Preface to Bertrand Russell's The Good Citizen's Alphabet

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Preface by Bertrand Russell
p.1(image) This book, it is felt, will supply a lacuna^*1 which has long disgraced our educational system. Those who have had the largest amount of experience in the earlier stages of the pedagogical process have in a very large number of cases been compelled to conclude that much unnecessary difficulty and much avoidable expenditure of school hours is due to the fact that the ABC, that gateway to all wisdom, is not made sufficiently attractive to the immature minds whom it is our misfortune to have to address.
This book, small as is its compass, and humble as are its aims, is, we believe and hope, precisely such as in the present perilous conjuncture is needed for the guidance of the first steps of the infant mind. We say this not without the support of empirical evidence.
We have tried our alphabet upon many subjects: Some have thought it wise; some, foolish. Some have thought it right-minded; others may have been inclined to think it subversive. But all - and we say this with the most complete and absolute confidence- all to whom we have shown this book have ever after had an impeccable knowledge of the alphabet. On this ground we feel convinced that our education authorities, from the very first moment that this work is brought to their attention, will order it instantly to be adopted in all those scholastic institutions in which the first elements of literacy are inculcated.

17th January 1953
B. R.

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［語彙］*1 lacuna: 欠落部分／*2 perilous: 危険な／*3 impeccable: 欠点のない／*4 inculcate: 反覆してたたき込む