The Duty of American Women to Their Country

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Professor Stowe, in his Report to the Legislature of Ohio on the Prussian System of Schools, makes these remarks.

“The universal success, also, and very beneficial results, with which the arts of drawing and designing, music, and also moral instruction and the Bible, have been introduced into schools, was another fact peculiarly interesting to me.

“I asked all the teachers with whom I conversed whether they did not sometimes find children incapable of learning to draw and to sing. I have had but one reply, and that was, that they found the same diversity of natural talent in regard to these as in regard to reading, writing, and other branches of education; but they had never seen a child capable of learning to read and write, who could not be taught to sing well and draw neatly; and that, too, without taking any time which would interfere with, or which would not rather promote progress in other studies.

“In regard to the necessity of moral instruction and the beneficial influence of the Bible in schools, the testimony was no less explicit and uniform. I inquired of all classes of teachers, and of men of every grade of religious faith; instructers in common schools, high schools, and schools of art; of professors in colleges, universities, and professional seminaries in cities and in the country; in places where there was a uniformity of creed, and in places where there was a diversity of creeds; I inquired of believers and unbelievers, of rationalists and enthusiasts, of Catholics and Protestants, and I never found but one reply: and that was, that to leave the moral faculty uninstructed was to leave the most important part of the human mind undeveloped, and to strip education of almost everything that makes it valuable; and that the Bible is the best book to put into the hands of children, to interest, to exercise, and to unfold both the intellectual and moral powers. Every teacher whom I consulted repelled with indignation the idea, that moral instruction is not proper for schools, and that the Bible cannot be introduced into common schools without sectarian bias in teaching.”

While it is universally conceded by all intelligent persons, that there is no nation on earth, whose prosperity, and even existence, so much depends on the moral training of the mass of the people, there is no nation, where schools are established by law, in which so little of it is done. It is mournful to reflect, that by far the larger part of our schools banish religious and moral training altogether, and confine their efforts entirely to the training of the intellect, and a great part of them merely to that of the memory.

It is supposed, by many, that the Sunday-school in our country, to a great degree, supplies the deficiencies of our schools in respect to moral and religious training. It is true that this institution does more than any other to meet these wants. But it must be remembered that such schools are properly sustained only where there is a large number of benevolent and intelligent persons to teach them.

But in our country, the places which most need such labourers are the very places where the fewest are to be found. And even in the most favoured portions of our land, much of Sunday instructions is committed to very young persons, while the parents often are thus led to throw off their own responsibility upon those of less experience.

Moreover, if the moral training of children is neglected through the six days of the week, in which they are exposed to the most temptation, how vain to expect that all the consequent evil is to be remedied by gathering them for an hour or two on Sunday, to receive religious instruction. Even were this a remedy, there are thousands of places in our land where no Sunday-schools are to be found.

Many persons justify the neglect of moral training in our schools, by claiming that religion must be banished from schools, on account of the great diversity of sects, who cannot agree in this matter. Such are little aware on how many important points all sects are agreed. To exhibit this, and to aid any who may be induced to attempt a course of moral and religious training in their schools, the following is presented as an outline of a course of instruction that could be introduced into all schools, without violating the conscientious scruples of a single denomination in this nation, professing to be Christian.

In the first place, all children in schools, can be taught, that the Bible contains the rules of duty given by God, which all men are bound to obey. This is what all denominations allow, and if there is any dispute about which translation is the proper one, each child can be allowed to use the Bible his parents think to be right.