Rural Economy in New England 377 



ties and the establishment of the national government under the new 

 federal constitution, there was a period of semi-anarchy, when 

 obedience to any sort of law was difficult to enforce. The disrespect 

 for authority in both church and state which arose from these con- 

 ditions could not fail to have a distinctly bad influence on the moral 

 conditions in inland towns. In the disturbances of those days the 

 inland farmer was generally to be found on the side of rebellion, and 

 active in opposing a reestablishment of law and order.^ 



Virtues of the Age of Homespun. 



Too much emphasis must not be laid upon the dark features of 

 the community life of these times. Undoubtedly there were many 

 advantages arising from the homogeneous construction of society, 

 from the uniformity of the inhabitants in race, religion and manners, 

 and from the absence of class distinctions based on differences in 

 wealth. The inland villages were by no means entirely lacking in 

 opportunities for helpful and stimulating social intercourse; but it was 

 from the home rather than from the community life that the principal 

 virtues of the agricultural population, of which their descendants 

 have been so justly proud, were chiefly derived. First of all, no 

 child could grow up in the self-sufficient household of those days 

 without being thoroughly trained in habits of frugality and economy. 

 In his sermon, "The Age of Homespun," Horace Bushnell wrote: 

 "It was also a great point, in this homespun mode of life that it 

 imparted exactly what many speak of only with contempt, a closely 

 girded habit of economy. Harnessed, all together, in the producing 

 process, young and old, male and female, from the boy that rode the 

 plow-horse, to the grandmother knitting under her spectacles, they 

 had no conception of squandering lightly what they had all been at 

 work, thread by thread, and grain by grain, to produce. They knew 

 too exactly what every thing cost, even small things, not to husband 

 them carefully. "^ 



This frugality did at times develop into meanness, but not neces- 

 sarily so; and whatever tendencies may have existed in this direction 

 were to a certain degree offset by another characteristic which such 

 households and such communities developed, that of mutual help- 

 fulness. In a community where the services of the specialized pro- 



»Take, for instance, Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts, 1786-1787. See 

 Fiske, John. The Critical Period in American History. Boston. 1898, pp. 192- 

 198. 



2 Work and Play, p. 395. 



