386 Lelters from the United States of North America. [Ocr. 
Take a single case from:a new state, in confirmation of this. By 
Goyernor_ Ray's message (the governor of Indiana), it appears that ,for 
JFree-schools, they have set apart 608,207 acres of land, which, at two 
dollars ‘an_acre (9s.), would produce a fund of 1,216,441 dollars, FO 
ducing at legal interest an income of 72,986 dollars ; and that, t here 
are also 40,960 acres of college-lands granted by the state. Bey : -y 
“Nor should we stop here. The public lands yet remaining unsold ar 
Pp public lands yet remaining unsold are - 
estimated by a committee of Congress to amount to somewhere about 
two hundred millions of acres, and the American Congress have had a 
bill reported to them by their committee, whereby it is proposed, ‘that 
from and after the Ist of January 1827, « fifty per centum (one-half, 
ladies) of the nett proceeds of the monies accruing from the sales and 
entries of the public lands,” shall be applied exclusively for the support 
of common schools in the several states. 
Need I say more to convince you, my dear P., that, in this country, 
the value of education is properly appreciated? But—I have not yet 
done. There is yet another sign of the times for you. Are you pre- 
pared ?—They are going to publish an American dictionary; not a 
dictionary of mere Americanisms, made of pure yankee, but a sober- 
sided American Dictionary of the English language, by Noah Webster, 
which, laughable as it may seem to you—and it may seem very laughable 
to you, for it did so to me a few weeks ago—will stand a pretty good 
chance, I do believe now, from what I know of the editor, to rival your 
mighty Johnson—a book, by the way, that I was never more than half 
satisfied with, chiefly on account of the etymological derivations, and 
partly on account of the Doctor’s omissions (for he omitted a heap of 
words in the dictionary, that he used both in writing and in conversation.) 
Mr. Webster is an able, and very industrious man, with good-sense, wit, 
and scholarship enough, I am sure, to profit by every dictionary that 
ever was written. The work is to be in two volumes quarto, and, as 
usual here, “‘ to be executed in a very superior style ;” subscription price 
20 dollars (£6): to contain 20,000 additional words (on good authority ?) 
Pits of 5,000 of which are modern scientific terms : precise and technical 
efinitions ; additional significations omitted in most other works, and 
amounting to between 30 and 50,000 new etymological deductions, ~ 
&c. &e. 
There !—I have done. With all the universities, colleges, academies, 
high-schools, and every other sort of school, and with a dictionary 
of their own, there is—what shall I say ?—much to be hoped from the 
new race of sturdy Republicans. 
AL BOC: 
P.S. I forgot my promise; and, as I should not, have had room to 
score the whole body of your British writers who have blundered about 
America, I am not sorry for it, now. But.hereafter—perhaps. in my 
next, I shall most assuredly give two or three of them, if no more, a rap 
over the knuckles for their absurdity. 
rome 
201354 
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