These are the reasons why I said in my last letter, that my own inclinations were still as strong as ever for Mr. Custis’s* pursuing his travelling scheme, provided the Court should approve of the expense, (I did not want their opinion of the utility of travelling) and provided also that it should appear, when his judgment is a little more matured, that he is desirous of undertaking this tour upon a plan of improvement, rather than a vague desire of gratifying an idle curiosity, or spending his money; for by the bye, if his mother does not speak her own sentiments, rather than his, he is lukewarm in the scheme; and I cannot help giving it as my opinion, that his education, from what I have understood of his improvement, (however advanced it may be for a youth of his age,) is by no means ripe enough for a travelling tour; not that I think his becoming a mere scholar is a desirable education for a gentleman; but I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built; and that it is men and things more than books he is to be acquainted with by travelling. At present, however well versed he may be in the principles of the Latin language (which is not to be wondered at, as he began the study of it as soon as he could speak), he is unacquainted with several of their classical authors, which might be useful to him to read. He is ignorant of Greek, (the advantages of learning which I do not pretend to judge of), knows nothing of French, which is absolutely necessary to him as a traveller; little or nothing acquainted with arithmetic, and totally ignorant of the mathematics; than which, so much of it at least as relates to surveying, nothing can be more essentially necessary to any man possessed of a large landed estate, the bounds of some part or other of which are always in controversy.