Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/97



XIV.]

It was given to the generation of Mr. Scott's youth and to the succeeding generation of his maturer years to take a wilderness in the rough and mold it through steadily advancing forms to the uses of modern life At the beginning of Mr. Scott's career Oregon was a country whose very name was best known to the world as a poet's synonym for solitude and mystery; at the end it was a country which might challenge the world as an exemplar of the worthiest things in social development. Thus the background of Mr. Scott's career