An Englishman cannot feel towards Americans as he does towards Italians or Frenchmen. Wherever in America he sees a piece of land being cleared and settled, or a church or a school being built, he looks on as if something were being done by and for his own countrymen. There is, however, one thing the evil effects of which he regrets to see everywhere, and that is the restrictions by which his American brethren are everywhere limiting trade and production. As he goes through their vast continent, and visits region after region, each capable of producing some different commodity the world needs, in sufficient quantities for the wants of all civilised nations, he rejoices at the greatness of their prospects, at the contemplation of all the wealth that God has given them. And he feels certain that the day cannot be very distant when they themselves will make the discovery that a dollar’s worth of wheat, or maize, or cotton, or tobacco, or pork—and, when the plains shall be turned to account, of beef, or mutton, or wool—is exactly equal in value to a dollar’s worth of manufactured goods, and two dollars’ worth is exactly twice the value, and a hundred dollars’ worth is of exactly a hundred times the value. And that when they shall have made this discovery they will strike off the fetters from trade and production, and by a single vote of their legislature increase the national wealth no one can foresee how many fold; and thus make themselves, what their vast and all-producing country, commanding both oceans and placed midway between Europe and Asia, is only waiting to become—the hub of the world. CHAPTER XXIII. ON AMERICAN COMMON SCHOOLS—CONCLUSION. [Sidenote: _American Common Schools._] It was my practice, wherever I was staying, to visit some of the schools of the place. I have spoken of several of these visits in the foregoing pages. I will now give, collectively, the conclusions at which I arrived on the subject of education in America, after an actual inspection of schools, and much conversation with persons interested and engaged in educational work in every part of the Union, with the exception of the new States on the Pacific coast. We have had the American Common School system held up before us for many years for our imitation. We have been told that, compared with it, our own efforts in the cause of education are discreditable and contemptible. We have been urged to look at what they are doing; to consider how highly they tax themselves for this purpose; to admire the effects of this system, as seen in a people, the whole of whom are now educated and intelligent. Of course the inference always is, that the best thing we can do is to go and do likewise. These are vague generalities, which an acquaintance with the subject will in some respects largely modify.