chief obstacle to progress. Trained
to investigate the foundations of every fact in nature and in science, to
weigh the evidences on which they are asked to receive assertions, whether
of a physical, moral or social nature, they will ever have a reason for
the faith that is in them; and will know how to SUSPEND JUDGMENT when the
means of knowledge are insufficient.

Such pupils will not be apt to form opinions either in physical science,
politics, or industrial life, without having first thoroughly examined the
bases of the opinions they form and express, while the prejudices imbibed
from nurses or parents, will be subjected to vigorous investigation, and
either received as sound doctrine, or discarded as ill-founded and
superstitious. Of how many prejudices are we not the victims, without
being ourselves in the least conscious of the fact! Our political
opinions, our social customs, are taken up like the fashion of a coat,
without reason or reflection; and habit and association, but too often
hold us captive long after reason has pronounced her condemnation; our
minds have been warped from truth, and we fail to perceive our own
deficiency, to recognize the mental dishonesty with which we are
afflicted. All this will be averted in the case of those who in their
youth are trained to a rigorous investigation of every fact presented to
their minds, until the habit of truth, not merely of speaking and telling
the truth, but that mental truthfulness which shrinks from accepting a
falsehood for truth, and acknowledges ignorance rather than utter what is
not assured--will become as much a part of the pupil's nature as is his
desire for food. In short, he would be so trained as to feel as great a
repugnance to plunge his mind into moral, as his body into material filth.

Again, while ever merciful and pitying to the criminal, he would be
intolerant of falsehood wherever it might be found; and he would deem
himself derelict in his duty, as a man and as a citizen, did he leave
corruption to rot and fester in the Commonwealth, because he and others
like him would not take the trouble to raise their voices against
wrongdoers!

What a different aspect would not this great city of New York offer to our
inspection to what it now presents, had a generation been trained in the
knowledge, and practised in the observance of their duties as citizens!

Did those merchants and traders, who, in their private dealings would
scorn a lie, bu