in the United Stales in Fifty Years. 143 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



EDUCATION. 



In addition to the new subjects already mentioned, the census of 

 1840, also, for the first time, embraced the statistics of education. 

 For this purpose, all schools for the instruction of youth were divi- 

 ded into three classes, viz: 1. Universities or colleges. 2. Acade- 

 mies and grammar schools. 3. Primary schools ; and the number 

 of each description, together with the number of scholars attending 

 each, in the several States, were given. It also enumerated the 

 scholars educated at the public charge in each State, and the num- 

 ber of white persons over twenty years of age who could not read 

 and write. 



Of the many substantial benefits of educating the people, it is 

 scarcely necessary now to speak ; since, wherever the experiment 

 has been made, it has been found to favour industry, prudence, tem- 

 perance, and honesty, and thus eminently conduce to the respecta- 

 bility and happiness of a people. But the motives for giving know- 

 ledge a wide diffusion are peculiarly strong in this country, where 

 the people being the sole source of political power, all legislation 

 and measures of public policy must, in a greater or less degree, re- 

 flect the opinions and feelings of the great mass of the community, 

 and be wise and liberal, or weak and narrow-minded, according to 

 the character of those by whose suffrages authority is given and is 

 taken away. If the body of the people be not instructed and intel- 

 ligent, how can they understand their true interests — how distin- 

 guish the honest purposes of the patriot from the smooth pretences 

 of the hypocrite — how feel the paramount obligations of law, order, 

 justice, and public faith ? 



