Everything about him is primitive and unformed, but he is himself the result of the labor and the experience of eighteen centuries.

He wears the dress, and he speaks the language of cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious of the future, and ready for argument upon the present; he is, in short, a highly civilized being, who consents, for a time, to inhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into the wilds of the New World with the Bible, an axe, and a file of newspapers.
It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which public opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts.

*j I do not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in the most enlightened and populous districts of France.

*k It cannot be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of a democratic republic; and such must always be the case, I believe, where instruction which awakens the understanding is not separated from moral education which amends the heart.

But I by no means exaggerate this benefit, and I am still further from thinking, as so many people do think in Europe, that men can be instantaneously made citizens by teaching them to read and write.