tate subvention, gives elementary education to
the children of all classes. As the towns grow the tendency to graft
manual and technical courses upon the ordinary public school curriculum
is unmistakably strong. The Northwest, more than any other part of the
country, is disposed to make every kind of education a public function.

Radicalism has flourished in the homogeneous agricultural society of
the Northwest. In the anti-monopoly conflict there seemed to have
survived some of the intensity of feeling that characterized the
anti-slavery movement; and a tinge of this fanatical quality has always
been apparent in the Western and Northwestern monetary heresies. But it
is in the temperance movement that this sweep of radical impulse has
been most irresistible. It was natural that the movement should become
political and take the form of an agitation for prohibition. The history
of prohibition in Iowa, Kansas, and the Dakotas, and of temperance
legislation in Minnesota and Nebraska, reveals--even better perhaps than
the history of the anti-monopoly movement--the radicalism, homogeneity,
and powerful socializing tendencies of the Northwestern people. Between
these different agitations there has been in reality no slight degree of
relationship; at least their origin is to be traced to the same general
conditions of society.

The extent to which a modern community resorts to State action depends
in no small measure upon the accumulation of private resources. Public
or organized initiative will be relatively strongest where the impulse
to progress is positive but the ability of individuals is small. There
are few rich men in the Northwest. Iowa, great as is the Hawkeye State,
has no large city and no large fortunes. Of Kansas the same thing may be
said. The Dakotas have no rich men and no cities. Minnesota has
Minneapolis and St. Paul, and Nebraska has Omaha; but otherwise these
two States are farming communities, without large cities or concentrated
private capital. Accordingly the recourse to public action is
comparatively easy. South Dakota farmers desire to guard against drought
by opening artesian wells for irrigation. They resort to State
legislation and the sale of county bonds. North Dakota wheat-growers are
unfortunate in the failure of crops. They secure seed-wheat through
State action and their county governments. A similarity of condition
fosters associated action and facilitates the progress of popular
movements.