The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-11-03
Letter from Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA. Oct. %. 1850


MeSsrs. Edltor8,-Hon. Thos. Hughes,
author of "Tom Brown of Rugby and
" The Manliness of Christ" delivered
last night a lecture at the. Academy of
Music on his Impressions of America,
derived from three months soiourn
amongst US. The practical object Of his
present visit has been mission closely
related to and deeply interesting to the
South, viz, the Inauguration of an Eng
fish colony in Eastern Tennessee. The
association has purchased 100000 acres
of land-the tract extending through
four counties and embracing fertile
plateau in the valley of the Cumberland
river. The land has been surveyed and
laid out in farms. Some settlers have
already arrived-hotels, nurseries, fruit
orchards have been started-town with
extensive reservations for parks have
been planned. Mr. Hughes has made
his speech of Inauguration and named the
colony Rugby, and now we are to have
an English arcadia in the midst of Anne
RIGA. The colonists are not expected to
be of the poor classes, but will be English
tenant-farmers, well-to-do tradesmen
manufacturers and the younger sons of
the gentry. 1t is lofty ideal that this
young colony proposes, and we have great
faith in English pluck, but it would
augur better for its success if the ele-
ments which compose that ideal were
American rather than English.
Adaptation
is the one great quality essential to the
success Of colonists in this land-imme-
date assimilation to the agricultural and
business methods characteristic of the
locality in which the colonist happens to
be located. The effort to transplant Eng
lish methods of husbandry to American
soil has proved too expensive and precipi-
tated loss. Whatever may be said of
the comparative culture and taste of
American citizens with those of the Old
World, there is no doubt that the average
American citizen does possess in remark
able degree this power of adaptation
the intuitive instinct to put his resources,
whatever they are, to the most profitable
usury-this act of realizing quickly the
material prosperity which nature has put
in his grasp. The English Parliament
has just been sending a committee of in
VesCgauOn 10 thls country, Which IS also
committee of confession that between
the American farmer and his soil there is
a better sympathy, and a more fruitful
one than between the English farmer and
his land Better than the Englishman
has the American husbandman learned
the science of extracting the utmost bush
ell of corr from the soil-of putting the
extreme pound Of fat on the hogs back
or of devising how one pair CT human
hands can do the work of two. Our Ten
nessee colonists therefore enter into q ne
cessary competition with those who pos
sess this genius of adapting means tc
ends, a genius which has expanded a con.
tinent in a single century from wilder.
ness into the worlds treasure-house Tc
make their colony a successful one, they
cannot therefore too soon drop English
ideas and methods and adopt those of the
people round about them. Many colo
MES have been established in the Unitec
States exclusively German, Norwegian
! French, retaining the customs, preiudices
languages Of their native lands. TIL,
plan has made the transition to new