INTRODUCTION 



nation's attention. It offers the best field in all the 

 world for the expansion of ideas and the development 

 of institutions. This is no less important to mankind 

 than the expansion of trade and the development of 

 natural resources. 



Under the policy of continental solidarity and of 

 holding aloof from the political entanglements of 

 Europe and Asia, the American people have grown 

 rich and populous beyond any other nation in history. 

 If they now choose to abandon the course which led 

 them to greatness by the shortest and easiest path, it 

 is not because they are compelled by physical limita- 

 tions to seek another field for expansion. Or if they 

 abandon republican for imperialistic ideals it is not 

 because the former lacks favorable soil in which to 

 plant and nurture new growths suited to the changed 

 conditions of the times. 



We shall see in the following pages how the nation- 

 al prosperity of the past came as the rich reward of 

 developing the material resources of the continent, 

 and how the inspiration for three remarkable eras of 

 colonization along the Atlantic seaboard, through 

 the interior from Lakes to Gulf, and in the valley of 

 the Mississippi sprang not from lust of power or of 

 trade, but from home -building instincts peculiar to 

 our race and people. We shall then observe what 

 vast resources yet remain to be used, and how the 

 physical conditions of the vacant half-continent in the 

 West mark its future civilization as inevitably differ- 

 ent, in important respects, from that of the East. 



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