Page:Men of Mark in America vol 1.djvu/16

 vi In government the distinction between the feudal system asserts itself in some curious detail as well as in the largest administration. For instance, to a very recent period the English government forbade the people of certain districts in Ireland to have fire-arms in their houses without a license from headquarters.

On the other hand, in the democratic government of most of the English colonies, every citizen was required by law from the first to have a gun, flints and bullets, or in the earlier days, match for matchlocks. In the old theory of government the ruling class supposed that it could forbid the teaching of reading and writing to such and such persons. In a democratic government, on the other hand, education in all elementary branches is compulsory.

I shall not travel far from my subject if I remind the reader that it was well-nigh a hundred years after the first emigration from Europe before the new Americans found out how essentially different is the American climate from that of England or from that of western Europe. The first adventures after Columbus's discovery were in regions nearly tropical. And when Virginia was settled, even when the Pilgrims arrived in New England, the settlers had the impression that they had come into a region much warmer than they had left behind. Its summers were warmer. They took the natural impression that the climate of the world virtually follows the lines of the tropics and the parallels of latitude. What we now know of climate and of meteorology has been the slow discovery of two hundred years.

The ignorance in America of the climate in which men and women were living appears in various ways. Years of habits and customs of the new people had to modify themselves in changes from those of England. Food changed, dress changed, and even language changed. New words were added to the English language as the new requisitions suggested. They were borrowed from the Spanish, the French, or Indian languages, as might happen. There are many instances in the diaries and letters of the first generation in New