Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/409

Rh world. Such is the Mississippi! And who can calculate the total of its advantages, and the greatness of its future commercial engagements!” But enough of Mississippi eloquence.

And now I must tell you of the growth and progress of the Great West, as they have appeared to me. This growth is principally material as yet, but the spiritual growth follows in its footsteps. Wherever Americans establish themselves the first buildings that they erect, after their dwelling-houses and places of business, are schools and churches; then follow hotels and asylums. The West repeats the cities, the institutions, and the cultivation of the East, and their course is rapid and safe. First you see in the wilderness some loghouses, then neat frame and small stone houses, then elegant villas and cottages, and before many years are over, there stands, as if by magic, a city with its capitol or state's-house, its handsome churches, splendid hotels, academies, and institutions of all kinds; and lectures are delivered, large newspapers printed, government-men are elected, public meetings are convened and resolutions passed on the subject of popular education or intercourse with the whole world; their railroads are made, canals dug, ships built; rivers are traversed, forests are penetrated, mountains are levelled, and amid all this, husbands build beautiful homes for their wives, plant trees and flowers around them, and woman rules as a monarch in the sacred world of home;—thus does the country increase, thus is society arranged, and thus is a state prepared to take its place as an independent member of the great family-group of states. And although two-thirds of the population of the Mississippi-valley consists of Scandinavians, Germans, Irish, and French, yet are they governed by the legislative and formative spirit of the Anglo-Norman.

In certain respects the character of the Western States