CHAPTER I.
RETROSPECT OF MY CAREER.
_Days and scenes of childhood--Parental care--Power of early impressions--School experience--Commencement in business--Sunday-school teaching and its results--Experiment on a large scale--Development of plans and invention of implements--Heavy bereavement--Propagation of the system of education, in the neighborhood of London, and ultimately in most of the principal places in England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland--Misapprehension and perversion of the principles of infant education--Signs of advancement--Hope for the future_.
* * * * * Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise, We love the play-place of our early days; The scene is touching."-- _Cowper_ "What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun ?"--_Ecclesiastes i.

3_.
* * * * * How came you to think of the Infant School system of teaching ?--is a question that I have often been asked; and my friends think it advisable that it should, in part at least, be answered.

I proceed therefore, in compliance with their wishes, to give some little of the required information in this place, as perhaps it may throw light upon, or explain more clearly, the fundamental principles laid down and advocated throughout this volume.

In few words, then, I would reply,--_circumstances_ forced me to it.

Born an only child, under peculiar circumstances, and living in an isolated neighbourhood, I had no childish companions from infancy; I was, consequently, thrown much on my own resources, and early became a _thinker_, and in some measure a contriver too.