MENTAL ILLUMINATION AND MORAL IMPROVEMENT OF MANKIND; OR, AN INQUIRY INTO THE MEANS BY WHICH A GENERAL ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS. BY THOMAS DICK, LL. D. AUTHOR OF "THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER," BY THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE," &c. NEW-YORK: " BEVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY HARVARD ROBINSON, PRATT & CO. 259 PEARL STREET. 1836. UNIVERSITY PREFACE. THE train of thought which runs through the following Work has been familiar to the Author's mind for upwards of twenty-six years. Nearly twenty years ago, he intended to address the public on this subject; but he is now convinced that, at that period, the attempt would have been premature, and consequently unsuccessful. He took several opportunities, however, of suggesting a variety of hints on the necessity of new modeling and improving the system of education-particularly in the London "Monthly Magazine," the "Edinburgh Christian Instructor," the "Christian Recorder," the "Perth Courier," and several other publications, as well as in several parts of his former Volumes. Of late years the attention of the public has been directed to this subject more than at any former period, and even the British Legislature has been constrained to take into consideration the means by which the benefits of education may be more extensively enjoyed. It is therefore to be hoped, that the subject will now undergo a deliberate and unbiased consideration, corresponding to its interest and importance. In endeavoring to establish a new system of education-although every requisite improvement could not, in the first instance, be effected, yet nothing short of a comprehensive and efficient system should be the model after which we ought to copy, and to which all our arrangements should gradually approximate. To attempt merely to extend the present, in many respects inefficient and limited system, without adopting those improvements which experience and the progress of society have rendered necessary, would be only to postpone to an indefinite period what must ultimately be established, if society is expected to go on in its progress towards perfection. In the following Volume the Author has exhibited a brief outline of the whole series of instructions requisite for man, considered as an intelligent and moral agent destined to immortality-from the earliest dawn of reason to the period of manhood. |