Wesley Corpus

3. One regarded the situation of them, which itself seemed a circumstance of some importance. The very most of them were placed in a great town; perhaps in the principal town in that country. The inconveniences which naturally attended this were more easy to be discovered than removed. The children, whenever they went abroad, had too many things to engage their thoughts, which ought to be diverted as little as possible from the objects of their learning. And they had too many other children round about them, some of whom they were liable to meet every day, whose example (perhaps their advice too) would neither forward them in learning nor religion. I say, "neither learning nor religion." For if we have any religion ourselves, we certainly desire that our children should have some too. But this they are not likely to have, or retain, if they converse promiscuously with the children in a great town. 4. The promiscuous admission of all sorts of children into a great school, was another circumstance I did not admire. Are children likely (suppose they had it) to retain much religion in a school where all that offer are admitted, however corrupted already, perhaps in principle (though that is not quite so frequent) as well as practice? And what wonder, when, as frequently happens, the parents themselves have no more religion than their ungodly offspring? It may be, they do not desire to have any of their family infected with the plague of virtue. A gentleman removed his son, then at Westminster School, from boarding with my eldest brother, for teaching him the Catechism; telling him, "Sir, I do not want my son to learn religion, but Latin and Greek."