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the western settlements we may behold democracy arrived at its utmost extreme. In these states, founded off hand, and as it were by chance, the inhabitants are but of yesterday. Scarcely known to one another, the nearest neighbours are ignorant of each other's history. In this part of the American continent, therefore, the population has not experienced the influence of great names and great wealth, nor even that of the natural aristocracy of knowledge and virtue. None are there to wield that respectable power which men willingly grant to the remembrance of a life spent in doing good before their eyes. The new states of the west are already inhabited; but society has no existence among them.
It is not only the fortunes of men which are equal in America; even their aquirements partake in some degree of the same uniformity. I do not believe there is a country in the world where, in proportion to the population, there are so few uninstructed, and at the same time so few learned individuals. Primary instruction is within the reach of everybody: superior instruction is scarcely to be obtained by any. This is not surprising; it is in fact the necessary, consequence of what we have advanced above. Almost all the Americans are in easy circumstances, and can therefore obtain the first elements of human knowledge.
In America there are comparatively few who are rich enough to live without a profession. Every profession requires an apprenticeship, which limits the time of instruction to the early years of life. At fifteen they enter upon their calling, and thus their education ends at the age when ours begins. Whatever is done afterward, is with a view to some special and lucrative object; a science is taken up as a matter of business, and the only branch of it which is attended to is such as admits of an immediate practical application.
[This paragraph does not fairly render the meaning of the author. The original French is as follows:—
“En Amérique il y a peu de riches; presque tous les Américains ont donc hesoin d'exercer une profession. Or, toute profession exige an apprentissage. Les Américains ne peuvent donc donner à la culture générale de l'intelligence que les premières années de la vie: à quinze ans, ils entrent dans une carrière: ainsi leur education finit le plus souvent à l'époque où la nôtre commence.”
What is meant by the remark, that “at fifteen they enter upon a career, and thus their education is very often finished at the epoch when ours commences,” is not clearly perceived. Our professional men enter upon their
