the most dangerous, was left to grapple nearly alone with the wide
world and the beings in it, with little of either parental guidance.
It was then I saw the immense importance and advantage of early
impressions. To me they were of incalculable benefit, and no doubt
led, when I became a man, to the thoughts which ended in the
development and practical working of the Infant System and method of
education.

Schools for infants then existed, but what were they? Simply
dame-schools, with the hornbook for boys and girls, and perhaps a
little sewing for the latter. Their sign was--"Children taught to read
and work here," and their furniture the cap and bells, the rod in
pickle, and a corner for dunces. The finishing stroke was seen in the
parlour of the inn, or the farm-house, in the shape of needlework as a
samplar;--"Lydia Languish, her work, done at ---- school, in the year
of our Lord, 1809." Such were the schools in country places then in
existence, the little ones doing nothing. In after-life, I thought
a remedy was required and might be found, and therefore set about
working it out. How it was done shall be hereafter explained.

I knew my own infant state had been a happy one, and I wondered to see
children crying to go to school, when learning had been such a delight
to me. But I soon ceased to wonder when I was sent there myself. At my
first school I can truly say I learnt nothing, except it be that I had
especially the sense of feeling. I often had raps with the cane on the
head, across the shoulders, and on the hand, and I found it was mainly
for not learning what the teacher had _forgotten to teach me_. The
terms used were "master" and "mistress," and they were tolerably
appropriate as far as I was concerned, for to me both became objects
of terror, so much so, that for the first time in my life, I really