EDUCATION.

No people in the universe expend larger sums upon the education of their children than people of Fashion. It is a maxim with them to commence the great business of instruction in the very earliest period of life; and if the system of education corresponded with the pains bestowed upon it, and the price at which it is purchased, no persons would do more honour to society than the subjects of the Fashionable World. As it is, they are not a little ornamental to a nation. They are not, it is true, either the columns or the base of the building; they neither support nor strengthen it: but they supply the place of reliefs, and hangings, and other superadded decorations.

Religion is allowed a respectable place among the studies of the nursery. All those useful tables of instruction are assiduously employed, which teach, who was the first, the wisest, the meekest, and the strongest man; and the nursling is carefully conducted, by a catechetical process, into the theory and practice of a Christian. As, however, the child advances to boyish or girlish years, this religious discipline is pretty generally relaxed, in order to allow sufficient scope for the cultivation of those modish pursuits, which mark the man and the woman of Fashion.

And here I cannot help remarking, how anxious the greater part of Fashionable parents are, to guard the minds of their children against the permanent influence of that religion, which they yet have caused them to be taught. The fact is, that they would have them acquainted with the technical language, and expert in the liturgical formalities of Christianity; for these acquirements can neither disparage their character, nor impede their pleasures: but a serious impression of its truths upon their hearts, might disaffect them to the follies and vices which they are destined to practise; and therefore is the thing, of all others, that is most to be dreaded. The parents are, to say the truth, not a little hampered by the engagements under which they have bound the child, on the one part; and the character which they wish him to sustain, on the other. To leave him in ignorance of a covenant in which he has been involuntarily included, would be a fraud upon his conscience; and yet, to have him renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh, would be the utter ruin of his Fashionable reputation. What other course, then, can parents thus circumstanced pursue, than that of inculcating these lessons before they can be understood, and removing their impression before they can be practised?It is, I presume, upon the principle of precaution already mentioned, that our Fashionable young men are not always intrusted to the care of persons distinguished for the practice of piety. It is not impossible, indeed, that, either from the conversation, the connexions, or the example of the preceptor, the pupil may contract certain habits, which it was not the precise object of his education to produce. But then the evil is not so great as fastidious moralists would insinuate. For, as the youth is to figure in the circles of Fashion, he will only have learnt, a little before the time, those practices which are to form a part of his manly character: and though it might, perhaps, be as well, if he did not learn to swear and rake quite so soon; yet it is some consolation, that he has escaped those methodistical impressions, which would have prevented him from swearing and raking as long as he lived.

It may also be considered as some confirmation of the reasoning above employed, that parents introduce their children as early as possible to the amusements of the theatre. Now, though swearing, and raking, and gaming, when carried to excess, are blamed even by persons of Fashion themselves; yet it is notorious, that a reasonable proportion of each is indispensably requisite to a popular character in the circles of refinement. Habits of this sort must not be precipitately taken up. There must be a schooling for the man of pleasure, as well as for the man of letters: and certainly no school exists, in which the elements of modish vice can be studied with greater promise of proficiency, than the public theatres. When it is considered, at what pains the managers of the stage are, to import the seducing dramas of Germany, as well as to get up the loose productions of the English Muse; when it is further considered, how studious the actors and actresses are to do justice, and even more than justice, to the luscious scenes of the piece; to give effect to the equivoques, by an arch emphasis; and to the oaths, by a dauntless intonation:—when to all this is added, how many painted strumpets are stuck about the theatre, in the boxes, the galleries, and the avenues; and how many challenges to prostitution are thrown out in every direction: it will, I think, be difficult to imagine places better adapted, than the theatres at this moment are, to teach the theory and practice of Fashionable iniquity.

What has been observed on the subject of education, though said principally with reference to the male branches of Fashionable families, will yet, with a few changes, be found applicable to the youth of the other sex. The principal points upon which their scheme of education is brought to bear, are those of dissipation and display. A brilliant finger on the piano, wanton flexions in the dance, a rage for operas, plays, and parties, and the faculty of undergoing the fatiguing evolutions of a Fashionable life, without compunction of conscience, sense of weariness, or indications of disgust, are qualifications which she who has acquired, will be considered as wanting little of a perfect education.

The same assiduity is discovered on the part of the parents, to train their girls for the sphere of polite life, as has been already observed with respect to the boys; and the methods that are pursued to accomplish this end, are very nearly the same. The blush of virgin-modesty (it is naturally foreseen) would be extremely inconvenient, not to say absolutely indecorous, in a woman of Fashion; and therefore it is wisely resolved, that such steps shall be taken upon the girl’s growing into life, as may most effectually destroy it. The theatre seems principally to be resorted to for this purpose; and it must be manifest, from what has been already advanced, that no expedient could have been better chosen. As intrigue is the life of the drama, and this cannot be carried on, without expressions, attitudes, and communications between the sexes, of a very particular nature, there is every reason for regarding the stage as a sovereign remedy for the infirmity of blushing.

There are other things to be said on behalf of the theatre, as a school of polite morality.It has already appeared, that the system of Ethics which prevails among people of Fashion, differs materially from the received system of unfashionable Christians. Now, I know not any means by which a stranger, anxious to ascertain, wherein that difference consists, could better satisfy his enquiries, than by visiting the theatres. The doctrine of the stage, therefore, exhibiting (as nearly as possible) the standard morality of polite society, nothing could be better imagined, than to give the embryo woman of Fashion the earliest opportunity of learning to so much advantage, those lessons which she is afterwards to practise through life. What she has imbibed in the nursery, and what she hears in the church, would inspire her with a dread—perhaps a dislike—of many things upon which she must learn hereafter to look with familiar indifference, if not with absolute complacency. She might thus (if some remedy were not provided) be led to take up with certain melancholy principles, which would either shut her out from the society of her friends, or make her miserable among them. But the stage corrects all this; and more than counterbalances the impressions of virtue, by stratagems of the happiest contrivance.

It is worthy of attention, how much ingenuity is displayed in bringing about that moral temperament, which is necessary for the meridian of Fashion. The rake, who is debauching innocence, squandering away property, and extending the influence of licentiousness to the utmost of his power, would (if fairly represented) excite spontaneous and universal abhorrence. But this result would be extremely inconvenient; since raking, seduction, and prodigality, make half the business, and almost all the reputation, of men of Fashion. What, then, must be done?—Some qualities of acknowledged excellence must be associated with these vicious propensities, in order to prevent them from occasioning unmingled disgust. We may, I presume, refer it to the same policy, that in dramas of the greatest popularity, the worthless libertine is represented as having at the bottom some of those properties which reflect most honour upon human nature; while—as if to throw the balance still more in favour of vice—the man of professed virtue is delineated as being in the main a sneaking and hypocritical villain. Lessons such as these are not likely to be lost upon the ingenuous feelings of a young girl. For, besides the fascinations of an elegant address and an artful manner, the whole conduct of the plot is an insidious appeal to the simplicity of her heart. She is taught to believe, by these representations, that profligacy is the exuberance of a generous nature, and decorum the veil of a bad heart: so that having learnt, in the outset of her career, to associate frankness with vice, and duplicity with virtue, she will not be likely to separate these combinations during the remainder of her life.

To enter further into the minute details of a Fashionable education, would only be to travel over ground which has been often and ingeniously explored by writers of the greatest eminence. Enough has been said to show, that the system of education adopted by this people, like every other branch of their economy, is adapted to qualify the parties for that polite intercourse with each other, which seems to constitute the very end of their being. And if it be considered, of what nature that intercourse is, it will occasion no surprise, that the education which prepares for it should be expressly adapted to confound the distinctions of virtue and vice; and to inculcate, with that view,—duplicity in religion, and prevarication in morals.