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EDITOR'S PREFACE.

THE valuable and interesting little work now offered to the public, fell into the Editor's hands a short time ago, during her residence in Ireland; and anxious to be the means of diffusing more widely, thoughts so just, so pure, and intelligent, she has obtained permission to reprint them.

It was originally her desire to have appended a slight sketch of the lamented Author's life, which is said to have been eventful and interesting; but this wish has been readily relinquished, under the expectation that a memoir, with collected

remains in prose and verse, will shortly be published, by a member of Mrs. Trench's own family.

The work has been republished without any alteration in the text. The Editor is, therefore, answerable for the notes alone; in one or two of which she has ventured to express a difference of opinion from the gifted Author; in others, to confirm or develop her views more fully.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

HAD not a few copies of the following Thoughts been printed, and privately circulated, some years since, I could myself have almost believed that I had insensibly borrowed the greatest part of them from a more important work on the same subject, which I have only just seen. However, as I have sometimes presented the same truths in a different dress, I am not deterred from offering to young mothers this slighter attempt.

I may be thought to refrain from giving the title of the work I allude to, lest I

should seem to challenge a comparison unfavourable to mine. I do refrain from it, lest some readers might erroneously suspect that I intend to convey an accusation, when I only wish to offer an

excuse.

THOUGHTS OF A PARENT.

CHAPTER I.

THE AIM OF EDUCATION USUALLY CONTRACTED TO MINOR INTERESTS AND ADVANTAGES.

THE first object of education is to train up an immortal soul. The second (but second at an immeasurable distance) is, to do this in a manner most conducive to human happiness; never sacrificing either the interests of the future world to those of the present, or the welfare of the man to the inclinations of the child: errors not dissimilar in complexion, though so awfully different in the importance of their results.

This simple position seems so evident, as to require neither repetition nor enforcement; yet experience proves how little it is acted upon in education and among those who do act upon it, how many discover a strange species of false shame in confessing their motive.

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