An Essay Upon Projects Part 13

The gentlemen who practise to be put to no manner of charge, but to be obliged strictly to the following articles:

1. To constant residence, not to lie out of the house without leave of the college-major.

2. To perform all the college exercises, as appointed by the masters, without dispute.

3. To submit to the orders of the house.

To quarrel or give ill-language should be a crime to be punished by way of fine only, the college-major to be judge, and the offender be put into custody till he ask pardon of the person wronged; by which means every gentleman who has been affronted has sufficient satisfaction.

But to strike challenge, draw, or fight, should be more severely punished; the offender to be declared no gentleman, his name posted up at the college-gate, his person expelled the house, and to be pumped as a rake if ever he is taken within the college-walls.

The teachers of this college to be chosen, one half out of the exempts of the first college, and the other out of the proficients of the second.

The fourth college, being only of schools, will be neither chargeable nor troublesome, but may consist of as many as shall offer themselves to be taught, and supplied with teachers from the other schools.

The proposal, being of so large an extent, must have a proportionable settlement for its maintenance; and the benefit being to the whole kingdom, the charge will naturally lie upon the public, and cannot well be less, considering the number of persons to be maintained, than as follows.

FIRST COLLEGE.

Pounds per ann.

The general . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 5 colonels at 100 pounds per ann. each . . . . . . . . . 500 20 captains at 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,200 100 governors at 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 200 directors at 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 200 exempts at 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 2,000 heads for subsistence, at 20 pounds per head per ann., including provision, and all the officers' salaries in the house, as butlers, cooks, purveyors, nurses, maids, laundresses, stewards, clerks, servants, chaplains, porters, and attendants, which are numerous. 40,000

SECOND COLLEGE.

A governor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 A president . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 50 college-majors at 50 pounds per ann. each . . . . . . 2,500 200 proficients at 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 Commons for 500 students during times of exercises at 5 pounds per ann. each . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,500 200 proficients' subsistence, reckoning as above . . . . 4,000

THIRD COLLEGE.

The gentlemen here are maintained as gentlemen, and are to have good tables, who shall therefore have an allowance at the rate of 25 pounds per head, all officers to be maintained out of it; which is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25,000 100 teachers, salary and subsistence ditto . . . . . . 4,500 50 college-majors at 10 pounds per ann. is . . . . . . . 500 ====== Annual charge 86,300 The building to cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50,000 Furniture, beds, tables, chairs, linen, &c . . . . . . 10,000 Books, instruments, and utensils for experiments . . . 2,000 ====== So the immediate charge would be 62,000

The annual charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86,300 To which add the charges of exercises and experiments 3,700 ====== 90,000

The king's magazines to furnish them with 500 barrels of gunpowder per annum for the public uses of exercises and experiments.

In the first of these colleges should remain the governing part, and all the preferments to be made from thence, to be supplied in course from the other; the general of the first to give orders to the other, and be subject only to the founder.

The government should be all military, with a const.i.tution for the same regulated for that purpose, and a council to hear and determine the differences and trespa.s.ses by the college laws.

The public exercises likewise military, and all the schools be disciplined under proper officers, who are so in turn or by order of the general, and continue but for the day.

The several cla.s.ses to perform several studies, and but one study to a distinct cla.s.s, and the persons, as they remove from one study to another, to change their cla.s.ses, but so as that in the general exercises all the scholars may be qualified to act all the several parts as they may be ordered.

The proper studies of this college should be the following:

Geometry. Bombarding.

Astronomy. Gunnery.

History. Fortification.

Navigation. Encamping.

Decimal arithmetic. Intrenching.

Trigonometry. Approaching.

Dialing. Attacking.

Gauging. Delineation.

Mining. Architecture.

Fireworking. Surveying.

And all arts or sciences appendices to such as these, with exercises for the body, to which all should be obliged, as their genius and capacities led them, as:

1. Swimming; which no soldier, and, indeed, no man whatever, ought to be without.

2. Handling all sorts of firearms.

3. Marching and counter-marching in form.

4. Fencing and the long-staff.

5. Riding and managing, or horsemans.h.i.+p.

6. Running, leaping, and wrestling.

And herewith should also be preserved and carefully taught all the customs, usages, terms of war, and terms of art used in sieges, marches of armies and encampments, that so a gentleman taught in this college should be no novice when he comes into the king's armies, though he has seen no service abroad. I remember the story of an English gentleman, an officer at the siege of Limerick, in Ireland, who, though he was brave enough upon action, yet for the only matter of being ignorant in the terms of art, and knowing not how to talk camp language, was exposed to be laughed at by the whole army for mistaking the opening of the trenches, which he thought had been a mine against the town.

The experiments of these colleges would be as well worth publis.h.i.+ng as the acts of the Royal Society. To which purpose the house must be built where they may have ground to cast bombs, to raise regular works, as batteries, bastions, half-moons, redoubts, horn-works, forts, and the like; with the convenience of water to draw round such works, to exercise the engineers in all the necessary experiments of draining and mining under ditches. There must be room to fire great shot at a distance, to cannonade a camp, to throw all sorts of fireworks and machines that are, or shall be, invented; to open trenches, form camps, &c.

Their public exercises will be also very diverting, and more worth while for any gentleman to see than the sights or shows which our people in England are so fond of.

I believe as a const.i.tution might be formed from these generals, this would be the greatest, the gallantest and the most useful foundation in the world. The English gentry would be the best qualified, and consequently best accepted abroad, and most useful at home of any people in the world; and His Majesty should never more be exposed to the necessity of employing foreigners in the posts of trust and service in his armies.

And that the whole kingdom might in some degree be better qualified for service, I think the following project would be very useful:

When our military weapon was the long-bow, at which our English nation in some measure excelled the whole world, the meanest countryman was a good archer; and that which qualified them so much for service in the war was their diversion in times of peace, which also had this good effect--that when an army was to be raised they needed no disciplining: and for the encouragement of the people to an exercise so publicly profitable an Act of Parliament was made to oblige every parish to maintain b.u.t.ts for the youth in the country to shoot at.

Since our way of fighting is now altered, and this destructive engine the musket is the proper arms for the soldier, I could wish the diversion also of the English would change too, that our pleasures and profit might correspond. It is a great hindrance to this nation, especially where standing armies are a grievance, that if ever a war commence, men must have at least a year before they are thought fit to face an enemy, to instruct them how to handle their arms; and new-raised men are called raw soldiers. To help this--at least, in some, measure--I would propose that the public exercises of our youth should by some public encouragement (for penalties won't do it) be drawn off from the foolish boyish sports of c.o.c.king and cricketing, and from tippling, to shooting with a firelock (an exercise as pleasant as it is manly and generous) and swimming, which is a thing so many ways profitable, besides its being a great preservative of health, that methinks no man ought to be without it.

1. For shooting, the colleges I have mentioned above, having provided for the instructing the gentry at the king's charge, that the gentry, in return of a favour, should introduce it among the country people, which might easily be done thus:

If every country gentleman, according to his degree, would contribute to set-up a prize to be shot for by the town he lives in or the neighbourhood, about once a year, or twice a year, or oftener, as they think fit; which prize not single only to him who shoots nearest, but according to the custom of shooting.

This would certainly set all the young men in England a-shooting, and make them marksmen; for they would be always practising, and making matches among themselves too, and the advantage would be found in a war; for, no doubt, if all the soldiers in a battalion took a true level at their enemy there would be much more execution done at a distance than there is; whereas it has been known how that a battalion of men has received the fire of another battalion, and not lost above thirty or forty men; and I suppose it will not easily be forgotten how, at the battle of Agrim, a battalion of the English army received the whole fire of an Irish regiment of Dragoons, but never knew to this day whether they had any bullets or no; and I need appeal no further than to any officer that served in the Irish war, what advantages the English armies made of the Irish being such wonderful marksmen.

Under this head of academies I might bring in a project for an

ACADEMY FOR WOMEN.

I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilised and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. We reproach the s.e.x every day with folly and impertinence, while I am confident, had they the advantages of education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than ourselves.

One would wonder indeed how it should happen that women are conversable at all, since they are only beholding to natural parts for all their knowledge. Their youth is spent to teach them to st.i.tch and sew, or make baubles. They are taught to read indeed, and perhaps to write their names, or so, and that is the height of a woman's education. And I would but ask any who slight the s.e.x for their understanding, What is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for that is taught no more?