appeared with the following variations:
Every breach of veracity indicates some latent vice.
Every bridge of rasality indicates some latest vice.
Every breech of ferocity indicates some latinet vice.
Every preach of erracity indicates some late device.
Every branch of vivacity indicates some great advice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some late advice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some ladovice.
Every branch of veracity indicates some ladened vice.
Every branch of veracity in the next some latent vice.
Every reach of their ascidity indicates some advice.
Every one who is called upon to give out "notices" or to speak in public knows full well how great a portion of what is said in the plainest manner is misapprehended for the want of this habit of attention.
The volume closes with a lengthy "Argument for Common Schools." It would be more properly called an "apology." His first point is, "that without common schools we cannot maintain permanently our popular institutions." The necessity of universal education to secure the permanence of our popular institutions is conceded by all. But education, according to the author's own definition, is the "developing in due order and proportion whatever is good and desirable in human nature." Therefore, not only the intellect, but also the moral and religious nature must be developed. This the common schools fail to do.
A man is not necessarily a good citizen because he is intelligent, without he also possesses moral integrity. According to the author's own admission, his education is incomplete. As the public schools fail to give any moral training, they fail to make reliable citizens, and are therefore insufficient to secure the permanence of our democratic form of government.
To this objection he replies "that many of the teachers are professing Christians, and exert a continual Christian influence." But many more are non-professors, and exert an anti-christian influence.
In visiting schools, we have been able to tell the religious status of the teachers in charge by the general tone of the exercises. One presided over by a zealous Methodist resembled a Methodist Sunday-school or conference meeting. Another, under the care of a "smart young man," delighted in love songs, boating songs, etc., and had the general tone of a young folks' glee-club. In another of our most celebrated public schools, one of the professors was an atheist, and it was a matter of common remark among the boys that Prof. —— said there was no God.
In another, one of the teachers was overheard sneering at a child because she believed in our Lord Jesus Christ, and had a reverence for religious things. We admit that the familiar intercourse and intimate relations of the teachers with the children give them a great influence over their plastic minds, but, to our sorrow, we know that it is not always for good. We do not, therefore, consider it a recommendation of a system to say that the moral tone of its teaching depends altogether on the caprice and character of the different teachers it happens to employ.
Again, he says the law of trial by jury requires that every citizen should be intelligent, as they are thus called to take part in the administration of justice. True; but it requires much more that jurymen should possess moral principle. What makes courts of justice so often a mockery, but the want of principle and of conscience in those who administer the law? If his estate, life, or reputation depended on the decision of twelve men, would he feel easy if he knew them to be unprincipled, immoral men, open to bribery and corruption, however intelligent they might be? No; the constitution of our government, the popular institutions of our country, require that here, more than in any country of the world, the young should receive a sound moral and religious training, which cannot be done where, as here, religion is excluded from our common schools.