Creative Books

Less than forty thousand volumes were recorded in
the college and "social" libraries of the entire Mississippi Valley.
[Footnote: Am. Quarterly Register (November, 1830), III., 127-131.]
Very few students went from the west to eastern colleges; but the
foundations of public education had been laid in the land grants for
common schools and universities. For the present this fund was
generally misappropriated and wasted, or worse. Nevertheless, the
ideal of a democratic education was held up in the first
constitution of Indiana, making it the duty of the legislature to
provide for "a general system of education, ascending in a regular
graduation from township schools to a State university, wherein
tuition shall be gratis, and equally open to all." [Footnote: Poore,
Charters and Constitutions, pt. i., 508 (art. ix., sec. 2 of
Constitution of Ind., 1816).]
Literature did not flourish in the west, although the newspaper
press [Footnote: W. H. Perrin, Pioneer Press of Ky. (Filson Club
Publications).


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