Mrs. Wright's Travels in the United States. 627 
4s ruins. But if he should not look at 
a newspaper, he might walk through 
the streets on the very day of election, 
and never find out that it was going on, 
unless, indeed, it should happen to 
him, as it happened to me, to see a 
crowd collected round a pole surmount¬ 
ed by a cap of liberty, and men walk¬ 
ing in at one door of a house, and walk¬ 
ing out at another. Should he then 
ask a friend hurrying past him 44 What 
is goiugon there ?” he may receive for 
answer, 44 The election of representa¬ 
tives: walk on: I am just going to 
give in my vote, and I will overtake 
you.” 
But if the declamation of the press 
passes unregarded, its sound reasoning, 
supported by facts, exerts a sway be¬ 
yond all that is known in Europe. 
Here there is no mob. An orator or a 
writer must make his way to the feel¬ 
ings of tlie American people through 
their reason. They must think with 
him before they will feel with him ; 
but, when once they do both, there is 
nothing to prevent their acting with him. 
It would be impossible for a country 
to be more completely deluged with 
newspapers than is this ; they are to be 
had not ouly in the English but in the 
French and Dutch languages, and some 
will probably soon appear in the Spanish. 
It is here not the amusement but the 
duty of every man to know what his 
public functionaries are doing : he has 
first to look after the conduct of the 
geueral government, and, secondly, 
after that of his own state legislature. 
But besides this, he must also know 
what is passing in all the different 
states of the Union: as the number of 
these states has now multiplied to 
twenty-two. besides others in embryo, 
there is abundance of home-politics to 
swell the pages of a newspaper; then 
come the politics of Europe, which, 
by-the-bye, are, I think, often better 
understood here than on your side of 
the Atlantic. But, independent of po¬ 
litics, these multitudinous gazettes and 
journals are made to contain a wonder- 
ous miscellany of information; there 
is not a conceivable topic in the whole 
range of human knowledge that they 
do not treat of in some way or other ; 
not unfrequently, I must observe, with 
considerable ability; while the facts 
that they contain, and the general 
principles that they advocate, are often 
highly serviceable to the community. 
EDUCATION. 
The education of youth, which may 
be said to form the basis of American 
government, is, in every state of the 
Union, made a national concern. Upon 
this subject, therefore, the observations 
that apply to one may be considered as, 
more or less, applying to all. The 
portion of this wide-spread community, 
that paid the earliest and most anxious 
attention to the instruction of its citi¬ 
zens, was New England. This pro¬ 
bably originated in the greater demo¬ 
cracy of her colonial institutions. Li¬ 
berty and knowledge ever go hand in 
hand. 
The state of Connecticut has appro¬ 
priated a fund of a million and a half 
of dollars to the support of public 
schools. In Vermont, a certain por¬ 
tion of land has been laid off in every 
township, whose proceeds are devoted 
to the same purpose. In the other 
states, every township taxes itself to 
such amount as is necessary to defray 
the expense of schools, which teach 
reading, writing, and arithmetic to the 
whole population. In larger towns these 
schools teach geography, and the rudi¬ 
ments of Latin. These establishments, 
supported at the common expense, are 
opeu to the whole youth, male and fe¬ 
male, of the country. Other seminaries 
of a higher order are also maintained 
in the more populous districts; half 
the expense being discharged by appro¬ 
priated funds, and the remainder by a 
small charge laid on the scholar. The 
instruction here given fits the youth for 
the state colleges ; of which there is 
one or more in every state. The uni¬ 
versity of Cambridge, in Massachus- 
sets, is the oldest, and, I believe, the 
most distinguished establishment of the 
kind existing in the Union. 
Perhaps the number of colleges 
founded in this wide-spread family of 
republics, may not, in general, be fa¬ 
vourable to the growth of dist inguished 
universities. It best answers, how¬ 
ever, the object intended, which is not 
to raise a few very learned citizens, 
but a well-informed and liberal-minded 
community. 
The child of every citizen, male or 
female, white or black, is entitled, by 
right, to a plain education ; and funds 
sufficient to defray the expense of his 
instruction are raised either from pub¬ 
lic lands appropriated to the purpose, 
or by taxes sometimes imposed by the 
legislature, and sometimes by the dif¬ 
ferent townships. 
The American, in his infancy, man¬ 
hood, or age, never feels the hand of 
oppression. 
