Those belonging to seventeen free States amounted, in
1850, in fixed value, to 21,400,000 dollars. Popular education is the
condition on which all new States are admitted into the Union.
"There are 121 colleges in the States; with a total of 950 instructors;
50,115 alumni; 9,028 ministers; and 11,565 students; and having 769,079
volumes in their libraries.
"And without a farthing from the State, or from any source beyond the
free-will offerings of the people, to support them, there are in this
country of yesterday, 30,217 churches (exclusive of those belonging to
the Wesleyans) connected with the various sects of Christians: 26,588
ministers; and 4,558,168 communicants, or 1 in 5 1/2 of the population.
"This country, then, possesses all the elements which are usually
considered as contributing to civilization and to power. It has far
outstripped us in the rate of its progress; and it becomes every day,
more and more, the refuge for the industrious poverty, not only of
Great Britain, but of Europe.
"Those who wish to gaze at ruins need not go to it. Those who only
yearn for the sight of crown jewels, or ancient armour, had better stay
away. But to all who would see the realm which Nature has spread out,
in her largest features, for the development of the Anglo-Saxon race,
under institutions once deemed Utopian, and even yet wondered at as
experimental--to all who would see how a people can GROW--North America
is the country of irresistible attraction.
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