ep in the right direction;
and its worth must on that account be emphasized, although this was
exaggerated by Miss Edgeworth's filial fondness. There were in those
days no text-books for the first principles of knowledge for the young;
and though education had been a favorite theme with all the
philosophers, from Aristotle to Locke, their systems were too remote for
practical application. The inevitable but lamentable consequence was,
that theories of education were disregarded just by those very persons
who had the training of the young in their hands. They were pleased to
sneer at them as metaphysics. So much space was given in works of this
nature to speculation, so little to practical application of proved and
admitted truths, that the mere word metaphysics sounded to the majority
of readers as a name denoting something perplexing and profound, but
useless as a whole. Yet, as Miss Edgeworth pertinently observed in her
preface to _Harry and Lucy_, after being too much the fashion,
metaphysics had been thrown aside too disdainfully, and their use and
abuse confounded. Without an attentive examination of the operations of
the mind, especially as developed at an early age, every attempt at
systematic education is mere working at random. The great merit of Mr.
and Miss Edgeworth's works may be stated in her own words:--

Surely it would be doing good service to bring into popular form
all that metaphysicians have discovered which can be applied to
practice in education. This was early and long my father's object.
The art of teaching to invent--I dare not say, but of awakening and
assisting the inventive power by daily exercise and excitement, and
by the application of philosophic principles to trivial
occurrences,--he believed might be pursued with infinite advantage
to the rising generation.

The authors of _Practical Education_ did not seek to appeal to grave and
learned persons, like the former writers on these themes, but to the
bulk of mankind, in whose hands, after all, lies their application. In
this series of somewhat rambling essays, of the most miscellaneous
description, there are no abstruse or learned disquisitions, there is
nothing like a process of reasoning from beginning to end; it is
essentially a treatise for the mass. On every page there are remarks for
which previous authorities can be found; original ideas are rare;
nevertheless the whole is expressed so lucid