A history of the American nation . r big plantations,kbo^^^^ but the hardy pioneer of the West had as a rule but little property. He began his new life insimj^lest fashion; he met want and he suffered privation; hehad little to rely upon save his own hard work; and he neededto be self-reliant, industrious, and patient. If we would understand American life we must understandthe frontier and we must see that as men worked to conquer the wilderness all their tasks and methods of lifeInfluence of helped to make American character; social dis- the frontier. ^ • i i i tinctions—fine education, honor
A history of the American nation . r big plantations,kbo^^^^ but the hardy pioneer of the West had as a rule but little property. He began his new life insimj^lest fashion; he met want and he suffered privation; hehad little to rely upon save his own hard work; and he neededto be self-reliant, industrious, and patient. If we would understand American life we must understandthe frontier and we must see that as men worked to conquer the wilderness all their tasks and methods of lifeInfluence of helped to make American character; social dis- the frontier. ^ • i i i tinctions—fine education, honorable ancestry—had no special value to the man Whose business it was to felltrees, plant corn, build a cabin, and force his way to comfortby dint of his own unaided energy. There is an old sayingand a true one that men are what they do or, as an oldSpanish writer said, that a man is the child of his own the American man of the great valley was the child ofhard work, of strong, steady labor which he must do for him-. NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; INDUSTRIAL PROBLEMS 267 self. He must be independent and self de[)endent—an in-dividualist the philosopher would call him—a man who trustedin himself, who wanted tobe left alone by theoristsand by men who did notknow what practical toilmeant. He stood face toface with the tasks of thewilderness. That manwas greatest among thepioneers who could dobetter than others the jobs that all had to do. ^ ^ . , ^ ,1 TVT • A Frontier Log Cab J IN And yet the Missis-sippi Valley did not long remain a wilderness. The populationof the West in 1800 was less than 400,000, includ- New States. ^^ , , rr. • o • mg Kentucky and lennessee; m 1820 it wasconsiderably over 2,000,000.^ Towns sprang up in theOld Northwest, and big plantations stretched along theriver beds of the southern states. In 1816 Indiana cameInto the Union; Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama(1819), Missouri (1821), followed in quick succession. TheUnited States
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