Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance

In the general course of observation, this essay retains the character of the original discourse, which was an attempt to display the importance of the education of the people in reference, mainly, to moral and religious interest. There are special relations in which their ignorance or cultivation are of great consequence to the welfare of the community. Some of them are of indispensable consideration to the legislator and to the political economist. But it is that general and moral view, in which ignorance in the lower orders is beheld the cause of their vice, irreligion and consequent misery, that the subject is attempted, imperfectly and somewhat desultorily, to be illustrated in the following pages.