dangers and difficulties of such an undertaking.

Indeed, in all sciences the grand difficulty has been to ascertain facts-
-a difficulty which, in the science of education, peculiar circumstances
conspire to increase. Here the objects of every experiment are so
interesting that we cannot hold our minds indifferent to the result. Nor
is it to be expected that many registers of experiments, successful and
unsuccessful, should be kept, much less should be published, when we
consider that the combined powers of affection and vanity, of partiality
to his child and to his theory, will act upon the mind of a parent, in
opposition to the abstract love of justice, and the general desire to
increase the wisdom and happiness of mankind. Notwithstanding these
difficulties, an attempt to keep such a register has actually been made.
The design has from time to time been pursued. Though much has not been
collected, every circumstance and conversation that have been preserved
are faithfully and accurately related, and these notes have been of great
advantage to the writer of the following stories.

The question, whether society could exist without the distinction of
ranks, is a question involving a variety of complicated discussions,
which we leave to the politician and the legislator. At present it is
necessary that the education of different ranks should, in some respects,
be different. They have few ideas, few habits in common; their peculiar
vices and virtues do not arise from the same causes, and their ambition
is to be directed to different objects. But justice, truth, and humanity
are confined to no particular rank, and should be enforced with equal
care and energy upon the minds of young people of every station; and it
is hoped that these principles have never been forgotten in the following
pages.