THE 



National Geographic Magazine 



Vol. X JUNE, 1899 No. 6 



NATIONAL GROWTH AND NATIONAL CHARACTER* 



By W J McGee, 

 Vice-President of the National Geographic Society 



On July 4, 1776, the dawn of a new era brightened humanity's 

 horizon. The harbinger of enlightenment, the American Decla- 

 ration of Independence was itself the product of antecedent 

 forces and conditions of great significance. Some of these forces 

 and conditions demand special attention from those who would 

 trace aright the growth of modern nations. 



For more than a century, the world's most vigorous attempt 

 at colonization had been in progress along the Atlantic coast of 

 North America. Viewed in the light of later knowledge, the 

 stirring conquests of Alexander and Csesar were little more than 

 predatory forays in which the conquered gradually absorbed their 

 conquerors ; the epoch-marking expeditions of the Spaniards 

 three centuries before and of the Norsemen four centuries earlier 



*An address delivered before the National Geographic Society, March 28, 1899, as a 

 summary of a series of lectures ou "The Territorial Growth of the United States." 

 These lectures, forming the "Lenten Course" for the year, delivered in Columbia 

 Theater, Washington, D. C, during February and March, were as follows : " The Orig- 

 inal Territory of the United States," by Honorable David J. Hill, LL. D., Assistant 

 Secretary of State (printed in the March number of the National Geographic Magazine 

 vol. x, 1899, pp. 7:'.-92); "The Louisiana Purchase, Oregon, and Florida," by Professor 

 Albert Bushriell Hart, of Harvard University; "Texas and the Mexican Accessions," 

 by Professor John Bach McMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania; "Alaska," by 

 J.Stanley-Brown; " Hawaii," by Professor Edwin V. Morgan. A preliminary outline of 

 tli'- general subject, entitled "The Growth of the United States,'' was presented at a 

 meetim; held in Boston on August 25, 1898, and printed in the National Geographic 

 Magazine for September (vol. ix, 1898, pp. 377-38G). The data relating to the territorial 

 growth of the country were set forth in detail in the successive lectures; the sum- 

 mary wa> il.-signi'.i io indicate the causes and conditions affecting the progress of the 

 nation as described by the eminent authorities who conducted the course. 



