ter of their schools, and the proportion of the population
that receive instruction in them. Let us test the existing standard of
education in various states of this Union in both of these respects.

DEGREE OF POPULAR INTELLIGENCE.--According to the census of 1840,[58]
the total population of the United States was, in round numbers,
seventeen millions. Of this number, five hundred and fifty thousand were
whites over twenty years of age, who could not read and write. The
proportion varies in different states, from one in five hundred and
eighty-nine in Connecticut, to one in eleven in North Carolina.

[58] The census for 1850 is now being taken. Whether its results will
tell more favorably upon the general interests of education in the
United States than those of the last census, remains to be seen. Some of
the states during the last ten years have done nobly; others have
evidently retrograded. We have also a tide of foreign immigration
pouring in upon us hitherto unprecedented, averaging a thousand a day
for the past year, all of whom need to be Americanized.

If we exclude, in the estimate, all colored persons, and whites under
twenty years of age, the proportion will stand thus: in the United
States, one to every twelve is unable to read and write. The proportion
varies in the different states, from one in two hundred and ninety-four
in Connecticut, which stands the highest, to one in three in North
Carolina, which stands the lowest. In Tennessee the proportion is one in
four. In Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, and Arkansas,
each, one in five. In Delaware and Alabama, each, one in six. In
Indiana, one in seven. In Illinois and Wisconsin, each, one in eight.

On the brighter end of the scale, next to Connecticut, in which the
proportion is one in two hundred and ninety-four, is New Hampshire, in
which the proportion is one in one hundred and fifty-nine. In
Massachusetts it is one in ninety. In Maine, one in seventy-two. In
Vermont, one in sixty-three. Next in order comes Michigan, in which the
proportion is one in thirty-nine.[59]

[59] According to the last census, there were twenty states below
Michigan, and only five above her. But even this estimate, favorable as
it is in the scale of states, does not allow Michigan an opportunity to
appear in her true light, for it is well known that a great proportion
of the illiterate population of this state is confined to a few