THE PUBLISHERS’ HUMBUG.
The publishers of this new undertaking have long been of opinion that a new and more efficient course of moral instruction was wanted, to raise the bulk of mankind to that standard of perfection which every Christian, every good member of society, must be desirous of seeing attained.
It is with the most poignant regret they have marked the almost total failure of all preceding attempts of this kind. How much it has pained them—how much they have grieved to see the inadequacy of the supplies of knowledge to the increasing wants of the community, especially alluding to the working and lower classes generally, whose interests they have deeply at heart, they need not say: but they may say, that they anticipate the most triumphant success in their present efforts to supply the desideratum alluded to.
The publishers may add, that as regards the undertaking they are now about to commence, profit is with them but a secondary consideration. Their great object is to promote the general good by a wide diffusion of knowledge, and a liberal infusion of sound and healthy principle. If they effect this, their end is gained. The work, on which no expense will be spared, will be sold at a price so low as to leave but a bare remuneration for workmanship and material—so low, indeed, that a very large demand only can protect the publishers from positive loss. But it is not the dread of even the result that can deter them from commencing and carrying on a work undertaken from the purest and most disinterested motives.