his crops. About him grew up a brood of children, and as the years
passed, others like himself followed in the path that he had made,
single men to work for a time as hired laborers, families to break new
ground, until the countryside became sparsely settled and the nucleus
of a village was made.

Such pioneers were hard-working people, lonely and introspective.
They knew little of the comforts and none of the refinements of life.
They prescribed order and administered justice at the weapon's point.
They were emotional in religion. They required the stimulus of
abundant food and often of strong drink to goad them to their various
tasks. Frontier pioneering in America reproduced many of the features
of former ages of primitive life and compressed centuries into the
space of a generation. It was distinctly individualistic, and needed
socializing. The large farm or cattle-range kept men apart, the
freedom of the open country attracted an unruly population, and in
consequence frontier life tended to rough manners and lawlessness.
Isolation and loneliness produced despondency and inertia, and tended
to individual and group degeneration.

Even in a growing village men and women of this type had few social
institutions. There was little time for schooling or recreation. A
circuit-riding preacher held religious services once or twice a month,
and in certain regions at a certain season religious enthusiasm found
vent in a camp-meeting, but religion often had little effect on habits
and morals. Local government and industry were home-made. The settlers
brought with them customs and traditions which they cherished, but in
the mingling of pioneers from different districts there was continual
change and fusion, until the West became the most enterprising and
progressive part of the nation, continually open to new ideas and new
methods. There was a wholesome respect for church and school, and as
villages grew the settlers did not neglect the organization and
housing of such institutions; store, mill, and smithy found their
place as farther east, and later the lawyer and physician came, but
the pioneer could do without them for a time. Inventiveness and
individual initiative were characteristics of the rural people, made
necessary by their remoteness and isolation.

103. =The Development of the West.=--With increasing settlement the
rural pioneer gave place to the farmer. It was no longer necessary for
him to break new ground, for