the same work . Nor canyou be at a loss to meet with an author , who
soning . They are more serviceable and expedient , as a present course of study , now than they will be
hereafter , because the volatility of youthful years , requires those studies which , like mathematics , are particularly suited to restrain and correct it : and the hastiness
of that period demands the influence of those pursuits which will check it , and habituate the mind to pause , consider coolly , and wait for the conclusion . A desultory reading may be more agreeable ,
because more easy , but it is not so useful as the slow , regular and gradual progress of mathematical knowledge . The Belles Lettres may be more alluring and fascinating , but the mathematics are more necessary for you , because
they exercise those powers to which you may not be inclined to give a full scope . . The former address the fancy and taste , but these , the reason and understanding . When you shall have forgotten how to work the rules of Algebra , or to demonstrate the theorems cf
Euclid , you will still be conscious of a closeness in reasoning , and of an expectation of clearness and strength in arguing , which , were
you to trace back to its original cause , you will have little reason to doubt , was derived from , or much aided by , the attention which you gave , in early life , to those sciences
But among all the branches of learning that now invite your attention , none is to be preferred , as an object of unremitting study , to classical learning . With this has
your education commenced , this has occupied the days spent at school > you enter into the academy to renew your acquisitions and to push your improvements in it ; and the application of future
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may suit your * peculiar genius , your present humour , or the particular object of your literary pursuits . Poets , orators , historians , philosophers , mathematicians and critics pass before you , and seek your acquaintance . You may now borrow the aid of one class
to assist your deeper researches , and then unbend and amuse your mind , with the beautiful pages of another class . To read English authors only , and to converse merely with translations , is not to read like a scho .
lar ; nor can the benefit ; pleasure and honour , which is a scholar ' s portion , be the reward of it . The neglect of originals , it is to be suspected , proceeds too much from laziness . But that laziness is peculiarly blameableiii ah
academicbecause his powers are in ,, their vigour , aid is at hand to facilitate his progress , and the dxydgefyi if any , has been surmounted at
school . Now the path becomes more pleasant , difficulties are cleared away , the spirit of the author is felt , jand tapte begins to relish the beauties \ yhich , were before unobserved . Classical learu-
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43 © Letters to a Student . — Letter IV .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1812, page 430, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1750/page/22/
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