the face. The
argument is stated as follows. If the community, in its organic capacity
as a civil government, provides systematically for the instruction of
the young, the system, just so far as it is successful and complete,
does away with the necessity for any other provision. The parent,
finding this work done to his hands, feels no necessity of looking after
it himself, and so gradually loses all sense of obligation on the
subject. Such a result, it is contended, is in contravention of the
plainest dictates of nature and the most positive teachings of religion,
both nature and religion requiring it as a primary duty of every parent
to give his child a suitable education.

In meeting this objection, the friends of common schools agree with the
objector to the fullest extent in asserting the imperative, universal,
irrepealable duty of the parent to educate his own child. The duty is
not the less binding on the parent, because a like duty, covering the
same point, rests also on the community. The interests involved are so
momentous, that God in his wise ordination has given them a double
security. It is a case in which two distinct parties are both separately
required to see one and the same thing done. It is like taking two
indorsers to a note. The obligation of one indorser is not impaired,
because another man equally with himself is bound for payment If a child
grows up in ignorance and vice, while God will undoubtedly hold the
parent responsible, he will also not hold the community guiltless. Both
parties will be guilty before him, both parties will be punished. A man
is bound to maintain a certain amount of cleanliness about his
habitation. If he fails to do so, and if in consequence of this failure
the atmosphere around him becomes tainted and malarious, he and his will
suffer. Disease and death will visit his abode. But the consequences
will not end here. The infection will extend. The whole community will
be affected by it. The whole community, equally with the individual, are
bound to see that the cause of the infection is removed. The infection
will not spare the community because the individual has generated it,
nor will it spare the individual because the community has failed to
remove it. Each party has a duty and a peril of its own in regard to the
same matter.

The fact is, individuals and the community are so bound together, that
on many points their obligations lie in coincident lines. The matter of