All other forms of government approach it just in proportion
to the general diffusion of education and independence of thought and
action. As the primary step, therefore, to our advancement in all that
has marked our progress in the past century, I suggest for your earnest
consideration, and most earnestly recommend it, that a constitutional
amendment be submitted to the legislatures of the several States for
ratification, making it the duty of each of the several States to
establish and forever maintain free public schools adequate to the
education of all the children in the rudimentary branches within their
respective limits, irrespective of sex, color, birthplace, or religions;
forbidding the teaching in said schools of religious, atheistic, or
pagan tenets; and prohibiting the granting of any school funds or school
taxes, or any part thereof, either by legislative, municipal, or other
authority, for the benefit or in aid, directly or indirectly, of any
religious sect or denomination, or in aid or for the benefit of any
other object of any nature or kind whatever.
In connection with this important question I would also call your
attention to the importance of correcting an evil that, if permitted to
continue, will probably lead to great trouble in our land before the
close of the nineteenth century.
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