e useful sciences, by a peculiar attention to
the tempers of the boys, and the dispositions of their parents, by a
flexibility of face, for which I was always remarkable, the assistance
of a northern degree, and a tolerable share of assiduity; I soon
accumulated a large fortune with credit. My eldest daughter I
afterwards married to a favourite usher, resigned to him the school,
and for his service drew up most of the following rules. After his
decease I favoured many others with a copy, who adhered to them with
equally great advantage, and added a few to their number: I therefore
should not acquit myself properly as a citizen of the world, if I did
not give every one an opportunity of seeing them who may have occasion
to use them. Many alterations in the mode of education render them
indeed, at this time, peculiarly necessary.

Mothers, not school-masters, have with great propriety of late, the
sole direction of their children's studies; as also what punishments
shall be inflicted on them; what diversions must be allowed them;
what degree of insolence they may express to their ushers; and what
liberties they may take with their school-fellows. These are
circumstances formerly unknown, and many, by a too great inattention to
them, and an adherence to the ancient plan, have lately been ruined.

There is another inducement to the publication of these rules, which
I must not suppress. The cause of learning declines with the reputation
of its friends. And if we enquire, why the character of an
Academy-Keeper is treated with such general contempt, we shall not find
the true causes to be either superciliousness, pedantry, ignorance, or
venality, as the world maliciously insinuates, but the modesty of these
people, and their disinterested probity; by the former of which they
have unhappily prevented the world from being acquainted with their
merit, and by the latter prevented themselves from emerging out of a
state of poverty and raggedness, which in these golden days cannot be
expected to find much courtesy in the world. In retrieving therefore
their fortunes, we may not only re-establish their characters, but
administer relief to learning and science, which have been wounded
through their sides.

Nor were these my only motives for publishing these papers. Another, and
very considerable one, was the good of the public. The parents of these
times seem duly sensible of the advantages of a good education, and are
rather desir