and Rambouillet; the Library of the Legislative Body; of the Council of State 30,000 vols.; of the Institute; of the Invalids, 20,000 vols; of the Court of Cas sation, formerly the library of the Advocates and Polytechnic School.

Under the Minister of the Boyal Household are 10 libraries; of the Interior, of War, 12; of Justice, 5; of Foreign Affairs, 1; of the Marine, 6; of Finance, 2.

22;

The Chambers of the Peers and the Deputies have each a library; that of the latter contains 30,000 volumes.

In the Departments there are Public Libraries 25, with above 1,700,000; vols. of which Troyes has 50,000; Aix, 72,670; Marseilles, 31,500; Dijon, 36,000; Besancon, 53,000; Toulouse, 30,000 and 20,000; Bordeaux, 105,000; Tours, 30,000; Grenoble, 42,000; Arras, 34,000; Stratburg, 51,000; Colmar, 30,000; Lyons, 106,000; Le Mans, 41,000; Versailes, 40,000; Amiens, 40,000.

A HINT TO STUDENTS.

Curran says, in one of his letters to Mr Weston, in the year 1773, "I still continue to read ten hours every day-seven at law, and three at history, or the general principles of politics; and that I may have time enough, I rise at half-past four. I have contrived a machine after the manner of an hour-glass, which perhaps you may be curious to know, which wakens me regularly at that hour. Exactly over my head I have suspended two vessels of tin, one above the other-when I go to bed, which is always at ten, I put a bottle of water into the upper vessel, in the bottom of which is a hole, of such a size as to let the water pass through, so as to make the inferior reservoir overflow in six hours and a half. I have had no small trouble in apportioning those vessels, and I was still more puzzled for a while how to confine my head so as to receive the drop; but I have at length succeeded."

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Historical Notice of the Method of Surveying Land by Course and Distance like Traverse sailing in Navigation.

THE method of surveying land by course and distance, according to the rules of traverse sailing in Navigation, is generally employed in the state of Pennsylvania, and is thought to be of recent invention. In this country, it is called the Pennsylvania method of Surveying; and most persons suppose it to be an American discovery. But it is found in the fifth edition of Leybourn's Surveying, printed in 1722, Lib. IV. page 56. Leybourn does not claim the invention of it, and it seems to have been known before the publication of the fifth edition of his book. In Adams's Geometrical and Graphical Essay, 4th edition, page 322, we have the following historical account of this method, which is ascribed to Mr. Thomas Burgh as the original in ventor: "The first publication of this method of Surveying and plotting appears in a pamphlet printed in Dublin in 1760, entitled, A Method to determine the Areas of Right-lined Figures Universally, very useful for ascertaining the Contents of any Survey, by the late Thomas Burgh, Esq. &c.” This method was afterwards published by Mr. B. Noble, in 1767; by Mr. A. Binns, in 1775; by Mr. R. Gibson, in 1795. It is now found in many recent treatises of Surveying accompanied with a table of difference of latitude and departure, to facilitate the calculations. If the horizontal area and plot of a

area.

piece of land be required, this method seems preferable to any other, be cause there is less chain-work; but if the superficial content of uneven ground be required, the result of a survey will be too small. In the latter case the method of triangles will give the nearest approximation to the true When a plan of an estate is not required, the method of surveying by triangles is the most simple and expeditious, and differs least from the true superficial content: and it required no instruments except a chain and an off-set staff. From the dimensions thus taken the figure of the land may be projected on paper, and the area found in the usual way; or the area may be calculated from the three sides of a triangle found by measurement on the ground: but the operation is troublesome.

ON THE COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

EDUCATION.

To determine upon what system the rising generation may be instructed with the greatest convenience and effect; by what measures in early youth his offspring may be most successfully trained to learning and virtue, is a point of the utmost importance to a parent, and hardly less difficult than important. The enquiry is, indeed, both complicated and extensive; influenced by various and weighty considerations; and particularly by what the subject naturally suggests, the comparative advantages of public or private education.

This question has, indeed, been frequently agitated; not only with such deliberation and diligence, as its importance seemed to require; but sometimes with such zeal and acrimony, as were prompted by the private interest of the disputants, or the jealousy of rival talents. It appears to me, however, that it can hardly be a general question at all; at least, that it does not admit any general decision. But it was discussed by Quinctilian more than seventeen centuries ago; and has been since adverted to by almost every writer on the subject of education. Though it may not be determined, therefore, it must not be wholly neglected.

Quinctilian will not be suspected of wasting his reader's time or his own, in disquisitions foreign to his purpose; and in his treatise, indeed, the enquiry was not only natural but unavoidable. His system of education had but one object in view, to form the youth of his own nation to excellence in the oratory of the bar, or the senate; and it was both rational and necessary to consider by what means that excellence might be most successfully attained. In this country the objects of education are not only numerous and varied, but sometimes incompatible with each other; and its plans and pursuits, therefore, cannot always be the same. The question evidently becomes different as it regards

every different student; and must be determined with respect to each, not so much by the comparative advantages of general systems abstractedly considered; as by what is most suitable to the individual concerned; to his rank, his health, his capacity, and his future destination. If the youth be designed for any active station in public life; for the bar or the senate; for the practice of medicine, or for the profession of arms; I have no hesitation in giving it as my opinion that he ought to have a public education. And by a public education, I mean an education at one those schools universally known amongst us by the denomination of public schools; at one of the larger of those endowed schools, which are established in every considerable town, and almost in every district of the kingdom; or at one of those academies, where the number of pupils is not limited, and where the discipline approaches to the model, and possesses some of the vigour, of our public schools.

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The objections to this system of education stated by Quinctilian, and which, indeed, comprise the strongest objections that have yet been urged against it, consists wholly in the danger, either that the morals of the pupil will be corrupted by the corruption of his fellows; or that his improvement will be neglected in the confusion naturally incident to numbers.

Were the former of these objections well-founded, it ought certainly to be decisive. The purity of morals must not be sacrificed to the acquisition of learning. But fortunately this dreaded corruption is far from certain. The danger of it is not greater, perhaps, than in other situations; and at least, if public schools furnish the bane of morals, in them too the most powerful antidotes may be found. I shall give the result of my own experience and observation without disguise; not certainly because this result offers any novelty; but because it has been called in question. The truth in this case, as in many others, does not require so much to be discovered or proved, as to be published and enforced.

The common notion, that boys corrupt each other, is not, I think, just to the extent generally supposed. Its rise and continuance may be very reasonably accounted for, without admitting its truth. The partiality natural to a parent inclines him to believe that his son is dismissed from his own hands innocent and spotless; and to conclude, when the son is afterwards found. to be vicious, that he has been seduced by others more vicious than himself. The son, indeed, in order to soften his own offences, imputes the guilt and blame to his companions; and the father is willing to give credit to his assertions; to condemn the school, rather than his child; and the conduct of the master, rather than his own. But the truth is, that when boys of various dispositions and habits meet promiscuously in a school, they usually discover one another's inclinations, with a quickness and

penetration resembling the effects produced by the private signals of free-masonry; and each associates with those, whose temper and pursuits best correspond with his own. The corrupt attach themselves to the corrupt, with the rapidity natural to those, who are careless of the characters of their friends; and leave the diligent and virtuous to form their intimacies amongst themselves without interruption or molestation. The former do not frequently succeed in their endeavours to seduce the latter and usually respect them too much to make the attempt. The mutual encouragement and asssistance of numbers will undoubtedly sometimes push them further in culpable pursuits, than each singly would have had the means or the resolution to proceed. But I have seldom known a youth deeply involved in depravity at school, who did not bring the seeds of it along with him. Where, indeed, the previous connection of their parents, or some other incidental and external cause, has occasioned an intimacy, which the dispositions of the sons themselves never would have produced; in such cases, an individual will sometimes greatly influence the manners of his friend; and from the weakness or the propensities of our nature it unfortunately happens, that the boy already depraved will more frequently seduce his associate into mischief, or into vice, than the virtuous youth will be able to restrain his less virtuous companion from it. But it is only where a considerable superiority in age or fortune, in rank or talents, has given an extraordinary influence, that any single boy can corrupt the general manners of a school; and it is perhaps still more rare, that where the manners of a school are generally corrupt, a single youth, whatever may be his disposition and habits, can wholly escape the contagion. An arch-fiend may sometimes seduce a number of inferior spirits from their duty and allegiance; but we can rarely hope to find the integrity and resolution of Abdiel in a school-boy.

In a numerous school the noise and riot of the pupils have more merriment than mischief; and their mischief has more frolic than malignity. Care, however, must be taken, that occasional frolic do not ripen into habitual cruelty; that repeated transgressions do not sink into settled corruption. Here, indeed, is the place and necessity for the vigilance and authority of the teachers; and these, if wisely exerted, will seldom fail of their effect. It is an easy task, on one hand, to introduce every pupil to proper connections, when he first enters the school, and to caution him, on the other, against such as are distinguished only by their vicious propensities and seductive manners. It is easy, whenever any instance of vice is detected, to inflict some appropriate punishment, and to expose it to contempt or disgrace: and it is not less easy, and still more pleasing, to show constant favour and encouragement to truth, integrity, and diligence; to let it appear, upon all occasions, that if a studious and virtuous

youth happen to be sometimes exposed to the ridicule or the malice of his less meritorious schoolfellows, he will find himself abundantly compensated by the esteem of his master and his friends. Such conduct in the teachers seldom fails to be rewarded by the gratitude, as well as the virtues, of those intrusted to their care.

The exertion required in the students to perform the tasks appointed in every well regulated school, is itself highly favourable to the vigour and activity of the intellect; and eventually, therefore, to the interests of virtue. There is always amongst the pu pils of a large school a sort of public opinion, and certain laws of honour, which, though sometimes founded upon erroneous principles, generally tend to the prevention of mean or malignant vices and such manliness of sentiment and spirit is acquired as paves the way to the subsequent correction of any errors, into which the warmth or negligence of youth may surprise them. Let sound learning give a young man strength of mind to conquer himself, and from any other moral enemy he will soon have little to fear. And if such a school be found, as, it is hoped, will soon appear, the most favourable to the promotion of learning and knowledge, it will not be much less favourable to the soundness of moral principle. Notwithstanding some extraordinary exceptions, which by the wonder they excite are proved to be rare, it is commonly true, that as the mind is enlarged, the affection are rectified. A fool, says Rochefoucault, has not materials enough to make a good man. But none are so likely to perform their duty well, as those who best understand it. And were the most illustrious examples to be selected from our history of men, who had united virtue with learning, professional skill with integrity of conduct, they would generally be found amongst the pupils of our public schools.

The next objection, that the youth's improvement may be neglected amidst the confusion incident to numbers, is founded wholly upon mistaken notions of a large school, or of human nature. Order and regularity in its business are of the very essence of a public school, and preserved and enforced there with a degree of steadiness and uniformity, which can rarely elsewhere be found. Those who have the superintendence of such seminaries are convinced by the strongest of all testimony, their own experience, that by system only can application produce its proper effect; that by system only can any art or science be successfully taught. Nor does a larger portion of his time bestowed by the master produce a correspondent benefit to the pupil. His progress in literature does not depend so much upon what is done for him by others, as upon what he can be stimulated to do forhimself. The teacher, indeed, will naturally exert the greater zeal and diligence where greater numbers are to profit by his instructions, and to judge and report his conduct; and the same JULY, 1823.-No. 255.

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