REMARKS. 



In presenting this abridgement of the well known " Animal 

 Kingdom" of the Baron Cuvier to those who are charged with 

 one of the most honourable and responsible offices of the 

 Republic, that of directing the education and forming the 

 minds of those into whose keeping its future prosperity and 

 happiness must be inevitably committed, I beg leave to 

 anticipate the possible charge of interested adulation, by de- 

 claring that 1 have no pecuniary concern in the work, which 

 is, exclusively and entirely, the property of its enterprising 

 publishers. 



To say that I am not interested in its adoption by our 

 Teachers, would be false, for 1 must confess I look anxiously 

 for that event, but from other motives than the " auri fames.'* 



The schools of continental Europe have long been supplied 

 with works on the Natural Sciences, more particularly so call- 

 ed, expressly prepared for that purpose by order of Govern- 

 ment, while here they are as yet among the desiderata. A 

 little reflection will soon convince every intelligent mind, that 

 an elementary course of Zoology may be pursued by the pupil, 

 without interfering with the usual matters to which alone his 

 attention is at present directed, and that of course the argu- 

 ment of " time lost" falls to the ground. But when care- 

 ful investigation shall have convinced it, that while of all 

 studies the one in question tends most powerfully to strengthen 

 the memory, exercise the judgment, discipline tlie mind, and 

 bring every intellectual faculty of the pupil into a state of the 

 greatest activity, it also tends to elevate his moral character to 



