Key: Better American Families 



13 



lows instead ; but for those rich in cour- 

 age, wit and hardihood, this world of 

 new and extreme conditions furnished 

 the supreme opportunity for dominance 

 and the handing on of these hardy vir- 

 tues to succeeding generations. Then, 

 too, to the man who had been perse- 

 cuted for his rehgious belief or out- 

 lawed because of revolutionary doc- 

 trines, came the opportunity, in the 

 absence of powerful central organiza- 

 tions, to assert his beliefs and secure a 

 following. Every settler was thus a 

 peer of the realm, and as such a poten- 

 tial aspirant for any honor or office of 

 the realm. The effect of this combina- 

 tion of factors in sifting out the able 

 and worthy of whatever station, giving 

 them preeminence and through this 

 preeminence bringing about alliances 

 which produced the quahty of the reg- 

 nant colonial families, cannot be over- 

 estimated. 



IN THE OLD NORTHWEST 



Nor are we to imagine that there has 

 been serious limitation of this process 

 in the conquering march of settlement 

 westward. The early immigration to 

 Massachusetts Bay was from the most 

 virile stocks of Devon and Somerset. 

 These stocks furnished the seed of self- 

 governing New England and founded 

 the institutions which should put the 

 democratic ideal before every migrant 

 to our shores. As we trace these fami- 

 lies westward, we find their representa- 

 tives leading in the establishment of 

 social institutions, and often because of 

 greater vigor and aggressiveness, mak- 

 ing a short cut in social and economic 

 effectiveness. It is a significant fact 

 that the small state of Massachusetts 

 furnished 115,000 men to the Civil War, 

 but far more significant is the fact that 



in the quota of enlisted men furnished 

 by a western town in the present war 

 23 nationalities should have been repre- 

 sented, each vying with every other in 

 its resolution to defend to the last ditch 

 the American ideal. In other words, 

 we have had in the immigrant of yes- 

 terday a responsive sensitiveness to the 

 social and emotional traditions for 

 which the word "America" has come to 

 stand. These traditions served largely 

 to select the dominant tendencies of the 

 immigrant and the strain from which 

 he sprang, and these tendencies have 

 in their turn been preserved and often- 

 times intensified through union with 

 similar strains which earlier found a 

 home here. Running parallel with the 

 ^ genetic process is the educational 

 process and all that we include under 

 the term "social heritage." This, as al- 

 ready indicated, is in essence as 

 follows : The raw contacts, with the 

 realities of frontier existence and all 

 that went with the phenomenal develop- 

 ment of our virgin resources, developed 

 resourcefulness and initiative, while the 

 social institutions founded by our lead- 

 ers, offshoots in the main from the 

 early ablest American strains, clarified, 

 defined and further strengthened in- 

 choate strivings toward the American 

 ideal. 



The lesson of the persistence of de- 

 fect through successive generations has 

 been brought home to us in such his- 

 tories as those of the "Jukes," the 

 "Ishmaelites" and the "Kallikaks." Of 

 equal significance is the study of fami- 

 lies where, by fortunate matings, trait 

 combinations spelling superior endow- 

 ment have been effected. The story of 

 such families will be taken up in suc- 

 ceeding papers. 



Meet Success in Producing Seed 



To reduce dependence on foreign 

 sugar-beet seed, efforts to produce this 

 seed in this country are meeting with 

 distinct success. Before the war do- 

 mestic production was almost at zero. 

 In 1916 the production had risen to 

 5.211,000 pounds, in 1917 to 5.558.000 



of Sugar Beets in This Country- 

 pounds, and in 1918 to 6,384,000 pounds, 

 the estimate for the last year being sub- 

 ject to revision. 



Along with this movement, the acre- 

 age planted to sugar-beets has greatly 

 increased. — Weekly Nezvs Letter, U. S. 

 Dept. of Agriculture. 



