Then small farms were cultivated by families of New England birth, out of whom came able men and handsome women. Children lived with parents, and did not tyrannize them. Silk gowns were rare, and pianos unknown; "art" and "culture" had not become household words, but butter was made at home, and the mystery of bread was known to ladies. Few then had been to Paris, and few therefore knew how vulgar they were. But "where ignorance is bliss," etc. They got on, and did not know what poor creatures they were.
Every child was expected to learn the three R's at the little red school-house, and to _perfect_ his education by taking hold of material nature with his hands, and learning what it was by mastering it. That was education. The parson knew a little Latin, and he was all. They thought this worked well. Lamentable indeed!
The man expected to marry a capable wife, and to bring up children; he expected to work on his land or in his shop, to dress decently in clothes which his wife had made, securing a reasonable support in this world by his own labor, not by _hocus-pocus_; he provided for his future salvation by imbibing the five points of Calvin through fifty-four sermons a year, with now and then a Thursday lecture to fill in the cracks. Thus he was sure of his food here and of salvation hereafter--through the merciful providence of God, and not his own righteousness. New England thus produced a breed of people unlike and they fancied not inferior to any that history tells of.
But it would not do. There was no progress--it was a lamentable condition of things. They had _not_ got a population of 211.78 to the square mile, raked together from the four corners of creation, making the State the sixth in density of all in the world, as she now boasts she has, and thus she had totally failed to secure the higher and better civilization.
They had not "developed their resources"; they had not built up splendid great cities; they had little knowledge of the delights of trade. Things could not get on so--that was not "progress." Here was water power running to waste all over Massachusetts; there were keen and able heads who believed they knew how to set these powers to work to grind their grists; it was quite ridiculous that these tumbling streams should not be turning millwheels and spinning cheap cotton. And then too not a railroad ran through Massachusetts--no transportation except in wagons. "Good God!" the pious people naturally exclaimed; "what misery, what a slow set!" Money--money was then loaned at only six per cent.! Things must be changed. They were changed. Mill after mill was built, among them the "_Atlantic_." Railway after railway was built, among them the "_Eastern_," and the stock was quickly paid up, and all went merry as a marriage bell. But some people own those stocks now, and do _not_ find themselves happy!