IN THE
Middle and Higher Ranks of Life.
1. It is the duty, and ought to be the pleasure, of age and experienceto warn and instruct youth and to come to the aid of inexperience. Whensailors have discovered rocks or breakers, and have had the good luck toescape with life from amidst them, they, unless they be pirates orbarbarians as well as sailors, point out the spots for the placing ofbuoys and of lights, in order that others may not be exposed to thedanger which they have so narrowly escaped. What man of common humanity,having, by good luck, missed being engulfed in a quagmire or quicksand,will withhold from his neighbours a knowledge of the peril without whichthe dangerous spots are not to be approached?
2. The great effect which correct opinions and sound principles, imbibedin early life, together with the good conduct, at that age, which mustnaturally result from such opinions and principles; the great effectwhich these have on the whole course of our lives is, and must be, wellknown to every man of common observation. How many of us, arrived atonly forty years, have to repent; nay, which of us has not to repent, orhas not had to repent, that he did not, at an earlier age, possess agreat stock of knowledge of that kind which has an immediate effect onour personal ease and happiness; that kind of knowledge, upon which thecheerfulness and the harmony of our homes depend!
3. It is to communicate a stock of this sort of knowledge, inparticular, that this work is intended; knowledge, indeed, relative toeducation, to many sciences, to trade, agriculture, horticulture, law,government, and religion; knowledge relating, incidentally, to allthese; but, the main object is to furnish that sort of knowledge to theyoung which but few men acquire until they be old, when it comes toolate to be useful.
4. To communicate to others the knowledge that I possess has always beenmy taste and my delight; and few, who know anything of my progressthrough life, will be disposed to question my fitness for the task. Talkof rocks and breakers and quagmires and quicksands, who has ever escapedfrom amidst so many as I have! Thrown (by my own will, indeed) on thewide world at a very early age, not more than eleven or twelve years,without