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308 power, or in the power of apprehending political, or speculative, or scientific truth. But of these uses of the intellect my companion had not to much on the germ of a conception. To nothing of this kind had his sight ever reached. What he meant by the finest intellect was just this, a mind capable of giving a pretty correct practical judgement on the ordinary occurrences of daily business. At another time the same gentleman startled me by the announcement "that man of the Blacks were very fine Scholars." After a time it became evident that he had no conception of Scholarship beyond the elements of Reading & Writing, & the power of keeping accounts accurately. If a man had attained to the point of doing these things with ease, he had achieved everything; for my companion had caught no glimpse of any thing beyond. No one I suppose, will so mistake my meaning as to imagine that I mention anecdotes of this kind with any wish to raise a laugh at the expense of the people I travelled among. It seems almost impertinent to remark that there are plenty of people in America who are very well informed, & plenty of people who express this idea with perfect unclear. Their system, however, of equal education, & of Equal chances to all (& small blame to them for such a result) bring a great many to the front, who this I suppose to have been the history of the unclear fellow-traveller