Creating a nation requires the will of the people!
A State which has universal suffrage and a wide extension of the jury franchise, must qualify the people by education to rightly exercise the great powers with which they are invested.
If it is the duty of the State to educate, it is the duty of the State also to bear the burden of education, namely, the taxation out of which education is provided.
It is the duty of the State to educate, and the right of the people to demand education.
The difference between the denominational system and the public school system is all the difference between bolstering them up on the one hand and letting them alone of the other.
I say further that our system of education should be unsectarian.
I was for two years a pupil at the Model School in Fort street which was then conducted upon the Irish national system, and if any special religious instruction was given in connection with that system, I do not recollect it.
