72 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



Mississippi Valley states, and the first to arrive at 

 the gold diggings were also from these western areas, 

 it was not long before throngs pushed overland from 

 states further east, came by ships around Cape Horn 

 or made their way across the Isthmus or through 

 Mexico. Thus California's new population was 

 largely from the oldest and most fully developed 

 states of the Atlantic Coast and they undertook to 

 transplant the ideals, laws and institutions of civiliza- 

 tion which the oldest regions of the country were then 

 cherishing and developing. As California enjoys 

 the distinction of having been admitted at once to 

 statehood without passing through territorial organi- 

 zation, so also the development of the new State was 

 entered on by a population which lifted itself imme- 

 diately above the slow courses of pioneering and 

 rushed at once at the realization of an American 

 commonwealth of advanced standards and attain- 

 ments. It is recorded by all the historians that the 

 legislative, educational and industrial undertakings 

 of those who participated in the establishment of the 

 State in 1850 were as high in moral and intellectual 

 purpose, as resourceful in methods and as confident 

 in expectation of results as the State has ever mani- 

 fested in its later development, and the foundations 

 of law, social life and educational effort were broadly 

 and firmly laid at the very beginning. A corrobora- 

 tion is the quick mastery obtained over crime and dis- 

 order that arose in a mixed and adventurous popula- 

 tion wholly freed from the restraints so strong in 

 established communities. 



