administrative powers within their limits, that all have an
opportunity to become acquainted with our laws and institutions,
acquire habits of public. business and qualify themselves for higher
political trusts.
Our common schools and seminaries of learning for the instruction
of all classes, and our churches of various denominations, where all
may meet for public worship and- for instruction in their religions,
social and civil duties, are means of spreading general intelligence
and virtue through the community. Besides these every family is
more or less supplied with books and periodicals, which keep them
informed of the passing events, and remind them of their duties to
their country and the world. The writer of this sketch has been as
long and as advantageously situated as any one to ascertain, the
ability of all classes of men in this County to write, andhe has no
HISTORY OF ADDISON COUNTY. 12o
recollection of more tlian one or two native Americans, residino- in
the County, who could not write liis own signature ; and these were
brought up in regions remote from schools. The twentj-five native
Americans, who .are reported in the census of 1850, in this County^
as being unable to read or write, were probably similarly situated
in the early settlement of the country.
If the population of Addison County is distinguished from that
of any other County, it is occasioned by the influence of Middlebury
College situated among them. This influence is not confined exclu-
sively to this County ; but no person,* who has been long acquainted
Avith the history of that institution, has failed to observe its influ-
ence upon the intelligence of the community in its neighborhood,
and in raising