166                THE WISCONSIN FARMER.

    they ban. their pride of State and Fersonality, lines of written directions.
The cavalier hus-
    how much more to ascertain how many of their band, who had kicked the
children and ordered
    nearly one mad a half millions of inhabitants chairs upon our arrival,
remarked to my friend
    know that Washington was a native, or the lo- that she had better leave
word instead of note,
    caelty where he sle"  t*e sleep of his great as Imaty wmem, oduo^d
in V*giaia had
    life' ending; to saertaln how many e the not beent teached to read."
 I had Ah bhere,
    multitudes who voted "yea " in the east, and and I believed
him.
    4 nay " in the west upon the Ordinance of Se-  But of rar better
authority than your judg-
    cession know one word of the history of their ment, or mine, and more
reliable even than
    champion of 1774, when Patrick Henry was gov'ernmental reports, are the
records that a
    the first orator of the first colonial Congress; proud and complacent
people have kept of
    to ascertain how many of the children of those themselves. Such would,
at least, not be de,
  seceding and non-seceding thousands, between preciatory. I have before
me copies of " Acts
  the ages of ten and twenty can repeat the first concerning Education,"
from the Code of Vir-
  line of the Declaration of Independence, or ginia, and School Commissioners'
Reports,
  say how many of the Chief Magistrates of the running back a great number
of years. I will
  nation were born upon the " sacred soil." That leave it to any
one who takes time to look over
  I may not seem to abuse the children, I will these records, to say if the
ignorance imputed
  ask, how could they be expected to know, when to the mass of th'e people
is not also evidenced
  nearly one-third of the a] ult population are as gross in the enactments
of these law-mak-
  not able to read ?  Thus stands the census of ers.  Here are hundreds of
pages devoted to
  1850: 82,520 unable to read, being about one- the work of authorizing something
that will
  third of the free population over twenty years operate in the place of
a common school sys-
  of age. Statistics of tho same year give the tem-system it cannot be called-every
section
  number of volumes in public libraries as abrut of which is expressed in
language unworthy
  in the proportion of one to seventeen persons, the subject discussed, and
directly calculated
  the number of daily newspapers as one to each to prevent the acceptance
of such provisions
  129,242. This was in  5 0. The improvement as are made by those for whom
they are in-
  in educational appliances through the decade tended.  Virginia legislators
sitting in state,
  of years, between that date and the returns of to enact certain privileges
for "1 the children
  1860, may be inferred from the general aspect of the poor and indigent,"
and repeating these
  of public and private affairs; the lightness, offensive words so often,
especially "1 the indi-
  and wholesale abandon wit which they have gent," that it would seem
to have been devised
  broken oaths, thrown up  ps, and trampled for that special end! What but
ignorance, on
upon the best forms of tWation the strug- their part, of the influence of
such language,
gling race has ever been  to work out,   in such legislation, can be urged
as an apolo-
  If I were talking in a newspaper I would gy ? And yet the great complaint
is, and has
repeat what some journals have said, and some always been, that the great
body of the peo-
Virginians glory in crediting, that, between ple, for whom  these provisions
are made, re-
the statistics of 1850 and 1860, they had one fuse to avail themselves thereof.
 No wonder
governor who did not forget to give God thanks that the parents of these
"indigent children,"
that in his district no newspaper was publish- for whom the scanty morsels
of education have
ed. If I were sure it would be in good taste, I been thus doled out, do not
very eagerly seize
would, also, relate a little circumstance that the opportunity to identify
themselves and
came under my observation a few days mince, their progeny with the cum  of
slaveholcaing
I went with a friend to the house of an emigrat- communities '  Poor  white
trash. "  Poor
ad F. F. V., and finding the mistress absent, a enough; but have they not
all come down in a
package of engaged work wras left with a ew  pile from a race of cavaliers
?  Rich or poor,