Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/101

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CODE OF EDUCATION.
79

bits of thought and action, as may correspond with, and promote the appointments of public law. In his appendix, he says, that, "by a code of education, he means a sysem of principles, religious, moral, and political, whose tendency may be the preservation of the blessings of society, as they are enjoyed in a free state, to be instilled effectually into the infant and growing minds of the community, for this great end of public happiness."

In what manner the security of civil liberty is to be effected by means of this code of education, may be seen in the following description he gives of the institutions of Sparta. "No father had a right to educate his children according to the caprice of his own fancy. They were delivered to public officers, who initiated them early in the manners, the maxims, the exercises, the toils; in a word, in all the mental and bodily acquirements and habits which corresponded with the genius of the state. Family connections had no