tools of ambitious demagogues." A nation may be well governed, where the body of the people are ignorant; but it must be a goverment where the people have no voice. We have then but one alternative. It is either the diffusion of knowledge among the people,-the enlightening and purifying of the whole mass, or despotism.

.

But to the original question, What is the remedy for these evils? Let the system of education in our common schools be rendered complete, by embracing physical, intellectual and moral culture. The first and last of these have been almost entirely neglected. Yet why should children be permitted to grow up in ignorance of that, which it concerns them most to know? "Know thyself," is a favorite maxim with philosophers. But how can we study man, how know anything of ourselves, while totally ignorant of our physical organization? Why may not human anatomy and physiology be introduced into the common school? Why may not children be taught the functions of the skin, the heart, the lungs and the circulation of the blood? Why not the mechanism and design of every part of the house they live in? Children are taught in mechanical philosophy, that every thing is governed by fixed laws. How is it in relation to health? Do not most children grow up with a belief that sickness and death are mere matters of chance? That there is no possible connexion between diet and regimen and longevity? That if the stomach is overloaded with crude fruit, or other indigestible matter, superinducing sickness which terminates in death, "it is a mysterious providence?"

It should be borne in mind, that at least four fifths of our population receive their education in the common

school. Hence the importance of their being there taught those things, which it behooves them most to know.

Mens sana in corpore sano, was a favorite maxim with the ancients; and the institution of athletic exercises and public games among the Greeks and Romans had reference to the same principle. The Persians and the Greeks not only dictated the kind of exercise, but the quality and amount of food. With us, all is left at hap-hazard: and multitudes drag out a miserable existence, in martyrdom to their ignorance of the laws of animal life. An attention to physical education, so far from retarding intellectual developement, is the only condition on which the vigor and health of the mind can be maintained. "The body," says a distinguished teacher, "was made by God, as the dwelling place of the soul; and so intimately connected are they, that the health of the one cannot be impaired, without affecting that of the other. Children should be made to feel that they have no more right to violate the laws of health than they have to violate moral laws, or those relating to the soul."

So common is it with us to see sickly students, that the term has almost become synonymous with walking skeleton. From this fact, some have supposed that there is something in mental exercises incompatible with bodily health; that the mind is a kind of parasite, feeding upon the body: or, like the evil spirit spoken of by the Evangelist, casting its victim sometimes into the fire, then into the water, and literally tearing his body in pieces. To entertain such an idea, is impugning the goodness of God, who has given us ability to learn, and thrown in our path various inducements to cultivate the

higher and nobler faculties of our nature. The same remark holds true of moral and of physical education. It is lamentably neglected. Our statutes provide that moral instruction shall be given in the public schools. But, as it would seem, by common consent, this provision has been suffered to become a dead letter. "To neglect, says the same teacher, "the moral element, while we cultivate the lower propensities and the intellect, is to mistake the plan of the Creator; who, in making man, has endowed him with all the faculties of a brute, and all the capacities of a demon; but has made him a little lower than the angels, by lighting within him a flame which burns with an ethereal brightness, significant of its heavenly origin;-it is to let this celestial flame go out, while we minister fuel to the consuming fires of the brutal and demoniacal parts of our victim."

In education, moral culture as far surpasses in impertance every other department, as eternity exceeds, in duration, time. The history of the past is conclusive upon this point. "The people of Athens," says a popular writer, "constituted one grand adult school. Orators, poets and philosophers were their teachers. The facts of their history, the achievements of their heroes, the glories of their ancestors, were all treasured up in their memories, in the enduring forms of eloquence and poetry. The poems of Homer and Euripides and Pindar, together with maxims of philosophy and sentiments of virtue, were inscribed on the living tablets of the Grecian mind. Yet Greece is no more. Science, art, genius, taste, intelligence, could not save her. In the days of her comparative ignorance and barbarism, she was free. Cultivated, refined, intelligent Greece was en

slaved. Modern France affords abundant proof, that intellectual light may blaze with meridian splendor, without casting one ray of hope upon the darkness of moral pollution.

If then, we would shun the rock upon which other nations have split, it becomes us early to infuse into the youthful mind a love of virtue and holiness. And how can this best be accomplished? How better, than by making the Bible a text-book in all our schools? In Prussia, the Bible is placed at the head of every course of study, prescribed by the Government. Shall monarchical, catholic Prussia manifest more love for the truth, than protestant, republican New England? Let the teacher take from the Bible his code of laws, his moral precepts. Let him go to the same unerring guide for motives to action. Let the great law of love be the law of the school-room; and we may hope for the happiest results.

And why should not the Bible be admitted into the school-room? A book which contains more valuable moral precepts, more beauty and sublimity of thought and expression, more genuine poetry, more true philosophy, than all other books combined.

"Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!

Star of eternity! only star

By which the bark of man could navigate

The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
Securely! Only star which rose on Time,
and to the hills of God,

The eternal hills, pointed the sinner's eye."