all these points.

But the true superiority of Americans is in the universality of common
instruction. The Puritans, who came hither with their Bibles, were of
necessity zealous founders of schools; the Bible and the school go
together. See, therefore, what the schools are in the United States! The
State of Massachusetts alone, which does not number a million of souls,
devotes five millions yearly to its public instruction. If other States
are far from equalling it in academies and higher institutions, all are
on a level with it as regards primary schools; a man or woman,
therefore, is rarely found outside the class of immigrants, who does not
possess a solid knowledge of the elementary sciences, the extent of
which would excite our surprise. By the side of the primary school, and
to complete its instruction in the religious point of view, the
Americans have everywhere opened Sunday-schools, kept gratuitously by
volunteer teachers, among whom have figured many men of the highest
standing, several of whom have been Presidents of the Confederation.
These Sunday-schools, not less than twenty thousand in number, and
superintended by one hundred and fifty thousand teachers, count more
than a million of pupils, of which ten thousand at least are adults.
Calculate the power of such an instrument!

People read enormously in America. There is a library in the meanest
cabin of roughly-hewn logs, constructed by the pioneers of the West.
These poor log-houses almost always contain a Bible, often journals,
instructive books, sometimes even poetry. We in Europe, who fancy
ourselves fine amateurs of good verses, would scarcely imagine that
copies of Longfellow are scattered among American husbandmen. The
political journals have many subscribers; those of the religious papers
are no less numerous. I know of a monthly journal designed for children,
(the _Child's Paper_,) of which three hundred thousand copies are
printed. This is the intellectual aliment of the country. In the towns,
lectures are added to books, journals, and reviews: in all imaginable
subjects, this community, which the Government does not charge itself
with instructing, (at least, beyond the primary education,) educates and
develops itself with indefatigable ardor. Ideas are agitated in the
smallest market-town; life is everywhere.

Accustomed to act for themselves, knowing that they cannot count on the
administrative patronage of the State, the Americans excel in