Diary in America Volume I Part 37

I have quoted this pa.s.sage, because I think Mr Sanderson is not just in these slurs upon his fair countrywomen. I acknowledge that a bad temper does not directly proceed from climate, although sickness and suffering, occasioned by climate, may directly produce it. As for the snub nose, I agree with him, that climate has not so much to do with that. Mr Sanderson is right in saying, that the chief preservative of beauty is health; but may I ask him, upon what does health depend but upon _exercise_? and if so, how many days are there in the American summer in which the heat will admit of exercise, or in the American winter in which it is possible for women to _walk_ out? for carriage driving is not exercise, and if it were, from the changes in the weather in America, it will always be dangerous. The fact is, that the climate will not admit of the exercise necessary for health, unless by running great risks, and very often contracting cold and chills, which end in consumption and death. To accuse his countrywomen of natural indolence, is unfair; it is an indolence forced upon them. As for the complexions of the females, I consider they are much injured by the universal use of close stoves, so necessary in the extremity of the winters. Mr S's implication, that because negroes have perfect teeth, therefore so should the whites, is another error. The negroes were born for, and in, a torrid clime, and there is some difference between their strong ivory masticators and the transparent pearly teeth which so rapidly decay in the eastern states, from no other cause than the variability of the climate. Besides, do the teeth of the women in the western states decay so fast? Take a healthy situation, with an intermediate climate, such as Cincinnati, and you will there find not only good teeth, but as deep-bosomed maids as you will in England; so you will in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin, which, with a portion of Ohio, are the most healthy states in the Union. There is another proof, and a positive one, that the women are affected by the _climate_ and not through any fault of their own, which is, that if you transplant a delicate American girl to England, she will in a year or two become so robust and healthy as not to be recognised upon her return home; showing that the even temperature of our damp climate is from the capability of constant exercise, more conducive to health, than the sunny, yet variable atmosphere of America.

The Americans are fond of their climate, and consider it, as they do every thing in America, as the very best in the world. They are, as I have said before, most happy in their delusions. But if the climate be not a healthy one, it is certainly a beautiful climate to the eye; the sky is so clear, the air so dry, the tints of the foliage so inexpressibly beautiful in the autumn and early winter months: and at night, the stars are so brilliant, hundreds being visible with the naked eye which are not to be seen by us, that I am not surprised at the Americans praising the _beauty_ of their climate. The sun is terrific in his heat, it is true, but still one cannot help feeling the want of it, when in England, he will disdain to shine for weeks. Since my return to this country, the English reader can hardly form an idea of how much I have longed for the sun. After having sojourned for nearly two years in America, the sight of it has to me almost amounted to a necessity, and I am not therefore at all astonished at an American finding fault with the climate of England; nevertheless, our climate, although unprepossessing to the eye, and depressive to the animal spirits, is much more healthy than the exciting and changeable atmosphere, although beautiful in appearance, which they breathe in the United States.

One of the first points to which I directed my attention on my arrival in America, was to the diseases most prevalent. In the eastern States, as may be supposed, they have a great deal of consumption; in the western, the complaint is hardly known: but the general nature of the American diseases are _neuralgic_, or those which affect the nerves, and which are common to almost all the Union. Ophthalmia, particularly the disease of the ophthalmic nerve, is very common in the eastern States.

The medical men told me that there were annually more diseases of the eye in New York city alone, than perhaps all over Europe. How far this may be correct I cannot say; but this I can a.s.sert, that I never had any complaint in my eyes until I arrived in America, and during a stay of eighteen months, I was three times very severely afflicted. The oculist who attended me a.s.serted that he had _seven hundred_ patients.

The _tic doloureux_ is another common complaint throughout America,-- indeed so common is it, that I should say that one out of ten suffers from it, more or less; the majority, however, are women.

I saw more cases of _delirium tremens_ in America, than I ever _heard_ of before. In fact, the climate is one of _extreme excitement_. I had not been a week in the country before I discovered how impossible it was for a foreigner to drink as much wine or spirits as he could in England, and I believe that thousands of emigrants have been carried off by making no alteration in their habits upon their arrival. See Note 1.

The winters in Wisconsin, Ioway, Missouri, and Upper Canada, are dry and healthy, enabling the inhabitants to take any quant.i.ty of exercise, and I found that the people looked forward to their winters with pleasure, longing for the heat of the summer to abate.

Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and a portion of Ohio, are very unhealthy in the autumns from the want of drainage; the bilious congestive fever, ague, and dysentery, carrying off large numbers, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and the eastern portions of Tennessee, are comparatively healthy. South Carolina, and all the other southern States, are, as it is well known, visited by the yellow fever, and the people migrate every fall to the northward, not only to avoid the contagion, but to renovate their general health, which suffers from the continual demand upon their energies, the western and southern country being even more exciting than the east. There is a fiery disposition in the Southerners which is very remarkable; they are much more easily excited than even the Spaniard or Italian, and their feelings are more violent and unrestrainable, as I shall hereafter show. That this is the effect of climate I shall now attempt to prove by one or two circ.u.mstances, out of the many which fell under my observation. It is impossible to imagine a greater difference in character than exists between the hot-blooded Southerner, and the cold calculating Yankee of the eastern States. I have already said that there is a continual stream of emigration from the eastern States to the southward and westward the farmers of the eastern States leaving their comparatively barren lands to settle down upon the more grateful soils of the interior. Now, it is a singular, yet a well known fact, that in a very few years the character of the Eastern farmer is completely changed. He arrives there a hard-working, careful, and sober man; for the first two or three years his ground is well tilled, and his crops are abundant; but by degrees he becomes a different character: he neglects his farm, so that from rich soil he obtains no better crops than he formerly did upon his poor land in Ma.s.sachusetts; he becomes indolent, reckless, and often intemperate. Before he has settled five years in the Western country, the climate has changed him into a Western man, with all the peculiar virtues and vices of the country.

A Boston friend of mine told me that he was once on board of a steamboat on the Mississippi, and found that an old schoolfellow was first mate of the vessel. They ran upon a snag, and were obliged to lay the vessel on sh.o.r.e until they could put the cargo on board of another steamboat, and repair the damage. The pa.s.sengers, as usual on such occasions, instead of grumbling at what could not be helped, as people do in England, made themselves merry; and because they could not proceed on their voyage they very wisely resolved to drink champagne. They did so: a further supply being required, this first mate was sent down into the hold to procure it. My Boston friend happened to be at the hatchway when he went down with a flaring candle in his hand, and he observed the mate creep over several small barrels until he found the champagne cases, and ordered them up.

"What is in those barrels?" inquired he of the mate when he came up again.

"Oh, _gunpowder_!" replied the mate.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Bostonian, "is it possible that you could be so careless? why I should have thought better of you; you used to be a prudent man."

"Yes, and so I was, until I came into this part of the country," replied the mate, "but somehow or another, I don't care for things now, which, when I was in my own State, would have frightened me out of my wits."

Here was a good proof of the Southern recklessness having been imbibed by a cautious Yankee.

I have adduced the above instances, because I consider that the excitement so general throughout the Union, and forming so remarkable a feature in the American character, is occasioned much more by climate than by any other cause: that the peculiarity of their inst.i.tutions affords constant aliment for this excitement to feed upon is true, and it is therefore seldom allowed to repose. I think, moreover, that their climate is the occasion of two bad habits to which the Americans are p.r.o.ne, namely, the use of tobacco and of spirituous liquors. An Englishman could not drink as the Americans do; it would destroy him here in a very short time, by the irritation it would produce upon his nerves. But the effect of tobacco is narcotic and anti-nervous; it allays that irritation, and enables the American to indulge in stimulating habits without their being attended with such immediate ill consequences.

To the rapid changes of the climate, and to the extreme heat, must be also to a great degree ascribed the excessive use of spirituous liquors; the system being depressed by the sudden changes demanding stimulus to equalise the pulse. The extraordinary heat during the summer is also another cause of it. The Rev Mr Reid says, in his Tour through the States, "the disposition to drink now became intense; we had only to consider how we might safely gratify it; the thermometer rose to low, and the heat and perspiration were intolerable." Now, if a Christian divine acknowledged this feeling, it is not to be supposed but that others must be equally affected. To drink pure water during this extreme heat is very dangerous: it must be qualified with some wine or spirit; and thus is an American led into a habit of drinking, from which it is not very easy, indeed hardly possible, for him to abstain, except during the winter, and the winters in America are too cold for a man to leave off _any_ of his _habits_. Let it not be supposed that I wish to excuse intemperance: far from it; but I wish to be just in my remarks upon the Americans, and show, that if they are intemperate (which they certainly are), there is more excuse for them than there is for other nations, from their temptation arising out of circ.u.mstances.

There is but one other point to be considered in examining into the climate of America. It will be admitted that the American stock is the very best in the world, being originally English, with a favourable admixture of German, Irish, French, and other northern countries. It moreover has the great advantage of a continual importation of the same varieties of stock to cross and improve the breed. The question then is, have the American race improved or degenerated since the first settlement? If they have degenerated, the climate cannot be healthy.

I was very particular in examining into this point, and I have no hesitation in saying, that the American people are not equal in strength or in form to the English. I may displease the Americans by this a.s.sertion, and they may bring forward their backwoodsmen and their Kentuckians, who live at the spurs of the Alleghany Mountains, as evidence to the contrary; but although they are powerful and tall men they are not well made, nor so well made as the Virginians, who are the finest race in the Union. There is one peculiar defect in the American figure common to both s.e.xes, which is, _narrowness of the shoulders_, and it is a very great defect; there seems to be a check to the expansion of the chest in their climate, the physiological causes of which I leave to others. On the whole, they certainly are a taller race than the natives of Europe, but not with proportionate muscular strength. Their climate, therefore, I unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounce to be bad, being injurious to them in the two important points, of healthy vigour in the body, and healthy action of the mind; enervating the one, and tending to demoralise the other.

Note 1. Vermont, New Hampshire, the interior portion of the State of New York, and all the portions of the other States which abut on the great lakes, are healthy, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere being softened down by the proximity of such large bodies of water.

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

REMARKS--EDUCATION.

Mr Carey, in his statistical work, falls into the great error of most American writers--that of lauding his own country and countrymen, and inducing them to believe that they are superior to all nations under heaven. This is very injudicious, and highly injurious to the national character: it upholds that self-conceit to which the Americans are already so p.r.o.ne, and checks that improvement so necessary to place them on a level with the English nation. The Americans have gained more by their faults having been pointed out by travellers than they will choose to allow; and, from his moral courage in fearlessly pointing out the truth, the best friend to America, among their own countrymen, has been Dr Charming. I certainly was under the impression, previous to my visit to the United States, that education was much more universal there than in England; but every step I took, and every mile I travelled, lowered my estimate on that point. To substantiate my opinion by statistical tables would be difficult; as, after much diligent search, I find that I can only obtain a correct return of a portion of our own establishments; but, even were I able to obtain a general return, it would not avail me much, as Mr Carey has no general return to oppose to it. He gives us, as useful, Ma.s.sachusetts and one or two other States, but no more; and, as I have before observed, Ma.s.sachusetts is not America. His remarks and quotations from English authors are not fair; they are loose and partial observations, made by those who have a case to substantiate. Not that I blame Mr Carey for making use of those authorities, such as they are; but I wish to show that they have misled him.

I must first observe that Mr Carey's estimate of education in England is much lower than it ought to be; and I may afterwards prove that his estimate of education in the United States is equally erroneous on the other side.

To estimate the amount of education in England by the number of _national schools_ must ever be wrong. In America, by so doing, a fair approximation may be arrived at, as the education of all cla.s.ses is chiefly confined to them; but in England the case is different; not only the rich and those in the middling cla.s.ses of life, but a large proportion of the poor, sending their children to private schools.

Could I have obtained a return of the private seminaries in the United Kingdom, it would have astonished Mr Carey. The small parish of Kensington and its vicinity has only two national schools, but it contains 292 (I believe this estimate is below the mark) private establishments for education; and I might produce fifty others, in which the proportion would be almost as remarkable. I have said that a large portion of the poorer cla.s.ses in England send their children to private teachers. This arises from a feeling of pride; they prefer paying for the tuition of their children rather than having their children educated by the _parish_, as they term the national schools. The consequence is, that in every town, or village, or hamlet, you will find that there are "dame schools," as they are termed, at which about one half of the children are educated.

The subject of national education has not been warmly taken up in England until within these last twenty-five years, and has made great progress during that period. The Church of England Society for National Education was established in 1813. Two years after its formation there were only 230 schools, containing 40,484 children. By the Twenty-seventh Report of this Society, ending the year 1838, these schools had increased to 17,341, and the number of scholars to 1,003,087. But this, it must be recollected, is but a small proportion of the public education in England; the Dissenters having been equally diligent, and their schools being quite as numerous in proportion to their numbers. We have, moreover, the workhouse schools, and the dame schools before mentioned, for the poorer cla.s.ses; and for the rich and middling cla.s.ses, establishments for private tuition, which, could the returns of them and of the scholars be made, would, I am convinced, amount to more than five times the number of the national and public establishments. But as Mr Carey does not bring forward his statistical proof; and I cannot produce mine, all that I can do is to venture my opinion from what I learnt and saw during my sojourn in the United States, or have obtained from American and other authorities.

The State of Ma.s.sachusetts is a _school_; it may be said that all there are educated, Mr Reid states in his work:--

"It was lately ascertained by returns from 131 towns in Ma.s.sachusetts, that the number of scholars was 12,393; that the number of persons in the towns between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one who are unable to write was fifty-eight; and in one town there were only three persons who could not read or write, and those three were dumb."

I readily a.s.sent to this, and I consider Connecticut equal to Ma.s.sachusetts; but as you leave these two states, you find that education gradually diminishes. [See Note 1.] New York is the next in rank, and thus the scale descends until you arrive at absolute ignorance.

I will now give what I consider as a fair and impartial tabular a.n.a.lysis of the degrees of education in the different states in the Union. It may be cavilled at, but it will nevertheless be a fair approximation.

It must be remembered that it is not intended to imply that there are not a certain portion of well-educated people in those states put down in cla.s.s 4, as ignorant states, but they are included in the Northern states, where they princ.i.p.ally receive their education.

_Degrees of Education in the different States in the Union_.

+===================+===========+ 1st Cla.s.s. Population.

+-------------------+-----------+ Ma.s.sachusetts 700,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Connecticut 298,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 998,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 2nd Cla.s.s.

+-------------------+-----------+ New York 2,400,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Maine 555,000 +-------------------+-----------+ New Hampshire 300,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Vermont 330,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Rhode Island 110,000 +-------------------+-----------+ New Jersey 360,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Ohio 1,300,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 5,355,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 3rd Cla.s.s +-------------------+-----------+ Virginia 1,360,000 +-------------------+-----------+ North Carolina 800,000 +-------------------+-----------+ South Carolina 650,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Pennsylvania (note) 1,600,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Maryland 500,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Delaware 80,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Columbia [district] 50,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Kentucky 800,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 5,840,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 4th Cla.s.s +-------------------+-----------+ Tennessee 900,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Georgia 620,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Indians 650,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Illinois 320,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Alabama 600,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Louisiana 350,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Missouri 350,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Mississippi 150,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Michigan 120,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Arkansas 70,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Wisconsin 20,000 +-------------------+-----------+ Florida [territory] 50,000 +-------------------+-----------+ 5,000,000 +===================+===========+

If I am correct, it appears then that we have:--

+======================+=========+ Highly educated 998,000 +----------------------+---------+ Equal with Scotland 5,355,000 +----------------------+---------+ Not equal with England5,840,000 +----------------------+---------+ Uneducated 6,000,000 +======================+=========+

This census is an estimate of 1836, sufficiently near for the purpose.

It is supposed that the population of the united States has since increased about two millions, and of that increase the great majority is in the Western states, where the people are wholly uneducated. Taking, therefore, the first three cla.s.ses, in which there is education in various degrees, we find that they amount to 12,193,000; against which we may fairly put the 5,000,000 uneducated, adding to it, the 2,000,000 increased population, and 3,000,000 of slaves.

I believe the above to be a fair estimate, although nothing positive can be collected from it. In making a comparison of the degree of education in the United States and in England, one point should not be overlooked.

In England, children may be sent to school, but they are taken away as soon as they are useful, and have little time to follow up their education afterwards. Worked like machines, every hour is devoted to labour, and a large portion forget, from disuse, what they have learnt when young. In America, they have the advantage not only of being educated, but of having plenty of time, if they choose, to profit by their education in after life. The ma.s.s in America ought, therefore, to be better educated than the ma.s.s in England, where _circ.u.mstances_ are against it. I must now examine the nature of education given in the United States.

It is admitted as an axiom in the United States, that the only chance they have of upholding their present inst.i.tutions is by the education of the ma.s.s; that is to say, a people who would govern themselves must be enlightened. Convinced of this necessity, every pains has been taken by the Federal and State governments to provide the necessary means of _education_ [See Note 4.] This is granted; but we now have to inquire into the nature of the education, and the advantages derived from such education as is received in the United States.

In the first place, what is education? Is teaching a boy to read and write education? If so, a large proportion of the American community may be said to be educated; but, if you supply a man with a chest of tools, does he therefore become a carpenter! You certainly give him the means of working at the trade, but instead of learning it, he may only cut his fingers. Reading and writing without the farther a.s.sistance necessary to guide people aright, is nothing more than a chest of tools.

Then, what is education? I consider that education commences before a child can walk: the first principle of education, the most important, and without which all subsequent are but as leather and prunella, is the lesson of _obedience_--of submitting to parental control--"_Honour thy father and thy mother_!"

Now, any one who has been in the United States must have perceived that there is little or no parental control. This has been remarked by most of the writers who have visited the country; indeed to an Englishman it is a most remarkable feature. How is it possible for a child to be brought up in the way that it should go, when he is not obedient to the will of his parents? I have often fallen into a melancholy sort of musing after witnessing such remarkable specimens of uncontrolled will in children; and as the father and mother both smiled at it, I have thought that they little knew what sorrow and vexation were probably in store for them, in consequence of their own injudicious treatment of their offspring. Imagine a child of three years old in England behaving thus:--

"Johnny, my dear, come here," says his mamma.

"I won't," cries Johnny.

"You must, my love, you are all wet, and you'll catch cold."

"I won't," replies Johnny.

"Come, my sweet, and I've something for you."

"I won't."

"Oh! Mr --, do, pray make Johnny come in."