youth, abstracted from all consideration of the parental affection: I say, this care of youth, which is the general notion of education, becomes a distinct subject and a distinct duty, from the particular danger of their ruin, if left to themselves, and the particular reason we have to expect they will do well, if due care be taken of them. And from hence it follows, that children have as much right to some proper education, as to have their lives preserved; and that, when this is not given them by their parents, the care of it devolves upon all persons, it becomes the duty of all who are capable of contributing to it, and whose help is wanted.
These trite, but most important things, implied indeed in the text, being thus premised as briefly as I could express them, I proceed to consider distinctly, the general manner in which the duty of education is there laid before us; which will further show its extent, and further obviate the idle objections which have been made against it. And all this together will naturally lead us to consider the occasion and necessity of schools for the education of poor children, and in what light the objections against them are to be regarded.
Solomon might probably intend the text for a particular admonition, to educate children in a manner suitable to their respective ranks and future employments: but certainly he intended it for a general admonition, to educate them in virtue and religion, and good conduct of themselves in their temporal concerns. And all this together, in which they are to be educated, he calls "the way they should go," i.e., he mentions it not as a matter of speculation, but of practice. And conformably to this description of the things in which children are to be educated, he describes education itself: for he calls it "training them up ;" which is a very different thing from merely teaching them some truths necessary to be known or believed. It is endeavouring to form such truths into practical principles in the mind, so as to render them of habitual good influence upon the temper and actions, in all the various occurrences of
