Education among the masses of Hancock's non-Mormon population was of the meagrest kind. Even Mr. Gregg, the historian of the county, who always gives the best report possible of conditions, remarks, when treating of the county's educational status, that "a new country and among pioneers, is not the place where prosperous colleges and seminaries, or even high schools, are actually found. Hence common schools and, in many instances, very 'common' ones at that, were the best means of education in Hancock county in early days," But this is said of the schools of Hancock county; the greater number of the adult population, 1839-1846, which represent the years when the Saints lived in the county, had migrated from states where educational opportunities were even fewer and less advanced than in western Illinois. Even some of the men prominent in political life in the state were men of extremely limited education. "Joseph Duncan, elected governor of Illinois in 1834, and who had served four terms in Congress previous to his election as governor, had but a limited education," says Gregg. [9] And of Thomas Carlin, who was the governor of Illinois when the exiled Saints moved into the state--he had previously held many minor offices--the same authority says: "He had but a meager education." [10] But while the above represents the educational conditions both among the masses of Hancock county and western Illinois in general, and of some of the men in public life, it is also true that there were here and there men in Hancock and surrounding counties of good education and enlightened culture, such as Stephen A. Douglas, O. H. Browning, Major Warren, John J. Hardin, General Minor R. Deming, Samuel Marshal, Judge Jesse B. Thomas, Josiah Lamborn, Governor Ford and others. _VIII. The Political Phase._