GOOD EYES AND FREE SCHOOLS. 441 
springing from one who cares not for him. On the contrary, it reveals to usa 
Love for us of no mean degree, existing prior to our being. These attributes, 
like the Principal to whom they belong, must be conceived as positive and im- 
mutable; and on our part, they call for obedience to law, which is righteousness ; 
and for a responsive love and gratitude toward Him from whom we receive such 
blessings, which is positive worship ; and for a reflection of like attributes toward 
our fellows, which is positive virtue and humanity. And though the obedience 
to law may seem to require self-denial and pain, it is not really so; for the state 
of feeling from which obedience proceeds, raises the soul above the sense of such 
things, as all know who have obeyed in spirit as well as in name. Nay more, it 
mitigates the keener sense of physical pain, as is now explained by science and as 
is shown by the history of martyrs and the Cross. ‘This is the essence of the 
highest Religion, which this conception of the Absolute and Infinite relieves of 
that unbelief which has corrupted our morals and degraded our social relations. 
Religion is thus shown to be, not a matter of faith alone ; not validated to us by 
the dicta of the church alone, and not alone by the Divine Founder of the 
church; but as a matter of positive. knowledge, validated by our own reason, 
which shows it to be a necessary product of consciousness, founded upon the in- 
finite and immutable attributes of an Infinite, Immutable and Eternal God. 
MEE 1D L@iN ASN ID) Eby G LisN E: 
GOOD EYES AND FREE SCHOOLS. 
BY JOHN FEE, M. D. 
The idea, that the existence of free schools, in a country, is the evidence of 
a perfect civilization, has become so deeply rooted, that he who would contradict 
it, would subject himself to public reproach. Cheerfully accepting this public 
sentiment as a self-evident proposition, let us ask: is the highest state of civiliza- 
tion inimical to the physical or bodily welfare of mankind? In reply, we say 
yes, in one respect only, namely, in its effects on vision. Otherwise civilization 
is a perfect boon. The most highly civilized communities furnish the best speci- 
mens of beauty, of symmetry, and of strength and endurance. 
Civilized man has a power of adaptation unknown to the savage and bar- 
barian. He can endure the heat of the torrid zone as well as the African negro, 
and the extreme cold of the pole equal to the Esquimaux. It isa fact, however, 
that our public school system, while it is the corner stone of our republican in- 
stitutions, is inflicting, as conducted, a great injury on the vision of the rising 
generation and laying the foundation of a mental and physical misfortune to 
