Rich men, who have intelligence and goodness, will educate their children, at whatever cost. There are some men, even poor men's sons, born with such native power that they will achieve an education, often a most masterly culture; men whom no poverty can degrade, or make vulgar, whom no lack of means of culture can keep from being wise and great. Such are exceptional men; the majority, nine tenths of the people, will depend, for their culture, on the public institutions of the land. If there had never been a free public school in New England, not half of her mechanics and farmers would now be able to read, not a fourth part of her women. I need not stop to tell what would be the condition of her agriculture, her manufactures, her commerce; they would have been, perhaps, even behind the agriculture, commerce and manufactures of South Carolina. I need not ask what would be the condition of her free churches, or the republican institutions which now beautify her rugged shores and sterile soil; there would be no such churches, no such institutions. If there had been no such schools in New England, the Revolution would yet remain to be fought. Take away the free schools, you take away the cause of our manifold prosperity; double their efficiency and value, you not only double and quadruple the prosperity of the people, but you will enlarge their welfare--political, social, personal--far more than I now dare to calculate. I know men object to public schools; they say, education must be bottomed on religion, and that cannot be taught unless we have a State religion, taught "by authority" in all our schools; we cannot teach religion, without teaching it in a sectarian form. This objection is getting made in New York; we have got beyond it in New England. It is true, all manly education must be bottomed on religion; it is essential to the normal development of man, and all attempts at education, without this, must fail of the highest end. But there are two parts of religion which can be taught in all the schools, without disturbing the denominations, or trenching upon their ground, namely, piety, the love of God, and goodness, the love of man. The rest of religion, after piety and goodness are removed, may safely be left to the institutions of any of the sects, and so the state will not occupy their ground.