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It is intended equally as a MONITOR to youth designed for the UNIVERSITY, the COUNTING HOUSE, the PUBLIC OFFICE, the ARMY, or the NAVY; but principally for those who come under the description of APPRENTICES.

It having been observed, that more young people are led into vice from the want of some attractive, useful study, to engage their inconstant minds during the hours of relaxation or absence from business, than from sudden temptation, or any other cause, I have subjoined to this Work an ESSAY ON the extensive utility, advantages, and amusement of MATHEMATICAL LEARNING; the subject being treated in such an attractive way as to render it, E flatter myself, a strong stimulus, or incitement, to the youthful mind to engage in the study of it. Parents will have it greatly in their power to second my endeavours, by directing their children's attention and application to this innocent, amusing, and incalculably useful species of learning; and masters, to whom they are placed out as apprentices, might also use their advice and influence, with much effect, to the same desirable end.

Sept. 1, 1801.

D. MORRICE.

INTRODUCTION.

IN addition to the Improved Plan of Teaching which I have lately offered to public notice, there has always appeared to me to be something wanted, on a similar principle, as a GUIDE to YOUTH from the Academy to Manhood, arranged in that attractive and useful way, in which the subject may, with so much advantage, be placed before them.

Precepts resemble pictures; they have form and colour, but want life and motion; and, therefore, to render them truly efficacious, they ought to be enforced by obvious and unquestionable examples.

Be what you SEE, however, carries with it a much more commanding force than, be what you

READ.

Most of the moral Treatises which I have read, are by no means reduced to the level of juvenile understanding, or properly adapted to attract and fix their attention by practical and interesting observations, without which such Tracts can be of no real service to youth.

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It is extremely well known to every thinking person, that mere dull morality, and formal religious gravity, will disgust young minds, and deter

them

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