semblance of dictation is carefully avoided, it is desired, it is
earnestly recommended, it is confidently expected and hoped, that
every child who attends our common schools shall learn there that he
is a being who has an interest in eternity as well as in time; that he
has a Father towards whom he stands in a closer and more affecting and
more endearing relationship than to any earthly father, and that
Father is in heaven; that he has a hope far transcending every earthly
hope—a hope full of immortality—the hope, namely, that that Father's
kingdom may come; that he has a duty which, like the sun in our
celestial system, stands in the centre of his moral obligations,