while in view the object of popular education, the fitting of
the people by _moral_ as well as by _intellectual_ discipline for
self-government, no one can doubt that any system of instruction which
overlooks the training and informing of the moral faculties must be
wretchedly and fatally defective. Crime and intellectual cultivation
merely, so far from being dissociated in history and statistics, are
unhappily old acquaintances and tried friends. To neglect the moral
powers in education is to educate not quite half the man. To cultivate
the intellect only is to unhinge the mind and destroy the essential
balance of the mental powers; it is to light up a recess only the better
to see how dark it is. And if this is all that is done in popular
education, then nothing, literally nothing, is done toward establishing
popular virtue and forming a moral people."

This is but a specimen of an invaluable document, which does honor to
the heart and head of him who penned it, and to the Legislature of the
commonwealth by which it was adopted by almost unparalleled unanimity.

The Hon. Samuel Young, the eminently distinguished superintendent of
common schools in the same state, in a report made in 1843, inculcates
sentiments which so well accord with my own views of the importance of
weaving scriptural reading into the very warp and woof of popular
education, that I gladly add his testimony. "I regard the New Testament
as in all respects a suitable book to be daily read in our common
schools, and I earnestly recommend its general introduction for this
purpose. As a mere reading-book, intended to convey a practical
knowledge of the English language, it is one of the best text-books in
use; but this, although of great use to the pupils, is of minor
importance when the moral influences of the book are duly considered.
Education consists of something more than mere instruction. It is that
training and discipline of all the faculties of the mind which shall
symmetrically and harmoniously develop the future man for usefulness and
for happiness in sustaining the various relations of life. It must be
based upon knowledge and virtue; and its gradual advancement must be
strictly subordinated to those cardinal and elementary principles of
morality, which are nowhere so distinctly and beautifully inculcated as
in that book from whence we all derive our common faith. The nursery and
family fireside may accomplish much; the institutions of religi