Foreign School Society.

When it was thought, a good while after that occasion, that a more
extensive use might be made of some of the observations, the writing was
begun in the form of a Discourse addressed to an assembly, and commencing
with a sentence from the Bible, to serve as a general indication to the
subject. But after some progress had been made, it became evident that
anything like a comprehensive view of that subject would be incompatible
with the proper limits of such a composition.

In relinquishing, however, the form of a public address, the writer
thought he might be excused for leaving some traces of that character to
remain, in both the cast of expression and the theological sentiment; for
reverting repeatedly to the sentence from Scripture; and for continuing
the use of the plural pronoun, so commodious for the modest egotism of
public discoursers.

In the general design and course of observations, the essay retains the
character of the original discourse, which was, in accordance to the
presumed expectations of a grave assembly, an attempt to display the
importance of the education of the people in reference, mainly, to moral
and religious interests. There are special relations in which their
ignorance or cultivation are of great consequence to the welfare of the
community. Some of these are of indispensable consideration to the
legislator, and to the political economist. But it is in that general and
moral view, in which ignorance in the lower orders is beheld the cause of
their vice, irreligion, and consequent misery, that the subject is
attempted, imperfectly and somewhat desultorily, to be illustrated in the
following pages.