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SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER XXXV.
EFFORTS TO PROMOTE EDUCATION.

"MANY a day have I worked with these hands to help Charley C——through college," said old Mrs. Skillington exultingly, and somewhat mournfully, while her brother was running his career in Philadelphia, before his removal to Kentucky to commence his labors as pioneer of medical schools in the West, as his father had been in the settlement of Cabarrus county, North Carolina; "many a day have I worked for Charley when we lived there," pointing to a log framed house, the shell of which now stands defying the wind and storm, and wasting of desertion, about a rifle-shot west of Poplar Tent meeting-house; "and I don't mind the work, for we all liked Charley."

The old lady unconsciously revealed the sentiments of hundreds of mothers and sisters of the Scotch-Irish and Scotch settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas. An education,—knowledge of things human and divine, they prized beyond all price in their leaders and teachers; and craved its possession for their husbands, and brothers, and sons. The Spartan mothers gloried in the bravery of their husbands and fathers, and demanded it in their sons. "Bring me this, or be brought back upon it," said one, as she gave her son a shield to go out to battle. These Presbyterian mothers gloried in the enterprise, and religion, and knowledge, and purity of their husbands and children, and would forego comforts and endure toil that their sons might be well instructed, enterprising men.

When we look over the beautiful farms and plantations these early settlers bequeathed to their children, it might seem as if large possessions were the inviting cause and principal object of the emigrants to this wilderness. Undoubtedly the desire of possession of property had its influence with all; and why should not honest, energetic poor people desire a place to enjoy their labor, not as tenants at will, but as fee-simple owners of the soil by the best of rights? and it is probable it was the ruling feeling of some, who could not get above the craving desire of human nature, and knew nothing better than wealth. But with many, and they the influential men and women, the desire of knowledge was cherished