he South._ New
Orleans, 1859.

IT is much easier to acquire knowledge from things cognizable to the
senses than from books. American civilization is founded upon the laws
of nature and upon moral virue. "Honesty is the best policy," says
Washington, its founder. The laws of nature are discovered by
observation and experience. A practical direction is given to them by
that species of knowedge, which is derived from handling the objects of
sense and working upon the materials the earth produces. Moral virtue
puts a bridle on the evil passions of the heart, and, at the same time,
infuses into it an invincible courage in demanding what is right. A
knowledge of nature enables its possessor to bridle the natural forces
of air, earth, fire, and water--to hold the reins and drive ahead. With
its rail-roads and telegraphs, American civilization is waging war with
time and space, and, by its moral power and Christian example, with sin
and evil. With its labor-saving machiney, its thirty millions do more
work for God and man than three hundred millions of such people as
inhabit Asia, Africa, Central, and South America, and Mexico. Its thirty
millions are equal to any hundred millions of most of the governments of
Europe. It is far ahead of the most enlightened nations of Europe,
because its people are in the possession of all the blessings and
comforts that heaven, through nature's laws, accord to earth's
inhabitants, while three-fourths of the two hundred and fifty millions
of Europe are writhing in an artificially created purgatory--deprived of
all the good things of earth. Whoever would catch up with the annals of
American progress, fall into line with American policy, and get within
the influence of the guiding spirit of American policy, must not depend
upon libraries for information, or he will be left far behind the age in
which he lives; must look to the statistics of the churches, to the
reports of legislative and commercial bodies, and to the monthly reviews
recording the principal transactions of the busy world around him. If he
wants to keep pace with the exploits of mankind under European
civilization, in cutting one another's throats, sacking cities,
destroying commerce, and laying waste the smiling fields of agriculture,
the daily press will give the required information; but he can not rely
upon it for these statistical details and stubborn facts which tell what
the Caucasian in America, aided by his bla