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136 "TRAVELS
that they are moft flourifhing. "When they are more and more
extended, when numbers of ftrangers are introduced, when they
are honoured with public celebrity, and the countenance and in-
terference of kings and princes, fimplicity and fincerity of inten-
tion, mutual goodnefs, and a love of truth, are exchanged for va-
nity, pomp, and faction,
There is, perhaps, no country in Europe where inftrudtion is fo
univerfally diffufed among the very loweft of the people as in
Sweden, except Iceland, Scotland,* and the late {mall republic of
Geneva. Ali the people in towns, villages, and hamlets, without
exception, are taught to read. It was not without reafon, there-
fore, that Guftavus III. who kept a watchful eye on every event
that might influence the ftate of fociety, interdicted all mention
in the Swedifh journals of a French revolution, either good or bad.
Ee withed the people not only to be prevented from thinking of it,
and reafoning about it; but as much as poflible to be kept in the
dark as to its very exiftence. The effects to be defired or dreaded
in any country from the productions of the prefs, are, no doubt,
in proportion to the degree and extent of education which the
people at large have received. It does not follow, from the cir-
cumftance of the Swedes being all taught to read, and attached to
* In Scotland I find there is fcarcely any perfon, no not even a beggar, who
cannot both read and write; nor any in Iceland who cannot read, write, and caft
accounts. In every family in Iceland the children are inftru€ted in reading, writ-
ing, and arithmetic, at home, by their parents or other relatives. When the boys
are fent to fchool it is to acquire Latin, and other accomplifhments, fuch as fome
knowledge of geography, and of the elements of mathematics.
eftablithed
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