Education he considered the philosophy of the human mind, enriching it with all that is useful or ornamental in knowledge, teaching us how to avert evil and produce good. It was not so valuable for the learning acquired, for to be well informed, was not, in his opinion, to be well educated; as for the moral character it formed, for the habit of thought engendered, for the preparation it was for the practical duties of life--in a word, he regarded education or intellectual progress as the sure forerunner of moral improvement. It may not be out of place to mention here that his interest in, and sympathy for the unfortunate and afflicted was manifested in various ways, but especially by his services as a member of the Court of Directors of the Western Lunatic Asylum at Staunton for over twenty years, during ten of which he was President of the board. Mr. Peyton's political life can be briefly summarized. He voted for the election of James Madison and zealously supported his administration. He also voted for James Monroe, and opposed the election of John Quincy Adams, voting for Gen. Jackson. He voted for Jackson twice, reluctantly when a candidate for a re-election, because of his refusal to sign the bill to recharter the United States Bank, but under a belief that Jackson's course was more due to the feelings created by the particular time when congress passed the bill, it being just previous to his second election, than to any settled hostility on his part to a United States Bank, and he subsequently abandoned that party, and ever afterwards adhered to the Whig party. Mr. Peyton thus gives his reasons for abandoning the democratic party--he said: "shortly after his (Jackson's) re-election, he commenced a train of measures, to which I was utterly opposed, measures of a novel and alarming character, which in their origin and their subsequent developments, brought distress and embarrassment upon the banks, upon the country at large, and especially upon all our commercial interests. I allude to his wild, violent and undigested schemes of finance, commencing with his pet bank system and ending with his order in council, the specie circular. This warfare upon the bank of the United States, the currency and the commerce of the nation, reduced us in 1837 to the degradation of witnessing a general suppression of specie payments by the banks. These acts, connected with the corrupting system of party discipline, introduced by that administration, with the view of compelling private judgment to succumb to the behest of the party, completely separated me from the administration of Andrew Jackson." (See his letter of date May 1st, 1839, and addressed to the people of Augusta and Rockbridge counties.)