has been attained with marked success. But one expression might be misleading :his notion about the main use of his collection, that fathers and mothers should use it somewhat as Sunday-school teachers use the notes published for their assistance by their societies.' Parents may read the book with profit and enjoyment, but its main use must be for the children themselves, to whom every Lecture should be a source of stimulating delight.

The Lilliput Lectures first appeared in Good Words for the Young, being published in book form in 1871, by Mr Alex. Strahan. In the present reprint from an unpublished edition, prepared in 1882, all footnotes have been removed; the apologies to grown-up readers omitted, and others incorporated in the text. A very few passages, here and in the Lazy Lessons, &c., have been revised for different reasons.

R. B. J.

Introduction

IN speaking of the young we use very wide and indefinite language. The phrase takes in the boy of fifteen and the baby of three.

In writing these Lectures, I had in view neither the child proper, nor the grown boy or girl. I simply proposed to myself childlike ways of putting certain things. In seeking out such ways I paid no attention to any of the commonplaces. I disregarded all the usual criticism about the mistake there is in 'talking down' to children; because in all my experience of teaching, which is not small, I never found a child (or anybody else) displeased by simple-hearted 'talking down.' An air of self-conscious superiority is quite another matter, and is offensive to children and grown people alike.

9

I also disregarded the usual warnings not to aim above the children's heads. Nearly all creatures that can think at all do actually speculate, more or less nearly, upon the most difficult questions that the human mind can entertain; and I have, times out of number, found a child of seven, by a simple question, hit the very bull's-eye of the difference between a Mill and a Hamilton. I would not wish for better statements of matters which we are accustomed to call 'profound' than I have extracted from young people by the Socratic method, and that without in the least straining their minds. And let it be understood that I am here speaking of ordinary children, such as were in my class at Sunday-school; little ones of seven or eight, who could scarcely

read.

In plain truth, the elements upon the basis of which all the great initial questions must be settled are apprehended by children as well as by grown people. If it were not for the risk of provoking unneces