The rule that suicide rate increases with the amount of education is more generally observed than almost any other tendency which we have to consider; and it is probably an accurate statement without any reservation; however unpalatable such a dictum may be, I am not aware of any state where the reverse holds good. The general opinion has always been that this rule is only true when the form of education is faulty; the pages of many authors will show the argument that secular knowledge must be judiciously combined with religious teaching, or else such a result may appear; but the facts seem to lead us to the awkward dilemma, that either the religious teaching is seldom duly administered, or else that even piety is unavailing as a deterrent. Prophets have not been lacking for several years past, who have never ceased to warn us that our present system of removing Christian teaching from the necessary curriculum of our public schools, will inevitably increase crime and suicide in the rising generation. And I fear there can be no doubt that this coming generation will show a higher rate, but whether the diminution of religious instruction will be the cause, will be open to question. Personally, and speaking with reference to the masses of the population, I think it is likely to cause such an increase; because, although it may be preferable for well-educated men and women to confess to honest doubt, in preference to acquiescence in a form of faith which they cannot heartily hold; still, in minds of less development, for whom a thorough education is impossible, greater stability of character is ensured by an early inculcated religious conviction of the sanctity of life, and an idea of the duty of waiting on Providence to guide our concerns. THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGION. It is impossible to deny that, in respect to the influence of religion on the proportions of suicide in Europe, the maximum rate constantly falls to Protestant States, to the Roman Catholic next, then the Greek Church, and, lastly, the minimum falls to the Jews. An average, estimated from a large collection of numbers by Morselli, shows that the ratio is 58 per million in Catholic States, 190 per million in Protestant States, and in the Greek Church 40 per million; but the low suicide rate of the Slavonic races renders conclusions as to the Greek Church most unreliable; but it seems to the author that this is not an accurate deduction from the relative numbers, the proportion allotted to Protestant countries being much too high. Legoyt gives Catholics 62, Protestants 102, Greek Church 36, Jews 48, and this seems an estimate more near the truth. Curiously enough, Catholics far exceed Protestants in the statistics of total crime in all countries.