1800

Thomas Beddoes to Thomas Wilkinson, [March 1800]

Dear Sir

Thank you for your information & for your correction of my arithmetic – I have just drawn on Mess^r. Boldero for ninety nine pounds 18 sh & 10d –

I rejoice in your decision as in the redemption of the boys from danger during an important period – Hitherto you have wisely looked to the prevention of consumption as a prime object – You will doubtless continue to to feel that by delivering your wards into their own keeping with a good constitution you will have conferred a more precious obligation upon them than by your care of their property – You have read the three warnings – In the present case there have been three warnings as distinct, I am sure, as those received by Mrs. Thrale’s old man viz. the fate of two predecessors (immediate predecessors) and John’s make & symptoms. I know for certain that the foundation of many premature deaths from consumption is laid at school & confirmed at college: And there exist the clearest medical reasons for withholding the inheritors of the disposition to consumption from great schools as long as possible. I know very well how rarely medical grounds have influence in the disposal of children – And so much the worse for children that they have not – When you thus make public or private education a question upon the case, you can often determine satisfactorily – But when education, like other things, is talked of in the abstract, you can never come to an issue –

You may have observed how little teachers of youth in general are encumbered with knowledge of the human mind or the human body. This, I take it, is the case more especially with the masters of the great schools – Their glory seems to consist in a knack at making verse of little use & in a readiness at applying grammar rules, fabricated by schoolmen – rules at which the great writers of Greece & Rome w^d have spurned – & which the great modern writers of language have demonstrated to be nonsensical or absurd – So that even in their own narrow department the ideas of schoolmasters w^d appear to be narrow or false – And for the life of me I scarce see to what their instruction tends but to injure strong minds & destroy weak ones.

Of the arts & genius of antiquity I w^d have these boys have a perfect idea – But the pedantry of our public schools seems to me declining in esteem – & it cannot be much longer in coming home to people’s reflection that it was not to be crammed with this trash that God created the human memory – but to be furnished with things useful in after-life –

It is, I think, from the Schoolfellows & not by their masters that the pupils of public schools profit – I esteem most highly the use which boys are of to boys. – But at public schools they are too much together – & the use degenerates into abuse – If some are corrected, more are, I am afraid, corrupted – It seems manifest that without intermixt. of persons of different sexes & ages there can be neither good morals nor good manners – Young persons particularly countenance & encourage one another in vice & folly – Boys’ plays also I take to be a great evil – They learn nothing useful behind whereas children might be instructively exercised with equal pleasure to themselves & benefit to their health – Will all this approximate your opinions to those of your sincere ser^t Thomas Beddoes?

Address: Thomas Wilkinson Esq
Endorsed: D^r. Beddoes. – / has drawn for 99. 18. 10 / on Mess^rs. B. & Co. / March 1800
MS: Lambton Park MS