association on the journey to and from school, fed by stolen interviews and openly-arranged festivities--picnics, excursions, parties and the like--stimulated by the prurient gossip of the newspaper, the flash novels, sentimental weeklies, and magazines, the gallant of twelve years is the libertine of fourteen. That this picture is not overdrawn, every experienced physician will bear witness. "And as for the Public School-girls, they return from their '_polishing schools_'--these demoiselles--cursed with a superficial smattering of everything but what they ought to have learned--physical and moral wrecks, whom we physicians are expected to _wind up_ in the morning for the husband-hunting excitements of the evening. And these creatures are intended for wives! But _wives_ only, for it is fast going out of fashion to intend them for _mothers_--an 'accident' of the kind being regarded as'_foolish_'! "We assert, then, that the present system of education, by its faults of omission and commission, is directly responsible, not, it is true, for the bare existence, but for the enormous prevalence of vices and crimes which we deplore; and we call upon the civil authorities to so modify the obnoxious arrangements of our schools, and upon parents and guardians to so instruct and govern their charges, that the evils may be suppressed, if not extinguished." The attempt to prepare man for his duties in social life with morals and religion left out, is not only a failure, but a crime. Yes, it is not only a failure, but a crime of such magnitude, that society has already begun to suffer its consequences in a demoralization and _general libertinage_ of the most shameful kind. This education without religion and morals is the poisoned fountain from which flows, and will flow, if not purified by adding the essential elements now omitted, the impure streams of all kinds of vice. If God is despised, governments will be trampled on; if God's law is hated, the laws of men will be violated; man will see only his own interest, his neighbor's property will only whet his appetite; his neighbor's life will be only a secondary consideration; he would, according to his creed, be a fool not to shed blood when his interest requires it; his fellow-men become imbued with his principles--anarchy succeeds subordination--vice takes the place of virtue--what was sacred is profaned--what was honorable becomes disgraceful--might becomes right--treatises are waste paper--honor is an empty name--the most sacred obligations dwindle down into mere optional practices--youth despises age--wisdom is folly--subjection to authority is laughed at as a foolish dream--the moral code itself soon becomes little more than the bugbear of the weak-minded--crowns are trampled under foot--thrones are overturned--nations steeped in blood, and republics swept from the face of the earth.