Sfxt. III.] United States of Amej^ca. 191 



rude £tnd uncultivated country, they directed their 

 principal attention to this object, and neglected 

 most other concerns. Besides, not being so much- 

 under the iniluence of religious principles as their 

 eastern brethren*, nor feeling in so high a degree 

 the necessity of literary institutions for the pro- 

 motion of ecclesiastical as well as civil prosperity, 

 they might naturally have been expected to be 

 more indifferent about their establishment. And- 

 to crown all, being formed of members who, 

 though chiefly from one country, were less equal 

 in station, less homogeneous in character, and less 

 united by common sufferings, it was not to be 

 supposed that they would act with the same har- 

 mony and zeal, in any pursuit which had public 

 good for its object. 



Hence, during a great part of the seventeentli 

 century, the southern colonists paid but little at- 

 tention to literary institutions. Such as wished 

 to give their sons a liberal education, and could 

 afford the expense, sent them to Europe for this 

 purpose, and generally to some of the universities 

 of Great Britain. This practice, indeed, was con- 

 tinued by many for a long time afterward ; and 

 accordingly it happened, that, until near the mid- 

 dle of the eighteenth century, by far the greater 

 proportion of the young men of the Southern 

 States who were liberally educated, had received 



* The author does not mean to intimate that the fust settlers 

 in Virginia were destitute of religion ; but merely (what he takes 

 for granted every one will readily admit), that religion seems to 

 have been a less prominent object, and to have entered less into 

 their motives and plans iu forming the settlement, than in New 

 England. 



