nd then they should be appropriately paid;
but if _any_ are to be deemed suitable, and if the having them at a
low rate be a special reason for their engagement, it would be better
at once to revert to the old system, than to destroy, by such means,
the public confidence in the plans now suggested.

I entertain a full conviction that the infant system will flourish
most where I once least expected its adoption: I mean in Scotland,
because of the high importance attached to the essential
qualifications of teachers, and because of the attention and kindness
which they continually receive.

It is to be lamented that most of the schools connected with the
established church are managed by women only, whilst the schools
connected with the dissenters are generally conducted by a man and
woman; the consequence is, that the children educated under the
dissenters will be better taught than those connected with the
established church, which is an error I should be glad to see remedied
as soon as possible. I have no need to speak in favour of infant
school masters, as many of them have been the greatest enemies I ever
had, whilst on the contrary, the mistresses have generally been very
friendly to me, and not been subject to those petty jealousies which
the masters have too frequently evinced; nevertheless, the subject
treated of in this place involves a principle which cannot be conceded
without doing great injury to the infant system, and on those grounds
I advocate the necessity 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 me