institutions.

And, last, a school cannot be truly said to be destitute of moral
character and influence in which the sacred Scriptures are daily read.

The observance of this requirement is a recognition of the existence of
the Supreme Being, of the Bible as containing a record of his will
concerning men, and of the common duty of rational creatures to live in
obedience to the obligations of morality and religion.

It has been no part of my purpose, in this discussion of the public
school as an institution fitted to promote morality, to deny the
existence of serious defects, or to screen them from the eyes of men.
The public school needs a more thorough discipline, a purer morality, a
clearer conception and a more practical recognition of the truths of
Christianity. But, viewed as a human institution, it claims the general
gratitude for the good it has already accomplished. The public school
was established in Massachusetts that "learning might not be buried in
the graves of our forefathers, in church and commonwealth;" and, in some
measure, at least, the early expectation thus quaintly expressed has
been realized. Learning has ever been cherished and honored among us.
The means of education have been the possession of all; and the
enjoyment of these means, often inadequate and humble, has developed a
taste for learning, which has been gratified in higher institutions;
and thus continually have the resources of the state been magnified, and
its influence in the land has been efficient in all that concerns the
welfare of the human race on the American continent.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Repression of Crime. By M. D. Hill.

[2] The Repression of Crime, pp. 358, 359.

REFORMATION OF CHILDREN.

[Address at the Inauguration of WILLIAM E. STARR, Superintendent of the
State Reform School at Westborough.]

Neither the invitation of the Trustees nor my own convenience will
permit a detailed examination of the topics which the occasion suggests;
and it is my purpose to address myself to those who are assembled to
participate in the exercises of the day, trusting to familiar and
unobserved visits for other and better opportunities for conference with
the inmates of the institution.

As the mariner, though cheered by genial winds and canopied by cloudless
skies, tests and marks his position and course by repeated observations,
so we now desire to note the progress of this humanity-freighted vessel
in its voyage ove