Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1819-03-10
tI.EX tNnR{A:
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 1919.

of Alexandria, " hen the following gentle
men were chosen.
John B. Kirby F. P. Taylor
Mark Butts Jonathan Butcher
John Longden John A. Stewart
Thomas Swami Christopher Neale
Nj. Robinson A. M'Lean
James M'Guire William Veitch
Thos. Sanford NATL. Rounsavelle
Louis Beeler.
At a meeting of the directors held yes.
terday THOMAS SWAMI, Esq. was cleo
led PRESIDENT of the institution.
In short system of education composed
by Milton, at the request of friend Of his
of high rank, he labored 10 shew that a
greater portion of useful instruction might
be communicated to youth by teaching
them those Greek and Latin authors who
wrote upon physical subjects. agriculture
for instance, than by carrying them thro'
the poets and classical authors in the usual
way. When Johnson, in his life OF Milton
comes to that point, he expresses his dis
sent from the doctrines in that respect OF
the great poet, and gives for his'dissent rea-
sons so satisfactory, that we think it pro-
babe few who have youth to educate,
will, after reading them feel disposed to
depart from the good old customary mode
of instruction established in the schools.
"The purpose of Milton (says the Doc
tori as it seems, was to teach something
m ore solid than the common literature Of
Schools, by reading those authors that treat
of physical subjects such as the georges
and astronomical treatises of The ancieRts.
This was scheme of improvement which
seems to have busted many literary prcjec-
tors of that age. Cowley, who had more
means than Milton of knowing what was
wanting to the embellishments of lite, for
med the same plan Of education in bis ina
ginary college.
But the truth s, that the knowledge of
eternal nature, and of the sciences which
that knowledge requires or includes, is not
the great or the frequent business Of the
human mind. Whether we provide for &C
ton OF for conversation, whether we wish
to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite
is, the religious and moral knowledge OF
right and wrong-the next is an acquain-
lance with The history of mankind, and
with those examples which may be said to
embody truth, and prove by events the
reason or aoleness of opinions.-Prudence
and Justice are virtues and excellencies Of
all times and of all places /; we are per
petuallJ moralists, but we are geometri-
clans only by chance. Our intercourse
with intellectual nature is necessary our
speculations upon matter are voluntary and
at leisure. Physical knowledge is ofsuch
rare emergency, that one man may know
another half bis life without being able 20
estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astron-
omy but his moral and prudential cha
racter Immediately appears.
Those authors therefore, are to be
read at schools that supply most axioms Of
prudence, most principles Of moral truth,
aud most materials for conversation-and
these purposes are best served by poets,
orators, and historians.
Let me not he censured for this dgres-
sion as pcdantic or paradoxical for, if
have Milton against me, have Socrates on
my side. Ii was has labor to turn philoso-
ply from the stuty Of nature to specula-
tions upon life, but tie innovalors whom |
oppose are turning off attention from life
to nature. They seem to think that we
are placed here to watch the growth Of
plants, or the motions of the stars. Socra-
ties was of opinion that What we had to learn
was. how to do good, and avoid evil.
"Of Institutions we may judge from
their effects" From this wonder working
Academy, do not know that there ever
proceeded any man very eminent forknow-
ledge Its only genuine product, | believe,
is small history o. poetry written in La
tin by his nephew, OF which perhaps, none
ofmy readers has ever heard.
A number of young men in Alexandria,
have lately formed. themselves into Mis-
sionary Association. The ohjec, Of the
society is to support Minister for the
purpose of supplying the neighhorng coun-
ties, who are generally destitute of the