Lost Lessons

THOUGH I can never pay enough to your Grandfather’s Memory, for his tender care of my Education, yet I must observe in it this Mistake; That by keeping me at home, where I was one of my young Masters, I lost the advantage of my most docile time. For not undergoing the same Discipline, I must needs come short of their experience, that are bred up in Free Schools; who, by plotting to rob an Orchard, &c. run through all the Subtilties required in taking of a Town; being made, by use, familiar to Secresie, and Compliance with Opportunity; Qualities never after to be attained at cheaper rates than the hazard of all: whereas these see the danger of trusting others, and the Rocks they fall upon, by a too obstinate adhering to their own imprudent resolutions; and all this under no higher penalty than a Whipping: And ’tis possible this indulgence of my Father might be the cause I afforded him so poor a Return for all his Cost.

— Francis Osborne, Advice to a Son, 1656