scipline the
voice, and to express all the emotions in which the soul of true
eloquence is bodied forth. Why do the masters of oratory, who charm
great audiences with their recitations, take so many of their themes
from the Bible? The reason is obvious. They can find none so well suited
to their purpose. And why should not the common schools, in which are
nurtured so many of the future orators, and rulers, and teachers of the
land, have the advantage of the best of all reading-lessons? Moreover,
since so much of the sense of Scripture depends upon the manner in which
it is read, why should not the thousands of children be taught the art
in school, who will never learn it at home? The more I study the Bible,
the more does it appear to me to excel all other reading-books. You may
go on improving indefinitely, without ever making yourself a perfect
scriptural reader, just as you might, with all the help you can command,
spend your whole life in the study of any one of its great truths
without exhausting it. Let it not be said that we have but few
instructors who are capable of entering into the spirit of the Sacred
Volume, so as to teach their scholars to read it with propriety. Then
let more be educated. It ought to be one of the daily exercises in our
Normal Schools, and other seminaries for raising up competent teachers,
to qualify them for this branch of instruction."

I remark again, that were the Bible made a school-book throughout the
commonwealth and throughout the land, _an amount of scriptural knowledge
would be insensibly treasured up, which would be of inestimable value in
after life_. Every observing teacher must have been surprised to find
how much the dullest scholar will learn by the ear, without seeming to
pay any attention to what others are reading or reciting. The boy that
sits half the time upon his little bench nodding or playing with his
shoe-strings, will, in the course of a winter, commit whole pages and
chapters to memory from the books he hears read, when you can hardly
beat any thing into him by dint of the most diligent instruction.
Indeed, I have sometimes thought that children in our common schools
learn more by the ear, without any effort, than by the study of their
own class-books; and I am quite sure this is the case with the most of
the younger scholars. Let any book be read for a series of years in the
same school, and half of the children will know most of it by heart.
Wherever there ar