*i [Footnote i: [In the Northern States the number of persons destitute of instruction is inconsiderable, the largest number being 241,152 in the State of New York (according to Spaulding's "Handbook of American Statistics" for 1874); but in the South no less than 1,516,339 whites and 2,671,396 colored persons are returned as "illiterate."]] Such has not been the case in the United States.

The Anglo-Americans settled in a state of civilization, upon that territory which their descendants occupy; they had not to begin to learn, and it was sufficient for them not to forget.

Now the children of these same Americans are the persons who, year by year, transport their dwellings into the wilds; and with their dwellings their acquired information and their esteem for knowledge.

Education has taught them the utility of instruction, and has enabled them to transmit that instruction to their posterity.

In the United States society has no infancy, but it is born in man's estate.
The Americans never use the word "peasant," because they have no idea of the peculiar class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved amongst them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.