Upwards of twenty-five thousand children have been now under my own care, in various parts of the United Kingdom, whose age has not exceeded six years; myself, my daughters, and my agents, have organized many score of schools, and thus I have had opportunities of studying the infant mind and heart, such as none of my contemporaries have ever possessed.
Still I am aware I have much to learn.

I am far less satisfied with the extent of my knowledge, and far less confident of its perfection and completeness now than I was in the earlier part of my course.
The whole energies of my mind, however, having been thrown upon the subject, and the whole of my time for the third of a century having been zealously devoted to it, I trust the volume will contain knowledge of a more plain, simple, and practical character than is elsewhere to be found:--perhaps it may not be presumption to say than _can_ elsewhere be found.

Should I have the pleasure to labour for years to come, I trust I shall have much more to communicate on the subject.
Two editions of this work in its former state have been printed in German; and it has also been reprinted in America.

I have, however, felt it due to the friends of education, to make this volume as complete as possible, and though still occasionally engaged in superintending and organizing schools, I have felt it necessary to revise this eighth edition very carefully throughout, and commence it with a new and additional chapter.
_Moor Cottage, Westgate Common, Wakefield, Nov.

1552_.
A FEW TESTIMONIALS TO THE INFANT SYSTEM.
It is said that we are aiming at carrying education too far; that we are drawing it out to an extravagant length, and that, not satisfied with dispensing education to children also have attained what in former times was thought a proper age, we are now anxious to educate mere infants, incapable of receiving benefit from such instruction.
This objection may be answered in two ways.