But the great misfortune is, that they who need instruction, are not qualified to choose their instructor; and many who must make this choice for their children, have no adequate means of ascertaining either the qualifications of such as offer themselves, or the comparative merits of the different methods by which they profess to teach.

Hence this great branch of learning, in itself too comprehensive for the genius or the life of any one man, has ever been open to as various and worthless a set of quacks and plagiaries as have ever figured in any other.

There always have been some who knew this, and there may be many who know it now; but the credulity and ignorance which expose so great a majority of mankind to deception and error, are not likely to be soon obviated.

With every individual who is so fortunate as to receive any of the benefits of intellectual culture, the whole process of education must begin anew; and, by all that sober minds can credit, the vision of human perfectibility is far enough from any national consummation.
14.

Whatever any may think of their own ability, or however some might flout to find their errors censured or their pretensions disallowed; whatever improvement may actually have been made, or however fondly we may listen to boasts and felicitations on that topic; it is presumed, that the general ignorance on the subject of grammar, as above stated, is too obvious to be denied.