gent action of the mass of the people. Realizing
this, each State has made 'provision for the maintenance of a
system of free public schools, by universal taxation,–Protestants
Catholics, Jews, and infidels being taxed alike for their support.
The public school rests upon the foundation of political necessity. It
has in view, not only the happiness and well-being of the
individual, but the preservation of the State, and is therefore a
purely civil institution maintained for political purposes,–neither in
the interest of, nor in opposition to,
4
religion. The public school, as a part of our governmental policy,
comes under Lincoln's definition of government; it is "of the
people, by the people, and for
