of a master in conjunction with the mistress.  Many teachers, and other persons who have written on the subject, have talked largely of making improvements, whilst the hints given in this book have been entirely neglected; as this was the first book that ever was written on the subject, and the writer of it the first man that ever brought the thing practically to bear, it sounds a little odd, that people should talk about improvements before they have pointed out the errors of the original inventor.  Others again have borrowed largely from me, and have neither had the good manners nor the common honesty to say from whence they got their information.  Societies have been formed at the eleventh hour, after the infant system had been twenty years in practice, who puff off books written by some of their own members, which do not contain the original idea, whilst my books, for some cause best known to themselves, have never been recommended, or indeed ever mentioned, though I could take page after page from those modern writers on the subject, and justly claim them as my own.  This is not what one ought to expect amongst people who call themselves Christians:  a truly good man is delighted to do justice to his fellow-men, because in doing so, he never fails to obtain justice himself; but there are some persons whose minds are so truly selfish that they cannot see how good can accrue to themselves, if they do what is right to others:  and I regret to say I have met with not a few, who have been engaged in the art of teaching, who have been guilty of the mean and contemptible conduct I have hinted at above, and it is to deter others from falling into the same errors that I have ventured to allude to this subject at all.  It would be invidious to mention names, which I could very easily do, and should this be persisted in, if I am spared, I shall most certainly mention the parties by name.  I would not be understood to say that no improvements can be made in the infant system:  far from it.  No doubt it will be improved, and that to a great extent; but that will only be in process of time, and by practical people, who understand more of the nature of the infant mind than I do, and may hereafter have greater experience than I have had; but they must work hard for it, as I have done, and be doers as well as talkers:  and when I see such improvements made, I trust the Almighty will enable me to be the first to acknowledge them.  At present, however, though I have travelled over a large space, and visited many hundred schools, and also opened many hundred, and have not yet seen the mighty improvements of which I have read so much, and I do beg that those teachers who may be engaged in the system will be kind enough to try my plans, prior to introducing so many crotchets of their own.  They are to recollect we never intended to make prodigies of the little children; it never was our object to teach them things that were only fit for men and women:  the fact must never be lost sight of that they are infants, and that as infants they must be treated.