SUBSECT. 2. Education a cause of Melancholy.

Education, of these accidental causes of Melancholy, may justly challenge the next place, for if a man escape a bad nurse he may be undone by evil bringing up. Iason Pratensis puts this of Education for a principal cause; bad parents, step-mothers, Tutors, Masters, Teachers, too rigorous, too severe, too remisse or indulgent on the other side, are often fountains and furtherers of this disease.

Parents and such as have the tuition and oversight of children, offend many times in that they are too stern, alway threatning, chiding, brawling, whipping or striking; by means of which, their poor children are so disheartned and cowed, that they never after have any courage, a merry hour in their lives, or take pleasure in any thing. There is a great moderation to be had in such things, as matters of so great moment, to the making or marring of a childe.

Some fright their children with beggars, bugbears, and hobgoblins, if they cry, or be otherways unruly: but they are much too blame in it, many times, saith Lavater de spectris, part. 1. cap. 5. ex metu in morbos graves incidunt & noctu dormientes clamant, for fear they fall into many diseases, and cry out in their sleep, and are much the worse for it all their lives: these things ought not at all, or to be sparingly done, & upon just occasion.

Tyrannical, impatient, haire-brain Schoolmasters, aridi magistri, so Fabius termes them, Ajaces flagelliferi, are in this kinde as bad as hangmen and executioners, they make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at schoole, with bad diet, if they boord in their houses, too much severity and ill usage, they quite pervert their temperature of body and minde:

still chiding, rayling, frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they are fracti animis, moped many times, weary of their lives, nimiâ severitate deficiunt & desperant, and think no slavery in the world (as once I did my self) like to that of a Grammar scholar. Præceptorum ineptiis discruciantur ingenia puerorum, saith Erasmus, they tremble at his voice, looks, coming in.

S. Austin in the first book of his confess. & 4. ca. cals this schooling meticulosam necessitatem, and elsewhere a martyrdome, and confesseth of himself, how cruelly he was tortured in minde for learning Greek, nulla verba noveram, & sævis terroribus & pœnis, ut nossem, instabatur mihi vehementer, I know nothing and with cruel terrors and punishment I was daily compell’d.

Beza complains in like case of a rigorous schoolmaster in Paris, that made him by his continual thunder and threats, once in a minde to drown himself, had he not met by the way with an uncle of his that vindicated him from that misery for the time, by taking him to his house. Trincavellius lib. 1. consil. 16. had a Patient nineteen yeers of age, extremely melancholy, ob nimium studium, Tarvitii & præceptoris minas, by reason of overmuch study, and his Tutors threats.

Many Masters are hard hearted, and bitter to their servants, and by that means do so deject, with terrible speeches and hard usage so crucifie them, that they become desperate, and can never be recalled.

Others again in that opposite extreme, doe as great harm by their too much remisness, they give them no bringing up, no calling to busie themselves about, or to live in, teach them no trade, or set them in any good course; by means of which their servants, children, Scholars, are carried away with that stream of drunkenness, idleness, gaming, and many such irregular courses, that in the end they rue it, curse their parents, and mischief themselves.

Two much indulgence causeth the like, inepta patris lenitas & facilitas prava, when as Mitio-like, with too much liberty and too great allowance, they feed their childrens humors, let them revel, wench, riot, swagger, and doe what they will themselves, and then punish them with a noise of Musicians;

obsonet, potet, oleat unguenta de me; Amat? dabitur à me argentum ubi erit commodum. Fores effregit? restituentur: descidit Vestem? resarcietur. —— faciat quod libet, Sumat, consumat, perdat, decretum est pati.

But as Demeo told him, tu illum corrumpi sinis, your lenity will be his undoing, prævidere videor jam diem illum, quum hic egens profugiet aliquo militatum, I foresee his ruine.

So parents often erre, many fond mothers especially, dote so much upon their children, like Æsops Ape, till in the end they crush them to death, Corporum nutrices animarum novercæ, pampering up their bodies to the undoing of their souls: they will not let them be corrected or controled, but still soothed up in every thing they do, that in conclusion, they bring sorrow, shame, heaviness to their parents (Ecclus cap. 30. 8, 9. become wanton, stubborn, wilful, and disobedient; rude, naught, head-strong, incorrigible, and graceless;

They love them so foolishly, saith Cardan, that they rather seem to hate them, bringing them not up to vertue but injury, not to learning but to riot, not to sober life and conversation, but to all pleasure and licentious behaviour.

Who is he of so litle experience that knows not this of Fabius to be true? Education is another nature altering the minde and will, and I would to God (saith he) we our selves did not spoile our childrens manners, by our overmuch cockering and nice education, and weaken the strength of their bodies and mindes, that causeth custom, custom nature, &c.

For these causes Plutarch in his book de lib. educ. and Hierom. epist. lib. 1. epist. 17. to Læta de institut. filiæ, gives a most special charge to all parents, and many good cautions about bringing up of children, that they be not committed to undiscreet, passionate, bedlam Tutors, light, giddy headed, or covetous persons, and spare for no cost, that they may be well nurtured and taught, it being a matter of so great consequence.

For such parents as do otherwise, Plutarch esteemes of them, that are more careful of their shooes then of their feet, that rate their wealth above their children. And he, saith Cardan, that leaves his son to a covetous Schoolemaster to be informed, or to a close Abby to fast and learn wisdome together, doth no other, then that he be a learned fool, or a sickly wise man.