Without the restraints of religion and social worship, men become savages much sooner than savages become civilized by means of religion and civil government.

I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat.

Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.

There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.

The business of education has lay[ed] the foundations for nurseries of wise and good men, to adapt our modes of teaching to the peculiar form of our government . . . . He must be taught to love his fellow creatures in every part of the world, but he must cherish with a more intense and peculiar affection the citizens of Pennsylvania and of the United States.

'Tis done. We have become a nation.

Now if the study of the Scriptures be necessary to our happiness at any time in our life, the sooner we begin to read them, the more we shall be attached to them.