est, and enabling the North to
hold converse with the South. The Bible has directly and indirectly done
all this for us, and infinitely more. Let not, then, the book which has
given to us sweet homes, and happy families, and systems of public
instruction, and has thus constituted us a great and prosperous
people--the book which diminishes our sorrows and multiplies our joys,
and gives to those who obey its precepts a "hope big with
immortality"--let not this book be excluded from the common schools of
our country. In the name of patriotism, of philanthropy, and of our
common Christianity, let me, in behalf of the millions of youth in our
country who will otherwise remain ignorant of it, ask that, whatever
else be excluded from our schools, there be retained in them this Book
of books, the BIBLE.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE IMPORTANCE OF POPULAR EDUCATION.

Education, as the means of improving the mural and intellectual
faculties, is, under all circumstances, a subject of the most
imposing consideration. To rescue man from that state of degradation
to which he is doomed unless redeemed by education; to unfold his
physical, intellectual, and moral powers, and to fit him for those
high destinies which his Creator has prepared for him, can not fail
to excite the most ardent sensibility of the philosopher and
philanthropist. A comparison of the savage that roams through the
forest with the enlightened inhabitant of a civilized country would
be a brief but impressive representation of the momentous importance
of education.--_Report of School Commissioners, New York_, 1812.

He who has carefully perused the preceding chapters of this work is
already aware that we regard the subject of popular education as one of
paramount importance. The object of devoting a chapter to the special
consideration of this subject at this time is, if possible, to remove
from the mind any remaining doubts in relation to it. The reader will
bear in mind that we regard education as having reference to the _whole
man_--the body, the mind, and the heart; and that its object, and, when
rightly directed, its effect, is to make him a complete creature after
his kind. To his frame it should give vigor, activity, and beauty; to
his intellect, power and thoughtfulness; and to his heart, virtue and
felicity.

We shall be the better prepared to appreciate the importance and
necessity of a judicious system of tr