lightened people of the latter; when
I remember all the attempts which are made to judge the modern republics
by the assistance of those of antiquity, and to infer what will happen
in our time from what took place two thousand years ago, I am tempted
to burn my books, in order to apply none but novel ideas to so novel a
condition of society.

What I have said of New England must not, however, be applied
indistinctly to the whole Union; as we advance towards the West or the
South, the instruction of the people diminishes. In the States which are
adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico, a certain number of individuals may
be found, as in our own countries, who are devoid of the rudiments of
instruction. But there is not a single district in the United States
sunk in complete ignorance; and for a very simple reason: the peoples
of Europe started from the darkness of a barbarous condition, to advance
toward the light of civilization; their progress has been unequal;
some of them have improved apace, whilst others have loitered in their
course, and some have stopped, and are still sleeping upon the way. *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