e country to the city. New towns were
founded and new enterprises were begun. Trade routes were opened up.
The feudal principality grew into the modern state. Cultural interests
demanded their share of attention. Schools were founded, and art and
literature began again to develop. Even law and religion, most
conservative among social institutions, underwent change.

101. =The Village in American History.=--The spirit of enterprise and
the disturbed political and religious conditions impelled many groups
in western Europe to emigrate to new lands after the geographical
discoveries that ushered in the sixteenth century. They were free to
go, for serfdom was disappearing from most of the European countries.
The village life of Europe was transplanted to America. In the South
the mediaeval feudal village became the agricultural plantation, where
the planter lived on his own estate surrounded by the rude cabins of
his dusky peasantry. The more democratic, homogeneous village life of
middle-class Englishmen reproduced itself in New England, where the
houses of the settlers clustered about the village meeting-house and
schoolhouse, and where habits of industry, frugality, and sobriety
characterized every local group. In this new village life there came
to be a stronger feeling of self-respect, and under the hard
conditions of life in a new continent there developed a self-reliance
that was destined to work wonders in days to come. The New World bred
a spirit of independence that suited well the individualistic
philosophy and religion of the modern Englishman. All these qualities
prophesied much of individual achievement. Yet this tendency toward
individualism threatened the former social solidarity, though there
was a recognition of mutual interests and a readiness to show
neighborly kindness in time of stress, and a perception of the social
value of democracy in church and state.

102. =Individual Pioneering.=--The pioneer American colonies were
group settlements, but they produced a new race of individual pioneers
for the West. Occasionally a whole community emigrated, but usually
hardy, venturesome individuals pushed out into the wilderness, opening
up the frontier continually farther toward the setting sun. By the
brookside the pioneer made a clearing and erected his log house; later
on the unbroken prairie he built a rude hut of sod. On the land that
was his by squatter's right or government claim he planted and reaped