re
enrich you daily, as your Capacities and your Years increase; and
may he add bountifully of the Favours of his Left Hand, Riches and
Honour. May his Grace make you so large a Return of all the Kindness
I have received in your Family, as may prevail above the fondest
Hopes of your Parents, and even exceed the warmest Prayers of

_Your most Affectionate Monitor and obliged Servant in the daily
Views of a future World_,

I. WATTS.

Theobalds,

June 18.
1715.

PREFACE
To all that are concerned in the Education of Children.

My Friends,

It is an awful and important charge that is committed to you. The
wisdom and welfare of the succeeding generation are intrusted with
you beforehand, and depend much on your conduct. The seeds of misery
or happiness in this world, and that to come, are oftentimes sown
very early, and therefore whatever may conduce to give the minds of
children a relish for vertue and religion, ought in the first place
to be proposed to you.

Verse was at first design'd for the service of God, tho' it hath
been wretchedly abused since. The ancients among the Jews and the
Heathens taught their children and disciples the precepts of
morality and worship in verse. The children of Israel were commanded
to learn the words of the song of Moses, Deut. 31. 19,30. And we are
directed in the New Testament, not only to sing with grace in the
heart, but to teach and admonish one another by hymns and songs,
Eph. 5. 19. and there are these four advantages in it:

1. There is a greater delight in the very learning of truths and
duties this way. There is something so amusing and entertaining in
rhymes and metre, that will incline children to make this part of
their business a diversion. And you may turn their very duty into a
reward, by giving them the privilege of learning one of these songs
every week, if they fulfil the business of the week well, and
promising them the book itself when they have learned ten or twenty
songs out of it.

2. What is learnt in verse is longer retained in memory, and sooner
recollected. The like sounds and the like number of syllables
exceedingly assist the remembrance. And it may often happen, that
the end of a song running in the mind may be an effectual means to
keep off some temptation, or to incline to some duty, when a word of
scripture is not upon the thoughts.

3. This will be a constant furniture for the minds of children, that
they may have something to th