[Timothy Dwight], ‘An Essay on American Genius’, New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine (1 February 1787), pp. 381–2.

The idea had become prevalent, among the naturalists and literati in Europe who have written on American subjects, that almost every species of animal and vegetable life has degenerated by being transported across the Atlantic to this country. This chapter reminds the author countrymen of their capacity for great undertakings, and of the rapid, though to careless observers imperceptible, progress, that is made in cultivating the fine arts, Genius is the growth of every country. The age of ultimate refinement in America is yet to arrive. Candour obliges people to confess that the characters could not have attained the wealth and fame which now lie in prospect before them, had they been confined to their native country. Under many disadvantages, and notwithstanding some ungracious insinuations to the contrary, poetry is at present cultivated with no inconsiderable degree of success.