re is one remedy, and but one, for this alarming state of things,
which prevails to a less or greater extent in almost every community.
That remedy is simple. It consists in the establishment of schools for
the education of the whole people. These schools, however, should be of
a more perfect character than the majority of those which have hitherto
existed. In them the principles of morality should be copiously
intermingled with the principles of science. Cases of conscience should
alternate with lessons in the rudiments. The rule requiring us to do to
others as we would that they should do unto us, should be made as
familiar as the multiplication table, and our youth should become as
familiar with the practical application of the one as of the other. The
lives of great and good men should be held up for admiration and
example, and especially the life and character of Jesus Christ, as the
sublimest pattern of benevolence, of purity, and of self-sacrifice ever
exhibited to mortals. In every course of studies, all the practical and
preceptive parts of the Gospel should be sacredly inculcated, and all
dogmatical theology and sectarianism sacredly excluded. In no school
should the Bible be opened to reveal the sword of the polemic, but to
unloose the dove of peace.

In connection with the preceding, and in addition to the branches now
commonly taught in our schools, the study of _politics_, which has been
beautifully defined as _the art of making a people happy_, should be
generally introduced. "I am not aware," says an eminent jurist,[57]
"that there are any solid objections which can be urged against
introducing the science of government into our common schools as a
branch of popular education. If it should be said that it will have a
tendency to introduce party creeds and party dogmas into our schools,
the true answer is, that the principles of government should be there
taught, and not the creeds or dogmas of any party. The principles of the
Constitution under which we live; the principles upon which republics
generally are founded, by which they are sustained, and through which
they must be saved; the principles of public policy, by which national
prosperity is secured, and national ruin averted--these certainly are
not party creeds or party dogmas, but are fit to be taught at all times
and on all occasions, if any thing which belongs to human life and our
own condition is fit to be taught. If we wait until we can guard