180 WILHELMINE E. KEY 



its peculiar quality in the various sects gave a definite stamp to the groups 

 that made their way to various points on the Atlantic Seaboard. 



So the Virginians differed from the Quakers of Pennsylvania, the Pilgrims 

 at Plymouth from the Bay Colony Puritans and these again from the first 

 comers to Connecticut. This indicates only the crude outlines of the pic- 

 ture, for the South was, no more than New England a homogeneous unit, 

 and all these differences gave to the various sections differences in character, 

 in political development, industrial, social and educational trends. Then 

 all of these colonies included families, many of which became differentiated 

 in course of time with respect to certain characters. These families were as 

 notable for the lack of certain trait-complexes as they were for the possession 

 of others. We have but to dwell on such names as Adams, Lowell, Edwards, 

 Randolph, Roosevelt, Lee to appreciate this diversity of "stamp." 



It has been well said that "the ability of a hundred of its most gifted rep- 

 resentatives often accounts far more for a nation's or a race's welfare than 

 the ability of a million of its mediocrities." Thus the frequency of superior 

 individualities born within the groups constituting the colonies became of 

 highest significance for those colonies. They became the leaders, assuming 

 definite roles in the origination of new policies, or persuading and compelling 

 the lesser individuals to their way of thinking, or setting the wide variety 

 of patterns through which they worked out some small share of the whole. 



The personalities which thus gave us our distinctive development in in- 

 dustry, science and forms of government, have through study of their family 

 history been found to arise from the fortunate crossing of able lines. This 

 resulted in an accentuation of potentialities, and may be likened to the proc- 

 ess we know today under the term emergent evolution. In every case, 

 environmental conditions directed the form of manifestation of these po- 

 tentialities and furnished the stage for the appropriate play of abilities. 

 Such crossing produced the inventiveness of the Fairbanks, Whitney and 

 Lake families. So the Dwight-Edwards-Woolsey network produced con- 

 spicuous examples of scholarship and administrative ability as we find them 

 in Jonathan Edwards, Presidents Dwight and Woolsey of Yale. As this 

 network ramified through other able families it gave rise to hundreds of 

 eminent men and women. So the families of Lee, Fitzhugh and Randolph 

 in Virginia flowered in a galaxy of ability to meet the great exigencies of our 

 history and give peculiar direction to the growth of National policies. Jef- 

 ferson had as a Randolph heritage his capacity for political strategy and his 

 marvelous faculty of expression. In the union of yeoman and courtier 

 which went into his makeup, we find a unique instance of strict democratic 

 ideals furthered by the gifts conferred by an aristocratic lineage. John 



