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In the United States in the early 1800's, individual state governments had more effect on the economy than did the federal government. States chartered manufacturing, banking, mining, and transportation firms and participated in the construction of various internal improvements such as canals, turnpikes, and railroads.  The states encouraged internal improvements in two distinct ways; first, by actually establishing state companies to build such improvement; second, by providing part of the capital for mixed public-private companies setting out to make a profit.

In the early nineteenth century, state governments also engaged in a surprisingly large amount of direct regulatory activity, including extensive licensing and inspection  programs. Licensing targets reflected both similarities in and differences between the economy of the nineteenth century and that of today: in the nineteenth century, state regulation through licensing fell especially on peddlers, innkeepers, and retail merchants of various kinds. The perishable commodities of trade generally came under state inspection, and such important frontier staples as lumber and gunpowder were  also subject to state control. Finally, state governments experimented with direct labor and business regulation designed to help the individual laborer or consumer, including setting maximum limits on hours of work and restrictions on price-fixing by businesses.

Although the states dominated economic activity during this period, the federal government was not inactive. Its goals were the facilitation of western settlement and  the development of native industries. Toward these ends the federal government pursued several courses of action. It established a national bank to stabilize banking activities in the country and, in part, to provide a supply of relatively easy money to the frontier, where it was greatly needed for settlement. It permitted access to public western lands on increasingly easy terms, culminating in the Homestead Act of 1862,  by which title to land could be claimed on the basis of residence alone. Finally, it set up a system of tariffs that was basically protectionist in effect, although maneuvering for position by various regional interests produced frequent changes in tariff rates throughout the nineteenth century.

John James Audubon, nineteenth-century artist and naturalist, is known as one of the foremost authorities on North American birds. Born in Les Cayes, Haiti, in 1785, Audubon was raised in France and studied art under French artist Jacques-Louis David. After settling on his father's Line Pennsylvania estate at the age of eighteen, he first began to study and paint birds.

In his young adulthood, Audubon undertook numerous enterprises, generally without a tremendous amount of success; at various times during his life he was involved in a mercantile business, a lumber and grist mill, a taxidermy business, and a school. His general mode of operating a business was to leave it either unattended or in the hands of a partner and take off on excursions through the wilds to paint the natural life that he saw. His business career came to end in 1819 when he was jailed for debt and forced to file for bankruptcy.

It was at that time that Audubon began seriously to pursue the dream of publishing a collection of his paintings of birds. For the next six years he painted birds in their natural habitats while his wife worked as a teacher to support the family. His Birds of America, which included engravings of 435 of his colorful and lifelike water colors, was published in parts during the period from 1826 to 1838 in England. After the success of the English editions, American editions of his work were published in 1839, and his fame and fortune were ensured.

It is commonly believed in the United States that school is where people go to get an education. Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school. The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark  is important.

 Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling. Education knows no bounds. It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or on the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor. It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning. The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a  child to a distinguished scientist. Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises. A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions. People are engaged in education from infancy on. Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term. It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that  should be an integral part of one's entire life.

Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next. Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on. The slices of reality that  are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the workings of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught.

For example, high school students know that they are not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the  formalized process of schooling.

Schizophrenia is often confused with multiple personality disorder yet is quite distinct from it. Schizophrenia is one of the more common mental disorders, considerably more common than multiple personality disorder. The term "schizophrenia” is composed of roots which mean "a splitting Line of the mind," but it does not refer to a division into separate and distinct personalities, as occurs in multiple personality disorder. Instead, schizophrenic behavior is generally characterized by illogical thought patterns and withdrawal from reality. Schizophrenics often live in a fantasy world where they hear voices that others cannot hear, often voices of famous people. Schizophrenics tend to withdraw from families and friends and communicate mainly with the “voices” that they hear in their minds.

It is common for the symptoms of schizophrenia to develop during the late teen years or early twenties, but the causes of schizophrenia are not well understood. It is believed that heredity may play a part in the onset of schizophrenia. In addition, abnormal brain chemistry also seems to have a role; certain brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, have been found to be at abnormal levels in some schizophrenics.

What we today call American folk art was, indeed, art of, by, and for ordinary, everyday “folks” who, with increasing prosperity and leisure, created a market for art of all kinds, and especially for portraits. Citizens of prosperous, essentially  middle-class republics — whether ancient Romans, seventeenth-century Dutch  burghers, or nineteenth-century Americans — have always shown a marked taste for portraiture. Starting in the late eighteenth century, the United States contained increasing numbers of such people, and of the artists who could meet their demands.

The earliest American folk art portraits come, not surprisingly, from New England — especially Connecticut and Massachusetts — for this was a wealthy and  populous region and the center of a strong craft tradition. Within a few decades after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, the population was pushing westward, and portrait painters could be found at work in western New York, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri. Midway through its first century as a nation, the United States's population had increased roughly five times, and eleven new states had  been added to the original thirteen. During these years the demand for portraits grew and grew eventually to be satisfied by the camera. In 1839 the daguerreotype was introduced to America, ushering in the age of photography, and within a generation the new invention put an end to the popularity of painted portraits. Once again an original portrait became a luxury, commissioned by the wealthy and executed by the  professional.

But in the heyday of portrait painting — from the late eighteenth century until the 1850's — anyone with a modicum of artistic ability could become a limner, as such a portraitist was called. Local craftspeople — sign, coach, and house painters — began to paint portraits as a profitable sideline; sometimes a talented man or woman who began  by sketching family members gained a local reputation and was besieged with requests for portraits; artists found it worth their while to pack their paints, canvases, and brushes and to travel the countryside, often combining house decorating with portrait painting.