OF CONVERSATIONS ON THE GOSPELS, HELD IN MR. ALCOTT'S SCHOOL; UNFOLDING THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF HUMAN CULTURE. Except a Man be converted and become as a little Child;· - be born again; - JESUS OF NAZARETH. VOLUME I. BOSTON: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1836, By A. BRONSON ALCOTT, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. CAMBRIDGE PRESS: RECORDER'S PREFACE. THOSE Who are familiar with the "Record of a School" will need no explanation of the following conversations. To those who are not it may be necessary to say, that there is a school in Boston, the object of which is to unfold the natures of children, in the true order of their faculties. The recorder of these conversations, being present at the opening and first discipline of this school, thought the facts that transpired before her eyes worthy of being presented to the world, and hence came the "Record of a School." It was intimated, in that record, that Mr. Alcott intended to enter upon a course of readings on the New Testament, in which he would pursue a method based on the same principles as guided the lessons on self-inspection, there recorded. These conversations are the result of that intention, and were recorded, because it was thought that they might prove a model for parents and teachers, who were desirous of giving a spiritual culture to the young; and, also, because Mr. Alcott felt that what the children should freely say, would prove to be a new order of Christian Evidences, by showing the affinity of their natures with that of Jesus. That they have proved to be evidence to many persons who have listened to them; and that some parents and teachers have acknowledged them to be models of the true method of approaching children on these subjects, is a sufficient reason why they should be published. But, in order to prevent misapprehension, it may be necessary to say, that these conversations are not to be taken as complete representations of Mr. Alcott's views of the subjects introduced; still less are they to be regarded as any intimation of the recorder's; who, though occasionally an interlocutor, was, in general, a passive instrument, and especially when she felt that she differed from Mr. Alcott, on the subject in hand, as was sometimes the case. |
