esty, has characterized their enterprises; but among so many adventurers it is not surprising that some should be unprincipled, and of course a well educated and ingenious rogue has a fearful advantage over ignorant and stupid ones. From whatever cause it may have arisen, it is certain that in the south there is a strong prejudice against them; and it is very customary there to say many hard things of the Yankees, which are true only of a small number, and those the very worst of them.

The New England character is very favourably exhibited in New Haven, for the simplicity and sincerity of the ancient Puritans may be still seen strongly marked in their descendants. Plain and frugal in their domestic habits, they exhibit little of that artificial polish which, like varnish, frequently disguises very worthless materials; and a stranger is not mortified by professions without services, and show without substance. At some of their homely but pleasant evening parties, I have found myself invested with no small degree of temporary importance; for whoever can talk from personal knowledge of Loch Katrine, the Troshachs, and Stirling Castle, or the other classic spots immortalized in Scott's Poems and the "Tales of my Landlord," is listened to by old and young with open-mouthed attention, and his national vanity may almost lead him to imagine that he is for the time the accredited representative of "the Great Unknown." Should he ask the transatlantic ad

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mirers of the Antiquary and Rob Roy, to translate to him some of the wise saws of Edie Ochiltree and Bailie Jarvie, which they quote with such rapture, he cannot fail to be amused at the good humoured simplicity with which they take Scotish wit upon trust, and contrive to be amused with what they do not half understand.

The district schools of Connecticut are supported by what is termed the School Fund, whose origin was as follows. By the charter of Charles the Second, the colony of Connecticut extended completely across the continent to the Pacific ocean, within the parallels of latitude which now bound it; of course it included a large portion of the present States of Pennsylvania and Ohio. About ten years after the revolution, the claim to the portion of Pennsylvania was by compromise abandoned, but a vast tract beyond the limits of that State was sold by Connecticut, and the proceeds 1,200,000 dollars, £270,000 sterling, for ever appropriated to the support of free schools within the State. This fund has increased to about 1,700,000 dollars, £382,500 sterling, the

8 Incorporated trades are altogether unknown here, and there are no Deacons among them but those of the congregational churches, who are always designated, even in the ordinary affairs of life, by their official title; the consequence is, that the Bailie's "father the Deacon, honest man!" in place of being regarded as president of the craft of weavers, is supposed to have been a very staid and demure elder of the venerable Kirk, and of course a very pious and very worthy man, which readily accounts for the Bailie's respect for his

annual income of which, upwards of 80,000 dol. lars, above £18,000 sterling, is distributed among a population of about 270,000 persons. This presents, as was remarked to me, the singu. lar spectacle of a larger sum of money being paid out of the public treasury for the education of the people, than all the amount that is received by it in taxes and contributions of every kind;-a state of things certainly no where else ever known in the world.

In the schools which are thus established, every citizen has a legal claim to have his children educated, and all are compellable by law to send them. In most districts however, the funds are not sufficient to support the schools for more than a half or two thirds of the year; in many of them the school is shut when the fund is exhausted, in others the inhabitants assess themselves to support it during the interval. English, writing, accounts, and occasionally a little mathematics, are the branches taught, and I believe that it is next to impossible to discover in the State a white native who cannot read and write.9

memory. Some of the deacons of our Trades' House would, I suspect, find themselves rather awkwardly beset, if called upon to exchange situations and duties with those of a similar title in New Haven.

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The early settlers of Connecticut showed a zeal for the instruction of the rising generation, equally remarkable and honourable. "In the year 1677, to render the existing law respecting schools

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It is cause of regret that this large sum of money is entirely absorbed by these elementary schools, and that no part of it is devoted to literary institutions of a higher order. A very unaccountable but general prejudice prevails against any such appropriation, and Yale College, in many respects the first in the Union, and an honour to the country, is left to rely entirely on its own resources, while it is in the power of the people greatly to augment its efficiency and prosperity by a comparatively trifling donation from this ample fund.

There is a Grammar School in New Haven, endowed from a legacy by one of the Governors of the State named Hopkins, in which youths are prepared for college, and which enjoys a respectable reputation; there are also two other seminaries of a superior kind to the district schools. Of the minor schools the teachers of about three

more effectual, it was enacted that every town by the said law ordered to keep a school, that shall neglect the same three months in the year, shall forfeit Five Pounds for every defect.'" In the year 1690 an additional statute was passed, "which after reciting. in the preamble that there were still persons unable to read the English tongue, and thereby incapable to read the holy word of God, or the good laws of this colony,' among other provisions contains the following; that the grand jurymen in each town, do once in a year, at least, visit each family they suspect to neglect this order, [to teach their children and servants to 'read distinctly the English tongue'] and satisfy themselves whether all children under age, and servants in such suspected families can read the English tongue, or

fourths are females, according to the ancient English custom. Even the poor blacks participate in the prevalent taste for education, for there are two schools in New Haven appropriated to them. Many of them, I am assured, are able to read, write, and keep accounts, and are in their own sphere of life, useful and respectable members of society.10

Yale College, which completes the provision made for education in Connecticut, is too important to be passed over with a slight notice, and shall form the subject of a separate communication.

The inhabitants of the eastern district of the Union have been known from the earliest periods of their history as a religious people. In the wilds of America they sought that liberty of conscience, and of worship, which was refused them at home; and although it is true, that they did not always concede to others, the toleration which they them

be in a good procedure to learn the same or not; and if they find any such children and servants not taught, as their years are capable of, they shall return the names of the parents or masters of the said children or servants to the next county court,' &c. The penalty is twenty shillings for each child or servant whose teaching is or shall be neglected, contrary to this order.' Vide North American Review, No. XXXIX. pp. 382, 3. in an article containing much interesting information relative to the state of education in Connecticut.

10 In building Long Wharf, two black men were contractors for executing a considerable part of the work, where the water is 16 feet deep. Vide Pres. Dwight's Statistical Account of New Haven.