DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52059#0056
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Gailhard, The Compleat Gentleman (1678), p. 17, says:
“ In some schools, he [i.e., the gentleman’s] son will
neglect his book, and fall into a disorderly course of
life, often running to and fro, which some masters will
wink at for their interest, to perpetuate them in the
school.” And Swift tells us in his Essay on Education
{Works, 1841, p. 292) that “they [i.e., the gentlemen’s
sons] were not suffered by their careful parents to stay
[at school] about three months in the year.”
4. Education at the Universities and Inns of Court.
Defoe complains, on p. 5 5, that so few elder sons
were sent to the universities; of 30,000 families of
noblemen and gentlemen of estate which might be
reckoned up in the kingdom, he says there are not 200
eldest sons at a time to be found in Oxford and Cam-
bridge, whilst there are ten times that number of
younger sons. For the heir, it was considered to be
more becoming to remain at home and to grow up in
ignorance and idleness. Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
though he recommends that also eldest sons should
go to the University, does not approve for them
“ that course of study which is ordinary used in the
University, which is, if their parents perchance intend
they shall stay there 4 or 5 years, to employ the
said time as if they meant to proceed Masters of Art
and Doctors in some science : for which purpose, their
tutors commonly spend much time in teaching them
the subtleties of logic, which, as it is usually practised,
enables them for little more than to be excellent
wranglers, which art, though it may be tolerable in a
Gailhard, The Compleat Gentleman (1678), p. 17, says:
“ In some schools, he [i.e., the gentleman’s] son will
neglect his book, and fall into a disorderly course of
life, often running to and fro, which some masters will
wink at for their interest, to perpetuate them in the
school.” And Swift tells us in his Essay on Education
{Works, 1841, p. 292) that “they [i.e., the gentlemen’s
sons] were not suffered by their careful parents to stay
[at school] about three months in the year.”
4. Education at the Universities and Inns of Court.
Defoe complains, on p. 5 5, that so few elder sons
were sent to the universities; of 30,000 families of
noblemen and gentlemen of estate which might be
reckoned up in the kingdom, he says there are not 200
eldest sons at a time to be found in Oxford and Cam-
bridge, whilst there are ten times that number of
younger sons. For the heir, it was considered to be
more becoming to remain at home and to grow up in
ignorance and idleness. Lord Herbert of Cherbury,
though he recommends that also eldest sons should
go to the University, does not approve for them
“ that course of study which is ordinary used in the
University, which is, if their parents perchance intend
they shall stay there 4 or 5 years, to employ the
said time as if they meant to proceed Masters of Art
and Doctors in some science : for which purpose, their
tutors commonly spend much time in teaching them
the subtleties of logic, which, as it is usually practised,
enables them for little more than to be excellent
wranglers, which art, though it may be tolerable in a