barren as if they had never crossed the threshold of a schoolhouse." It is from American writers that these accusations against the common school system are to be gleaned. Some statisticians say that crime and pauperism are increasing far more rapidly than population. The charge on the State for punishing criminals and keeping paupers last year was $20,000,000, or £4,000,000; but it is too much to attribute crime and pauperism to the defects of the schools. It might with more reason be argued that the teaching of the people in the schools tends to develop the looseness and eccentricity of thought, where there is no religious teaching, which are exemplified in the uprising of extraordinary sects and strange philosophies; for America is the land of spiritualists, mesmerism, soothsaying, and mystical congregations. Mr. Hepworth Dixon may not be a perfectly unimpeachable authority on the subject of the number of spiritualists in America; but there can be no question they are to be counted by millions. It is averred that believers in spirits generally believe in "special affinities which imply a spiritual relation of the sexes higher and holier than that of marriage." It is not wonderful then that there should be also a very large number of divorces, especially in the New England States. Mr. Nutting says that "in the history of nations there has never but thrice occurred such a breaking up of the family tie as is now taking place, especially in Rhode Island and Connecticut, among the people of New England blood." Mormonism, although of American origin and early growth, has been mainly successful by the constant importation of ignorant peasants from Europe. There is a want of reverence on the part of children towards their parents which is very striking. Americans who have admitted and deplored this have sought to account for it by the school system, wherein the State usurps the place of the parent, and teaches the young idea to mock at any authority but that of the schoolmaster. It would be lamentable to have to admit that free education is associated with the weakening of parental influence. Theoretically, there is nothing in the American system to prevent the teaching of religious and moral duties by parents at home; but it would seem as if very little of that kind of instruction was given by the busy fathers and anxious mothers of the Republic, and that when the day's work is done at school, and some time given to the preparation of the studies for the day to follow, there is no further teaching.