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of the first empire in the valley of the Euphrates, to the present hour, despots have dreaded the diffusion of knowledge, as they would the diffusion of offensive weapons. They know that an enlightened and instructed people are difficult to be subjected to unlawful power. They know that the ignorant are weak, and easily made the slaves of authority. They have therefore conspired in all ages to thwart the design of providence in the formation of man, by checking the progress of knowledge, and restricting the boundaries of science to a narrow and selfish circle of purchased and pensioned adherents.

The truth is, that knowledge is common property, and those who possess it are bound to distribute it for the benefit of others. Those who, for any selfish end, hoard it, or throw obstacles in the way of its diffusion, commit a crime towards their fellowmen. Above all, those who would deny to any class of persons the benefits of education, that they may the more easily govern them, engage in a base conspiracy against the rights of humanity.

A system which would enslave the body by cheating the soul, which keeps the mind and spirit in darkness or poverty, and holds human beings down, generation after generation, as near to the brute creation as possible, instead of elevating them in the scale of being, as is the obvious duty of all, is in every point of view an institution opposed to the evident designs of the Creator, and in contravention of the true destiny of man. It places itself in the very path of providence, and seeks to stay its march. It is a battery erected to resist and defy the manifest intentions of Heaven. Such schemes cannot prosper. That Being who said, Let there be light, and there was light, has given forth knowledge as the birthright of man, and he will show, in his own good time, that such gross wrongs against human nature cannot be perpetuated.

It would appear that, in all ages, and in every clime, ignorance is identified with slavery, and knowledge with freedom. The cause of education, then, is the cause of liberty. Nature and providence point it out as the great instrument of human improvement. Let its promotion, therefore, ever mark the policy of our free American states. Let it ever be maintained in our legislative halls that the instruction of youth is a subject of paramount interest. Let it be understood that the people are not satisfied to rest where they are, but are looking to a constantly advancing state of society, to a higher and still

higher standard of moral and intellectual culture. Let each individual use his influence to elevate public sentiment on this great subject. Let us all endeavor to give to the efforts of our school committees a loftier pitch; to inspire into the teacher a more generous ambition, and stimulate his exertions by giving him a still nobler estimate of his high vocation. Let us attempt to move every individual in the community to a better sense of his obligations to aid in the cause of public instruction.

And finally, let us endeavor to anchor this subject deep and strong in the minds and hearts of parents. There the responsibility must rest. Man is made to be educated. He is made to receive the controlling lessons of life in the early periods of existence. During this period, as well by the ordinance of God, as the institutions of society, he is placed under the charge of the father and the mother.

Is it not true, then, that parents are the lawgivers of their children? Does not a mother's counsel, does not a father's example, cling to the memory, and haunt us through life? Do we not often find ourselves subject to habitual trains of thought, and if we seek to discover the origin of these, are we not insensibly led back, by some beaten and familiar track, to the parental threshold? Do we not often discover some home-chiseled grooves in our minds, into which the intellectual machinery seems to slide as by a sort of necessity? Is it not, in short, a proverbial truth that the controlling lessons of life are given beneath the parental roof? The stream that bursts from the fountain, and seems to rush forward headlong and self-willed, still turns hither and thither, according to the shape of its mother earth over which it flows. If an obstacle is thrown across its path, it gathers strength, breaks away the barrier, and again bounds forward. It turns, and winds, and proceeds on its course, till it reaches its destiny in the sea. But in all this, it has shaped its course and followed out its career, from babbling infancy at the fountain, to its termination in the great reservoir of waters, according to the channel which its parent earth has provided. Such is the influence of a parent over his child. It has within itself a will, and at its bidding it goes forward; but the parent marks out its track. He may not stop its progress, but he may guide its course. He may not throw a dam across its path, and say to it, hitherto mayest thou go, and no farther; but he may turn it through safe, and gentle, and useful courses, or he may leave it to plunge over wild cataracts, or lose itself

in some sandy desert, or collect its strength into a torrent, but to spread ruin and desolation along its borders.

It involves a fearful responsibility, then, but we cannot shrink from the fact parents usually decide the character of their offspring. It is so ordained of Heaven; children will obey the lessons given them at the fireside. As the stone hurled from the sling takes its direction and finds its resting-place at the bidding of the arm that wields it, so the child goes forward, and finds its grave in peace or sorrow, according to the impulse given at the fireside. Those who give existence to a human being, are likely to give shape and color to the destinies of an immortal spirit. The parent is linked to his child for good or ill, to eternity!

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