names for them, they will be adopted. But there are cases, where no such words can be found; and in these new ones will be made. Much more extensively applicable are these observations to ideas, framed by the mind, and derived from the state and business of society. These, being in every advanced state of civilization very numerous, require many new names to express them; and, wherever the ideas are to be communicated to others, such names will be found. Nothing but ignorance, or inadvertency, can permit any man to believe, that the people of the United States will not act in this case, just as all other people have acted; particularly as the British nation has always acted. Within a century and a half, you have introduced into the English language one-third, perhaps, of its vocabulary. Why, when our necessity or convenience, or, to use a single term, when our exigencies require it, should we not be expected to do just what you and all other nations have done? Why should it be an object of surprise, that we have thus done? The copiousness of the English language, however, is such, that a long time will probably elapse, before new-coined words will be very numerous, on either side of the Atlantic. I have never discovered any inclination to multiply them, here; and I observe a general jealousy among your philologists, which cannot but check any propensities of this nature in Great Britain. A large proportion of the books, which are either studied or read here, are printed on your side of the Atlantic; and every writer in the United States must, in order to acquire the reputation of writing well, conform in a good degree to the standard, established by the English classics. Our state of society also, though in many respects differing from yours, as every thinking man must preconceive, is yet in many more substantially the same. Our laws, religion, and very many of our customs, are more like yours than those of any two nations ever were. Hence, from this copious source of change in languages comparatively few alterations will for a long time be derived. have often wondered, that so many British writers, and among them several, who would hear their claim to talents questioned with very little patience, should censure the people of this country for innovations of this nature. The considerations, here suggested, furnish not our excuse, nor our justification,

for the case requires neither; but unanswerable proof, that the conduct is a thing of course, and inwoven with the very nature and circumstances of man; that we have acted as all other nations have acted in the like circumstances, and as every man, acquainted with the subject, would expect us

to act.

On the same grounds we have retained some words in the language, which are lost out of your current vocabulary. We found use for these words; you did not.

The surprise, expressed by your writers at these facts, their censures, their ridicule, are all groundless. To expect the contrary conduct on our part would have been an absurdity. To demand it would be to demand what never existed, and what in the very nature of things is impossible.

I am, Sir, &c.

LEARNING, MORALS, &c.

OF

NEW-ENGLAND.

LETTER I.

Schools. System of Connecticut. Schools of New-England. Effects of this Education on the People at large. Honourable Roger Sherman.

DEAR SIR;

THE state of learning and science, or generally of information, in every country where these objects are pursued at all, cannot fail to engage the attention of an enlightened and inquisitive mind. To know this, its causes, and its consequences, is to know something in the history of man, which, while it awakens our sympathies, expands our views, and enables us in some respects to form juster opinions concerning our own state of society, and concerning the general character of our race. Since the American revolution, it has extensively become a custom among writers in Great Britain, who either find or make a reason for speaking of the subject at all, to treat the character of the Americans with severity and contempt. The story told there has been echoed here; and there have not been wanting natives of this country, who, having learned by rote the observations, and especially the sneers, uttered on the eastern side of the Atlantic concerning their countrymen, have repeated them with not a little selfcomplacency. These men have probably felt, as critics concerning the writer whom they are censuring, that to censure involves of course a superiority to those who are the objects of their censure; and that, therefore, while they are condemning others in the gross, they are elevating their own

character to distinction and consequence. I give these men very little credit for their labours, or for the spirit by which they are dictated. Nor am I satisfied with the kindred efforts, which are made in Great Britain. Generally they have exhibited very little of truth or justice, and still less of candour or moderation. For sneers or sarcasms I have no great respect; and these are the principal weapons which have hitherto been used in this warfare.

A stranger, travelling through New-England, marks with not a little surprise the multitude of school-houses, appearing everywhere at little distances. Familiarized as I am to the sight, they have excited no small interest in my mind; particularly as I was travelling through the settlements recently begun. Here, while the inhabitants were still living in loghuts, they had not only erected school-houses for their children, but had built them in a neat style; so as to throw an additional appearance of deformity over their own clumsy habitations. This attachment to education in New-England is universal; and the situation of that hamlet must be bad indeed, which, if it contain a sufficient number of children for a school, does not provide the necessary accommodations. In 1803, I found neat school-houses in Colebrook and Stewart, bordering on the Canadian line.

The general spirit and scheme, by which the education given in parochial schools (for such I shall call them) is regulated throughout the New-England states, are substantially the same. It will be sufficient, therefore, to give a particular account of the system pursued in Connecticut.

The state of Connecticut is by law divided into school societies. These societies are empowered to divide themselves into as many school districts as their convenience may require. They are also empowered, in each case, to form school districts, by uniting parts of two neighbouring school societies, as they shall mutually judge convenient. In this manner the whole state is divided.

The districts have severally power to build school-houses, and to purchase grounds on which to erect them; to repair them, and to tax themselves for the expense; to appoint a clerk to record their proceedings, a collector of taxes, and a

treasurer.