the Old South Church, had abandoned the orthodox faith. In 1805, he established The Panoplist for the purpose of illustrating and defending the commonly received orthodoxy of New England, and continued its sole editor for five years. This journal later became The Missionary Herald. Geography Morse strongly influenced the educational system of the United States. While teaching at a school for young women, he saw the need for a geography textbook oriented to the forming nation. The result was skimpy and derivative, Geography Made Easy (1784). He followed that with American Geography (1789), which was widely cited and copied. New editions of his school textbooks and the more weighty works often came out annually, earning him the informal title, "father of American geography." His postponed gazetteer for his work of 1784 was bested by Joseph Scott's Gazetteer of the United States in 1795. With the aid of Noah Webster and Rev. Samuel Austin, Morse published his gazetteer as Universal Geography of the United States (1797). Native American peoples Morse rebutted certain racist views published in the Encyclopædia Britannica concerning the Native American peoples, e.g., that their women were "slavish" and that their skins and skulls were thicker than those of other humans. He took great interest in requiring Native Americans to become Christian, and in 1820 was appointed by the US secretary of war to visit and observe various tribes on the border in order to devise the most effective ways of assimilating them to European-American culture. This work occupied his attention during two winters, and he wrote up the results of his investigations in Report to the Secretary of War on Indian Affairs (New Haven, 1822). Illuminati conspiracy theory Morse is also known for his part in spreading the Illuminati conspiracy theory in New England 1798–99. Beginning May 9, 1798, Morse delivered three sermons supporting John Robison's book Proofs of a Conspiracy, which first publicized the view that the Illuminati had masterminded the French Revolution. Morse was a strong Federalist and feared that the anti-Federalists would repeat the French Revolution's excesses. When presented with the claim, President George Washington wrote to Washington D.C commissioners on October 27th, 1798: It is not my intention to doubt that the doctrine of the Illuminati and the principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea