The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public BenefitsMandeville, Bernard
Philosophy
The Fable of the Bees; Or, Private Vices, Public Benefits
Mandeville, Bernard
Charity-schools -- Early works to 1800; Ethics -- Early works to 1800; Virtue -- Early works to 1800
By early and artful instruction, he should be thoroughly imbued with
the notions of honour and shame, and have contracted an habitual
aversion to every thing that has the least tendency to impudence,
rudeness, or inhumanity. He should be well versed in the Latin tongue,
and not ignorant of the Greek, and moreover understand one or two of
the modern languages besides his own. He should be acquainted with
the fashions and customs of the ancients, but thoroughly skilled in
the history of his own country, and the manners of the age he lives
in. He should besides literature, have studied some useful science or
other, seen some foreign courts and universities, and made the true use
of travelling. He should at times take delight in dancing, fencing,
riding the great horse, and knowing something of hunting and other
country sports, without being attached to any, and he should treat
them all as either exercises for health, or diversions that should
never interfere with business, or the attaining to more valuable
qualifications. He should have a smatch of geometry and astronomy,
as well as anatomy, and the economy of human bodies; to understand
music so as to perform, is an accomplishment: but there is abundance
to be said against it; and instead of it, I would have him know so
much of drawing as is required to take a landskip, or explain ones
meaning of any form or model we would describe, but never to touch a
pencil. He should be very early used to the company of modest women,
and never be a fortnight without conversing with the ladies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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