Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/71

 I notice, among other things, with what precision all branches of intellectual labour seem to be carried on; and how easily ability and talent make their way, find their place and their sphere of action, become known and acknowledged.

Mr. Downing has mentioned to me Horace Mann as one of the persons who have most effectually laboured for the future; as an individual who has brought about, by his enthusiasm and determination, a great reform in the work of instruction; who has laboured for the erection of beautiful new schools in all parts of the country, and has infused a new life into the organisation of schools. It appears that the reformers and the lecturers who develope the spiritual and intellectual life in America, and call forth its ideal, come from the northern states, from New England, and in particular from Massachusetts, the oldest home of the Pilgrims and the Puritans.

Of that which he himself has done, Mr. Downing speaks with the utmost modesty; but I heard from Miss Sedgwick that few men in the United States are so universally known, or so generally influential as he. His works on architecture, on gardening, on flowers and fruits—and all of which are calculated to ennoble the taste, to make the purest productions in their branches of science and art accessible to every man—these works are to be found everywhere, and nobody, whether he be rich or poor, builds a house or lays out a garden without consulting Downing's works. Every young couple who sets up housekeeping buys them.

“It happens,” said Mr. Downing modestly, “that I came at a time when people began universally to feel the necessity of information about building houses and laying out gardens.”

He is what people call here “a self-made man,” that is to say, a man who has less to thank education for what he