leading principles are the same in all of them; and the modes of applying them, and the results obtained, are not materially different. Indeed, in almost every part of these six states, whatever may be the injunctions of the law, the popular demand for education is so much greater, that the legal requisitions are generally or constantly exceeded. The most striking instance of this is, perhaps, to be found in the city of Boston, where the requisitions of the law could be fulfilled by an expenditure of three thousand dollars annually, but where from sixty to seventy thousand are every year applied to the purpose. And yet multitudes of the poor and small towns in the interior show no less zeal on the subject, and, in proportion to their means, make no less exertion. The mode in which this system of popular education is carried into effect is perfectly simple, and is one principal cause of its practical efficiency. The New England states are all divided into territorial communities called towns, which have corporate privileges and duties, and whose affairs are managed by a sort of committee annually chosen by the inhabitants, called selectmen. These towns are of unequal size; but in the agricultural portions of the country, which contain four fifths of the people, they are generally five or six square miles; and upon them, in their corporate capacity, rests the duty of making provision for the support of free schools. This duty is fulfilled by them, in the first place, by voting, at a meeting of all the taxable male inhabitants over twenty-one years old, a tax on property of all kinds to support schools for the current year, always as large as the law requires, and often larger; or, if this is neglected by any town, it is so surely complained of to the grand jury by those dissatisfied inhabitants, who want education for their children, that instances of such neglect are almost unknown. The next thing is to spend wisely and effectually the money thus raised. In all but the smallest towns, one school, at least, is kept through the whole year, in which Latin, Greek, the lower branches of mathematics, and whatever goes to constitute a common English education in reading, writing, geography, history, &c., are taught under the immediate superintendence of the selectmen, or of a special committee appointed for the purpose. This, however, would not be carrying education near enough to the doors of the people, in agricultural districts, to enable them fully to avail themselves of it, especially the poorer classes and the younger children. To meet this difficulty, all the towns are divided into districts, varying in number, in each town, from four to twelve, or even more, according to its necessities and convenience. Each district has its district school committee, and receives a part of the tax imposed for education; sometimes in proportion to the population of the district, but oftener to the number of children to be educated. The committee of the district determine where the school shall be kept, select its teacher, choose the books that shall be used, or delegate that power to the instructer, and, in short, are responsible, in all particulars, for the faithful fulfilment of the trust committed to them; the general system being that a school is kept in each district during the long winter months, when the children of the farmers are unoccupied, by a male teacher capable of instructing in reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography and history; while in the same school-house, during the summer months, schools are kept by women, to instruct the smaller children in knowledge even more elementary. In this way, for the population of New England, consisting of two millions of souls, not less than from ten to twelve thousand free schools are open every year, or, on an average, one school to every two hundred souls a proportion undoubtedly quite sufficient, and larger than would be necessary, if the population were not in many parts very much dispersed."* *On this point no one has spoken with more debate, to the free schools, where he himself repower than Mr. Webster, who, alluding, in public ceived his earliest training, said,-" In this particular, New England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of a peculiar character. She early adopted, and has constantly maintained the principle, that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of government, to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which is elsewhere left to chance, or to charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property; and we look not to the question whether he himself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by which property, and life, and the peace of society, are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an early age. We hope to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense of character, by enlarging the capacity, and increasing the sphere of intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere, to keep good sentiments uppermost, 2. The common or free schools give instruction in the elements of an English education (reading, writing, arithmetic, geography), and in the larger towns teach Latin and Greek. The public legislation goes no further in its requisition, but has generally stood ready to assist the people, whenever they have shown themselves disposed to go beyond this point. This is visible in the number of academies, incorporated by law for the purposes of giving higher instruction than can be obtained at the common schools. Individuals desirous of securing better teaching for their children than the law provides, associate together and raise funds, obtain an act of incorporation from the legislature for the management of their funds, and sometimes receive a grant of money from the public authorities. These institutions are often also founded by charitable donations of individuals, and are supported in part by the tuition fees of the pupils, which are generally very low. They give instruction in the ancient languages, and often in French, with the lower branches of the mathematics and natural philosophy. Children from the neighboring towns are sent to them, and are prepared for the colleges, or for active life as traders, mechanics, farmers, &c. There are about 500 such institutions in the country, and they are of great importance, by bringing the means of a useful practical education within the reach of a a very large portion of the community. 3. The last step in education, of which the government and the people take any direct cognizance, is in the colleges, which are incorporated institutions, possessing more or less funds, a regular body of teachers, and the power of conferring de and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as well as the censures of the law, and the denunciations of religion, against immorality and crime. We hope for a security, beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlight ened and well-principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in the villages and farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred doors. And, knowing that our government rests directly on the public will, that we may preserve it, we endeavor to give a safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed, expect all men to be philosophers or statesmen but we confidently trust, and our expectation of the duration of government rests on that trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge and good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as well against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow but sure undermining of licentiousness." (Journal of Debates in the Convention to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts, 1821, page 245.) grees. (See Colleges.) The oldest and amplest of the colleges is Harvard college, in Cambridge, founded in 1638. (See Cambridge.) The example of Massachusetts was early followed by the other colonies; and in 1776 there were eight of these institutions in the U. States. The number at present is sixty, differing, however, extremely in the extent of the course of studies, the number of teachers, and other advantages which they afford to the students. The course of studies in all of them lasts four years, and embraces Greek, Latin, natural philosophy, mathematics, metaphysics, moral philosophy, chemistry, &c.; but all these studies are pursued very superficially, as may be inferred from the circumstances of the age and qualifications of the pupils when they enter the institution, and of all being required to pass through the same course without regard to the very unequal attainments, and the different talents and objects of each. The colleges have done much good in preparing many, in some degree, for their professional studies; but they do not give that thorough education which is now more and more felt to be wanted in the country. The period of education is itself too limited; most young men, in the U. States, completing their preparatory studies at about the age of eighteen. These remarks, though still applicable, in all their force, to nearly all the institutions of the country, are less strictly true at present of two or three of the oldest, in which attempts have been made to introduce a better method of study. On leaving the colleges, the young men who have been educated in the manner described, have hitherto, with few exceptions, entered upon the study of one of the three professions; but at present those who devote themselves to the business of manufacturing and engineering are more numerous than formerly. Beyond the colleges little has been done by public legislation for education. The law, medical and theological seminaries have been generally established and maintained by the exertions of private individuals, although this remark is not without exceptions. There are at present twenty-six theological seminaries in the country; but a small portion of the clergy have, as yet, been educated in these institutions, most of which are, indeed, yet in their infancy. The great body of the clergy pursue their studies under the direction of some individual clergyman, or do not study at all. The standard of theological instruction in the U. States must therefore be considered as very low. The number of medical schools is eighteen, in some of which the standard of education is high, and the advantages for scientific instruction great. The number of law schools is nine, most of which are of recent origin; the lawyers hitherto having been educated chiefly in the offices of the older and more eminent counsellors, little more having been required, for obtaining permission to practise, than reading more or less, according to the inclinations of the student, for a certain course of time. Besides these more public and general means of instruction, the private schools (i. e. such as are kept and managed by individuals at their own risk and discretion) are numerous; and, in many cases, they afford greater advantages than the public schools: several of these have been organized and conducted on the plan of the German gymnasia, and several mechanical and agricultural institutes have recently been established. Infant schools and Sunday schools also exist in great numbers. Subsidiary to direct teaching, the state of the public libraries should be considered; and in this respect there is a deplorable deficiency in the country. The only respectable libraries are those of Cambridge (36,000 volumes), Boston Athenæum (26,000 volumes), of Philadelphia (24,000 volumes), of congress (16,000 volumes), and of Charleston (13,000 volumes); and these must, of course, be very imperfect. (See Libraries.) Until the libraries of the country are put upon a better footing, it is not to be expected either that the scholars and scientific inquirers in this country can take their place at the side of those of Europe, or that instructers can be formed who will give the coming generations such advantages as their situation and wants will require. There are other institutions, which are of great importance in promoting general instruction, and which are little known in the U. States. There are botanical gardens at Cambridge, New York and Philadelphia; there are few collections of instruments for teaching natural philosophy and mechanics; there are some good collections of minerals, especially those at Cambridge, New Haven and Brunswick; but there is neither an observatory nor a good cabinet of natural history in the country. These are defects which also call for remedies. On the whole, it will be seen that, while popular education is very widely diffused, and a great amount of knowledge is communicated to the mass of the people, the means of education, as we ascend to the higher departments of literature and science, grow more and more imperfect, and at last almost entirely fail. 6. The population of no country in the world ever enjoyed the necessaries and comforts of life in such abundance as that of the U. States. The high rate of wages, the great demand for labor of all kinds, the plenty of provisions, the cheapness of land, and the lightness of taxes, connected with the absence of all restrictions upon industry, and the character of the institutions, would naturally produce such a result. It has been computed that a laborer can earn as much in one day as will furnish bread and meat to himself, wife and four children for three days nearly. It is observed by travellers-and the observation agrees with facts known regarding the lower animals-that this abundance of substantial and nourishing diet has had a visible effect upon the human frame. In the western country, in particular, where the climate is good, and rural occupations prevail, the great size and athletic frames of the men have struck foreigners with surprise. Where the means of subsistence are so easily procured, no person able to work need be in want; but there must be some in all countries, who, from age, or bodily or mental infirmities, are unable to support themselves: the number of these, however, is small, and comfortable provision is made for their support by state legislation. The actual expense is light; but we have no accurate data for determining its amount in the different states. A beggar is rarely seen in any part of the country. To have a just idea of the advantages which industry enjoys in the U. States, we must take into account that, while labor yields larger returns than in any other country, a much smaller proportion of the produce is taken away in the shape of taxes. The revenue of the general government is raised from the customs and the sale of the public lands-no direct taxes being paid except state taxes, which are very light. It should also be borne in mind, that the distribution of taxes is regulated on juster principles in the U. States than in other countries; so that the burden falls more directly upon property and consumption. The following statements will serve to illustrate these general remarks:-It is estimated by Mr. Holmes (Speech in the Senate of the U. States, 1832), that, if the industry of this country were divided into twelve equal parts, we might assign to commerce two, to navigation one, manufactures two, and agriculture seven. The price of agricultural labor must, therefore, regulate that of the rest; though, of course, the price of other labor will be lower or higher according to the demand, skill, certainty of success, constancy of employment, &c. ; yet it will rise or fall relatively with that of agriculture. The average price of agricultural labor, in 1830, was $8,95 per month throughout the U. States, in addition to the board of the laborer; in the New England and Middle States, varying from $8,00 to $10,00 per month; and in the Southern and Western, generally, from $6,00 to $10,00; while in Georgia it was $12,00, and in Missouri $15,00. Some attempts have recently been made to estimate, with more accuracy than had previously been done, the total amount paid by each individual for expenses of government, including the federal and state budgets, the amount paid for public schools, the clergy, the poor, and all incidental expenses. Some statements in the Revue Britannique for June, 1831, have elicited estimates on this subject from Mr. Cooper and from general Bernard. The writer in the Revue Britannique had calculated the sum of the public charges paid by each inhabitant of the U. States at thirtyfive francs, and that of each person in France at thirty-one francs. Mr. Cooper inakes this amount fourteen francs five centimes (or $2,644); and general Bernard, who, however, leaves out the ecclesiastical expenditure, eleven francs fortyseven centimes ($2,164), or, exclusive of that paid for the public debt, six francs eight centimes ($1,27). According to the estimate of the secretary of the treasury, the whole debt will be paid off in March, 1833. The estimated expenditures of 1832, for other purposes than the public debt, were $13,365,200, of which $3,000,000 would be raised by the sale of the public lands; leaving $10,365,200 to be paid by the people in the form of duties, or, estimating the population (according to the rate of increase), at the close of 1832, at 13,250,000, at 80 cents per head for the federal budget. An estimate by Francis Lieber, in the Courrier des Etats Unis, makes the local charge on each citizen of Massachusetts, where the taxes are higher than in the rest of the Union, as follows: Town taxes, for schools, roads, &c. $2,00 County taxes, for gaols, courts, coun An estimate in the same journal calculates the local charges upon a citizen of New York at $1,75. If these estimates are correct, the total charge for a citizen of Massachusetts would be, after the year 1832, $4,30, and for a citizen of New York, $2,55. Whatever the amount may be, it is very certain that the public charges are in no part of the U. States felt as a burden. "Instead of sanguinary executions and injustice, we find in America a penal code, singularly mild, and cautious to an extreme in taking away human existence, a system of punishment formed with a view to the prevention of crime, and not in a vindictive spirit, and adapted for the reclamation of the criminal rather than for his destruction. Instead of spoliation or pillage, we see no country in which the possession and disposal of property are better protected, or its acquisition by judicious industry better secured. And, above all, there is no country in which religion and its ministers are more generally respected and supported by the mass of the population, although without compulsory provision, and where the lives and example of the clergy more nearly approach to those of their great primitive models."Ouseley's Statistics of the United States. (See our articles Crime, Criminal Law, Prison Discipline, Temperance Societies.) We close this part of the article with the following remarks from Warden's Introduction:-"There is no national church in the U. States, but the support of religion is left to the voluntary contributions of individuals. This is a singular contrast to the policy of the European states; and yet religion is by no means neglected among us. It is true, the rural population is, in general, ill supplied with places of worship; but it ought to be recollected, that this population is thinly scattered over a new country, and that Europe owes her amply-endowed churches not to the religious zeal of an enlightened age, but to the superstition and bigotry of an age of ignorance. It will be found, however, that in the great cities of Europe, where the population has outgrown the original church funds, the places of worship do not bear a greater proportion to the population than in those of the U. States.* It is only between the * The number of clergymen at present is estimated at about 13,000. Many of these, however, among the Methodists, are continually travelling about, and preaching in different places; and there are, besides, many persons who officiate as clergymen, although engaged in some other occupation. In 1830, Boston, with a population of 1 large towns of America and Europe that a comparison can be fairly instituted. And if the supply of churches is considered as a criterion of religious zeal, we should take into account, that new churches in Europe are built by compulsory assessments, whereas in America they are built by voluntary contributions. Even in country districts ill provided with churches, no impartial observer will say that the moral duties are less attended to than in Europe. The truth is, church establishments were founded in a dark and barbarous age, when the interests of religion were little understood; and they have since been supported as instruments of state policy. It has, no doubt, an imposing appearance, to set apart a large proportion of the fruits of the earth to furnish all classes with religious instruction. Something of this kind may have been necessary in the rude times when Christianity was first established in Western Europe. But religion is one of the natural wants of the human mind, and, in an enlightened age, requires no aid from the civil magistrate. His presumptuous attempts to promote its interests have been the means of corrupting and debasing it they have lessened its influence over the hearts and conduct of men, undermined its authority, and filled the world with contention and bloodshed in its name. Church establishments, connected, as they commonly are, with exclusive creeds, have been the most effectual engines ever contrived to fetter the human mind. They shut up religion from the influence of new lights and increasing knowledge, give an unnatural stability to error, impose the dogmas and the prejudices of rude and ignorant times upon ages of knowledge and refinement, and check the genuine influence of religion by associating it with absurd practices and impious impostures. By connecting the church with the state, they degrade religion into an instrument of civil tyranny; by pampering the pride of a particular sect, and putting the sword into its hands, they render it indolent, intolerant, cruel, and spread jealousy and irritation through all the others. By violating the right of private judgment in their endeavors to enforce uniformity of belief, they multiply hypocrites. To what can we attribute the monstrous tyranny of modern Rome, 61,392, had forty-three churches; New York, with 203,000 inhabitants, upwards of one hun dred; Philadelphia, with a population of 167,811, had one hundred churches; and Cincinnati, with 24,831 inhabitants, twenty-three. from which it cost so much to emancipate the human mind? Not to any thing peculiar in its tenets, but to the corrupting influence of power associated with religious functions. The church of Rome was an established church of the most complete kind, and had, in the highest degree, all the vices that naturally belong to such a body. But experience will not warrant us in saying, that any other great sect, placed in the same circumstances, would have acted with more moderation. It is true that the toleration which the progress of philosophy has wrung from the priesthood, has stripped many of the national churches of their most offensive features; but much of the ancient spirit yet remains. It is still the case that men are compelled to pay for the support of a form of religion they do not approve of; that a difference of belief excludes individuals from many civil offices and civil privileges; that the established clergy are every where ready to justify the worst actions of men in power; and if they cannot impose silence upon the dissenters, they are often ready enough to harass and mortify them by such means as they still possess. In nothing have the U. States more reason to congratulate themselves than in their total exemption from the numerous dissensions, jealousies and oppressions that spring from an exclusive religious system. On this, as on other points, their experience affords a useful lesson to the world, and confirms the reasonings of doctor Smith, who pointed out the pernicious effects of such establishments more than forty years ago. settling the form of her political and civil institutions, North America had great advantages. She had the knowledge and experience of Europe to guide her, without being fettered by the prejudices and sinister interests that check improvements in that quarter of the world. In all old communities, men are governed by ancient forms and usages as much as by just views of their interests, or the exigences of their situation. But when they are removed to a new scene, old habits and prejudices are cast off, and their opinions and conduct are moulded by their circumstances. Attempts were made in several of the colonies to establish feudal practices and high church privileges; but they were inconsistent with the habits and situation of the colonists, and fell to the ground. The constitution and history of the parent state taught them the principles of freedom; her laws afforded them models of what is wise and In |