In the valleys and along the highways and rivers have always been much intelligence and moral worth, with admixtures, as elsewhere found, of ignorance and vice. Sufficient public schools have been sadly wanting in former years; yet education, by which comparatively few profited, has been esteemed and promoted in the Commonwealth from its beginning. Three colleges were established in East Tennessee before the Territory became a State: one each in Washington, Greene and Knox counties; and soon after this century began, county academies were chartered throughout the State. At first the Presbyterian Church existed almost if not altogether alone, but before long it was succeeded by Methodist and Baptist churches.[5] Accustomed as have been the people of the more mountainous counties to ruder modes of living and narrower means of education, their social condition is freer, even from healthy restraints. They are gifted with good natural qualities, but these have not been always cultivated to the repression of other traits and tendencies. They are brave, but many of them are liable to needless tests of personal valor; independent, but prone to notions of individual liberty inconsistent with right ideas of law and order; social, but inclined to promote good cheer by artificial means of excitement. In 1848 a recent diplomatic agent of the United States in India[6] found his way to this very secluded region, seeking, under the pressure of severe domestic bereavement, to “get rid of himself.” He succeeded in doing so by dwelling for the winter at the southern base of the Cumberland Mountains. Afterwards he ascribed to the highlanders among whom he hibernated, three favorite sources of excitement, namely, political stump-speakings, religious camp-meetings, and home-made liquors. An unlearned population, far removed from the world and its thoroughfares, they highly prize their right of suffrage to make legislatures and judges, members of congress, governors and presidents. Their religious instinct, once awakened, is quick to respond to fervent preaching that is sustained by stirring devotional songs. Their animal spirits are apt to be depressed by the monotony of their daily life, and the juice of Indian corn gives relief.[7] That corn is the grain that is chiefly grown in the highlands. Its meal and the salted flesh of hogs are principally their food. Eager candidates for office supply them with mental aliment at heated discussions pending the elections, and the result is that although many of them are without the knowledge acquired at school, all of them are informed concerning questions of public policy. Probably no people of equal numbers can be found in the land who excel those of East Tennessee in acquaintance with current politics. It is to be confessed that more than a few of the mountaineers are deficient in historical lore. Certain great events of the Nation’s earlier life, whose results they have exaggerated,