146 Progress of Population and Wealth 



88. T 7 „ ; scholars in primary schools, as 1 to 7./^ ; and the scholars 

 of every description, as 1 to 7 r 19 . 



The diversity among the States, as to the proportion of scholars, 

 is principally in those of the primary schools. In the number of 

 college students, no division of the States has greatly above or be- 

 low the average of 1 to 874 of the white population ; and in the 

 scholars of the grammar schools, the Northwestern States differ 

 widely from the other divisions. But in the primary, or elementary 

 schools, the proportion in New England is nearly double that of 

 the Middle States, nearly three times that of the Northwestern 

 States, and between six and seven times as great as those of the 

 Southern, and Southwestern States. The difference, as to the num- 

 ber of illiterate, is yet greater. If the other divisions be compared 

 with New England, the number who cannot read and write is, in the 

 last, three and a half times as great in the Middle States ; seven times 

 as great in the Northwestern States; twelve times in the South- 

 western States ; and nearly fifteen times in the Southern States. 



These diversities are attributable to several causes, but princi- 

 pally to the difference in density of numbers, and in the proportion 

 of town population. In a thinly-peopled country, it is very difficult 

 for a poor man to obtain schooling for his children, either by his 

 own means, or by any means that the State is likely to provide 

 but where the population is dense, and especially in towns, it is 

 quite practicable to give to every child the rudiments of education, 

 without onerously taxing the community. This is almost literally 

 true in all the New England States and New York, and is said to 

 be the case in the kingdom of Prussia. It is true that, in the North- 

 western States, and particularly those which are exempt from 

 slaves, the number of their elementary schools is much greater than 

 that of the Southern or Southwestern States, although their popula- 

 tion is not much more dense : but, besides that, the settlers of those 

 States, who were mostly from New England or New York, 

 brought with them a deep sense of the value and importance of 

 the schools for the people, they were better able to provide such 

 schools, in consequence of their making their settlements, as had 

 been done in their parent States, in townships and villages. We 

 thus see that Michigan, which has but a thin population even in the 

 settled parts of the State, has schools for nearly one-seventh of its 

 population. The wise policy pursued, first in New England, and 

 since by the States settled principally by their emigrants, of laying 

 off their territory into townships, and of selling all the lands of a 



