hose servants and stewards the parents and the public
are. The child's happiness and welfare are entirely his own;--the free
gift of his Maker and Master, of which no man, without his full consent,
has a right to deprive him. This happiness, and the full enjoyment of
what he receives, both here and hereafter, have been made to depend on
his allegiance and his faithfulness, not to his parents, nor even to the
public, but to the great Lord of both. This allegiance therefore, is his
first and chief concern, with which the will and the wishes, the
interests or the ease, of teachers and parents, have nothing to do. If
the directions of his Maker and Lord are attended to, he has nothing to
fear. There is in that case secured for him an inheritance that is
incorruptible, and far beyond the reach or the power of any creature. It
is for the enjoyment of this inheritance that he has been born;--it is
with the design of attaining it, and for increasing its amount, that his
time is prolonged upon earth;--it is to secure it for him, and to
prepare him for it, that the parent has been appointed his guardian and
guide;--and it is for the purpose of promoting and overseeing all this
among its members, that a visible church, and church officers, have been
established and perpetuated in the world.

In so far as each individual child is concerned, the parent is the
immediate agent appointed by the Almighty for attending to these
objects; and although, in a matter of so much importance, he is
permitted to avail himself of the assistance of the teacher, he, and he
only, is responsible to God for the due performance of those momentous
duties which he owes to his child. When therefore the parents, for the
purpose of forwarding some trifling personal advantage, or the teacher,
for his own ease or caprice, are found indifferent to the kind of
exercises used in the school, or to the results of what is taught in
it;--doing any thing, or nothing, provided the time is allowed to pass,
with at least the appearance of teaching;--they are, in such a case,
betraying an important trust; they are heedlessly frustrating the
wishes, and resisting the commands of their Master and Lord; they are
sapping the foundations of society; and are thoughtlessly and basely
defrauding the helpless and unconscious pupil of a most valuable
patrimony.--In committing to parents the keeping and administration of
this sacred deposit, reason, conscience, and Scripture, all uni