_A Little Book for Little Children_, by Thomas White, minister of the Gospel, had an astonishing run, for instance; there were at least a dozen editions; but it was embellished with choice woodcuts of the Catnach school, and enlivened by a string of stories which, if they are not vapid and silly, are simply outrageous and revolting. The sole redeeming feature is, that among the alphabets occurs what is sometimes called "Tom Thumb's Alphabet,"--"A was an Archer, and shot at a Frog,"--which is not found in the earlier primers, so far as I know, and may have been specially written by White or for him. But the numerous experimental essays of ambitious schoolmasters and other friends to the cause of learning which found their way into type at various times, were, as a rule, speedily consigned to oblivion; the production of a successful school-book was a task demanding a rare union of tact in structure with influence in initiative quarters; and Lily's Primer, itself based on the labours of his predecessors, was generally adopted by the endowed schools throughout England, Wales and Scotland at first, and indeed till somewhere in the early years of the eighteenth century, with some modifications of detail and spelling, but at last in the form of the Eton or the Westminster Grammar, which Carlisle reports in 1818 as in almost universal use in this country. The exceptions which he names were then very few, and we see that they were nearly always in favour of some text-book introduced by local agency. This was the case at Reading, where it appears that the system of teaching was founded on those of Westminster, Eton, and Winchester. At Aylesbury, Owen's _Latin Grammar_ and the Eton Greek Grammar used to be employed. At Bodmin, Valpy's _Greek Grammar_, and at Faversham, Lily's _Latin Primer_, edited by Ward, were preferred. At some minor schools, where a boy was intended for any of the great foundations, special books were placed in his hands to facilitate preparation. But the course of instruction at some of these institutions, outside the elementary stage, was remarkably liberal and extensive, and enabled a boy of ability to ground himself, at all events, very fairly in the Greek and Roman classics. This was, it must be borne in mind, however, the dawn of a new era--the first quarter of the nineteenth century. A class of men who influentially helped to carry on the succession of school-books and the slower process of amendment were the private tutors in noble or distinguished families, who, when their services were no longer required, if they did not obtain immediate preferment, received pupils or opened proprietary establishments. They were, for the most part, university graduates and persons of fair attainments, who were glad enough to introduce into print, with a double eye to their own scholars and the public, the system or theory with which they had started, and which in their hands underwent, perhaps, certain modifications.