Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/158

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��HISTOKY OF OHIO.

��of the American Union; this, too, notwithstand- ing it has SOOjOUO in cities and towns, and a large development of capital and products in manu- factures.

2. That Ohio has raised more grain per square mile than either France, Austria, or Great Britain. They raised 1,450 bushels per square mile, and 10 bushels to each person. Ohio raised 3,750 bushels per S(|uare mile, and 50 bushels to each one of the population ; or, in other words, five times the proportion of grain raised in Europe.

3. Ohio was the first State of the Union in the production of domestic animals, being far in advance of either New York, Pennsylvania or Illi- nois. The proportion of domestic animals to each person in Ohio was three and one-third, and in New York and Pennsylvania less than half that. The largest proportion of domestic animals pro- duced in Europe was in Great Britain and Russia, neither of which come near that of Ohio.

4. The coal-field of Ohio is vastly greater than that of Great Britain, and we need make no com- parison with other States in regard to coal or iron ; for the 10,000 square miles of coal, and 4,000 s((uare miles of iron in Ohio, are enough to supply the whole American continent for ages to come.

5. Neither need we compare the results of commerce and navigation, since, from the ports of Cleveland and Cincinnati, the vessels of Ohio touch on 42,000 miles of coast, and her 5,000 miles of railroad carry her products to every part of the American continent.

0. Notwithstanding the immense proportion and products of agriculture in Ohio, yet she has more than kept pace with New York and New England in the progress of manufactures during the last twenty years. Her coal and iron are prf)- duciiig their legitimate results in making her a great manufacturing State.

7. Ohio is the first State in the Union as to the proportion of youth attending school; and the States west of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio have more youth in school, proportion ably, than New England and New York. The facts on this subject, are so extraordinary that I may be excused for giving them a little in detail.

The proportion of youth in Ohio attending school to the population, is 1 in 4.2 ; in Illinois, 1 in 4.3; in Pennsylvania, 1 in 4.8; in New York, 1 in 5.2 ; in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 1 in 8.7.

These proportions show that it is in the West, and not in the East, that education is now advanc-

��ing; and it is here that we see the stimulus given by the ordinance of 1787, is working out its great and beneficent results. The land grant for educa- tion was a great one, but, at last, its chief effort was in stimulating popular education ; for the State of Ohio has taxed itself tens of millions of dollars beyond the utmost value of the land grant, to found. and maintain a system of public education which the world has not surpassed.

We have seen that above and beyond all this material and intellectual development, Ohio has provided a vast benefaction of asylums, hospitals, and infirmaries, and special schools for the support and instruction of the dependent classes. There is not within all her borders a single one of the deaf, dumb, and blind, of the poor, sick, and insane, not an orphan or a vagrant, who is not provided for by the broad and generous liberality of the State and her people. A charity which the classic ages knew nothing of, a beneficence which the splendid hierarchies and aristocracies of Europe cannot equal, has been exhibited in this young State, whose name was unknown one hundred years ago, whose people, from Europe to the Atlantic, and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, were, like Adam and Eve, cast out — ^'■the world before them where to choose y

Lastly, we see that, although the third in pop- ulation, and the seventeenth in admission to the Union, Ohio had, in 1870, 6,400 churches, the largest number in any one State, and numbering among them every form of Christian worship. The people, whose fields were rich with grain, whose mines were boundless in wealth, and whose commerce extended through thousands of miles of lakes and rivers, came here, as they came to New England's rock-bound coast —

" With freedom to worsliip God."

The church and the schoolhouse rose beside the green fields, and the morning bells rang forth to cheerful children going to school, and to a Chris- tian people going to the church of God.

Let us now look at the possibilities of Ohio in the ftiture development of the American Repub- lican Republic. The two most populous parts of Europe, because the most food-producing, are the Netherlands and Italy, or, more precisely, Belgium and ancient Lombardy ; to the present time, their population is, in round numbers, three hundred to the square mile. The density of population in England proper is about the same. We may assume, therefore, that three hundred to the square

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