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 years the Plymouth colonists did not own a cow—we should better understand what life was like in that harsh wilderness, where children who could not get along without milk had but one other alternative—to die.

Men as strong as were the Puritan pioneers ask for no apologies at our hands. Their conduct was shaped by principles and convictions which would be insupportable to us, but which are none the less worthy of regard. Matthew Arnold summed up our modern disparagement of their standards when he pictured Virgil and Shakespeare crossing on the Mayflower, and finding the Pilgrim fathers "intolerable company." I am not sure that this would have been the case. Neither Virgil nor Shakespeare could have survived Plymouth. That much is plain. But three months on the Mayflower might not have been so "intolerable" as Mr. Arnold fancied. The Roman and the