"I was indebted to neglect and accident for the best of all XXXX educations. My father loved and cherished me; but his domestic calamity, his frequent absences from Florence, and, subsequently, his pursuit of Isabella, interfered with the customary course of education, and saved me from the despotism of a regular tutor, and from the debasing tyranny, the selfish and vulgar profligacy, of those institutions of monkery called public academies.
"It was surely the intention of Providence that the faculties of early life should not be strained by labours hostile to the healthful growth of mind and body, and that the heart, the senses, and the principles should alone be tutored in the first ten years of life. And yet how egregiously has the folly of the creature perverted the benevolent purpose of the Creator! With thoughtless, heartless indifference he commits his tender offspring to the crushing tyranny of pedants and task-masters, who rack and stupify the imperfect brain by vain attempts to convey dead languages through a dead medium, and inflict upon their helpless pupils the occult mysteries of grammar, which is the philosophy of language, and intelligible only to ripened faculties. Ask the youth who has toiled in prostration of spirit through the joyless years of school existence in the preparatory seminaries of Italy--bid him look back upon his tedious pilgrimage, and weigh the scanty knowledge he has won against the abundant miseries he has endured from the harsh discipline of monkish tutors, and the selfish brutality of senior class-fellows! His pride may prompt him to deny, but in honesty and fairness he must admit, that the established system of education is radically vicious; that his attainments are meagre and superficial; that his knowledge of the world is selfishness and cunning; and that, to rise above the herd of slaves and dunces, he must give himself a second and widely different education; more liberal, comprehensive, and practical.
"It was my happier fate to enjoy, until the age of ten, unbounded liberty. I associated with boys of my own age, selecting for frequent intercourse those most distinguished by strength of body, resource of mind, and a lofty and determined spirit. I disdained to be outdone in feats of bodily activity, and persevered with inflexible ardour until I surpassed all my competitors in running, wrestling, and swimming, and in every species of juvenile and daring exploit.