indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no man can be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious societies or modes of worship; and no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office of trust or profit; that the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the invaluable rights of man, and every citizen may freely speak, write and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that liberty; that knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government, and spreading the opportunities and advantages of education through the various parts of the country being highly conducive to this end, . . . it shall be the duty of the General Assembly, as soon as circumstances will permit, to provide by law for a general system of education, ascending in a regular gradation from township schools to a state university wherein tuition. shall be gratis and equally open to all."

The committee of the convention which reported this section, deserves to be remembered with gratitude by us and by generations to come. It was composed of James Scott of Clarke County, John Badolet and William Polke of Knox, Dann Lynn of Posey, and John Boon of Harrison.

The educational idea seemed to crystallize slowly, but the legislature of 1821 appointed another committee deserving of honorable mention. It consisted of John Badolet and David Hart of Knox County, William W. Martin of Washington, James Welsh of Switzerland, Daniel I. Caswell of Franklin, Thomas C. Searle of Jefferson, and John Todd of Clarke. The joint resolution appointing them recited, by way of preamble, that, "Whereas the General Assembly of the State of Indiana are deeply impressed with the importance of knowledge and learning being diffused through the rising generation of the State of Indiana, therefore," they enact that the committee draft and report to the next General Assembly, not only a bill providing for a general system of education ascending from the common schools to a state university, as provided in the constitution, but "particularly to guard against any distinction existing in any of said. institutions between the rich and the poor. What an answer is this to the assertion we sometimes hear, that the school system of to-day has been carried beyond the ideas and intentions of the founders of our government, who are falsely charged with intending to restrict the educational system of the state within the limits of the three immortal R's!

VOL. XX.-No. 3.-16

The labors of this committee, after passing under the revising care of Judge Benjamin Parke, and then of the legislature, resulted in the first general school law of Indiana, which can by found in the Revised Statutes of 1824 under the title: "An act to incorporate congressional townships, and providing for public schools therein." It fell far short of the instructions of the resolutions appointing the committee, but we must concede that for the day and the surroundings the work was well done.

That their descendants have built well upon the foundations so deeply laid, is true, but who can measure the debt we owe to those grand pioneers of not only civilization, but of education, in the Northwest Territory? Just look back through the glass of time for one hundred years. The only highways through the almost impenetrable wilderness, were the rivers and the Indian trails. Both were ever haunted by a relentless, savage race, who welcomed the settler with "bloody hands to hospitable graves." Those who sought to penetrate these wilds, never knew the moment when they might not expect the stroke of the silent arrow, or the flash of the tomahawk as it sought the brain, and many a brave soul writhed in the torture of fire, or that other torture of witnessing the sufferings of his loved ones ere he himself could die, and many a mother suffered the pangs of maternity and utter bereavement in the same bitter hour. Long after the way was found, the scanty population was composed of hardy backwoodsmen habited in buckskins, who lived by trapping and hunting while waiting for their meager crops to mature among the stumps of the little clearings which surrounded. the log cabins in which they guarded wives and little ones from the attacks of savage wolves and the far more savage red men of the forest.

Yet from these cabins and from these little ones were to come the men who, in 1816, could write and ordain the Constitution from which I have quoted. To me it seems a marvelous work, something to be noted, to be remembered, and an example to be emulated and followed wherever the pathway of American civilization may lead.

All honor to the framers of the Constitution of the United States. All honor to the framers of the Ordinance of 1787.

All honor to the rugged, patriotic, great-brained men, who in the wild Indiana Territory framed the constitution which is the birthright of the state. And all honor to those who now and in the future shall follow in their footsteps, and ever be ready to defend the heritage they gave us.

R.S. Robertion,

THE RIVER OHIO

AN ENGLISH VIEW OF IT IN 1757

To the Proprietors of the Universal Magazine.

Gentlemen,

Notwithstanding our disputes in America first began on the River Ohio, yet few know any Thing of the Nature of that Country, or the Original of these Disputes; I have therefore sent you an Account of that Country, and also of the true Cause of the Disputes, and hope you will give it a Place in your entertaining Collection.

Yours &c. K.

The river Ohio runs through a great part of our colonies of Pennsylvania and Carolina, and waters a country near five hundred miles square, which is reckoned one of the finest countries of North America. The river is, according to the best accounts, not less than ten or twelve thousand miles long, from its source near the habitations of the Six Nations to its conflux with the Missisippi, having several large rivers falling into it, that spread over a prodigious extent of country belonging to our colonies. A large branch of the Ohio, called Wood's river, from Colonel Wood of Virginia, who discovered it in 1652, and afterwards visited it several times, as can authentically be proved from the archives of the Royal Society, besides the accounts we have from our own historians. This large branch of the Ohio rises in the mountains of South Carolina, runs through that province, and all North Carolina, to the middle of Virginia: Besides several other branches of it that rise in the Apalachean mountains from the same sources with the rivers that run through our settlements east of those mountains, and make a navigation from the Ohio down to the sea-coast, excepting a small land carriage from one river to another.

The Ohio is also remarkable for its gentle current, contrary to most of the inland rivers of North America, which are very rapid, and have a great many cataracts or falls in them; but in the Ohio we know but of one fall, being navigable both up and down, as appears from the journals and several verbal accounts of our people, who have gone up and down the whole river. They indeed observe that the Ohio is very crooked, as is common to rivers running through a level country, as this does; but the current is, by these windings, rendered much gentler, and consequently the river more easy to navigate. This is the case of the Ohio, for it is navigable from the Missisippi almost to the river Senekaas, which falls into lake. Ontario at Oswego. The river Conde, or New river, rises still nearer to the sources of the Ohio, and affords a navigation from the mouth of the river St. Laurence, to the mouth of the Missisippi, quite across the continent of North America ; besides the many communications of the branches of the Ohio, with lake Errie.

The country on the south side of the Ohio is very mountainous, and difficult

to pass for some hundred miles. The Apalachean mountains there extend west within one or two hundred miles of the Missisippi. But on the north side of the Ohio, between that and lake Errie, the country is level and very fertile, being also watered. with numbers of rivers, that run through it from the banks of lake Errie to the Ohio. It also affords plenty of salt springs, and even salt-water rivulets, which are of the greatest use to these inland parts. It likewise abounds with both food and raiment; for vast quantities of a kind of wild oxen are found in the extensive meadows of this country. This creature is peculiar to North America, and is larger than an ox but has a fleece like a sheep, of which several manufactures have been made little inferior to silk. Besides which this country

affords great plenty of deer, beaver, skins and furs, the richest commodities of all North America.

We need not therefore wonder that the French or any others should be desirous of maintaining themselves in this country, as they may do it at little or no expence, especially as they have such numbers of the natives at their command. Here they will soon increase and multiply, to the constant disturbance of all our colonies, as long as they are suffered to possess the country south of lake Errie.

If we consider the situation of this country between the Ohio and lake Errie, not above fifty or sixty miles broad in the eastern, but between two and three hundred in the western parts, bounded, on one hand, by the great lakes, and, on the other, by extensive ridges of mountains, having this convenient and navigable river between

them, leading directly into the middle of our settlements from all the interior parts of the continent; opposite to which likewise are many passes in the mountains, and navigable rivers, down to the maritime parts; if we consider all this with the attention it deserves, we shall surely have no reason to ask, of what consequence must this country be to us? Nor be destitute of motives sufficient to make us conscious of our fatal neglect. We have no other known way from any of our present settlements in all North America, except South Carolina, to any of the interior parts of that continent, but through this country, by Fort du Quesne, or Niagara.

Not to mention the vast increase of people, power, trade and commerce, that this country on the Ohio must necessarily produce, its usefulness would abundantly appear, if we only consider its advantage in securing the possessions we already have, and which, without it, will be very difficult, if not impossible. Fort du Quesne and Niagara alone would protect our colonies from both the French and Indians, if well secured by us; but, on the other side, if they remain in the hands of the French, we shall have an inland frontier of between two and three thousand miles in extent to defend; constantly exposed to the incursions of a hostile and warlike enemy, and to the depredations of an indigent, necessitous, and barbarous people; which it will be impossible for us to prevent, with all the forts and garrisons, and the immense charges we must be at for that purpose.

By these two places alone it is that the French are able to secure all the continent of America beyond our settlements, acquire the assistance of all the natives, and unite their colonies and straggling settlements together.

The most convenient of all the places in those countries, and indeed in all the whole extensive navigation above described, from the river St. Laurence to the Missisippi, is Fort du Quesne. This place is about midway between Canada and Louisiana, and serves as a middle station between these two French colonies; for which it is more convenient than any other place in all North America. It stands in a fine fertile country of vast extent, and in a healthy climate; where we may expect to see the French increase and multiply apace. In these respects the territories of the Ohio are preferable to all the other possessions of the French in America.

t;

Nature itself has conspired to render the river Ohio hereabouts a place of consequence and importance, and the rendezvous of all the people of North America, that are within reach of it. The great thing wanted in these inland parts is salt which is found in great plenty all round Fort du Quesne, but chiefly in the saltponds, between that and the lake Errie. Hence, this country, called by the Six Nations Canahogue, is resorted to from all parts. To these ponds and other saltsprings hereabouts great flocks of deer and wild oxen constantly resort for the benefit of the salt; and on these creatures the inhabitants chiefly subsist, without either labour, charge, or expence. This draws numbers of hunters hither, the chief employment of these parts. The traders follow the hunters for their skins and furs. These are the chief causes of the war and bone of contention here,