By this rule is all medicine mix'd, though I'm told
By Avoirdupoise weight 'tis bought and 'tis sold.
But the best of all physic, if I may advise,
Is temperate living and good exercise.

DRY MEASURE.

Two pints will make one quart
Of barley, oats, or rye;
Two quarts one pottle are, of wheat
Or any thing that's dry.

Two pottles do one gallon make,
Two gallons one peck fair,
Four pecks one bushel, heap or brim,
Eight bushels one quarter are.

If, when you sell, you give

Good measure shaken down,
Through motives good, you will receive
An everlasting crown.

ALE AND BEER MEASURE.

Two pints will make one quart,
Four quarts one gallon, strong
Some drink but little, some too much,-
To drink too much is wrong.

Eight gallons one firkin make,
Of liquor that's call'd ale:
Nine gallons one firkin of beer,
Whether 'tis mild or stale.

With gallons fifty-four

A hogshead I can fill:

But hope I never shall drink much,
Drink much whoever will.

WINE, OIL, AND SPIRIT MEASURE.

Two pints will make one quart

Of any wine, I'm told:

Four quarts one gallon are of port

Or claret, new or old.

Forty-two gallons will

A tierce fill to the bung:
And sixty-three's a hogshead full
Of brandy, oil, or rum.

Eighty-four gallons make
One puncheon fill'd to brim,
Two hogsheads make one pipe or butt,
Two pipes will make one tun.

A little wine within

Oft cheers the mind that's sad ;
But too much brandy, rum, or gin,
No doubt is very bad.

From all excess beware,

Which sorrow must attend;
Drunkards a life of woe must share,-
When time with them shall end.

The arithmeticon, I would just remark, may be applied to geometry. Round, square, oblong, &c. &c., may be easily taught. It may also be used in teaching geography. The shape of the earth may be shewn by a ball, the surface by the outside, its revolution on its axis by turning it round, and the idea of day and night may be given by a ball and a candle in a dark-room.

As the construction and application of this instrument is the result of personal, long-continued, and anxious effort, and as I have rarely seen a pirated one made properly or understood, I may express a hope that whenever it is wanted either for schools or nurseries, application will be made for it to my depot.

I have only to add, that a board is placed at the back to keep the children from seeing the balls, except as they are put out; and that the brass figures at the side are intended to assist the master when he is called away, so that he may see, on returning to the frame, where he left off.

The slightest glance at the wood-cut will shew how unjust the observations of the writer of "Schools for

the Industrious Classes, or the Present State of Education amongst the Working People of England," published under the superintendance of the Central Society of Education, are, where he says, "We are willing to assume that Mr. Wilderspin has originated some improvements in the system of Infant School education; but Mr. Wilderspin claims so much that many persons have been led to refuse him that degree of credit to which he is fairly entitled. For example, he claims a beneficial interest in an instrument called the Arithmeticon, of which he says he was the inventor. This instrument was described in a work on arithmetic, published by Mr. Friend forty years ago. The instrument is, however, of much older date; it is the same in principle as the Abacus of the Romans, and in its form resembles as nearly as possible the Swanpan of the Chinese, of which there is a drawing in the Encyclopædia Britanica. Mr. Wilderspin merely invented the name." Now, I defy the writer of this to prove that the Arithmeticon existed before I invented it. I claim no more than what is my due. The Abacus of the Romans is entirely different; still more so is the Chinese Swanpan; if any person will take the trouble to look into the Encyclopædia Britannica, they will see the difference at once, although I never heard of either until they were mentioned in the pamphlet referred to. There are 144 balls on mine, and it is properly simplified for infants with the addition of the tablet, which explains the representative characters as well as the real ones, which are the balls.

I have not yet heard what the Central Society have invented; probably we shall soon hear of the mighty wonders performed by them, from one end of the three kingdoms to the other. Their whole account of the origin of the Infant System is as partial and unjust as it possibly can be. Mr. Simpson, whom they quote, can tell them so, as can also some of the committee of management, whose names I see at the commencement of the work. The Central Society seem to wish to pull me down, as also does the other society to whom refer

ence is made in the same page of which I complain; and I distinctly charge both societies with doing me great injustice; the society complains of my plans without knowing them, the other adopts them without acknowledgment, and both have sprung up fungus-like, after the Infant System had been in existence many years, and I had served three apprenticeships to extend and promote it, without receiving subscriptions or any public aid whatever. It is hard, after a man has expended the essence of his constitution, and spent his children's property for the public good, in inducing people to establish schools in the principal towns in the three kingdoms,—struck at the root of domestic happiness, by personally visiting each town, doing the thing instead of writing about it—that societies of his own countrymen should be so anxious to give the credit to foreigners. Verily it is most true that a Prophet has no honour in his own country. The first public honour I ever received was at Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland, the last was by the Jews in London, and I think there was a space of about twenty years between each.

CHAPTER XIII.

FORM, POSITION, AND SIZE.

Method of instruction, geometrical song-Anecdotes-Size-
Song measure-Observations.

"Geometry is eminently serviceable to improve and strengthen the intellectual faculties."-Jones.

AMONG the novel features of the Infant School System, that of geometrical lessons is the most peculiar. How it happened that a mode of instruction so evidently calculated for the infant mind was so long overlooked, I cannot imagine; and it is still more surprising that, having been once thought of, there should be any doubt as to its utility. Certain it is that the various forms of bodies is one of the first items of natural education, and we cannot err when treading in the steps of Nature. It is undeniable that geometrical knowledge is of great service in many of the mechanic arts, and, therefore, proper to be taught children who are likely to be employed in some of those arts; but, independently of this, we cannot adopt a better method of exciting and strengthening their powers of observation. I have seen a thousand instances, moreover, in the conduct of the children, which have assured me, that it is a very pleasing as well as useful branch of instruction. The children, being taught the first elements of form, and the terms used to express the various figures of bodies, find in its application to objects around them an inexhaustible source of amusement. Streets, houses, rooms, fields, ponds, plates, dishes, tables; in short, every thing they see calls for observation, and affords an opportunity for the application of their geometrical knowledge. Let it not, then, be said that it is beyond their capacity, for it is the simplest and most compre