To Show The Influence
Of External Circumstances On The Characters Of Men, Let Us Just
Suppose Two Individuals, Equal In
Knowledge and natural capacity,
to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the
necessary capital and
Farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of
America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required
to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals
might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and
general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate
interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States
or Canada can hesitate for a reply.
The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten
track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his
more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon
his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads
in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on
all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve
his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his
perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase
his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with
faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school
of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant.
While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler,
it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his
industry.
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