their fortunes in the new world; multitudes thought more of fish and lumber, of a home and a farm, than of political or religious ideals. The adventurous and the restless felt the charm of a wild life. The saints, we may be sure, had no monopoly of either ships or charters.

The emphasis of history has fallen upon the likemindedness of the older communities, formed under the Puritan impulse, which carried into the wilderness a complete social outfit. The church, the school, the town-meeting-not to mention distinctly socialistic arrangements-expressed and perpetuated a unique fellowship in the earliest settlements. The great

majority of towns, however, had no such happy experience, slowly evolving, as they did, from the scattered homes of pioneers. In the absence of social institutions and a unifying public opinion, a vigorous individualism branched into a great variety of character. Yankee independence has its roots in such a formative period, and it is incredible that a people, free for all the cranks and quirks of human nature, was ever chargeable with uniform goodness. Within a limited region-which has supplied the chief sources of historical tradition-a sifted population was molded by dominating men and effective institutions; but beyond the pale of these ideal settlements there was a comfortable liberty, with only such sorting of men as results from the selection of the wilderness.

Our present theme forbids the attempt to trace the disintegration of character in the second and third generations in New England. This effect of the en

vironing wilderness is unquestionable. It is but fair to Dr. Bushnell to say that four years before he eulogized the age of homespun, he described the descent towards barbarism in these colonies in terms that were as accurate as they were graphic and startling.1 This period, which he compared to that portrayed in the Book of Judges, was succeeded by the Great Awakening, and later by the Revolution, so that before the times over which he flung his enchantment were reached, the people had passed through renewing fires. We cannot fail to observe the fact-strengthening our argument that religion and war are alike in that they exalt those who accept the call of duty, and are a savor of death unto death to those who make a wrong response. After times of regeneration the good are better and the bad are worse. War, certainly, demoralizes

doubly, for beside the contagion of evil from massing loose characters and the suspension of social restraints, the bravest and best perish in disproportionate numbers and the worthless save their lives. There is little reason to think that the inferior stratum of the population was either diminished or improved by the changes of those critical times, and we are permitted to believe that enough decadent folk passed into the age of homespun to preserve the stock to our own day.

The disparagement of the past implies a mean spirit. We agree with Dr. Bushnell that "there is something essentially bad in a people who despise or do not honor their originals." With him we exult in "that glorious and auspicious distinction, that we have an ancestry 1 Barbarism the First Danger, "Work and Play," pp. 240-245.

who after every possible deduction still overtop the originals of every nation of mankind-men fit to be honored and held in reverence while the continent endures." 1 It is that possible-yea, necessary deduction that is here pointed out. There is no occasion to dim the lustre of the good; rather do we heighten it when it is represented as holding in check and vanquishing the bad. The present suffers in comparison with the past because its evil is conspicuous and its good is a secret leaven, while in the past the bad are forgotten and the good are resplendent. In the divine wisdom it is ordered that even the memory of the bad shall perish, and that as history lengthens there shall be an increasing galaxy of shining examples for the education of the race. The charge that the country town is degenerate loses much of its force when a base line in the past is drawn with proper care. Much that seems degeneracy is the fruitage of earlier unfitness. That it is low on the scale is not questioned; that it is a recent development in many cases is not denied. The contention is that the truth of history is maintained and that the high interests of courage are served, if for the most part bad conditions in country towns are treated as an inheritance rather than a sudden acquisition. The fate of such unfitness under natural selection has now to be considered.

1 The True Wealth or Weal of Nations, "Work and Play," pp. 67, 69.

CHAPTER VIII

RURAL SELECTION

It is interesting to find in The Spectator, whose bicentenary is but a few years in the future, a remark that might be an extract from the latest text-book of evolution: "A man, considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.”1 The most recent writers, it is true, do not insist upon immediate abdication, for it is now seen that the prolongation of life contributes an indispensable nurture to the rising generation, and that even the childless powerfully assist in the transfer of civilization by social heredity. Nevertheless evolution singles out for distinction the man who provides himself with a successor, and the number of successors which any class or society provides is deemed a critical test of social vitality.

The future of the rural community, as of every social group, depends upon the selection of persons who succeed in providing themselves with successors. We have seen what a heritage of the unfit lowers the present prosperity and vitality of the country town in all older sections of the land. If these unfit persons are to have successors, if they rather than fit persons are to be ancestors for later times, then degeneracy can be

1 No. III.

averted only by forces powerful enough to overcome such base heredity. If, on the other hand, these unfit persons are excluded from the genetic stream, there is a fair prospect that the coming countryman will show improvement. Natural selection has a fair field in the rural population,-not indeed such a field as when famine and plague and war thinned the race, but yet a field that yields notable changes in the lines of human development. More important than the selection by death is the selection by emigration. They who go out from a community leave no successors in it. is the chief factor in rural selection and merits attention beyond everything else. The questions to be answered are sufficiently simple: Do the unfit die without children? Do they emigrate and leave no descendants in the country town?

This

In the broad view the unfit perish without contributing their equal share to after generations; they are crushed out in the fierce struggle for existence. The rural community in the hard conditions of the industrial revolution is an ideal field for this crowding to the wall. The conspicuous fact is overpopulation. Where there are too many people for the means of subsistence, natural selection works automatically, as the weaker elements of the population perish. Such is the general principle, and there is no doubt that under such conditions, if men were animals, the unfit would perish in such numbers as to restore equilibrium and definitely modify the species. Just how far this purging takes place in human society, it is impossible to tell. In two particulars man differs from animals, for he has