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'Independently of all the advantages, which I as an individual received from my father's constant course of literary instruction, this was of considerable utility in another and less selfish point of view.

My father called upon all the family to hear and judge of all we were writing.

The taste for literature, and for judging of literary composition, was by this means formed and exercised in a large family, including a succession of nine or ten children, who grew up during the course of these twenty-five years.

Stories of children exercised the judgment of children, and so on in proportion to their respective ages, all giving their opinions, and trying their powers of criticism fearlessly and freely.

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