Our government, in the furtherance of its religious duties, has for centuries made a special recognition of the virtues, and particularly those which bestow good upon others, and it is only by the practice of such that public honors are achieved. One of the happiest consequences of this has been, to elevate only the most exemplary of our people to the head of public affairs, and from this comes a confidence and regard between our representatives and people, which you can scarcely appreciate after your experience. Goodness therefore, as we understand it, is the only path to honor, and the necessary high character of all holders of public trust reflects a distinction greater that those of any other positions in life. This in turn, as you may readily perceive, induces a spirit of emulation to reach such elevated places, beyond all considerations of emolument. As a part of our moral system, we hold the education of our people to be an indispensable and necessary adjunct. In that we go a great deal further than what appear to us your narrow and mercenary views. In a representative government like your own, you have been constrained to adopt a system of free education, for the purpose of securing the safety and permanence of your institutions; and with no other motive even, it is surprising that you will be divided in opinion touching the extent to which learning may be profitably imparted for this end alone; because, to us it seems that when you have conveyed to your youth no more than the elementary branches of learning, you have provided but little else than a convenience to them in the business affairs of life. It is only when the higher branches are acquired that the government receives an equivalent for its outlay, in the well-disciplined and safe citizen returned to it. We have, however, motives beyond all this in the education of our masses, and chief among them is the purpose to furnish knowledge to the minds of all, out of which good may be naturally evolved; and thus you will see at once how learning has become the chief part of our religion. You are slow to acknowledge the great value of your purely secular education as a moral agent, because of its disturbance recently with your cherished traditions; but this reason, great as it is, is supplemented with another one, which fully accounts for the earnest opposition of your ecclesiastics. So long as the learning of your schools was mixed up with creed influence and teachings, it was virtually a part of the church, and in harmony with it, but on a separation of the two, they became enemies by a well known social law; your churches with their avowed purpose of improving your morals, and your secular schools, while in the performance of their duties, occupying the same competing field.