The effect upon different men of new and crude conditions is as various
as the individuals themselves. To the dreamer, the theorist, the man
who looks too far forward into the future or too far back into the
past, the message of the environment may fall oppressively; whereas to
the practical man, content to live in the present and to devise
immediate remedies for immediate ills, it may come sweet as a challenge
upon reserves of energy. The American frontier subsequent to the civil
war was so vast, yet so rapid, in its motive that to the weak or the
unready it was merely appalling. The task was that of creating an
entire new world. So confronted, some sat down and wept, watching the
fabric grow under the hands of others. Some were strong, but knew not
how to apply their strength; others were strong but slothful. The man
of initiative, of executive, of judgment and resource, was the one who
later came to rule. There was no one class, either of rich or of poor,
who supplied all these men. The man who had been poor in earlier life
might set to work at once in bettering himself upon the frontier; and
by his side, equally prosperous, might be one who in his earlier days
had never needed to earn a dollar nor to thrash a fellow-man.
Civilization at its later stages drives the man into a corner. In its
beginning it summons this same man out of the corner and asks him to
rely upon himself for the great and the small things of life, thus
ultimately developing that sturdy citizen who knows the value of the
axiom, "_Ubi bene, ibi patria_." The great deeds, the great dreams
become possible for nation or for individual only through the constant
performance of small deeds. "For it must be remembered that life
consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments.
The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in
the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small
inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well
or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is