INTELLIGENCE OP THE PEOPLE. 253 



respect themselves, and value their own character. These 

 things are the fruit of knowledge. But ignorance is a soil 

 which gives exuberant growth to discords, delusions, and the 

 dark treacheries of faction. While the people are ignorant, 

 they are perpetually subject to false alarms, and violent pre- 

 judices, ready to give a loose rein to the wild storms of their 

 passions, and prepared to yield themselves willing victims to 

 the seductions of every ambitious, turbulent, treacherous, 

 and faithless spirit, who may choose to enlist them in his 

 cause. Knowledge will work upon this charm with a potent 

 efficacy, lay the hideous spectres which it calls up, and pre- 

 serve the soundness and growing strength of the social and 

 political fabric. 



It should be considered the glory, and the duty of the go- 

 vernment, to aid in establishing morals and religion. The" 

 first step in accomplishing this purpose is to fix the princi- 

 ples of virtue, and impress the importance of religious prac- 

 tice, by enlarging the sphere of mental light, touching the 

 springs of curiosity, opening the channels of inquiry, and 

 pouring into the mind new materials of thought and reflec- 

 tion. All branches of intellectual improvement will lead to 

 moral goodness. The mind, which is taught to expatiate 

 throughout the works of God, to ascend to the heavenly 

 worlds and find him there, to go into the deep secrets of na- 

 ture and find him there, to examine the wonders of its own 

 structure, and look abroad into the moral constitution of 

 things, and perceive the hand of an invisible. Almighty Be- 

 ing, giving laws to the whole, will be impressed v/ith a sense 

 of its own dependence, and feel something of the kindling 

 flame of devotion. It is not in human nature to resist it. 

 And so the man who begins to study the organization of so- 

 ciety, the mutual relations and dependencies of its parts, its 

 objects, and the duties it imposes on those who enjoy its be- 

 nefits, will soon be made to respect its institutions, value its 

 privileges, and practise the moral virtues, in which its very 

 existence consists. The more extensively these inquiries 

 are encouraged, and these principles indicated, in the 

 elements of education, the greater will be the certainty of 

 moral elevation of character, and the brighter the prospects 

 of a virtuous community. In regard to religion, ignorance 

 is its. deadliest bane. It gathers the clouds of prejudice from- 

 ajl the dark corners of the mind, and causes them to brood 

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