and, by the moral and religious instruction daily
given, some preparation is made for the duties of life and the
temptations of the world.

III. _Is the public school system, as a system, in itself necessarily
corrupting?_ As preliminary to the answer to be given to this question,
it is well to consider what the public-school system is.

1. Every inhabitant is required to contribute to its support.

2. It contemplates the education of every child, regardless of any
distinction of society or nature.

3. The system is subject in many respects to the popular will; and
ultimately its existence and character are dependent upon the public
judgment.

4. In the Massachusetts schools, the daily reading of the Scriptures is
required.

The consideration of these topics will conclude my remarks upon the
general subject of the moral influence of the American system of public
instruction. In New England it is very unusual to hear the right of the
state to provide for the support of schools by general taxation called
in question; but I am satisfied, from private conversations, and from
occasional public statements, that there are leading minds in some
sections of the country that are yet unconvinced of the moral soundness
of the basis on which a system of public instruction necessarily rests.
Taxation is simply an exercise of the right of the whole to take the
property of an individual; and this right can be exercised justly in
those cases only where the application of the property so taken is,
morally speaking, to a public use. The judgment of the public determines
the legality of the proceeding; but it is possible that in some cases a
public judgment might be secured which could not be supported by a
process of moral reasoning. On what moral grounds, then, does the right
of taxation for educational objects rest? I answer, first, education
diminishes crime. The evidence in support of this statement has already
been presented. It is a manifest individual duty to make sacrifices for
this object; and, as every crime is an injury, not only to him who is
the subject of it, but to every member of society, the prevention of
crime becomes a public as well as an individual duty.

The conviction of a criminal is a public duty; and, under all
governments of law, it is undertaken at the public charge. Offences are
not individual merely; they are against society also, inasmuch as it is
the right of society that all its members shall beh