A magistrate provided with sufficient authority, would watch over all its affairs; and to him would be given the power to remove out of his jurisdiction, all persons whose improper conduct might endanger the peace and well-being of the community. A regular communication with Cape Town, and consequently with England, would be established by post to Graaff-Reynét; whence a mail is forwarded on horseback by the way of Uitenhage, every first and second Wednesday in each month.

If an English town were founded in the vicinity of the Gariep, it would more than probably become the metropolis of the interior; and be resorted to as a place of trade and barter, by all the Transgariepine nations. It would be the intermediate point of connecting the great town of Litaakun (Letárkoon) with the Cape of Good Hope, as it would lie in the direct route between them: and the peaceable, friendly, and half-civilized nation of the Bachapins (Batjapeens) would gladly avail themselves of the opportunity of establishing a sort of commerce with the Colony, which hitherto the great distance of Cape Town has prevented. They would bring cattle, taking beads, tobacco, and some other trifles in exchange. Their country could furnish ivory, were it not for the difficulty of transporting it on the backs of oxen, their only mode of conveyance. But this difficulty might not, on trial, be found to be so great as to deter them from the trade. They might also be encouraged to collect gum, which may be obtained to a large amount, as the southern part of this continent every where abounds in trees that yield it; though, from the scarcity and value of labor, it could not repay the expense of collecting it within the Colony. Whether gold dust be to be found in the extratropical part of Southern Africa, remains to be discovered; and the valuable productions of the interior lie hidden and unknown.

By the means of this Garíep town, through its communication with these people, the English language and a better knowledge of Europeans would be diffused amongst the natives of the interior; affording an opportunity of becoming acquainted with a portion of this continent, of which much less is known than of its northern half and in short, of which it may be said, Europe is totally ignorant, or very nearly so. A door would thus be opened for a friendly connection with its inland inhabitants, who, possessing none of those prejudices which prevent a cordial friendship between Christian and Mahometan nations, would the more readily enter into an acquaintance with the British. And, on the part of our countrymen, it would be required, only that their dealings be fair and honorable, and that their policy towards them be just and firm, in order to perpetuate that acquaintance, to the pro

fit of both nations. Nor would the introducing amongst these tribes, of the comforts and advantages of civilised life, and the benefits of a purer morality and religion, be an unimportant object in the minds of those persons of our own country, who themselves know, and are daily enjoying, that superiority and satisfaction which are the natural consequences of virtue, and of a due developement of the nobler faculties of the mind and of the better feelings of the human heart,

三

PLAN OF EDUCATION,

IN HIS

LETTER TO HARTLIB,

(NOW VERY SCARCE);

WITH THE PLAN OF THE

EDINBURGH

Academical Institution,

FOUNDED THEREON.

LONDON:

OF EDUCATION.

TO MASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB.

MASTER HARTLIB,

1. I am long since perswaded, that to say or doe ought worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us, then simply the love of God and of mankinde. Neverthelesse, to write now the reforming of Education, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought on, and for the want whereof this nation perishes, I had not yet at this time been induc't but by your earnest entreaties and serious conjurements; as having my minde for the present halfe diverted in the persuance of some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which cannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of truth and honest living, with much more peace. Nor should the lawes of any private friendship have prevail'd with me to divide thus or transpose my former thoughts, but that I see those aims, those actions which have won you with me the esteem of a person sent hither by some good providence from a farre country, to be the occasion and the incitement of great good to this Iland. And, as I hear, you have obtain'd the same repute with men of most approved wisdom, and some of highest authority among us; not to mention the learned correspondence which you hold in foreigne parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence which you have used in this matter, both heer and beyond the seas, either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar sway of nature, which also is God's working. Neither can I thinke that so reputed and so valu'd as you are, you would to the forfeit

of your own decerning ability, impose upon me an unfit and over ponderous argument, but that the satisfaction which you professe to have receiv'd from those incidental discourses which we have wandered into, hath prest and almost constrain'd you into a perswasion, that what you require from me in this point, I neither ought nor can in conscience deferre beyonde this time, both of so much need at once, and so much opportunity to trie what God hath determined. I will not resist, therefore, what ever it is either of divine or humane obligement that you lay upon me, but will forthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that volun.tary idea, which hath long in silence presented itself to me, of a better education, in extent and comprehension farre more large, and yet of time farre shorter, and of attainment farre more certain then hath been yet in practice. Briefe I shall endeavour to be, for that which I have to say assuredly this nation hath extreame need should be done sooner than spok'n. To tell you therefore what I have benefited herein among old renowned authors, I shall spare; and to search what many modern Janua's and Didactics more than ever I shall read, have projected, my inclination leads me not. But if you can accept of these few observations which have flowr'd off, and are as it were the burnishing of many studious and contemplative yeers, altogether spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge, and such as pleas'd you so well in the relating, I here give you them to dispose of.

II. The end then of learning is to repair the ruin of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the neerest, by possessing our souls of true vertue, which, being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot in this body found it selfe but on sensible things, nor arrive so clearly to the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature; the same method is necessarily to be follow'd in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience, and tradition anough for all kind of learning, and therefore, we are chiefly taught the language of those people who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother's dialect only.

III. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learn