than my throwing it into the public receptacle. And if there be any more of their size and notions, who liked them so well, that they thought them worth printing, I may flatter myself they will not be lost labour to everybody.
I myself have been consulted of late by so many, who profess themselves at a loss how to breed their children, and the early corruption of youth is now become so general a complaint, that he cannot be thought wholly impertinent, who brings the consideration of this matter on the stage, and offers something, if it be but to excite others, or afford matter of correction: for errors in education should be less indulged than any. These, like faults in the first concoction, that are never mended in the second or third, carry their afterwards incorrigible taint with them thro’ all the parts and stations of life.
I am so far from being conceited of anything I have here offered, that I should not be sorry, even for your sake, if someone abler and fitter for such a task would in a just treatise of education, suited to our English gentry, rectify the mistakes I have made in this; it being much more desirable to me, that young gentlemen should be put into (that which everyone ought to be solicitous about) the best way of being formed and instructed, than that my opinion should be received concerning it. You will, however, in the meantime bear me witness, that the method here proposed has had no ordinary effects upon a gentleman’s son it was not designed for. I will not say the good temper of the child did not very much contribute to it; but this I think you and the parents are satisfied of, that a contrary usage, according to the ordinary disciplining of children, would not have mended that temper, nor have brought him to be in love with his book, to take a pleasure in learning, and to desire, as he does, to be taught more than those about him think fit always to teach him.
But my business is not to recommend this treatise to you, whose opinion of it I know already; nor it to the world, either by your opinion or