ADVERTISEMENT. 6 DURING very nearly a quarter of a century the Editor of The Weekly Volume' has been associated with various literary undertakings, which have had in view, more or less ostensibly, the furtherance of the object which has long since become the business, as it is the pleasure, of his life-the general diffusion of knowledge and a love of letters. Looking back upon these things, in which there is much pain as well as happiness in the retrospect the pain being that some loved ones of his fellow-labourers have no longer to share in the advancement of that principle which has become more animating as its success is more assured-the happiness being that, however sanguine the hopes, and feeble the modes of carrying out the purposes, of himself and his early friends, there were certain seeds then sown which have since produced fruit-looking back upon these things, the Editor of The Weekly Volume' is tempted to collect a few scattered papers together, which were written by him at various periods of his life, chiefly with the view of doing something to advance the Education of the People. Some, however, are to be regarded as purposeless recreations of vacant hours, or expressions of personal feelings and recollections. He has preferred mostly to select for this Volume of Varieties,' those contributions to several periodical works which are of an amusing rather than a didactic character. The papers are selected principally from the following periodical publications: A VOLUME OF VARIETIES. BOOKS FOR ALL READERS. [The following general remarks were published in 1828. Since that period vast strides have been made in the attainment of the great object which was then almost for the first time attempted; but the principles upon which the diffusion of sound popular literature should be built appear to the writer to remain unaltered. The paper is republished with some omissions of a temporary nature.] Ir is nearly twenty years since the first impulse was given to the general intellect of this country, by the introduction of a new mechanical system for teaching reading and writing, by cheaper and more efficacious methods than those previously in use. It would be beside our purpose, at this period, when elementary education has become an established object with all the respectable and benevolent portion of society, whatever be their political party or religious denomination, to attempt to discuss the relative merits of either of those systems, which were originally so formidably opposed to each other. It is enough for us that the children educated under either system are well disciplined; that the key of the treasures of wisdom is put into their hands; that their intellectual faculties are developed, so that, making allowances for all the temptations of individual frailty, the mass of the population may be directed to those pure gratifications of the understanding upon which their own self-respect may B |