Page:An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe.djvu/199

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Of POLITE LEARNING.
185

The rudiments of learning are best implanted in a college, the cultivation of it is best promoted in the world.

There is more knowlege to be acquired from one page of the volume of mankind, if the scholar only knows how to read, than in volumes of antiquity; we grow learned, not wise, by too long a continuance at college.

This points out the time in which we should leave the university; perhaps, the age of twenty-one, when at our universities the first degree is generally taken, is the proper period.

The universities of Europe may be divided into three classes. Those upon the old scholastic establishment, where the pu-pils