Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1875 — RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

—At Amherst just now the average grade of scholarship is 75.4 on the scale of 100. are thirty-eight agricultural colleges in the United States, with 889 professors and 8,917 students. —The Supreme Court of California has decided that there shall be no change of text-books in the public schools of that State. —A petit ion of citizens asking that unsectarian religious exercises be introduced in the schools has been refused by the San Francisco Board of Education. —A committee of the Prussian Diet has prepared a bill declaring "the Old Catllolics entitled to a share of Roman Catholic churches, cemeteries and revenues proportionate to their numbers as compared with other Catholics. —According to the General Minutes, there are 1,060 superannuates and 670 supernumeraries among the traveling preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, or one-sixth of the whole num--ber are reported as “not effective.” Some of these ministers are insurance agents, contractors, Colorado miners, literary employes, students, grocery men, speculators and bankers. —The last annual public school report of Maine shows that the increase of attendance in 1874 over that of 1873 was, in the summer schools, 6.218; in the winter schools, 4,939. The wages of teachers have also increased. The aggregate amount of money expended for schools in 1874 was $1,191,712, the excess of money raised above the amount required by law being $37,829. The increase of the permanent school fund was $50,610. The working of the Normal School is said to be excellent.

—An old story regarding Ethan Allen is revived by the Washington ChronicU. Allen had the reputation of being an open unbeliever in Christianity. He published the first formal attack on the Christian religion ever written in America. He inclined to the doctrine of Pytkagoras and believed in the transmigration of souls. His wife was a woman of exemplary piety, and his children, with the exception of one daughter, shared with tne mother in her religious belief. This daughter inclined to the strange opinions of her father. When about to die she sent for him. The rough-spoken man, Whose heart was as tender as a child’s, came to the bsd-side of the dying girl. “ Father, I am about to die," said she: “shall 1 believe in the principles you have taught me, or shall I believe in * what my mother has taught me?" The i father became agitated, his lips quiv- j ered, tears ran down his cheeks, and, bending over his dying he said, j with a voice choked with emotion: “ Be- j lieve what your mother has taught you." i