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felf loiters about all day without employment; comes home every night drunk; is made infamous in his neighbourhood by fome profligate connection; and wastes the fortune which fhould fupport or remain a provision for his family, in riot, or luxury, or oftentation. Or he will difcourfe gravely before his children of the obligation and importance of revealed religion, whilft they fee the most frivolous and oftentimes feigned excufes detain him from its reasonable and folemn ordinances. Or he will fet before them, perhaps, the fupreme and tremendous authority of Almighty God; that fuch a being ought not to be named, or even thought upon, without fentiments of profound awe and veneration. This may be the lecture he delivers to his family one hour; when the next, if an occafion arise to excite his anger, his mirth, or his furprife, they will bear him treat the name of the Deity with the moft irreverent profanation, and fport with the terms and denunciations of the Chriftian religion, as if they were the language of fome ridiculous and long exploded fuperftition. Now even a child is not to be impofed upon by fuch mockery. He fees through the grimace of this counterfeited concern for virtue. He difcovers that his parent is acting a part; and receives his admonitions, as he would hear the fame maxims from the mouth of a player. And when once this opinion has taken poffeffion of the child's mind, it has a fatal effect upon the parent's influence in all fubjects; even in thofe, in which he himfelf may be fincere and convinced. Whereas a filent, but obfervable regard to the duties of religion, in the parent's own behaviour, will take a fure and gradual hold of the child's difpofition, much beyond formal reproofs and chidings, which, being generally prompted by fome prefent provocation, discover more of anger than of principle, and are always received with a temporary alienation and disguft.

A good

A good parent's first care is to be virtuous himfelf, his fecond, to make his virtues as easy and engaging to thofe about him, as their nature will admit. Virtue itself offends, when coupled with forbidding manners. And fome virtues may be urged to fuch excess, or brought forwards fo unfeafonably, as to difcourage and repel thofe, who obferve and who are acted upon by them, instead of exciting an inclination to imitate and adopt them. Young minds are particularly liable to thefe unfortunate impreffions. For inftance, if a father's conomy degenerate into a minute and teafing parfimony, it is odds, but that the fon, who has fuffered under it, set out a fworn enemy to all rules of order and frugality. If a father's piety be morofe, rigorous, and tinged with melancholy, perpetually breaking in upon the recreations of his family, and furfeiting them with the language of religion upon all occafions, there is danger, left the fon carry from home with him a fettled prejudice against seriousness and religion, as inconfiftent with every plan of a pleasurable life, and turn out, when he mixes with the world, a character of levity or diffoluteness.

Something likewife may be done towards the correcting or improving of thofe early inclinations which children discover by difpofing them into fituations the least dangerous to their particular characters. Thus I would make choice of a retired life for young perfons addicted to licentious pleafures; of private stations for the proud and paffionate; of liberal profeffions, and a town life, for the mercenary and fottish and not, according to the general practice of parents, fend diffolute youths into the army; penurious tempers to trade; or make a crafty lad an attorney, or flatter a vain and haughty temper with elevated names, or fituations, or callings, to which the fashion of the world has annexed precedency and diftinction, but in which R 2

his

his difpofition, without at all promoting his fuccess, will ferve both to multiply and exafperate his dif appointments. In the fame way, that is, with a view to the particular frame and tendency of the pupil's character, I would make choice of a public or private education. The reserved, timid, and indolent will have their faculties called forth, and their nerves invigorated by a public education. Youths of strong spirits and paffions will be fafer in a private education. At our public fchools, as far as I have obferved, more literature is acquired, and more vice: quick parts are cultivated, flow ones are neglected. Under private tuition, a moderate proficiency in juvenile learning is feldom exceeded, but with more certainty attained.

CHAP.

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THE RIGHTS OF PARENTS.

HE Rights of Parents refult from their duties. If it be the duty of a parent to educate his children, to form them for a life of usefulness and virtue, to provide for them fituations needful for their fubfiftence and fuited to their circumftances, and to prepare them for those fituations; he has a right to fuch authority, and in support of that authority to exercife fuch difcipline, as may be neceffary for these purposes. The law of nature acknowledges no other foundation of a parent's right over his children, befide his duty towards them (I speak now of fuch rights as may be enforced by coercion). This relation confers no property in their perfons, or natural dominion over them, as is commonly supposed.

Since it is, in general, neceffary to determine the destination of children, before they are capable of judging of their own happiness, parents have a right to elect profeffions for them.

As the mother herself owes obedience to the father, her authority muft fubmit to his. In a competition, therefore, of commands, the father is to be obeyed. In case of the death of either, the authority, as well as duty, of both parents devolves upon the furvivor.

These rights, always following the duty, belong likewife to guardians; and fo much of them, as is delegated by the parents or guardians, belongs to tutors, fchool-masters, &c.

From this principle, " that the rights of parents "refult from their duty," it follows, that parents

have no natural right over the lives of their children, as was abfurdly allowed to Roman fathers; nor any to exercise unprofitable feverities; nor to command the commiffion of crimes: for thefe rights can never be wanted for the purposes of a parent's duty.

Nor, for the fame reason, have parents any right to fell their children into flavery. Upon which, by the way, we may obferve, that the children of flaves are not, by the law of nature, born flaves; for, as the master's right is derived to him through the parent, it can never be greater than the parent's

own.

Hence alfo it appears, that parents not only pervert, but exceed their juft authority, when they confult their own ambition, intereft, or prejudice, at the manifeft expence of their children's happiness. Of which abuse of parental power, the following are inftances the shutting up of daughters and younger fons in nunneries and monafteries, in order to preferve entire the eftate and dignity of the family; or the ufing of any arts, either of kindnefs or unkindnefs, to induce them to make choice of this way of life themselves; or, in countries where the clergy are prohibited from marriage, putting fons into the church for the fame end, who are never likely either to do or receive any good in it, fufficient to compenfate for this facrifice; the urging of children to marriages, from which they are averfe, with the view of exalting or enriching the family, or for the fake of connecting eftates, parties, or interefts; or the oppofing of a marriage, in which the child would probably find his happiness, from a motive of pride or avarice, of family hoftility or perfonal pique.

CHAP.

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