education, and without some secret dread lest _you yourselves individually_ may have, in some way or other, either directly or indirectly, contributed to augment it? Will you not add to your power of establishing, patronizing and regulating schools, the still more effectual influence of _your example_ in the early instruction of your children, to make education what it should be, in all its branches? Can there be any thing that concerns us in the present life—is there any thing in the whole compass of thought, which should excite half such deep, heart-felt, all absorbing anxiety, as to remove this deadly curse of ignorance and vice from our land and nation? That it _is removable_—at least in a degree beyond all calculation, greater than we can judge from beholding its present widely spread mischief, none can doubt who believe in the scripture assurance, that if we train up our children in the way they shall go, they will not depart from it; or who confide in the extent to which, by the blessing of God, all human beings may be improved, both in knowledge and virtue, by means of education. Not only our own happiness, but that of our children and children's children, to the latest generation, are at stake; and it depends upon _you_, my friends, _you_, who, in full {622} proportion to your numbers, can direct and control the education of the present race, whether this happiness shall be increased or destroyed to a degree which it has never yet reached. Upon _your_ precepts and examples, while your children are under your own care, and upon _your_ choice of preceptors, when you confide them to the care of others, it depends—whether these children shall prove curses or blessings to themselves, to their parents, and to their country. Let _all our resources then_, both mental and physical—_all_ our available means, both of talent and wealth, be applied to the requisite extent, for the attainment of so glorious a purpose. The individuals who achieve it—if it ever is to be achieved, will merit the highest honors—the richest rewards that this world can bestow, and will enjoy all the happiness promised in the next, to the greatest benefactors of the human race.