vi INTRODUCTION. 
a vanity as foolish as illjudged and impolitic—a kind of craft 
and plagiary, and usurped pretension to learning and fame, 
evincing as much weakness as egotism—as much shallowness 
of wit, as that foolish bird the ostrich discovers when he puts 
his head into a bush, and because he does not see the eyes 
which are watching him, stupidly imagines he is himself not 
Visible in his trick—a kind of mean imposition on the uninform- 
ed minds of the generous and confiding pupils of our schools ; 
” and an affront to the riper minds of the profession, when given 
to their indignant eyes in a turgid and syllabub production 
claiming to be a sober treatise for their instruction—a line of 
conduct on the whole view which compromits the honor of 
such teacher or author, andrenders him obnoxious to that meri- 
ted animadversion of his brethren which s Joverwhelm any 
sensitive. mind vith. humiliating chagrin. If these observations 
be enigmatical to you, they will not ee so to the profession, — 
to whom the name and work which present a solution of the 
riddle are imprinted in a character so conspicuous that he who 
vans may read—a circumstance at once the justification of 
these sentiments, and the severest censure which could be de- 
vised of the vaunting conduct they condemn, If they be con- 
strued into throwing a gauntlet into the ring of the medi “a3 : 
teachers and writers of America, far or near, let him by whose 
feet it closest ays, take it up. He will find me prompt and- 
prepared, to enter the lists with him, and by the issue let the 
profession adjudge whether the rebuke has been sustained. 
None other will cast his eyes. on such a stake with any other: 
feeling, th han to raise them up to him who beholds it at his 
feet with an aspect at once ridiculous, detected and guill 
Bair play j is sajewel. If we fain would, as we fairly may, claim 
