If it were put to me in the way of question, he said to Cecilia, whether I am prepared to recommend a public school, I answer, no: if you should persist to ask what other system I would recommend, I should observe to you, that system is subordinate to nature, and that none such ought to be laid down, till it is apparent and made clear to what the genius of my grandson points. When I make use of the term genius, let me not be understood as if admitting any inborn influence, which might seem to favour the absurd chimeras about innate ideas. I am aware that Sophocles in his Ajax asserts, that the happiness of man consists only in his ignorance: in his ignorance of such things, as would make man miserable did he know them, his happiness may indeed be said to consist; and so far only I can agree with Sophocles; for ignorance, in its proper sense, can make no man happy; on the contrary I hold it as a truth incontrovertible, that, if any human being could be perfect in virtue, he would be perfect in wisdom also; and if such be the test of wisdom, how can ignorance be said to make him happy? Now if the wisdom of virtue is to be instilled into the young pupil by the wisdom of books, it must surely be by other books, than his masters in the dead languages may always happen to select for his instruction in those languages. Cicero wrote about the cardinal virtues, as he was pleased to call them, and it is not quite clear to me, that suicide was not one of the family: in fact, his book is good for nothing; the man was a follower of the New Academy, and of course could have no opinion: his ambition was to talk about every thing, and his maxim to decide upon nothing. You, my excellent Cecilia, can for the present teach your nephew what he ought to know, and perhaps if he never learns what you cannot teach, he will have no loss. You will instil into his heart religion in its purest principles--in teaching that, you teach him every thing. When this honest, but eccentric, man had thus unluckily entrenched himself on the wrong side of a clear question, he could find so many specious arguments of this sort for doing nothing, that of course nothing was done; and the mind of the neglected boy, now thirsting for instruction, found every avenue shut against him, except that only, which had little new to afford.