Those admirable verses, Sir, of yours, both English and others, which you have sometimes favoured me with a sight of, will not suffer me to be so sottish as to slight and undervalue so great and noble an accomplishment. But the committing of such high and brave sensed poems to a schoolboy (whose main business is to search out cunningly the Antecedent and the Relative; to lie at catch for a spruce Phrase, a Proverb, or a quaint and pithy Sentence) is not only to very little purpose, but that having gargled only those elegant books at school, this serves them instead of reading them afterwards; and does, in a manner, prevent their being further looked into. So that all improvement, whatsoever it be, that may be reaped out of the best and choicest poets, is for the most part utterly lost, in that a time is usually chosen of reading them, when discretion is much wanting to gain thence any true advantage. Thus that admirable and highly useful morality, TULLY's _Offices_, because it is a book commonly construed at school, is generally afterwards so contemned by Academics, that it is a long hour's work to convince them that it is worthy of being looked into again; because they reckon it as a book read over at school, and, no question! notably digested. If, therefore the ill methods of schooling do not only occasion a great loss of time there, but also do beget in lads a very odd opinion and apprehension of Learning, and much disposes them to be idle when they are got a little free from the usual severities; and that the hopes of more or less improvement in the Universities very much depend hereupon: it is, without all doubt, the great concernment of all that wish to the Church, that such care and regard be had to the management of schools, that the Clergy be not so much obstructed in their first attempts and preparations to Learning. I cannot, Sir, possibly be so ignorant as not to consider that what has been now offered upon this argument, has not only been largely insisted on by others; but also refers not particularly to the Clergy (whose welfare and esteem, I seem at present in a special manner solicitous about), but in general to all learned professions, and therefore might reasonably have been omitted: which certainly I had done, had not I called to mind that of those many that propound to themselves Learning for a profession, there is scarce one in ten but that his lot, choice, or necessity determines him to the study of Divinity. Thus, Sir, I have given you my thoughts concerning the orders and customs of common schools. A consideration, in my apprehension, not slightly to be weighed: being that upon which to me seems very much to depend the learning and wisdom of the Clergy, and the prosperity of the Church.