[Footnote 3:  In speaking of this common ground, and in commenting upon it, I wish not to be understood that I consider these truths as comprising all that is essential in Christianity.  Very far from it.  A full expression of the Christian faith would go far in advance of all here presented.  We must not confound, however, what is essential to prepare the way for the forgiveness of sin with what is essential that a child should understand in order to secure his penitence and forgiveness.  The former is a great deal, the latter very little.]

The ground which I have been laying out is common all over our country; in particular places there will be even much more that is common.  Of course the teacher, in such cases, will be at much greater liberty.  If a Roman Catholic community establish a school, and appoint a Roman Catholic teacher, he may properly, in his intercourse with his scholars, allude, with commendation, to the opinions and practices of that church.  If a college is established by the Methodist denomination, the teacher of that institution may, of course, explain and enforce there the views of that society.  Each teacher is confined only to those views which are common to the founders and supporters of the particular institution to which he is attached.

I trust the principle which I have been attempting to enforce is fully before the reader’s mind, namely, that moral and religious instruction in a school being in a great degree extra-official in its nature, must be carried no farther than the teacher can go with the common consent, either expressed or implied, of those who have founded, and who support his school.  Of course, if those founders forbid it altogether, they have a right to do so, and the teacher must submit.  The only question that can justly arise is whether he will remain in such a situation, or go and seek employment where a door of usefulness, here closed against him, will be opened.  While he remains, he must honestly and fully submit to the wishes of those in whose hands Providence has placed the ultimate responsibility of training up the children of his school.  It is only for a partial and specific purpose that they are placed under his care.

The religious reader may inquire why I am so anxious to restrain, rather than to urge on, the exercise of religious influence in schools.  “There is far too little,” some one will say, “instead of too much, and teachers need to be encouraged and led on in this duty, not to be restrained from it.”  There is, indeed, far too little religious influence exerted in common schools.  What I have said has been intended to prepare the way for an increase of it.  My view of it is this: