Franklin stressed the need for the acquisition of a clear and concise literary style. He observed: "Reading should also be taught, and pronouncing, properly, distinctly, emphatically; not with an even Tone, which _under-does_, nor a theatrical, which _over-does_ Nature." Hence he reflected the virtues of neoclassic perspicuity and correctness. (These plans he more fully expressed in his _Idea of the English School_, published in 1751.) As he grew older he apparently became less tolerant of the teaching of the ancient languages in colonial schools: in _Observations Relative to the Intentions of the Original Founders of the Academy of Philadelphia_ (1789), he charged that the Latin school had swallowed the English and that he was hence "surrounded by the Ghosts of my dear departed Friends, beckoning and urging me to use the only Tongue now left us, in demanding that Justice to our Grandchildren, that our Children has [_sic_] been denied."[i-111] The Latin and Greek languages he considered "in no other light than as the _Chapeau bras_ of modern Literature."[i-112] Like Emerson's, his opposition was to linguistic study rather than to the classical ideas. Although he emphasized the study of science and mechanics, it is important to observe that he kept his balance. He warned Miss Mary Stevenson in 1760: "There is ... a prudent Moderation to be used in Studies of this kind. The Knowledge of Nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful; but if, to attain an Eminence in that, we neglect the Knowledge and Practice of essential Duties, we deserve Reprehension."[i-113] Not without reserve did he champion the Moderns; remembering several provocative scientific observations in Pliny, he wrote to William Brownrigg (Nov. 7, 1773): "It has been of late too much the mode to slight the learning of the ancients."[i-114] He would not agree with the enthusiastic and trenchant disciple of the moderns, M. Fontenelle, that "We are under an obligation to the ancients for having exhausted almost all the false theories that could be found."[i-115] Although he would agree that the empirical method of acquiring knowledge is more reasonable than authoritarianism reared on syllogistic foundations, and with Cowley that Bacon has broke that scar-crow Deity ["Authority"],[i-116]