who will never learn it at home? The more I study the Bible, the more does it appear to me to excel all other reading books. You may go on improving indefinitely, without ever making yourself a perfect scriptural reader, just as you might, with all the helps you can command, spend your whole life in the study of any one of its great truths without exhausting it. Let it not be said that we have but few instructers who are capable of entering into the spirit of the sacred volume, so as to teach their scholars to read it with propriety. Then let more be educated. It ought to be one of the daily exercises in our Normal schools and other seminaries for raising up competent teachers, to qualify them for this branch of instruction.

I remark again, that were the Bible made a school book throughout the Commonwealth, and throughout the land, an amount of scriptural knowledge would be insensibly treasured up, which would be of inestimable value in after life. Every observing teacher must have been surprised to find how much the dullest scholar will learn by the ear, without seeming to pay any attention to what others are reading or reciting. The boy that sits half the time upon his little bench, nodding, or playing with his shoe-strings, will, in the course of a winter, commit whole pages and chapters to memory from the books he hears read, when you can hardly beat anything into him by dint of the most diligent instruction. Indeed, I have sometimes thought, that children in our common schools learn more by the ear, without any effort, than by the study of their own class books; and I am quite sure this is the case with the most of the younger scholars. Let any book be read for a series of years in the same school,

and half the children will know it by heart. Wherever there are free schools, as in Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut, the great mass of the children are kept at school from four or five years of age, to nine or ten through the year; and in the winter season, from nine or ten to fifteen or sixteen. The average of time thus devoted to their education is from eight to ten years. Now let the Bible be daily read as a class book during all this time, in every school, and how much of it will, without effort, and without interfering in the least with other studies, be committed to memory. And who can estimate the value of such an acquisition? What pure morality-what maxims of supreme wisdom for guidance along the slippery paths of youth, and onward through every stage of life—what bright examples of early piety, and of its glorious rewards even in the present worldwhat sublime revelations of the being and perfections of God-what incentives to love and serve him to discharge with fidelity all the duties which we owe to our fellow men! and all these enforced by the highest sanctions of future accountability. Let any man tell us if he can, how much all this store of divine knowledge, thus insensibly acquired, would be worth to the millions of children who are growing up in these United States of America. They might not be at all sensible of its value at the time, but how happily and safely would it contribute to shape their future opinions and characters, both as men and as citizens.

Another cogent reason for using the Bible as a common school book is, that it is the firmest basis, and indeed the only sure basis, of our free institutions; and as such ought to be familiar to all the children in the state,

from their earliest years. While it recognizes the existence of civil governments, and enjoins obedience to magistrates as ministers of God for good to the people, it regards all men as free and equal-the children of one common Father, and entitled to the same civil and religious privileges. I do not believe that any people could ever be enslaved who should be thoroughly and universally educated in the principles of the bible.

It was no less truly than eloquently said by Mr. Webster, in his late Bunker Hill address, "The American colonists brought with them from the old world a full portion of all the riches of the past, in science in art, in morals, religion and literature. The Bible came with them. And it is not to be doubted, that to the free and universal use of the Bible it is to be ascribed, that in that age men were much indebted for right views of civil liberty. The Bible is a book of faith and a book of doctrine; but is also a book which teaches man his individual responsibility; his own dignity and equality with his fellow men."

Sentiments of the great American statesman, worthy to be engraved in golden capitals upon the monument under whose shadow they were uttered! Yes, it was the free and universal use of the bible which made our Puritan fathers what they were; it is because, in these degenerate times, multitudes of children, as I have already remarked, will be taught to read the bible nowhere else, that I am so anxious to have it read as a school book.

One other, and the only additional reason which I shall suggest, is, that as the Bible is infinitely the best, so it is the only decidedly religious book which can be introduced into our popular system of early education.

So jealous are the different sects and denominations of each other, that it would be hardly possible to write or compile a religious school book with which all would be satisfied. But here is a book prepared to our hands, which we all receive as the inspired record of our faith, and as containing the purest morality that ever has been taught in this lower world. Episcopalians cannot object to it, because they believe it teaches the doctrines and polity of their own church; and this is just what they Neither Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, nor any other denomination can object to it, for the same reason. Every denomination believes, so far as it differs from the rest, that the Bible is on its side, and of course, that the more it is read by all, the better.

want.

For me to object to having the Bible read as a common school book, on account of any doctrine which those who differ from me suppose it to teach, would be virtually to confess that I had not full confidence in my own creed, and was afraid it would not bear a scriptural test. It seems to me an infinite advantage, for which we are bound devoutly to thank the Author of all good, that he has given us a religious book, of incomparable excellence, which we may fearlessly put into the hands of all the children in the commonwealth, with the assurance that it is able to make them "wise unto salvation," and will certainly make them better children, better friends, and better members of society, so far as it influences them at all.

Some persons who highly approve of daily scriptural reading in common schools, are in favor of using selections, rather than the whole Bible. I should certainly

prefer this, provided the selections are judiciously made, to excluding the scriptures altogether; but I think there are weighty and obvious reasons why the whole Bible should be taken, rather than a part. The whole is cheaper than half would be in a separate volume; and when the whole is introduced without note or comment, there can be no possible ground for sectarian jealousy.

There is a paragraph in the last report of the superintendent of common schools in the state of New York, which accords so well with my own views of the importance of weaving scriptural reading into the very warp and woof of popular education, that I cannot refrain from quoting it.

"I regard the New Testament," says Mr. Young, "as in all respects a suitable book to be daily read in our common schools, and I earnestly recommend its general introduction for this purpose. As a mere reading book, intended to convey a practical knowledge of the English language, it is one of the best text books in use; but this, although of great use to the pupils, is of minor importance when the moral influences of the book are duly considered. Education consists of something more than mere instruction. It is that training and discipline of all the faculties of the mind, which shall systematically and harmoniously develope the future man, for usefulness and for happiness, in sustaining the various relations of life. It must be based upon knowledge and virtue; and its gradual advancement must be strictly subordinated to those cardinal and elementary principles of morality which are nowhere so distinctly and beautifully inculcated, as in that book from whence we all derive our common faith. The nursery and family fireside niay ac