(Updated June 24, 2025)
Fisher Ames (1758-1808) was an American Founder who advocated for the Constitution as a Federalist, served as Massachusetts’s first Representative in Congress, and strongly supported the financial program of the first US Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.
Public Writings
Fisher Ames, School Books [in The Palladium] (January 27, 1801)1
Why then…should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a schoolbook? Its morals are pure, its examples captivating and noble. The reverence for the sacred book that is thus early impressed lasts long; and probably, if not impressed in infancy, never takes firm hold of the mind. One consideration more is important. In no book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant; and by teaching all the same book, they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith. A barbarous provision jargon will be banished, and taste…will be restored.
