PREFACE. was intended, so that those tules for the conduct of the understanding which are most necessary, should be set in several lights, that they might with-more. frequent and more force impress the soul:. it shall be sufficiently satisfied with the good humour and lenity of my readers, if they will please to regard these papers as parcels of imperfect sketches, which were design- ed by a sadden .pencil, and in a thousand leisure moments, to be one day collected into landscapes of some little "prospects is the regions of learning, and in the world of common life, pointing out the tiniest and most fruitful spots, as well as the rocks and wildernesses, and tiah'!ess moasscste the country. '- Out I feel age advancing upon me, and my health is insuft ciao to perfect what I had designed,. to increase and amplify these remarks,: to confirm and improve these rules, and to illuminatethe several pages with richer and more beautiful variety ofexamples. The subject is almost endless and new writers. is the present and in following ages may still find suit.: çittrt taffies,, steaknesses,and dangers.among ntanitintl, to be represented iii such a manner as to guard youth against them. . '! hese hints, sunk as they are, I. hopemay be rendered some way oce- ful to..persons in younger years, who will favour them with a perusal, and, who would ,seek the cultivation of their own understandings in the early days óf life. Perhaps they may find something here which may awakea latest genius, -anddirect the studies of a willing mind. Perhaps it may point out tu. a student now and then, what may employ the most usefid labours of his thoughts,. and accelerate his diligence in the most momentous inquiries. Per-. haps a sprightly youthmay here meet with sotnething to guard or warn hiss against mistakes, and withhold him atother times from those pursuits whicú are like to be `fruitless and disappointing. -Letjt be observed also, that in our age several ofthe ladies pursue science With success:; and others of them are desirous. of improving their reason even in'eommon. affairs of life, as well as the men : yet the characterswhich arc.itere drawn occasionally, are almost universally applied to one sex ç but if any of the other shall find a character which suits them, they may b.y} a charge of the termination, apply and assume it to themselves, aiÇÏ aOeept the instruction, the admonition, or the applause which is design iii it. fiì,ere is yet another thing which it is necessarymy reader should be in- formed of ; but whether he will call it fortunate or unhappy, f know not. It isse do rätly evident that the book consistsof two parts : The first lays down rei;iarks and rules how we niayattain useful knowledge ourselves; and the sepónd,' howwe may best communicate it to others. These were both de- sít sed tti be printed in this volume : but a manuscript which lath been near twenty years in handmay be easily supposed to allow of Such difference in the hand-writing, so many lines altered, so many things interlined, and so Many paragraphs,arid pages here and there inserted, that it was not easy tó etmnpute the number of sheets that it would make in. print: and it now ap- pears, that the remarksand rulesabout the communication of knowledge be- ing excluded here, they must be loft to another volume: wherein will be con tinned varioú*óbservatiois relating to niethtids of instruction, the style and inanner of it, the way of convincing other persons, of guarding youth against prejudices, of treating and managing the prejudices of then, of the use and abuse of authority, of education, and of the various things in which children and youth Amid he instructed, of their proper business and diver- sions, and of the degrees of liberty and restraint therein, &c. Of all which ï had once designeda more complete treatise; but my years advancing, I now despair to finish it : The essays er chapters on these subjects being already written, if' I atn favoured with a tolerable degree of health, will be put to the press, Whenthe favourable acceptance. of tilts first part shall give sufficient encou-' tageutent to proceed.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=