inese, of which there is a drawing in the Encyclopaedia
Brittanica. Mr. Wilderspin merely invented the name." Now, I defy
the writer of this to prove that the Arithmeticon existed before I
invented it. I claim no more than what is my due. The Abacus of the
Romans is entirely different; still more so is the Chinese Swanpan;
if any person will take the trouble to look into the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, they will see the difference at once, although I never
heard of either until they were mentioned in the pamphlet referred to.
There are 144 balls on mine, and it is properly simplified for infants
with the addition of the tablet, which explains the representative
characters as well as the real ones, which are the balls.

I have not yet heard what the Central Society have invented; probably
we shall soon hear of the mighty wonders performed by them, from one
end of the three kingdoms to the other. Their whole account of the
origin of the Infant System is as partial and unjust as it possibly
can be. Mr. Simpson, whom they quote, can tell them so, as can
also some of the committee of management, whose names I see at the
commencement of the work. The Central Society seem to wish to pull me
down, as also does the other society to whom reference is made is the
same page of which I complain; and I distinctly charge both societies
with doing me great injustice; the society complains of my plans
without knowing them, the other adopts them without acknowledgment,
and both have sprung up fungus-like, after the Infant System had been
in existence many years, and I had served three apprenticeships to
extend and promote it, without receiving subscriptions or any public
aid whatever. It is hard, after a man has expended the essence of his
constitution, and spent his children's property for the public good,
in inducing people to establish schools in the principal towns in
the three kingdoms,--struck at the root of domestic happiness, by
personally visiting each town, doing the thing instead of writing
about it--that societies of his own countrymen should be so anxious to
give the credit to foreigners. Verily it is most true that a Prophet
has no honour in his own country. The first public honour I ever
received was at Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, the last was
by the Jews in London, and I think there was a space of about twenty
years between each.

CHAPTER XIII.

FORM, POSITION, AND SIZE.

_Method of instruction, geom