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worthy of the best friends of humanity. Ah! how 
would the result, obtained in the history of all 
times, confound those men of darkness, who are 
ignorant and perverse enough to desire and to order 
the interdiction of knowledge, and the degradation 
of nations !—who, jealous of the happiness of their 
fellow-men, substitute for the instruction proper to 
each condition, for the religion and morality of the 
Gospel, superstition, prejudices, sterile dogmas and 
ceremonies, monkish charlatanism, &c. ; means of 
extinguishing in every man a sense of his dignity 
and his rights, and of lording it, with little wisdom 
over dupes and slaves, as vicious as ignorant! 
Compare civilised with barbarous times ; com- 
pare the list of horrors committed among barbarous 
nations, or, which comes to the same thing, among 
the ignorant and superstitious! Their false devo- 
tion, and their vaunted innocence of manners, will 
make us shrink with dismay. Who does not know, 
that these horrors diminish in proportion as know- 
ledge, civilisation, a pure religion, freed from 
fanaticism, are more generally diffused ? 
In the prisons, of which we have visited a very 
large number, we have satisfied ourselves that the 
greatest part of the criminals were born in pro- 
vinces, and in those conditions of life, in which 
instruction and education, moral as well as civil, 
are the most neglected. In the same manner, the 
bands of ferocious brigands who spread terror in 
Holland, and on the banks of the Rhine, were 
composed of individual vagabonds, nourished in 
superstition, but deprived of all positive instruc- 
tion. 
“Why has not Heaven,” said Baron Cuvier to 
the tribunal of legislators, “given me that elo- 
quence of the heart which you admire in your 
venerable colleague, M. Laine? How would I 
depict to you the difference between the poor child 
who has received no instruction, and the one who 
has been fortunate enough to obtain it? You 
speak of religion; but how can one preserve reli- 
gious ideas without establishing their influence 
over him by reading ? You say that misery pro- 
duces more wretches than ignorance; but is not 
ignorance itself a source of misery? And the 
domestic virtues; how are they favored by the 
habit of reading! Is not the most indifferent book 
a better and more moral amusement than the 
tavern and the debauch ?” 
The most perfect institutions, it is true, cannot 
cause crimes and enormities to cease altogether. 
Yet, we have a right to expect, from good educa- 
cation, a great diminution of moral evil. When 
we reflect how often it happens to individuals of 
the lower classes, to be educated without care, or 
to be imbued only with prejudices and supersti- 
tion,—we are astonished that more evil is not 
committed; and are forced to acknowledge the 
natural goodness of the human race. A thousand 
unhappy circumstances are combined to spread 
the most dangerous snares for the man born in the 
lower class of the people. Plunged in profound 
ignorance, deprived of all that might have formed 
the qualities. of his mind and soul, he has but very 
inexact notions of morality and religion: even the 
obligations of society, and the laws, are generally 
unknown to him. Solely occupied with earning 
his bread,’ gross and noisy amusements, gaming 
and drunkenness, make him a prey to base and 
violent passions : on all sides he is surrounded by 

SLIT Rn eae aceon teeta an ERS a 

temptations, lies, prejudices, and superstition: he 
is constantly told of pretended sorcerers, conjurors, 
treasure finders, magicians, interpreters of dreams, 
expounders of cards: he has placed before his eyes 
lotteries, and all sorts of games of chance, which 
take the last mouthful of bread from thousands of 
famished children. ‘These are scourges, of which 
a friend to humanity cannot, without horror, fore- 
see the eternal duration! How many domestic 
miseries, how many suicides, larcenies, secret rob- 
beries,—flow from these fatal sources ! 
A mere prejudice is often the cause of the most 
horrible actions. Some years since, a man killed 
the neighbor of his deceased uncle, for the purpose 
of avenging the illness and death of his uncle ; the 
effects, as he said, of the machinations of the 
neighbor, whom he regarded as a sorcerer. A 
mother killed and roasted her child, that the fat of 
this innocent creature might serve to cure the 
rheumatic pains of her husband. A band of robbers 
thought to expiate the most atrocious murders 
by muttering some paternosters over their victims. 
Iltis Jacob regarded the murder which he com- 
mitted on his wife, as entirely effaced, as soon as 
he had ordered some masses to be said for her and 
for himself. [History of Schinderhannes.] In such 
occurrences, I regard those at the head of public 
instruction as accomplices and abettors of the 
crime. What ministers of religion, what shep- 
herds are they, who can suffer their flock to 
wander thus? 
With a view to such considerations, those sove- 
reigns who have conceived the noble and generous 
wish of giving good morals to their subjects, and 
securing their happiness, have always favored 
public instruction, the teaching of morality and 
religion, the arts and the sciences. The Gospel 
has recommended to us, to let our light shine 
among men, and to proclaim the truth in a loud 
voice.* The apostles and fathers have regarded 
ignorance as the source of all evils. 
We ought to say, for the honor of the age in 
which we live, that most states distinguish them- 
selves by establishing excellent schools. In several 
places there is even given to adults, who have 
been neglected, the same education as to children. 
Schools have been founded for the instruction of 
teachers. Persons who wish to marry, are re- 
minded of what belongs to the physical and moral 
education of children, and the duties of marriage. 
Governments have begun to cause excellent tracts 
to be written on morality and education; reduced 
to the form of tales and romances, and adapted to 
the understanding of the lower classes and designed 
for gratuitous distribution among them. 
This is not the place to describe all the useful 
establishments we have seen; but I cannot refrain 
from giving to M. Berens, of Copenhagen, that 
venerable philanthropist, my tribute of respect. 
This excellent man had founded two seminaries of 
education, to which children of the lowest class 
were admitted. Not only were they instructed 
gratuitously, as in the five other public schools of 
Copenhagen, but their meals were furnished them 
also. In the morning, on entering the school, they 
had to wash; then they breakfasted, then received 
their lessons in reading, writing, and other branches 
of knowledge for which they exhibited any incli- 


* St. Matt. v. 16. St. Mark iv. 21. 
