buoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to the
danger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity,
having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand,
will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without which
the dangerous spots are not to be approached?

2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibed
in early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which must
naturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effect
which these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, well
known to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived at
only forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, or
has not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess a
great stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect on
our personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which the
cheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!

3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, in
particular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative to
education, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law,
government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to all
these; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to the
young which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes too
late to be useful.

4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always been
my taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progress
through life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talk
of rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escaped
from amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on the