the original establishment of free
schools among the colonies, during the period of the early settlement of
this country, and the place accorded the Bible in them by their faithful
founders, are well suited to be suggestive, and to prove an inspiration
to every friend of freedom, to promote the good cause of maintaining
the daily reading of the Bible, in all of our public schools at the
present time.

Christian parents among the Freedmen, having children that are bright
and studious, are encouraged by these facts, to train one or more of
them to be teachers and helpers, in promoting the educational and moral
uplift of the race. All are encouraged to co-operate with your teachers,
in making the public school of your neighborhood, an attractive and
inviting place for your own and your neighbor's children.

Send the children regularly to school during the term, for the terms are
short. Do all you can, as long as you live, to supply your public
schools with bibles and christian teachers, in order that they may
attain the highest degree of efficiency, and bring the greatest amount
of public good, to you and your children. Remember, that the Bible is
the mother of the public school and that it awakens a desire for more
knowledge, drives back the darkness of ignorance and inspires the
courage to do right.

Many have been led astray by reading bad books and papers, but none from
reading the Bible. Its blessings of comfort and guidance to individuals,
and of civil and religious liberty to nations, have come to us like the
dew of Hermon, that made "the wilderness and solitary place to be glad,
and the desert to rejoice and blossom as the rose."

In view of these important historic facts, it is certainly strange that
any parents, who permit their children to read all sorts of trashy and
worthless books, without protest, should pretend they do not want them
to read the Bible, the one infallible and incomparable book, that does
not become old and out-of-date like the best of other books, but is as
fresh and life giving to day as twenty centuries ago. The number of
those, who have opposed the reading of the Bible in the public schools
have comprised but a small part of the entire population of our land,
and they have always represented that part of it, that have most needed
its enlightening and uplifting influence.

One million immigrants from other lands are now coming to our shores
every year, that they may enjoy the civil an