"A celebrated Eastern philosopher begins his first dissertation with the following period. "The perfect education of a great man, consists in three points: in cultivating and improving his underftanding; in assisting and reforming his countrymen; and in procuring to himself the chief good, or a fixed and unalterable habit of virtue." [...] I shall, however, make a slight deviation from the philosopher, by fixing the good of ourselves and our fellow-creatures as the primary end proposed by a liberal education; and considering the cultivation of our understanding, and the acquisition of knowledge, as the secondary objects of it. [...] Now, as neither this knowledge can be perfectly obtained, nor the reason completely improved, in the short duration of human life, unless the accumulated experience and wisdom of all ages and all nations, be added to that which we gain by our own researches, it is necessary to understand the languages of those people who have been, in any period of the world, distinguished for their superior knowledge. It follows, therefore, that the more immediate object of education is, to learn the languages of celebrated nations both ancient and modern."