PRACTICAL EDUCATION. BY MARIA EDGEWORTH, AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FOR LITERARY LADIES," &c. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, AND SOLD BY THE PRINCIPAL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE 1835. еру PREFACE. We shall not imitate the invidious example of some authors, who think it necessary to destroy the edifices of others, in order to clear the way for their own. We have no peculiar system to support, and, consequently, we have no temptation to attack the theories of others; and we have chosen the title of "Practical Education," to point out that we rely entirely upon practice and experience. To make any progress in the art of education, it must be patiently reduced to an experimental science: we are fully sensible of the extent and difficulty of this undertaking, and we have not the arrogance to imagine, that we have made any considerable progress in a work which the labours of many generations may, perhaps, be insufficient to complete; but we lay before the public the result of our experiments, and in many instances the experiments themselves. In pursuing this part of our plan, we have sometimes descended from that elevation of style which the reader might expect in a quarto volume; we have frequently been obliged to record facts concerning children which may seem trifling, and to enter into a minuteness of detail which may appear unnecessary. No anecdotes, however, have been admitted without due deliberation; nothing has been introduced to gratify the idle curiosity of others, or to indulge our own feelings of domestic partiality. In what we have written upon the rudiments of science, we have pursued an opposite plan; so far from attempting to teach them in detail, we refer our readers to the excellent treatises on the different branches of science, and on the various faculties of the human mind, which |