Wesley Corpus

This is most true. But may I be permitted to ask, (and let calm, sensible men give the answer,) What is the real, intrinsic worth of all these advantages? As to the Professors, how learned soever they are, (and some of them I verily believe yield to none in Europe,) what benefit do nine in ten of the young gentlemen reap from their learning? Truly, they do them neither harm nor good; for they know just nothing about them. They read now and then an ingenious lecture, perhaps three or four times a year. They read it in the public schools: but who hears? Often vel duo vel nemo.* And if two hundred out of two or three thousand students hear, how much are they edified? What do they learn, or what are they likely to learn, which they may not learn as well or better at home? For about fourteen years, except while I served my father's cure, I resided in the University. During much of this time, I heard many of those lectures with all the attention I was master of. And I would ask any person of understanding, considering the manner wherein most of those lectures are read, and the manner wherein they are attended, what would be the loss if they were not read at all? I had almost said, what would be the loss if there were no Professorships in the University? "What! Why Dr. would lose three hundred a year!" That is a truth: it cannot be denied. 18. "But the Tutors," you say, "in the several Colleges, supply what is wanting in the Professors." A few of them do: and they are worthy of all honour; they are some of the most useful persons in the nation. They are not only men of eminent learning, but of piety and diligence. But are there not many of another sort, who are utterly unqualified for the work they have undertaken? who are far from being masters even of Latin or Greek? who do not understand the very elements of the sciences? who know no more of logic or metaphysics than of Arabic, or even of that odd thing, religion? Perhaps, if a person who knew this were to examine therein the famous gentleman of Edmund-Hall, who made such a pother • "Either two persons, or none at all."-EDIT.