ight
millions of copies, while Maryland exceeded South Carolina more than
seventeen millions of copies. So much for South Carolina as a great
political teacher. As to schools in 1850: South Carolina had 724 public
schools, 739 teachers, 17,838 pupils. Massachusetts, then, had 158,637
more pupils at public schools than South Carolina, and Maryland 15,416
more pupils at public schools than South Carolina.

The press of Massachusetts, we have seen, circulated in 1860 upward of
one hundred and two millions of copies, equal to 279,454 per day,
including journals and periodicals, each read, on an average, by at
least two persons. This is independent of books and pamphlets, and of
the very large circulation of papers from other States and from Europe.
What a flood of light is thus shed daily and hourly upon the people of
Massachusetts! This intellectual effulgence radiates by day and night.
It is the sun in its meridian splendor, and the stars in an ever
unclouded firmament. It has a centre and a circumference, but knows no
darkness. Ignorance vanishes before it; wealth follows in its train;
labor rejoices in its association, and finds its products more than
doubled; freedom hails its presence, and religion gives it a cordial
welcome; churches, schools, academies, colleges, and universities
acknowledge its mighty influence. Science penetrates the secrets of
nature, and unfolds each new discovery for the benefit of man. Coal, the
offspring of the sun, develops its latent energy, and water contributes
its untiring hydraulic power. Machinery takes more and more the place of
nerves and muscles, cheapens clothing and subsistence and all the
necessaries of life, and opens new fields of industry, and more
profitable employment for labor. Steam and lightning become the slave of
man. He performs the journey of a day in an hour, and converses in
minutes around the globe. The strength of man may not have been much
increased, but his power is augmented a thousand-fold. His life may not
have been materially lengthened, but, in the march of knowledge, a year
now is as a century, compared with man's progress in the darkness of the
middle ages. The eternal advance toward omniscience goes on, but is like
that of the infinite approach of the asymptote, which never reaches the
hyperbolic curve. The onward march of science is in a geometrical ratio,
so that in time, the intellectual progress of a day in the future, must
exceed that of a century i