Of all the Mistakes committed in Education, none is equal to that of our being thrust into an Employment for which we are unqualified; especially too if it be one of a serious important Nature; now no People on Earth are so liable to this as the Class we are treating of; for as they are apt to take a Remove beyond themselves for profound Knowledge, they plunge their Children into a Labyrinth of Difficulties, by engaging them in a Profession or Science far beyond their Power to reach. I have already urged, that, in the Case before us, a learned Education is needless and improper; but this is saying too little of it, and treating it too mildly: we may go farther, and shew that it is even hurtful, by being an Impediment to more useful Knowledge: and farther still, that it is not always what it is taken for. A Boy in common Life has perhaps about seven Years Schooling; the greatest Part whereof is employed in learning _Latin_: his _English_ is notoriously neglected; and Writing and Arithmetic he gains but imperfectly. Now I beg leave to ask, whether these three last are not more useful to a Boy of this Stamp than _Latin_? and whether it is not a Misfortune to spend his Time in gaining what he has no use for, and omitting what he wants? But it is an Error in me to call it gaining, when in Reality it is losing: for after a Boy has been puzling his poor Brains, and been tortured with _Latin_ for several Years, it is ten to one that, comparatively speaking, he knows nothing: that is, nothing radical, and to the Bottom; nothing, in short, but what one Year’s Apprenticeship will entirely efface. As a Proof that this is no Exaggeration, losing Learning is not only the Fate of Boys in common Life, who seldom get more than a Smattering, but it is confessed by every Gentleman, by the deepest Scholars, that a long Disuse of a Language, or almost any Branch of Learning, will in great measure wear it out of our Memories: or at least take off that Facility which constitutes Perfection. A Relation of mine was sent to _London_ some Years ago to be educated fit for Business; a Friend had the Care of him; who, after sending him to learn Reading, Writing, and Accompts for some Time, resolved to compleat him by putting him for a Year to _Merchant-Taylors_ School to learn _Latin_. He did so; and that finished, he was put Apprentice to a Cabinet-maker. But what availed his _Latin_? just nothing. In three Months time he saw’d and planed it all away; he was not a Pin the better for it; but he lost a Year of precious Time, that might have been very usefully employed in improving what he had before learn’d, and in applying himself to Drawing: a thing absolutely necessary for the very Business he was put to, and which, to my own Knowledge, he has often lamented the Want of. Now this is not a single Instance, an accidental Mistake, but a general Error; hundreds and thousands of which might be every day produced: the Consequences whereof are always more or less