a common school education. The cultivation of the intellectual faculties
alone constitutes no sufficient guaranty that the subject of it will
become either a virtuous man, a good neighbor, or a useful citizen. But
where physical education has been properly attended to, if we combine
with the cultivation of the intellectual faculties of a child a good
moral and religious education, we have the highest and most
unquestionable authority for believing that, in after life, he will "do
justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God."

"The Bible, in several expressive texts," says Dr. Stowe,[28] "gives
emphatic utterance to the true principle of all right education. For
example, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and a
knowledge of the Holy is understanding.' Religion must be the basis of
all right education; and an education without religion is an education
for perdition. Religion, in its most general sense, is the union of the
soul to its Creator; a union of sympathy, originating in affection, and
guided by intelligence. The word is derived from the Latin terms _re_
and _ligo_, and signifies to _tie again_, or _reunite_. The soul,
sundered from God by sin, by grace is _reunited_ to Him; and this is
_religion_."

[28] In a lecture before the American Institute of Instruction, on the
Religious Element in Education.

I might present many and substantial reasons why instruction in the
principles of religion should be given in our common schools and in all
our institutions of learning, and why those heaven-given principles
should be exemplified wherever taught.

_The nature of the human mind requires it_, as is clearly shown by the
writer last quoted. "The mind is created, and God is its creator. Every
mind is conscious to itself that it is not self-existent or independent,
but that its existence is a derived one, and its condition one of
entire, uniform, unceasing dependence. This feeling is as truly a part
of the essential constitution of the mind as the desire for food is of
the body, and it never can be totally suppressed. If it ever seems to be
annihilated, it is only for a very brief interval; and any man who would
persist in affirming himself to be self-existent and independent, would
be universally regarded as insane. The sympathy which attracts the sexes
toward each other is not more universal nor generally stronger than that
inward want which makes the whole human race feel the need of God; and