Republican Herald

Deplorable Ignorance.—Of 135,845 marriages solemnized in England, during 1848, 104,308 of the parties, viz., 42,459 men and 61,877 women,—nearly one third of the men and one half of the women—could not write! This fact demonstrates that it is high time that the taxes devoted by law in that country to the compulsory support of a State religion should be devoted to the support of a State system of free schools. But it is deemed a good policy by the ruling aristocracy to keep the people of England in ignorance, in order to render the government more safe! These very aristocrats, who keep the people uneducated, at the same time plead their ignorance as a reason for depriving them of their political rights.