98 EDUCATION AND RELIGION. 



so quiet is the whole process that there is little external evidence 

 of much business going on. 



The finest church in Milwaukee is the Eoman Catholic Ca- 

 thedral, with the palace of the bishop on one side of it, and an 

 orphan asylum on the other. There are many handsome pri- 

 vate residences, some built of white marble, and the principal 

 hotel of the city, the Newhall House, is very little inferior either 

 in size, architecture, or interior fittings and arrangements to 

 the Hotel de Louvre in Paris. There is a population of 

 60,000 in this city, which only twenty- three years ago was the 

 site of a single log cabin, but which now, in the one month of 

 October, ships a million bushels of wheat ! From the bluffs the 

 lake looks exactly like the sea, as no opposite shore can be seen, 

 and the white-crested waves come rollii% into the harbour just 

 as they do on the Atlantic, though not with the same long and 

 heavy swell. There are numerous schools in the city, free to 

 all, and well endowed by the State. Education in the West- 

 ern States seems to be far more highly prized than religion. 

 I have often thought that the status of the schoolmaster and 

 clergyman in Britain should be more nearly equal, but the lat- 

 ter ought not to be below the former, which is practically the 

 case here. The Roman Catholics are certainly an exception, 

 for wealth is lavished on their churches and cathedrals, wealth 

 drawn from the poor Irish, who, though they can't save money 

 for themselves, are liberate holy church. If one may judge 

 from their edifices the Eoman Catholics are making head in 

 America, not so much in the way of converts, but because the 

 Yankees and the Protestant settlers are too keen on business 

 to pay sufficient attention to religion. The Catholics are more- 

 over the only church in America which is bound together by an 

 all pervading system of union. 



From Milwaukee I proceeded by rail nearly 100 miles fur- 

 ther to Lake Whmebago at Fond-du-lac. The country most 



