Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by

A. B. ALCOTT,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CAMBRIDGE:

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

THE great interest inspired by Miss Alcott's

"Little Men" has led to the inquiry if ever there was or could be a school like Plumfield; and she has proposed the republication of the "Record of a School," which was published thirty-eight years ago, and which suggested some of the scenes described in "Little Men."

In a note that lies before me Miss Alcott says: "The methods of education so successfully tried in the Temple long ago are so kindly welcomed now, -even the very imperfect hints in the story,- that I cannot consent to receive the thanks and commendations due to another.

"Not only is it a duty and a pleasure, but there is a certain fitness in making the childish fiction of the daughter play the grateful part of herald to the wise and beautiful truths of the father, -truths which, for thirty years, have been silently, helpfully living in the hearts and memories of the pupils who

never have forgotten the influences of that time and teacher."

In acceding to this proposition, I find myself, however, in the somewhat embarrassing position of seeming to affirm some crude ideas of my own, inevitably mingled with the narrative, and which in thirty-six years have given place to clearer ones. While my maturer age indorses the instinct which led me to set forth so lovingly this actual and most genuine outgrowth of Mr. Alcott's mind, and I believe with him now as then - that education must be moral, intellectual, and spiritual, as well as physical, from the very beginning of life, I have come to doubt the details of his method of proce dure; and I think that he will not disagree with me that Froebel's method of cultivating children through artistic production, in the childish sphere of affection and fancy, is a healthier and more effective way than self-inspection, for at least those years of a child's life before the age of seven.

But while I say this in justice to my own maturer ideas of education, which at the present moment I am very much engaged in propagating, and would embody in institutions, I have a sacred respect for the experiment made by Mr. Alcott. I believe his school was a marked benefit to every child with