punishment is to be feared. How well has the "Father of this Country" expressed this, when he left to his people as a sacred legacy these weighty words: "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." Another great military and political leader has spoken even more strongly on this subject. Lord Mahon writes of a conversation which he had with the great Duke of Wellington: "I shall never forget the earnestness and energy of manner with which he [the Duke of Wellington] deprecated mere secular education, adding, I doubt if the devil himself could advise a worse scheme of social destruction." ... "Take care what you are about," he exclaimed on December 23, 1840, when speaking of the new Education Act; "for unless you base all this education on religion, you are only bringing up so many clever devils."[1] The educational legislation of the year 1902 proves that England, after many decades of experimenting, has at length realized the truth of the warning of her distinguished leader.
Alas, that the most important words of Washington have been practically forgotten in this country, and that the exclusion of religious teaching from the schools has been made one of the fundamental principles of the national system of schools, in such a degree that the Catholic Church, which all along has insisted that
- ↑ Lord Stanhope's Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, London, 1888, p. 180.
