But it sometimes happens, that young men who are far behind their contemporaries in every kind of literature, are wonderfully advanced in the knowledge of the town, so as to vie with the oldest professors in London, and endanger their own health by the ardour of their application. The sooner such premature youths are separated from the connections they have formed in the metropolis, the better; and as it will not be easy to persuade them to live in any other part of Great Britain, it will be necessary to send them abroad. But, instead of being carried to courts and capitals, the best plan for them will be, to fix them in some provincial town of France or Switzerland, where they may have a chance of improving, not so much by new attainments, as by unlearning or forgetting what they have already acquired.
After a young man has employed his time to advantage at a public school, and has continued his application to various branches of science till the age of twenty, you ask, what are the advantages he is likely to reap from a tour abroad?
He will see mankind more at large, and in numberless situations and points of view, in which they cannot appear in Great Britain, or any one country. By comparing the various customs and usages, and hearing the received opinions of different countries, his mind will be enlarged. He will be enabled to correct the theoretical notions he may have formed of human nature, by the practical knowledge of men. By contemplating their various religions, laws, and government, _in action_, as it were, and observing the effects they produce on the minds and characters of the people, he will be able to form a juster estimate of their value than otherwise he could have done. He will see the natives of other countries, not as he sees them in England, mere idle spectators, but busily employed in their various characters, as actors on their own proper stage. He will gradually improve in the knowledge of _character_, not of Englishmen only, but of men in general; he will cease to be deceived either by the varnish with which men are apt to heighten their own actions, or the dark colours in which they, too often, paint those of others. He will learn to distinguish the real from the ostensible motive of men’s words and behaviour. Finally, by being received with hospitality, conversing familiarly, and living in the reciprocal exchange of good offices with those whom he considered as enemies, or in some unfavourable point of view, the sphere of his benevolence and good-will to his brethren of mankind will gradually enlarge. His friendships extending beyond the limits, of his own country, will embrace characters congenial with his own in other nations. Seas, mountains, rivers, are _geographical_ boundaries, but never limited the good-will or esteem of one liberal mind. As for his manner, though it will probably not be so janty as if he had been bred in France from his earliest youth, yet that also will in some degree be improved.