The first thing which entered my father's head, after affairs were a little settled in the family, and Susanna had got possession of my mother's green sattin night-gown,—was to sit down coolly, after the example of Xenophon, and write a Tristra-paedia, or system of education for me; collecting first for that purpose his own scattered thoughts, counsels, and notions; and binding them together, so as to form an Institute for the government of my childhood and adolescence.