Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/485

Rh whence energy radiates. Contiguity to activity is an incentive to endeavor. We can scarcely find an area of the earth so void of possibilities as not to experience some stimulation from without. The internal factors in this development are generally obvious. Mineral wealth, energy-producing waterfalls, broad rich fields, varied uplands, a gently blending topography, constant rivers, and a range of climate, make a state [self-assertive. Ohio has never been conspicuous for mineral resources: in the early days relative importance might be granted its output of iron ore; the annual production of bituminous coal, while of great advantage to the state, has never been very large, and even now its rank is fourth; natural gas and petroleum have been of much importance to the state, but these resources are always temporary; the supply of clay was great enough even under partial exploitation to stimulate the manufacture of clay products in which the state will be apt to hold a permanent position; in the coarser abrasives, as grindstones and pulpstones, Ohio has always been a foremost producer; with the increasing use of concrete for structural work, greater importance will be given still other natural resources.

But the human responses to natural resources and to geographic environment vary with the people. The same inorganic conditions have elicited a variety of reactions under shifting populations; this variation may after all be the best testimony of geographic influences. Move a people into a different physiography and for some time they will still be the children of their former surroundings. Adaptation is slow, but the law is relentless.

When population becomes too dense for the economic development of a people, the more sturdy among them are the first to emigrate. With few exceptions the earlier settlers in the Ohio area represented the very best colonizing material of the seaboard states. These hardy volunteers in a contest with unbroken lands and unfriendly Indians led to the foundation of one of our most important commonwealths. Among them were not only yeomen, but the enlarged outlook of the land between the lake and the river attracted many of the best schoolmen of the thickly-settled parts. These pioneers not only cherished and perpetuated the place names of New England, but transplanted also the New England zeal for education. In testimony of this spirit among its founders, Ohio possesses more institutions of higher learning than any other state of the union. There was a time in the development of our frontiers when many centers of higher education were needed. Travel was difficult, money was scarce and barter to quite an extent entered into financing these primitive college courses; the colleges and seminaries in Ohio were once even more numerous than now. Advanced standards in education, by a process akin to natural selection, have eliminated many. But the cumulative results of about a century of opportunity for