Well then, Sir, I will proceed to consider a little more particularly
the subject of a home education, with an eye to those difficulties,
of which Mr. Locke takes notice, as I mentioned in my last. As to the
first, that of finding a qualified tutor; we must not expect so much
perfection, I doubt, as he lays down as necessary. What, therefore, I
humbly conceive is best to be done, will be to avoid choosing a man
of bigoted and narrow principles; who yet shall not be tainted with
sceptical or heterodox notions, nor a mere scholar or pedant; who has
travelled, and yet preserved his moral character untainted; and whose
behaviour and carriage is easy, unaffected, unformal, and genteel,
as well acquiredly as naturally so, if possible; who shall not be
dogmatical, positive, overbearing, on one hand; nor too yielding,
suppliant, fawning, on the other; who shall study the child's natural
bent, in order to direct his studies to the point he is most likely
to excel in; and to preserve the respect due to his own character from
every one, he must not be a busy body in the family, a whisperer,
a tale-bearer, but of a benevolent turn of mind, ready to compose
differences; who shall avoid, of all things, that foppishness of dress
and appearance, which distinguishes the _petit-maitres_, and French
ushers (that I have seen at some boarding schools), for coxcombs
rather than guides of education: for, as I have heard you, my best
tutor, often observe, the peculiarities of habit, where a person aims
at something fantastic, or out of character, are an undoubted sign of
a wrong head; for such a one is so kind as always to hang out on
his sign what sort of furniture he has in his shop, to save you the
trouble of asking questions about him; so that one may as easily know
by his outward appearance what he _is_, as one can know a widow by her
weeds.
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