CHAPTER XXII.

Religious controversies--Ecclesiastical dispute--Cholera--Preventive
measures--Reform Bill, 474

CHAPTER XXIII.

Visitors in the churchyard--The Ladies' Walk--First
interview--Friendship--Love--Second visit to Edinburgh--Linlithgow
Bank--Favourable reception of "Scenes and Legends"--Marriage, 497

CHAPTER XXIV.

Married life at Cromarty--Ichthyolitic deposit of Old Red
Sandstone--Correspondence with Agassiz and Murchison--Happy
evenings--Death of eldest child, 522

CHAPTER XXV.

Voluntary principle--Position of the Establishment--Letter to
Lord Brougham--Invitation to Edinburgh--Editorship of the
_Witness_--Introduction to Dr. Chalmers--Visit from an old
friend--Removal to Edinburgh, 541

TO THE READER.

It is now nearly a hundred years since Goldsmith remarked, in his little
educational treatise, that "few subjects have been more frequently
written upon than the education of youth." And during the century which
has well-nigh elapsed since he said so, there have been so many more
additional works given to the world on this fertile topic, that their
number has been at least doubled. Almost all the men who ever taught a
few pupils, with a great many more who never taught any, deem themselves
qualified to say something original on education; and perhaps few books
of the kind have yet appeared, however mediocre their general tone, in
which something worthy of being attended to has not actually been said.
And yet, though I have read not a few volumes on the subject, and have
dipped into a great many more, I never yet found in them the sort of
direction or encouragement which, in working out my own education, I
most needed. They insisted much on the various modes of teaching others,
but said nothing--or, what amounted to the same thing, nothing to the
purpose--on the best mode of teaching one's-self. And as my
circumstances and position, at the time when I had most occasion to
consult them, were those of by much the largest class of the people of
this and every other civilized country--for I was one of the many
millions who need to learn, and yet have no one to teach them--I could
not help deeming the omission a serious one. I have since come to think,
however, that a formal treatise on self-culture might fail to supply
the want. Curiosity must be awakened ere it c