George Berkeley.

Essay VII
THOUGHTS ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES1
O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona norint!
VIRG. Georg. 2. v. 458.
Too happy, if they knew their happy state.

Upon the late election of kings scholars, my curiosity drew me to Westminster

School. The sight of a place where I had not been for many years revived in my
thoughts the tender images of my childhood, which by a great length of time had
contracted a softness that rendered them inexpressibly agreeable. As it is usual with
me to draw a secret unenvied pleasure from a thousand incidents overlooked by
other men, I threw myself into a short transport, forgetting my age, and fancying
myself a school-boy.
This imagination was strongly favoured by the presence of so many young boys, in
whose looks were legible the sprightly passions of that age, which raised in me a
sort of sympathy. Warm blood thrilled through every vein; the faded memory of those
enjoyments that once gave me pleasure put on more lively colours, and a thousand
gay amusements filled my mind.
It was not without regret that I was forsaken by this waking dream. The cheapness
of puerile delights, the guiltless joy they leave upon the mind, the blooming hopes
that lift up the soul in the ascent of life, the pleasure that attends the gradual opening
of the imagination and the dawn of reason, made me think most men found that
stage the most agreeable part of their journey.
When men come to riper years, the innocent diversions which exalted the spirits,
and produced health of body, indolence of mind, and refreshing slumbers, are too
often exchanged for criminal delights which fill the soul with anguish and the body
with disease. The grateful employment of admiring and raising themselves to an
imitation of the polite style, beautiful images, and noble sentiments of ancient
authors, is abandoned for law-Latin, the lucubrations of our paltry newsmongers,
and that swarm of vile pamphlets which corrupt our taste, and infest the public. The
ideas of virtue which the characters of heroes had imprinted on their minds insensibly
wear out, and they come to be influenced by the nearer examples
of a degenerate age.
In the morning of life, when the soul first makes her entrance into the world, all things
look fresh and gay; their novelty surprises, and every little glitter or gaudy colour
transports the stranger. But by degrees the sense grows callous, and we lose that
exquisite relish of trifles, by the time our minds should be supposed ripe for rational
Guardian, No. 62, Friday, May 22, 1713. Some of these thoughts are akin to the ideal which inspired
Berkeley, in his Bermuda enterprise, and in his retirement to Oxford at the end.
1

entertainments. I cannot make this reflexion without being touched with a

commiseration of that species called Beaux, the happiness of those men necessarily
terminating with their childhood; who, from a want of knowing other pursuits,
continue a fondness for the delights of that age after the relish of them is decayed.
Providence hath with a bountiful hand prepared variety of pleasures for the various
stages of life. It behoves us not to be wanting to ourselves, in forwarding the intention
of nature, by the culture of our minds, and a due preparation of each faculty for the
enjoyment of those objects it is capable of being affected with.
As our parts open and display by gentle degrees, we rise from the gratifications of
sense to relish those of the mind. In the scale of pleasure, the lowest are sensual
delights, which are succeeded by the more enlarged views and gay portraitures of a
lively imagination; and these give way to the sublimer pleasures of reason, which
discover the causes and designs, the frame, connexion, and symmetry of things,
and fill the mind with the contemplation of intellectual beauty, order, and truth.
Hence I regard our public schools and universities, not only as nurseries of men for
the service of the church and state, but also as places designed to teach mankind
the most refined luxury, to raise the mind to its due perfection, and give it a taste for
those entertainments which afford the highest transport, without the grossness or
remorse that attend vulgar enjoyments.
In those blessed retreats men enjoy the sweets of solitude, and yet converse with
the greatest Genii that have appeared in every age, wander through the delightful
mazes of every art and science, and as they gradually enlarge their sphere of
knowledge, at once rejoice in their present possessions, and are animated by the
boundless prospect of future discoveries. There a generous emulation, a noble thirst
of fame, a love, of truth and honourable regards, reign in minds as yet untainted from
the world. There the stock of learning transmitted down from the ancients is
preserved, and receives a daily increase; and it is thence propagated by men who,
having finished their studies, go into the world, and spread that general knowledge
and good taste throughout the land, which is so distant from the barbarism of its
ancient inhabitants, or the first genius of its invaders. And as it is evident that our
literature is owing to the schools and universities so it cannot be denied that these
are owing to our religion.
It was chiefly, if not altogether, upon religious considerations that princes, as well as
private persons, have erected Colleges, and assigned liberal endowments to
students and professors. Upon the same account they meet with encouragement
and protection from all Christian states, as being esteemed a necessary means to
have the sacred oracles and primitive traditions of Christianity preserved and
understood. And it is well known that, after a long night of ignorance and superstition,
the reformation of the church and that of learning began together, and made
proportionable advances, the latter having been the effect of the former, which of
course engaged men in the study of the learned languages and of antiquity.

Or, if a Free-thinker is ignorant of these facts, he may be convinced from the manifest
reason of the thing. Is it not plain that our skill in literature is owing to the knowledge
of Greek and Latin, which, that they are still preserved among us, can be ascribed
only to a religious regard? What else should be the cause why the youth of
Christendom, above the rest of mankind, are educated in the painful study of those
dead languages, and that religious societies should peculiarly be employed in
acquiring that sort of knowledge, and teaching it to others?
And it is more than probable that, in case our Free-thinkers could once achieve their
glorious design of sinking the credit of the Christian religion, and causing those
revenues to be withdrawn which their wiser forefathers had appointed to the support
and encouragement of its teachers, in a little time the Shaster would be as intelligible
as the Greek Testament; and we who want that spirit and curiosity which
distinguished the ancient Grecians would by degrees relapse into the same state of
barbarism which overspread the northern nations before they were enlightened by
Christianity.
Some, perhaps, from the ill tendency and vile taste which appear in their writings,
may suspect that the Free-thinkers are carrying on a malicious design against the
Belles Lettres: for my part, I rather conceive them as unthinking wretches of short
views and narrow capacities, who are not able to penetrate into the causes or
consequences of things.