The amount of solid information that may be given to an infant by a wise and judicious mother, during the first two years only, would appear to many persons astonishing.  I have as clear a recollection of what my mother taught me at two years old, as I have of that which she taught me at the age of six.  The facts crowd upon me so fast that I scarcely know where to stop.  Those lessons were the germs of the inventions and babyisms—­the hand-clapping, arm-twisting, and the like—­with which the infants are so delighted in their schools, and which, at the time they were developed, about a third of a century since, were scouted, and the inventor looked upon as a good natured simpleton, or a well-meaning fool.  I have a rather vivid recollection of this fact, but in the end, as we proceeded, many who came to sneer, went away with very different feelings.  The plans were for infants, for infants they answered well, but I wish I could say that no excresences had grown upon them.

Now the ends to be answered in Infant Education, as intended by me, are as follows.  First, to feed the child’s faculties with suitable food; Second,—­to simplify and explain everything, so as to adapt it properly to those faculties; Third, not to overdo anything, either by giving too much instruction, or instruction beyond their years, and thus over-excite the brain, and injure the faculties; and, Fourth, ever to blend both exercise and amusement with instruction at due intervals, which is readily effected by a moderate amount of singing, alternating with the usual motions and evolutions in the schoolroom, and the unfettered freedom of the play-ground.  If these rules be attended to, the following results are certain,—­a higher state of physical, mental, and moral health.  Physical health is essential to mental vigour if it is to come to manhood.  If the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual constitution be properly acted upon, fed, and trained, it adds to the happiness of the child; but if this is not done, it becomes miserable, and as a consequence restless, troublesome, and mischievous.  Such facts were made very evident to me by the infants under my care in the earlier part of my career, and also have been fully confirmed throughout it, and they have forced me as it were to that more lively, interesting, and amusing mode of instruction, which I have through life endeavoured to propagate.  I found children to be highly delighted with pictures and object-lessons; hence their value and high importance is so strongly insisted on in all my books, and the best methods of using them distinctly laid down.  The trouble of rightly using such lessons has caused them to be almost entirely laid aside in very many existing infant schools, and in too many instances the mere learning and repeating of sounds by rote, or what may very properly be called the “parrot system,” has been introduced in their place.  But I yet hope that the good sense of the public will in the end remedy such defects.  In such cases the memory