at the most important period, as experience has
proved to my full satisfaction, not legislated for, that is, not duly
provided with suitable and appropriate methods of education. To see
this was one thing, to provide a remedy for it and to _invent plans_
for carrying out that remedy, was another. The systems of Bell and of
Lancaster were then commencing operations, but were quite unsuitable
for children under seven years of age at least, and therefore took
little or no cognizance of that early period, which I had been
inwardly convinced was of such eminent importance. I was destined for
business, and served the usual apprenticeship to become qualified for
it, and also continued in it for a short period on my own account.
Even at this time the thought ever haunted me as to what should be
done for young children. At length the germ was developed at one of
the Sunday Schools, which were then rising into general notice. For
years I attended one of these in London, and here circumstances again
befriended me, regarding the matter so frequently in my thoughts. The
teachers mostly preferred having a class to superintend that knew
something, and I being then a junior, it fell to my lot to have a
class that knew little or nothing. I mean nothing that it was the
object of the Sunday-school to teach. It soon appeared clear to me,
that such a class required different treatment to those more advanced,
and especially the _young_ children. Nobody wanted this class, it was
always "to let," if I did not take it. The result was, I always had
it. Others looked to the post of honour, the Bible-class. I soon found
that to talk to such children as I had to teach, in the manner the
others did to the older and more advanced children, was useless, and
thus I was forced to simplify my mode of teaching to suit their state
of apprehension, and now and then even to amuse them. This succeeded
so well, that in the end my class became the popular class, and I
became still further convinced of the desirableness of an _especial
plan for teaching the very young_. I, however, still thought that the
alphabet should be taught first, with the usual things in their order.
At length, shortly after my marriage, which was rather early in life,
an opportunity presented itself for trying an experiment on a larger
scale; from having explained my views on early education to a friend,
I was solicited to take the superintendence of an asylum for young
children, about to