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Latin and Greek languages were taught , and the study of them carried on to more or less of proficiency . Of these several were erected in England , mostly at private charge ; and the example of these schools , whicti were resorte 4 to in preference by the sons of the more wealthy classes , was followed by the more numerous schools set up by individuals , and destined for the several gradations of the middle
ranks . In most of these , to reading , writing , and arithmetic , Greek and Latin were added , though the instruction in these languages seldom proceeded beyond an early stage . With the exception of the individuals destined for the clerical profession , a few of those destined for the medical and legal professions , and a few of the sons of the nobility and higher gentry , who alone resort to the Universities , the education of Englishmen stopped at this point . For all those classes
of Englishmen , in whose hands , with the above exception , the business of the country , in all its departments , from the farm and the shop to the highest enterprises of industry and the highest functions of Government , is placed , no better education has been provided than a knowledge of reading , writing , and accounts , a smattering of Latin and Greek , and of late years a little
geography . In this respect England exhibits a contrast , by no means honourable to its people or its government , with every other civilized country in the world . Scotland , for a population not a quarter of that of England , has more than double the number of Universities ; and so situated that a great proportion of its middle classes may and do obtain the benefit of a liberal education .
It is well known that Germany abounds with universities ; and that the means of instruction in the higher branches of knowledge are brought within the reach of a great proportion of the population , who do , in fact , reap the advantage of them . The same encomium belongs to Holland , Sweden , Denmark , and even Norway ; though of most of thefce countries the youth could with so much facility resort to the Universities of Germany .
France , even before the Revolution , by its established universities , and by the institutes of education set on foot by the Jesuits and other religious orders , had the means of a superior education diffused so generally as to reach even the lower classes ; a fact of which a very interesting illustration is afforded in the Memoirs of Marmontel , who , though born in a very low Situation , obtained in his native province , along with others of the same level With himself , the education which enabled him , at an early period of life , to rank high among the literary men of his age and country .
The mode in which the Protestants in England have neglected education ; and the niode in which the Dissenters from the Church of England have Neglected it ; compared with what appears to have been done for education by the Protestantte in France , who were there the Dissenters from the Church , suggest reflections greatly to the honour of the Protestants in France , and very little to the honour of the Protestants and Dissenters in England . The state of education among the Protestants in France , during the first
century , -and a little more , from the period of the , Reformation , is proved to us chiefl by its results : these results are so extraordinary , that it is difficult to conceive how an education , so perfect as to produce the great men who sprung from that stock , could at that time , and in such circumstances , have been brought into existence . The appearance of one extraordinary man at almost any time , or in any country , may be accounted for by accidental circumstances . But the number of men , among jthe Protestants of France , who , about the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth cen-
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162 Scientific Education ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 162, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/2/
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