nally appealed to in the hall of the representatives, are calculated to impart dignity to the national politics. The vessel of the state has to be navigated through the broad ocean of liberty, not through the tortuous canal of political expediency. The soul of the statesman expands over the vast prospect before him; the generous principles which form his weapons of attack and defence dispose him to wage an honourable and chivalrous combat with his adversary; he presses him home, indeed attacks him on all sides, and occasionally thunders down his blows with all the fever of impatient enthusiasm; but he does not permit himself to seek any unfair advantage, by attempting to vilify his adversary, which could only injure his own cause, or mar the honour of his triumph.

We may further observe, that personal invective is not likely to be tolerated in an assembly composed of men all equally proud and equally free. The political institutions doubtless give the key to this peculiarity, which so often excites the surprise of foreigners, accustomed in Europe to look for noise and confusion in the courts of liberty.

41

THE education of youth, which may be said to form the basis of American government, is in every state of the Union made a national concern. Upon this subject, therefore, the observations that apply to one may be considered as, more or less, applying to all. The portion of this wide spread community, that paid the earliest and most anxious attention to the instruction of its citizens, was New-England. This probably originated in the greater democracy of her colonial institutions. Liberty and knowledge ever go hand in hand.

If the national policy of some of the New-England states has been occasionally censurable, the internal arrangement of all amply redeems her character. There is not a more truly virtuous community in the world than that to be found in the democracies of the east. The beauty of their villages, the neatness and cleanliness of their houses, the simplicity of their manners, the sincerity of their religion, despoiled in a great measure of its former Calvinistic austerity, their domestic habits, pure morals and well administered laws, must command the admiration and respect of every stranger. I was forcibly struck in Connecticut with the appearance of the children, neatly dressed, with their sachels on their arms, and their faces blooming with health and cheerfulness, dropping their courtesy to the passenger as they trooped to school.

The obeisance thus made is not rendered to station but to age. Like the young Spartans, the youth are taught to salute respectfully their superiors in years; and the artlessness and modesty with which the intelligent young creatures reply to the stranger's queries, might give pleasure to Lycurgus himself.

The state of Connecticut has appropriated a fund of a million and a half of dollars to the support of public schools. In Vermont, a certain portion of land has been laid off in every township, whose proceeds are devoted to the same purpose. In the other states, every township taxes itself to such amount as is necessary to defray the expense of schools, which teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, to the whole population. In larger towns, these schools teach geography and the rudiments of Latin. These establishments, supported at the common expense, are open to the whole youth, male and female, of the country. Other seminaries of a higher order are also maintained in the more populous districts; half the expense being discharged by appropriated funds, and the remainder by a small charge laid on the scholar. The instruction here given fits the youth for the state colleges; of which there is one or more in every state. The university of Cambridge, in Massachusetts, is the oldest, and, I believe, the most distinguished establishment of the kind existing in the Union.

Perhaps the number of colleges, founded in this widespread family of republics, may not, in general, be favourable to the growth of distinguished universities. It best answers, however, the object intended, which is not to raise a few very learned citizens, but a well-informed and liberal-minded community.

The number of universities in the United States now amounts to forty-eight. The most remarkable of these are, Harvard University, at Cambridge, near Boston, founded in the year 1698; Yale College, at New-Haven,

Connecticut, founded in 1701. Nassau Hall, at Princeton, New-Jersey, founded in 1738; Columbia College, in the city of New-York, founded in 1754; Dartmouth College, in New-Hampshire, founded in 1769; and William and Mary College, in Virginia, founded in 1791. Many of the colleges of the Union are amply endowed by the legislatures of the states to which they belong. Those of the new states are munificently provided for by the laws of Congress, which devote extensive tracts of the national lands for their support. In Ohio, for instance, about the one thirty-sixth part of the whole territory of that rich state is granted for this purpose; and so distributed as to produce the greatest effect. In some of the states more lately formed, as in that of Illinois, the donations are still more liberal. Numerous and well-endowed as are the establishments for the education of youth in the Atlantic states, they will, in less than a century from this time, appear diminutive when compared with those of the west. I had occasion in a former letter to advert to the academy at West-Point, instituted for the purpose of diffusing correct military information throughout the country.

It is unnecessary that I should enter into a particular detail of the internal regulations of all the different states relative to the national instruction. The child of every citizen, male or female, white or black, is entitled, by right, to a plain education; and funds sufficient to defray the expense of his instruction are raised either from public lands appropriated to the purpose, or by taxes sometimes imposed by the legislature, and sometimes by the different townships. But, notwithstanding the universality of these regulations, it must sometimes happen, from the more scattered population in some districts, and in others from the occasional patches of a foreign population, that knowledge is more unequally spread. The Germans of Pennsylvania and the Dutch of New-York are, here and

there, in full possession of the temple of ignorance; and three or four generations have, in some cases, proved insufficient to root out their predilection for the leaden deity so long worshipped within its walls. German schools have, however, done much towards the overthrow of the idol; and it may be anticipated, that even German obstinacy will at last be brought to exchange the Dutch alphabet for that of the country. There is something inexplicable in national character, every where so distinctly marked. A dozen years, and the French of Louisiana are cementing themselves with their new fellow citizens, and rearing up their children, more or less, in the language of the nation; while the Dutch of Communie-paw, on the shores of the New-York Bay, have taken a century to learn half a dozen English words, and to acquire the fifth part of a new idea.

If we must seek the explanation of national manners in national institutions and early education, all the characteristics of the American admit of an easy explanation. The foreigner is at first surprised to find in the ordinary citizen that intelligence and those sentiments which he had been accustomed to seek in the writings of philosophers, and the conversation of the most enlightened. The better half of our education in the old world consists of unlearning: we have to unlearn when we come from the nursery, to unlearn again when we come from the school, and often to continue unlearning through life, and to quit the scene at last without having rid ourselves of half the false notions which had been implanted in our young minds. All this trouble is saved here. The impressions received in childhood are few and simple, as are all the elements of just knowledge. Whatever ideas may be acquired are learned from the page of truth, and embrace principles often unknown to the most finished scholar of Europe. Nor is the manner in which education is here conducted without its influence in forming the cha