I have spoken of one of the schools of New York.  In that city the public schools are apportioned to the wards, and are so arranged that in each ward of the city there are public schools of different standing for the gratuitous use of the children.  The population of the City of New York in 1857 was about 650,000, and in that year it is stated that there were 135,000 pupils in the schools.  By this it would appear that one person in five throughout the city was then under process of education—­which statement, however, I cannot receive with implicit credence.  It is, however, also stated that the daily attendances averaged something less than 50,000 a day, and this latter statement probably implies some mistake in the former one.  Taking the two together for what they are worth, they show, I think, that school teaching is not only brought within the reach of the population generally, but is used by almost all classes.  At New York there are separate free schools for colored children.  At Philadelphia I did not see the schools, but I was assured that the arrangements there were equal to those at New York and Boston.  Indeed I was told that they were infinitely better; but then I was so told by a Philadelphian.  In the State of Connecticut the public schools are certainly equal to those in any part of the union.  As far as I could learn education—­what we should call advanced education—­is brought within the reach of all classes in the Northern and Western States of America—­and, I would wish to add here, to those of the Canadas also.

So much for the schools, and now for the results.  I do not know that anything impresses a visitor more strongly with the amount of books sold in the States, than the practice of selling them as it has been adopted in the railway cars.  Personally the traveler will find the system very disagreeable—­as is everything connected with these cars.  A young man enters during the journey—­for the trade is carried out while the cars are traveling, as is also a very brisk trade in lollipops, sugar-candy, apples, and ham sandwiches—­ the young tradesman enters the car firstly with a pile of magazines, or of novels bound like magazines.  These are chiefly the “Atlantic,” published at Boston, “Harper’s Magazine,” published at New York, and a cheap series of novels published at Philadelphia.  As he walks along he flings one at every passenger.  An Englishman, when he is first introduced to this manner of trade, becomes much astonished.  He is probably reading, and on a sudden he finds a fat, fluffy magazine, very unattractive in its exterior, dropped on to the page he is perusing.  I thought at first that it was a present from some crazed philanthropist, who was thus endeavoring to disseminate literature.  But I was soon undeceived.  The bookseller, having gone down the whole car and the next, returned, and beginning again where he had begun before, picked up either his magazine or else the price of it.