“On Sunday morning, after our return from church, Mr. Edgeworth sent to request our attendance at his school. We found the boys all drawn up in divisions, and several gentlemen from the neighbourhood were present. We joined Mr. Edgeworth, who stood on a kind of stage formed by the stairs. He began a speech to his boys on the subject of the papers which I had lent him to read, in which he spoke in the most extravagant terms of what he had read. He was sure that we had carried the science of education to a perfection never before aimed at; he considered himself highly flattered by our visit to his school, but felt ashamed that we had not been better repaid for our trouble. He hoped we would allow him to return the visit, as he was sure nothing would delight him so much as a complete knowledge of our plans. “After he had concluded, he requested that I would honestly state my opinions respecting his school, and he insisted on my finding fault with something or other. I now felt the convenience of having been practised at extemporaneous speaking: for called upon as I was to address a great number of individuals, without any previous notice or opportunity of arranging and collecting my thoughts, and immediately after Mr. Edgeworth had spoken in the highest terms of a work which, till I afterwards undeceived him, he considered as entirely my own production, and for which he lauded my powers in an extravagant degree, I should not have been able to utter a single connected sentence, had not former practice rendered that easy which, without practice, is to some altogether impossible.