ORIGIN, NATURE, AND OBJECT,

OF THE

NEW SYSTEM

OF

EDUCATION.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, 32, FLEET-STREET:

W. BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH ; AND

J. CUMMING, dublin.

1812.

THE

ORIGIN, NATURE, AND OBJECT

OF THE

NEW SYSTEM OF EDUCATION.

SIR Walter Raleigh is said to have burnt the second part of his History of the World, because he could not obtain a true account of a quarrel which occurred under his prison window, and in his own sight. The question which has arisen respecting the New System of Education, brings to our recollection this well-imagined story, of which every thinking man's experience must sometimes remind him. Volumes have been written for the purpose of ascertaining who invented the art of printing three centuries and a half ago; and here is a discovery scarcely twenty years old,

B

the merit of which is claimed for two persons, and contested by the one and his partizans as loudly and as boldly as if there were no recorded and dated facts in existence upon which the decision must depend. The system which has occasioned this controversy, has, at length, excited public attention in a considerable degree, though not more than its importance deserves. Two questions have grown out of it, a personal one respecting its author, and a political one respecting its application. An account of the origin and progress of the system will enable the reader to decide the first question, and the manner in which that part of the controversy has been treated by one of the parties will go far towards deciding the second.

In the year 1786 the Honourable the Court of Directors of the East India Company sent out orders to Madras, that a seminary should be established there for the education and maintenance of the orphans and distressed male children of the European military. The propriety of this measure is apparent to every one : its importance and extreme necessity can be