Mr Carey, in his statistical work, falls into the great error of most
American writers--that of lauding his own country and countrymen, and
inducing them to believe that they are superior to all nations under
heaven. This is very injudicious, and highly injurious to the national
character: it upholds that self-conceit to which the Americans are
already so prone, and checks that improvement so necessary to place them
on a level with the English nation. The Americans have gained more by
their faults having been pointed out by travellers than they will choose
to allow; and, from his moral courage in fearlessly pointing out the
truth, the best friend to America, among their own countrymen, has been
Dr Charming. I certainly was under the impression, previous to my
visit to the United States, that education was much more universal there
than in England; but every step I took, and every mile I travelled,
lowered my estimate on that point. To substantiate my opinion by
statistical tables would be difficult; as, after much diligent search, I
find that I can only obtain a correct return of a portion of our own
establishments; but, even were I able to obtain a general return, it
would not avail me much, as Mr Carey has no general return to oppose to
it. He gives us, as useful, Massachusetts and one or two other States,
but no more; and, as I have before observed, Massachusetts is not
America. His remarks and quotations from English authors are not fair;
they are loose and partial observations, made by those who have a case
to substantiate. Not that I blame Mr Carey for making use of those
authorities, such as they are; but I wish to show that they have misled
him.
I must first observe that Mr Carey's estimate of education in England
is much lower than it ought to be; and I may afterwards prove that his
estimate of education in the United States is equally erroneous on the
other side.
To estimate the amount of education in England by the number of
_national schools_ must ever be wrong. In America, by so doing, a fair
approximation may be arrived at, as the education of all classes is
chiefly confined to them; but in England the case is different; not only
the rich and those in the middling classes of life, but a large
proportion of the poor, sending their children to private schools.
Could I have obtained a return of the private seminaries in the United
Kingdom, it would have astonished Mr Carey. The small parish of
Kensington and its vicinity has only two national schools, but it
contains 292 (I believe this estimate is below the mark) private
establishments for education; and I might produce fifty others, in which
the proportion would be almost as remarkable. I have said that a large
portion of the poorer classes in England send their children to private
teachers. This arises from a feeling of pride; they prefer paying for
the tuition of their children rather than having their children educated
by the _parish_, as they term the national schools. The consequence is,
that in every town, or village, or hamlet, you will find that there are
"dame schools," as they are termed, at which about one half of the
children are educated.
The subject of national education has not been warmly taken up in
England until within these last twenty-five years, and has made great
progress during that period. The Church of England Society for National
Education was established in 1813. Two years after its formation there
were only 230 schools, containing 40,484 children. By the
Twenty-seventh Report of this Society, ending the year 1838, these
schools had increased to 17,341, and the number of scholars to
1,003,087. But this, it must be recollected, is but a small proportion
of the public education in England; the Dissenters having been equally
diligent, and their schools being quite as numerous in proportion to
their numbers. We have, moreover, the workhouse schools, and the dame
schools before mentioned, for the poorer classes; and for the rich and
middling classes, establishments for private tuition, which, could the
returns of them and of the scholars be made, would, I am convinced,
amount to more than five times the number of the national and public
establishments. But as Mr Carey does not bring forward his statistical
proof; and I cannot produce mine, all that I can do is to venture my
opinion from what I learnt and saw during my sojourn in the United
States, or have obtained from American and other authorities.
The State of Massachusetts is a _school_; it may be said that all there
are educated, Mr Reid states in his work:--
"It was lately ascertained by returns from 131 towns in Massachusetts,
that the number of scholars was 12,393; that the number of persons in
the towns between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one who are unable
to write was fifty-eight; and in one town there were only three
persons who could not read or write, and those three were dumb."
I readily assent to this, and I consider Connecticut equal to
Massachusetts; but as you leave these two states, you find that
education gradually diminishes. [See Note 1.] New York is the next in
rank, and thus the scale descends until you arrive at absolute
ignorance.
I will now give what I consider as a fair and impartial tabular analysis
of the degrees of education in the different states in the Union. It
may be cavilled at, but it will nevertheless be a fair approximation.
It must be remembered that it is not intended to imply that there are
not a certain portion of well-educated people in those states put down
in class 4, as ignorant states, but they are included in the Northern
states, where they principally receive their education.
_Degrees of Education in the different States in the Union_.
+===================+===========+
Y1st Class. YPopulation.Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMassachusetts Y 700,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YConnecticut Y 298,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y Y 998,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y2nd Class. Y Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YNew York Y 2,400,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMaine Y 555,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YNew Hampshire Y 300,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YVermont Y 330,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YRhode Island Y 110,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YNew Jersey Y 360,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YOhio Y 1,300,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y Y 5,355,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y3rd Class Y Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YVirginia Y 1,360,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YNorth Carolina Y 800,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YSouth Carolina Y 650,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YPennsylvania (note)Y 1,600,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMaryland Y 500,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YDelaware Y 80,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YColumbia [district]Y 50,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YKentucky Y 800,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y Y 5,840,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y4th Class Y Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YTennessee Y 900,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YGeorgia Y 620,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YIndians Y 650,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YIllinois Y 320,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YAlabama Y 600,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YLouisiana Y 350,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMissouri Y 350,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMississippi Y 150,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YMichigan Y 120,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YArkansas Y 70,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YWisconsin Y 20,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
YFlorida [territory]Y 50,000Y
+-------------------+-----------+
Y Y 5,000,000Y
+===================+===========+