It cannot be denied that the higher culture of America has, from the time of the introduction of the present Public School system, ceased to be Christian. What is the natural harvest of this sowing? It is that we have already a generation of men, thousands of whom are not fit to be the heads and fathers of families. But this is not all; we have also ever so many guides of public opinion, ever so many ministers of public affairs, and ever so many lawgivers of the United States, who are infidels and profligates; who see _only themselves_ in all they do, who desire only to fret out their little hour on the political stage _with a sharp eye to their own interests_, without the smallest desire to secure the Republic against future disasters--who cannot, or _will_ not, see the disastrous storms the ship of the Republic will soon have to encounter. What good, then, could be expected from calling upon the Legislature? It would only show its impotency, or, what is more, its own corruption. The executive is unable, suspected, or often found in the "_ring_," or, to use a common expression, "Justice stinks." The judiciary, by its very nature, always timid, and too often time-serving, can do nothing. Well, then, the press: what shall be said of it? Only this: that it would be unreasonable to expect it to possess the supernatural powers of healing such a multitude of foul lepers, or to be able at any time to lift itself far above the level of the general average of the age and country. What, then, must be done to save society from the perils that menace it--to stem the tide that bids fair to sweep away, eventually, even civilization itself? We must proceed on a true principle. When we proceed on a true principle, the more logically and completely we carry it out the better; but when we start with a false principle, the more logical we are, and the farther we push it, the worse. Our consistency increases, instead of diminishing, the evils we would cure. The reformers started wrong. They would reform the Church by placing her under human control. Their successors have in each generation found they did not go far enough, and have, each in its turn, struggled to push it farther and farther, till they find themselves without any church life, without faith, without religion, and beginning to doubt if there be even a God. So, in the question of education, the upholders of the Public School system have pushed the false principle "that all individual, domestic, social, and political evils are due to ignorance, and can only be prevented by high intellectual culture," till they have nearly taught away all religious belief and morality, have well-nigh abolished the family which is the social unit, and find that the evils they pretended to prevent, and the wrongs they sought to redress, are fast increasing.