is the oldest of them--has furnished one half of the
presidents of the United States--has expended more upon her university
than any state in the Union has done during the same time upon its
colleges--sent to Europe nearly twenty years since for her most
learned professors, and in fine, has far surpassed every other slave
state in her efforts to disseminate education among her citizens, and
yet, the Governor of Virginia in his message to the legislature (Jan.
7, 1839) says, that of four thousand six hundred and fourteen adult
males in that state, who applied to the county clerks for marriage
licenses in the year 1837, 'ONE THOUSAND AND FORTY SEVEN _were unable
to write their names_.' The governor adds, 'These statements, it will
be remembered, are confined to one sex: the education of females it is
to be feared, is in a condition of _much greater neglect_.'

The Editor of the Virginia Times, published at Wheeling, in his paper
of Jan. 23, 1839, says,--

"We have every reason to suppose that one-fourth of the people of the
state cannot write their names, and they have not, of course, any
other species of education."

Kentucky is the child of Virginia; her first settlers were some of the
most distinguished citizens of the mother state; in the general
diffusion of intelligence amongst her citizens Kentucky is probably in
advance of all the slave states except Virginia and South Carolina;
and yet Governor Clark, in his last message to the Kentucky
Legislature, (Dec 5, 1838) makes the following declaration: "From the
computation of those most familiar with the subject, it appears that
AT LEAST ONE THIRD OF THE ADULT POPULATION OF THE STATE ARE UNABLE TO
WRITE THEIR NAMES."

The following advertisement in the "Milledgeville (Geo.) Journal,"
Dec. 26, 1837, is another specimen from one of the 'old thirteen.'

"NOTICE.--I, Pleasant Webb, of the State of Georgia, Oglethorpe
county, being an _illiterate man, and not able to write my own name_,
and whereas it hath been represented to me that there is a certain
promissory note or notes out against me that I know nothing of, and
further that some man in this State holds a bill of sale for _a
certain negro woman named Ailsey and her increase, a part of which is
now in my possession_, which I also know nothing of. Now do hereby
certify and declare, that I have no knowledge whatsoever of any such
papers existing in my name as above stated and I hereby require all or
any person or