e legislative provision for the
education of the common people have been steadily resisted by a
potential party in the established church. The arguments put forth in
the English religious journals have been reproduced in the journals
here, and have in many instances awakened the apprehensions of
serious-minded persons. It is worth while, therefore, to give the
subject some distinct consideration.

In the first place, the facts are not exactly as stated by those making
the objection. Though little direct religious instruction may be given
in the common school, there is usually a large amount of religious
influence. A great majority of the teachers of our common schools are
professing Christians. Very many of them are among our most active
Sabbath-school teachers. Now a truly godly man or woman, at the head of
a school, though never speaking a word directly on the subject of
religion, yet by the power of a silent, consistent example, exerts a
continual Christian influence. In the second place, as a matter of fact,
direct religious teaching is not entirely excluded from our public
schools. I think, it by no means holds that prominent position in the
course of study which it should hold. But it is not entirely excluded.
The Bible, with very rare exceptions, is read daily in all our common
schools. It is appealed to as ultimate authority in questions of history
and morals. It is quoted for illustration in questions of taste. It is
in many schools a text-book for direct study. In the third place, nine
out of ten of the children of the week-day school attend the
Sabbath-school. The Sabbath-school supplements the instructions of the
week-day school. The case, therefore, is not that of an education purely
intellectual. Moral and religious instruction accompanies the
instruction in worldly knowledge. The Sabbath-school, the church, and
the family, by their combined and ceaseless activities, infuse into our
course of elementary education a much larger religious ingredient than a
stranger might suppose, who should confine his examination to a mere
inspection of our common schools, or to the reading of the annual
reports of our educational boards.

But apart from all these considerations, taking the question in its
naked form, is it true that mere intellectual education has the tendency
alleged? I do not believe it. The constitution of the human mind gives
no warrant for such an inference. Recorded, indisputable facts,
overwhelmin