Now, it is

more than one in thirty-five. hardly too strong to say, that in New England every child possesses such means. That which is elsewhere left to chance or charity, we secure by law. For the purpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation in proportion to his property; and we look not to the question, whether he himself have or have not children, to be benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of policy, by which property, and life, and the peace of society, are secured. We seek to prevent, in some measure, the extension of the penal code, by inspiring a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge at an early age. We hope for a security beyond the law, and above the law, in the prevalence of enlightened and well-principled moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time when, in the villages or farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep within unbarred doors. And knowing that our Government rests directly in the public will, that we may preserve it, we endeavour to give a safe and proper direction to that public will." All this is to be ascribed to the peculiar character of the first settlers of New England. It has been well observed, "The scattered settlements

along the shores of Massachusetts and Connecticut, which, in the map of the now extensive empire of America, can hardly be made visible, were not inhabited, as is often the case in a new colony, by men of forlorn prospects and ruined character, or by desperate expelled outcasts, but by gentlemen and yeomen of England, who, in a period of stern religious dissent, went into a voluntary distant exile, to preserve what they considered the truth."

"These solitary villages, hardly indenting the vast forest that overshadowed the continent, where labour and frugality never relaxed their cares, where every thing luxurious withered before the energy of body and mind, maintained by the daily encounter of hardship and danger; in these lone villages, there were to be found, as teachers and leaders of the flock, men who united all the learning of the schools to the piety and zeal of the confessors and martyrs. These men, who had been bred in the antique cloisters of Oxford and Cambridge, with habits and views that ordinarily lead to timid apprehensions of every thing new, and a reluctant change of locality, cheerfully came to what was then called the new, and might almost be considered another world,—and here exhorted their fellow-pilgrims to constancy. Sometimes, their

discourse was held in the deep shades of moss-grown forests, whose gloom and interlaced boughs first suggested that Gothic architecture, beneath whose pointed arches, where they had studied and prayed, the parti-coloured windows shed a tinged light; scenes, which the gleams of sunshine, penetrating the deep foliage, and flickering on the variegated turf below, might have recalled to their memory.”

"A conviction of the importance of public instruction," says Mr. Webster, "was one of the earliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or modern times has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, than the early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed here. Assembled on this very spot, 153 years ago, the legislature of this Colony declared, 'Forasmuch as the maintenance of good literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal and flourishing state of Societies and Republics, this Court doth, therefore, order, that in whatever township in this Government, consisting of fifty families, or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a grammarschool, such township shall allow, at least, 12 pounds, to be raised by rate, on all the inhabi

To the superior advantages of education transmitted by their forefathers to the inhabitants of the Eastern States, as well as to the poverty of their soil, is to be ascribed that spirit of emigration which pervades New England.You remember how beautifully the connection between superior intelligence in the population of a comparatively poor country, and a spirit of adventure and emigration, are pourtrayed by Dr. Currie, in his remarks on the Scottish peasant.

With respect to the agriculture of New England, I have not had an opportunity of acquiring much precise information. I was surprised to find, that even here the farmers had fallen into the error, so common in the south, of keeping too much land in tillage, and in disproportion to their means. The produce of wheat and Indian corn varies of course so materially in different parts of the country, that it is impossible to state what may be considered an average produce. I frequently hear of farms yielding 25 to 30 bushels of wheat per acre, and 40 to 60 bushels of Indian corn. In the south, (in Alabama, for example,) you will, perhaps, recollect instances which I mentioned, of 100 bushels of Indian corn per acre being obtained from the rich, fresh, and newly-cleared lands.

These, however, were extreme cases.* But to return to my narrative.

A little circumstance which I will mention, will show you the difference between the state of manners in Connecticut and that part of the State of New York on which we had just

* "It is an error that generally prevails under the tropics, to consider grain as plants which degenerate in advancing towards the equator, and to believe, that the harvests are more abundant in the northern climates. Since calculations have been made, on the progress of agriculture in the different zones, and the temperature under the influence of which corn will flourish; it has been found, that, beyond the latitude of 45°, the produce of wheat is no where so considerable, as on the northern coasts of Africa, and on the table-lands of New Grenada, Peru, and Mexico. Without comparing the mean temperature of the season, which embraces the cycle of vegetation of corn, we find, for three months of summer in the north of Europe, from 15 to 19', in Barbary and in Egypt, from 27° to 29° within the tropics.

"The fine harvests of Egypt, and of the kingdom of Algiers, those of the vallies of Aragua, and the interior of the island of Cuba, sufficiently prove, that the augmentation of heat is not prejudicial to the harvest of wheat and other alimentary grain, unless it is attended with an excess of drought or moisture. To this circumstance, no doubt, we must attribute the apparent anomalies, that are sometimes observed between the tropics, in the inferior limit of corn. We are astonished to see the east of the Havannah; in the famous district of Quatro Villas, this limit descends almost to the level of the ocean; while to the west of the Havannah, on the slope of the mountains of Mexico and Xalapa, at six hundred and seventy-seven toises of height, the luxury of vegetation is such, that wheat does not form ears.