Now the health of a government and the education of the youth being of the same pulse, no wonder if it has been the constant practice of well-ordered commonwealths to commit the care and feeling of it to public magistrates. A duty that was performed in such a manner by the Areopagites, as is elegantly praised by Isocrates. "the Athenians (says he) write not their laws upon dead walls, nor content themselves with having ordained punishments for crimes, but provide in such a way, by the education of their youth, that there be no crimes for punishment." He speaks of those laws which regarded manners, not of those orders which concerned the administration of the commonwealth, lest you should think he contradicts Xenophon and Polybius. The children of Lacedaemon, at the seventh year of their age, were delivered to the poedonomi, or schoolmasters, not mercenary, but magistrates of the commonwealth, to which they were accountable for their charge; and by these at the age of fourteen they were presented to other magistrates called the beidioei, having the inspection of the games and exercises, among which that of the platanista was famous, a kind of fight in squadrons, but somewhat too fierce. When they came to be of military age they were listed of the mora, and so continued in readiness for public service under the discipline of the polemarchs. But the Roman education and discipline by the centuries and classes is that to which the Commonwealth of Oceana has had a more particular regard in her three essays, being certain degrees by which the youth commence as it were in arms for magistracy, as appears by --The twenty-sixth order, instituting, "That if a parent has but one son, the education of that one son shall be wholly at the disposition of that parent. But whereas there be free schools erected and endowed, or to be erected and endowed in every tribe of this nation, to a sufficient proportion for the education of the children of the same (which schools, to the end there be no detriment or hindrance to the scholars upon case of removing from one to another, are every of them to be governed by the strict inspection of the censors of the tribes, both upon the schoolmaster's manner of life and teaching, and the proficiency of the children, after the rules and method of that in Hiera) if a parent has more sons than one, the censors of the tribes shall animadvert upon and punish him that sends not his sons within the ninth year of their age to some one of the schools of a tribe, there to be kept and taught, if he be able, at his own charges;and if he be not able, gratis, till they arrive at the age of fifteen years. And a parent may expect of his sons at the fifteenth year of their age, according to his choice or ability, whether it be to service in the way of apprentices to some trade or otherwise, or to further study, as by sending them to the inns of court, of chancery, or to one of the universities of this nation. But he that takes not upon him one of the professions proper to some of those places, shall not continue longer in any of them than till he has attained to the age of eighteen years;and every man having not at the age of eighteen years taken upon him, or addicted himself to the profession of the law, theology, or physic, and being no servant, shall be capable of the essays of the youth, and no other person whatsoever, except a man, having taken upon him such a profession, happens to lay it by ere he arrives at three or four and twenty years of age, and be admitted to this capacity by the respective. Phylarchs being satisfied that he kept not out so long with any design to evade the service of the commonwealth; but, that being no sooner at his own disposal, it was no sooner in his choice to come in. And if any youth or other person of this nation have a desire to travel into foreign countries upon occasion of business, delight, or further improvement of his education, the same shall be lawful for him upon a pass obtained from the censors in Parliament, putting a convenient limit to the time, and recommending him to the ambassadors by whom he shall be assisted, and to whom he shall yield honor and obedience in their respective residences.
Every youth at his return from his travel is to present the censors with a paper of his own writing, containing the interest of state or form of government of the countries, or some one of the countries, where he has been; and if it he good, the censors shall cause it to be printed and published, prefixing a line in commendation of the author.
"Every Wednesday next ensuing the last of December, the whole youth of every parish, that is to say, every man (not excepted by the foregoing part of the order), being from eighteen years of age to thirty, shall repair at the sound of the bell to their respective church, and being there assembled in presence of the overseers, who are to govern the ballot, and the constable who is to officiate at the urn, shall, after the manner of the elders, elect every fifth man of their whole number (provided that they choose not above one of two brothers at one election, nor above half if they be four or upward) to be a stratiot or deputy of the youth; and the list of the stratiots so elected being taken by the overseers, shall be entered in the parish book, and diligently preserved as a record, called the first essay. They whose estates by the law are able, or whose friends are willing, to mount them, shall be of the horse, the rest are of the foot.
And he who has been one year of this list, is not capable of being re-elected till after another year's interval.
