Annual Meeting; Proceedings, Constitution, List of Active Members, and Addresses (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LECTURE II. THE DUTIES EXAMINING COMMITTEES. By PROP. E. D. SANBORN. In the mind of every enlightened patriot, the elevation of our Common Schools is, intimately, associated with the progress of society and the perpetuity of our cherished institutions. It is now an admitted fact the voice of history proclaims it that New- England owes her unparalleled prosperity to the early establishment of free schools and churches in the British colonies. For this labor of love and patriotism we venerate the memory of our fathers. We look upon the Common School System, which they established, as among the richest legacies they have left us. We are now convinced that our success, nay more, our very existence as a free people, depends upon the preservation and improvement of this priceless inheritance. The highest degree of civilization results from the union of piety and intelligence. Learning has ever been, and must ever continue to be, the handmaid of religion. Wherever they are divorced, the common mind becomes degraded, and religion degenerates into bigotry or superstition. Wherever free schools and free churches have been established among the nations of Europe, their influence is exhibited in the superior intelligence and thrift of the people. Catholic and Protestant countries, lying side by side, resemble the divisions of Egypt occupied by the Egyptians and Israelites of old. In the Goshen of Protestant Europe there is light; in Catholic Egypt, darkness, gross darkness, darkness that may be felt, covers the people. The great principles which Luther advocated, liberty to think and liberty to read, are felt in every department of business and of state; in the public marts and in the family circle; in the consecrated church and at the domestic altar. The intelligent traveller ...