Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/9

Rh not included,) if it be so far described in its details as to be made available to others, must occupy a good deal of room. In the present volume after advancing some observations applicable to the home economy in general, I have gone no further than to open the subject of a systematic culture of the mind, by suggesting some methods for eliciting, and for enriching, those faculties that are passive, and recipient chiefly, and which, as they are developed early demand the teacher's attention before the time when any strenuous labours ought to be exacted from children.

I wish to secure the attention of some who may be my readers to a point, adverted to more than once in the course of the volume, namely, that although the phrase—Home Education—understood in its primary import, means, of course, the education of a family under the paternal roof; yet, the principles and the methods of instruction propounded in this work are, I hope, such as, with more or less modification, may be applied in all cases where the number assembled around a teacher does not greatly exceed the limits of a large family.

In advancing, as I am now doing the principles and methods of, it would give me much uneasiness to find myself so far misunderstood, as for it to be inferred that I assign