woman, to
look the world in the face as it is.

Therefore, the public school, when it represents the world as it is,
represents the facts of life. The private school never has done and
never will do this; and as time goes on, it will be less and less a true
representative of the world. From this point of view, it seems to be a
mistake on the part of parents to exclude their children from the world.
Is it not better that the child should learn something of society, even
of its evils, when under your influence, and when you can control him by
your counsel and example, than to permit him finally to go out, as you
must when his majority comes, perhaps to be seduced in a moment, as it
were, from his allegiance to virtue? Virtue is not exclusion from the
presence of vice; but it is resistance to vice in its presence. And it
is the duty of parents to provide safeguards for the support of their
children against these temptations. When Cicero was called on to defend
Muraena against the slander that, as he had lived in Asia, he had been
guilty of certain crimes, and when the testimony failed to substantiate
the charge, the orator said, "And if Asia does carry with it a suspicion
of luxury, surely it is a praiseworthy thing, not never to have seen
Asia, but to have lived temperately in Asia." And we have yet higher
authority. It is not the glory of Christ, or of Christianity, that its
Divine Author was without temptation, but that, being tempted, he was
without sin. This is the great lesson of the day.

The duty of the public is to provide means for the education of all. To
do that, we need the political, social, and moral power of all, to
sustain teachers and institutions of learning; and, endowed or free
schools, depending upon the contributions of individuals, can never, in
a free country, be raised to the character of a system. If you rob the
public schools of the influence of our public-spirited men, if they take
away a portion of their pupils from them, our system is impaired. It
must stand as a whole, educating the entire people, and looking to all
for support, or it cannot be permanently maintained.

THE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM.

[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the Powers Institute,
Bernardston.]

There cannot be a more gratifying spectacle than the universal homage
offered to education and to the young. Childhood is attractive in
itself; and it is peculiarly an object of solicitude for its promises
co