Excerpt from The Common School Controversy: Consisting of Three Letters of the Secretary of the Board of Education, of the State of Massachusetts, in Reply to Charges Preferred Against the Board The Hon. Secretary, in his last report to t e Legislature, furnishes a practical commentary upon such a use of the Bible in our schools as this system allows. In the examination of a school at Edinburgh, in Scotland, he found the bo 8 per fectly acquainted with the test of the four Gospels, and the Epistle to e He brews, so that they could turn to any passage selected at random, in less time than it could be recited by the examiner, and yet utterly ignorant on points of common morals, as controlled by the Bible. To the interesting narrative of that examination, the Hon. Secretary subjoins, The children had been admira bly trained in most respects, but their minds seemed not to have been turned in this direction. The agreement between the system of Mr. Girard and that which is in action here, as Implicated by our correspondent, lies in their both excluding Christianity as an essential element of education, in the training of children, leaving that to be procured when, and how it may. Now the Puritans, who founded the Com mon School system, had no such design. The aim of our law (now) is, says the Secretary's report, to secure as much Of religious instruction as Is compati-s' ble with religious freedom and what that is, in the esteem of those in authori ty, may be inferred from what has been said of the manner in which books are prepared for the reading Of our children. On the propriety of designating this system to be that of the Board, or, rather, of its Secretary, we will not be strenuous. But we should not render honor to whom honor is due, if we lost sight of the fact, that since the existence of the Board of Education, legislative action has followed the course indicated by their able Secretary; and no feature of the system has been more assiduously pursued by him, than that which provides for the avoidance of what he esteems sectarian religion. That it is a favorite item in his plan, appears in all his reports to the legislature, and in none more conspicuously than in the last, in which we have the very interesting record of his Observations in the kingdoms Of Europe; and all that he saw conspired to convince him, we find, of the inferior attainments in morality and ospel precepts acquired in those schools where religious creeds, and forms of lgith, and modes of worship were directly taught. If the system beflnot his by authority, it is his by preference, and constantly exerted, powerful In uence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.