altogether, so as better to attract their attention simultaneously.  This was first attempted by placing them at one end of the room, but it was found inconvenient; then parallel lines were chalked across the floor, and they sat down in order on these; but though attention was gained, the posture was unsuitable.  Cords were then stretched across to keep them in proper rank, and various experiments tried with seats, until they ended in the construction of a permanently fixed gallery of regularly ascending seats.  This implement or structure has now come into almost universal use in infant schools, and, in fact, they are considered incomplete without one; and also they are in much request in schools for children of every age.  To give an idea of number through the eye, I had recourse at first to buttons strung on strings across a frame, and this led to the substitution of wooden balls on wires, and other improvements through experience, until the arithmeticon, hereafter described, was fully formed.  It having been found a useful instrument, the credit of contriving it has been impugned, by liking it to the Roman Abacus and Chinese Swanpan; but were those instruments like in structure, or designed especially to teach the multiplication table? if not, they are no more similar than “a hawk to a hand-saw.”  The former I have never seen, and the first time I saw one of the Chinese instruments was some five or six years ago in the Museum at Hull.  The clapping of hands, the moving of arms, marching in order, and various other motions, all of which are now become the especial characteristics of an infant-school, were gradually introduced as circumstances or nature dictated, partly to obtain simultaneous action and obedience, and partly to provide that physical exercise which beings so young perpetually require, and which they are constantly taking when left free and unrestrained.  It is not requisite to make mention here of the swing—­the play grounds—­the flower borders—­and various other matters which are fully treated of in the following portions of this work, further than to add, that they are now generally adopted in schools, and especially in some of the principal training establishments in the British Empire.  As these plans and instruments are used by a certain religious infant-school society, which professes to have imported its system from Switzerland, where such things never had their origin, I feel it necessary most emphatically to repeat, that they are entirely of my own invention.

After the severe bereavement mentioned above, I still persevered in my favourite study, and learned more from my own children than I did before, having to act in the double capacity of father and mother.  I am well aware of the loss my children sustained by the above calamity.  In the matter of training, nothing can replace a good mother,—­and such indeed she eminently was!  I felt the heavy stroke more severely, and my children did also; but I consoled myself with the reflection, that my loss