subordinated to those cardinal and elementary principles of morality, which are nowhere so distinctly and beautifully inculcated as in that book from whence we all derive our common faith. The nursery and family fireside may accomplish much; the institutions of religion may exert a pervading influence; but what is commenced in the hallowed sanctuary of the domestic circle, and periodically inculcated at the altar, must be daily and hourly recognized in the common schools, that it may exert an ever-present influence, enter into and form a part of every act of life, and become thoroughly incorporated with the rapidly expanding charThe same incomparable standard of moral virtue and excellence, which is expounded from the pulpit and the altar, and which is daily held up to the admiration and imitation of the family circle, should also be reverently kept before the mind and the heart in the daily exercises of the school."

acter.

I will add the testimony of another whom we all delight to honor. Never were sentiments uttered more worthy to be remembered and repeated through all generations, than those which fell from the Father of his Country in his Farewell Address to the American people. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props. of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked, Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if a sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in

courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles." How noble, how elevated, how just these parting words.

Washington was an enlightened Christian patriot, as well as a great general and a wise statesman. The oracles which he consulted in all his perils, and in the perils of his country, were the oracles of God.* No one of the fathers of the Revolution knew better than he did that religion rests upon the Bible as its main pillar, and that as a knowledge and belief of the Bible are essential to true religion, so they are to private and public morality. I can not doubt, says the venerable President of Amherst College, that could the greatest among the great men of his day add a codicil to his invaluable legacy, it would be, "Teach your children early to read and love the Bible. Teach them to read it in your families; teach them in your schools; teach them every where, that the first moral lesson indelibly enstamped upon their hearts may be to fear God and keep his commandments.' The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.""

6

6

How few are aware of what the Bible has done for mankind, and still less of what it is destined to accomplish. "Quench its light, and you blot out the brightest luminary from these lower heavens. You bring back chaos and old night' to reign over the earth, and leave man, with all his immortal energies and aspirations, to wander in the blackness of darkness forever.'

6

* John Quincy Adams, during his long and eventful life, was accus tomed to read dr ortions of the Scriptures in several languages.

It was by constantly reading it that our Puritan fathers imbibed that unconquerable love of civil and religious liberty which sustained them through all the perils of the sea and perils of the wilderness.' It was from the Bible they drew those free and admired principles of civil government that were so much in advance of the age in which they lived. It was this book by which they 'resolved to go till they could find some better rule."

The Bible has built all our churches, and colleges, and school-houses; it has built our hospitals and retreats for the insane, the deaf, and the blind; it has built the House of Refuge, the Sailors' Home, and the Home for the Friendless. To it we are indebted for our homes, for our property, and for all the safeguards of our domestic relations and happiness. It is under its broad shield that we lie down in safety, without bolts or bars to protect us. It has given us our free constitutions of civil government, and with them all the statutes and ordinances of a great and independent people, whose territory extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is the industry, sobriety, and enterprise, which nothing but the Bible could ever inspire and sustain, that have dug our canals, and built our thousand factories, and "clothed the hills with flocks, and covered over the valleys with corn;" that have laid down our railways and established telegraph lines, bringing the East into the neighborhood of the West, and enabling the North to hold converse with the South. The Bible has directly and indirectly done all this for us, and infinitely more. Let not, then, the book which has given to us sweet homes, and happy families, and systems of public instruction, and has thus constituted us a great and prosperous people-the book which diminishes our sorrows and multiplies our joys, and gives to those who obey its precepts a "hope big with immortality"-let

not this book be excluded from the common schools of our country. In the name of patriotism, of philanthropy, and of our common Christianity, let me, in behalf of the millions of youth in our country who will otherwise remain ignorant of it, ask that, whatever else be excluded from our schools, there be retained in them this Book of books, the BIBLE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR EDUCATION.

Education, as the means of improving the moral and intellectual faculties, is, under all circumstances, a subject of the most imposing con sideration. To rescue man from that state of degradation to which he is doomed unless redeemed by education; to unfold his physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and to fit him for those high destinies which his Creator has prepared for him, can not fail to excite the most ardent sensibility of the philosopher and philanthropist. A comparison of the savage that roams through the forest with the enlightened inhabitant of a civilized country would be a brief but impressive representation of the momentous importance of education.-Report of School Commissioners, New York, 1812.

He who has carefully perused the preceding chapters of this work is already aware that we regard the subject of popular education as one of paramount importance. The object of devoting a chapter to the special consideration of this subject at this time is, if possible, to remove from the mind any remaining doubts in relation to it. The reader will bear in mind that we regard education as having reference to the whole man-the body, the mind, and the heart; and that its object, and, when rightly directed, its effect, is to make him a complete creature after his kind. To his frame it should give vigor, activity, and beauty; to

his intellect, power and thoughtfulness; and to his heart, virtue and felicity.

We shall be the better prepared to appreciate the importance and necessity of a judicious system of training and instruction if we consider that, in its absence, every individual will be educated by circumstances. Let it be borne in mind, then, that all the children in every community will be educated somewhere and somehow; and that it devolves upon citizens and parents to determine whether the children of the present generation shall receive their training in the school-house or in the streets; and if in the former, whether in good or poor schools.

In the discharge of my official duties in this state, I had occasion to visit two counties in 1846 in which there were no organized common schools.* They were not, however, without places of instruction, for in the shire town of each of those counties there were a billiard-room, bar-rooms, and bowling-alleys. I was forcibly impressed with the remark of an Indian chief residing in one of those counties. As he was passing along the streets one day, he discovered a second bowling-alley in process of erection. He paused, and, surveying it attentively, remarked to those at work upon it as follows: "You have here another long building going up rapidly; and," he added, "is this the place where our children are to be educated?" Such keen and well-merited rebuke rarely falls from human lips. Those two bowling-alleys, with their bars-indispensable appendages-were thronged from six o'clock in the morning until past midnight, six days in the week. They were, moreover, the very places where many of the youth of that village were receiving their education. And who were their teachers? Idlers, tipplers, gamCommon schools have since been organized in both of those counties.