by Daniel Defoe
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
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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
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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 constitution for the
same regulated for that purpose, and a council to hear and determine
the differences and trespasses 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 classes to perform several studies, and but one study to
a distinct class, and the persons, as they remove from one study to
another, to change their classes, 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 horsemanship.
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 publishing
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 constitution 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 butts for the youth in the country
to shoot at.
Since our wa
y 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 cocking 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
sex 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
stitch 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 sex for
their understanding, What is a man (a gentleman, I mean) good for
that is taught no more?
I need not give instances, or examine the character of a gentleman
with a good estate, and of a good family, and with tolerable parts,
and examine what figure he makes for want of education.
The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be
polished, or the lustre of it will never appear. And it is manifest
that as the rational soul distinguishes us from brutes, so education
carries on the distinction, and makes some less brutish than others.
This is too evident to need any demonstration. But why, then,
should women be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and
understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty
would never have given them capacities, for He made nothing
needless: besides, I would ask such what they can see in ignorance
that they should think it a necessary ornament to a woman. Or, How
much worse is a wise woman than a fool? or, What has the woman done
to forfeit the privilege of being taught? Does she plague us with
her pride and impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that she
might have had more wit? Shall we upbraid women with folly, when it
is only the error of this inhuman custom that hindered them being
made wiser?
The capacities of women are supposed to be greater and their senses
quicker than those of the men; and what they might be capable of
being bred to is plain from some instances of female wit which this
age is not without, which upbraids us with injustice, and looks as
if we denied women the advantages of education for fear they should
vie with the men in their improvements.
To remove this objection, and that women might have at least a
needful opportunity of education in all sorts of useful learning, I
propose the draft of an academy for that purpose.
I know it is dangerous to make public appearances of the sex; they
are not either to be confined or exposed: the first will disagree
with their inclinations, and the last with their reputations; and
therefore it is somewhat difficult; and I doubt a method proposed by
an ingenious lady, in a little book called, "Advice to the Ladies,"
would be found impracticable. For, saving my respect to the sex,
the levity which perhaps is a little peculiar to them (at least in
their youth) will not bear the restraint; and I am satisfied nothing
but the height of bigotry can keep up a nunnery. Women are
extravagantly desirous of going to heaven, and will punish their
pretty bodies to get thither; but nothing else will do it, and even
in that case sometimes it falls out that nature will prevail.
When I talk therefore of an academy for women I mean both the model,
the teaching, and the government different from what is proposed by
that ingenious lady, for whose proposal I have a very great esteem,
and also a great opinion of her wit; different, too, from all sorts
of religious confinement, and, above all, from vows of celibacy.
Wherefore the academy I propose should differ but little from public
schools, wherein such ladies as were willing to study should have
all the advantages of learning suitable to their genius.
But since some severities of discipline more than ordinary would be
absolutely necessary to preserve the reputation of the house, that
persons of quality and fortune might not be afraid to venture their
children thither, I shall venture to make a small scheme by way of
essay.
The house I would have built in a form by itself, as well as in a
place by itself.
The building should be of three plain fronts, without any jettings
or bearing-work, t
hat the eye might at a glance see from one coin to
the other; the gardens walled in the same triangular figure, with a
large moat, and but one entrance.
When thus every part of the situation was contrived as well as might
be for discovery, and to render intriguing dangerous, I would have
no guards, no eyes, no spies set over the ladies, but shall expect
them to be tried by the principles of honour and strict virtue.
And if I am asked why, I must ask pardon of my own sex for giving
this reason for it:
I am so much in charity with women, and so well acquainted with men,
that it is my opinion there needs no other care to prevent
intriguing than to keep the men effectually away. For though
inclination, which we prettily call love, does sometimes move a
little too visibly in the sex, and frailty often follows, yet I
think verily custom, which we miscall modesty, has so far the
ascendant over the sex that solicitation always goes before it.
"Custom with women, 'stead of virtue, rules;
It leads the wisest, and commands the fools;
For this alone, when inclinations reign,
Though virtue's fled, will acts of vice restrain.
Only by custom 'tis that virtue lives,
And love requires to be asked before it gives.
For that which we call modesty is pride:
They scorn to ask, and hate to be denied.
'Tis custom thus prevails upon their want;
They'll never beg what, asked, they easily grant.
And when the needless ceremony's over,
Themselves the weakness of the sex discover.
If, then, desires are strong, and nature free,
Keep from her men and opportunity.
Else 'twill be vain to curb her by restraint;
But keep the question off, you keep the saint."
In short, let a woman have never such a coming principle, she will
let you ask before she complies--at least, if she be a woman of any
honour.
Upon this ground I am persuaded such measures might be taken that
the ladies might have all the freedom in the world within their own
walls, and yet no intriguing, no indecencies, nor scandalous affairs
happen; and in order to this, the following customs and laws should
be observed in the colleges, of which I would propose one at least
in every county in England, and about ten for the city of London.
After the regulation of the form of the building as before;
1. All the ladies who enter into the house should set their hands
to the orders of the house, to signify their consent to submit to
them.
2. As no woman should be received but who declared herself willing,
and that it was the act of her choice to enter herself, so no person
should be confined to continue there a moment longer than the same
voluntary choice inclined her.
3. The charges of the house being to be paid by the ladies, every
one that entered should have only this incumbrance--that she should
pay for the whole year, though her mind should change as to her
continuance.
4. An Act of Parliament should make it felony, without clergy, for
any man to enter by force or fraud into the house, or to solicit any
woman, though it were to marry, while she was in the house. And
this law would by no means be severe, because any woman who was
willing to receive the addresses of a man might discharge herself of
the house when she pleased; and, on the contrary, any woman who had
occasion might discharge herself of the impertinent addresses of any
person she had an aversion to by entering into the house.
In this house the persons who enter should be taught all sorts of
breeding suitable to both their genius and their quality, and, in
particular, music and dancing, which it would be cruelty to bar the
sex of, because they are their darlings; but, besides this, they
should be taught languages, as particularly French and Italian; and
I would venture the injury of giving a woman more tongues than one.
They should, as a particular study, be taught all the graces of
