school, whose parents are well educated, and how difficult it is to
teach a child who at home lives in an atmosphere of profound ignorance.
The mind of the one whose home is a region of darkness and intellectual
torpor, will be dwarfed and distorted, no matter what the efforts of its
teachers. The mind of the one, on the contrary, whose home is the abode
of intellectual light, warmth, and sunshine, will have a corresponding
growth and expansion at school. There is a continual unconscious
tuition, good or bad, received from the very atmosphere of the family.
Besides this, there is a great deal of direct, active duty to be
performed by the parent in the education of the child. No matter how
good the school, or how faithful the teacher, there always remains much
to be done by the parent, even in regard to the school duties. The
parent must see that lessons are prepared, that the child is properly
provided with books, that the meal times and the other arrangements of
the household are such as to help forward the child's studies. There are
a hundred things which the father and mother can do to help or to hinder
the work of the school. A child, whose parents give proper home
supervision over his studies, will, other things being equal, make twice
the progress of one whose parents give the matter no attention. The
community, therefore, in establishing common schools, does by no means
take the whole matter of education out of the hands of the parent. On
the contrary, it still leaves with him the most important and necessary
of the duties connected with the education of his children, while it
gives him aids for the performance of the remaining duties, which no
private means can ordinarily supply.

I come, however, to a much graver objection. It is urged against common
schools, as organized in this country, that religious instruction is
excluded from them, and that without this element they only tend to make
educated villains. Education, it is said, without the restraining and
sanctifying influences of religion, only puts into the hands of the
multitude greater power for evil. If this objection is valid, the most
enlightened and Christian communities of the world have made, and are
making, an enormous mistake. Yet the objection is urged with seriousness
by men whose purity of motive is above question, and whose personal
character gives great weight to their opinions. The objection originated
in England, where all attempts to mak