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SOCIAL CHANGES IN NEW ENGLAND 
 IN THE PAST FIFTY YEARS 
 
 EDWIN W. SANBORN 
 
 32 Nassau Street, New York City 
 
 Reprinted from the Report of the Froceedini^s of the A merican Social Science 
 
 Association for iqoo 
 
 BOSTON 
 George H. Ellis, Printer, 272 Congress Street 
 
 1901 
 
Offt. 
 
 2 06 
 
SOCIAL CHANGES IN NEW ENGLAND IN 
 THE PAST FIFTY YEARS. 
 
 Fifty years ago the new order of things had made little change 
 in the outward appearance of New England. It was still a com- 
 pact community, peopled for the most part by direct descendants 
 of the old Puritan stock. It was a land of farmers, and the type 
 of New England life was the country village. Commerce and 
 fisheries were important sources of wealth ; but merchants and 
 seafaring men, as well as the minister, lawyer, doctor, and me- 
 chanic, generally owned a little land, and helped to make agricult- 
 ure the prevailing occupation. Factories had been slowly taking 
 the place of household industry, yet manners and way of living 
 belonged to the homespun age. People continued to prepare, by 
 the chastening of Fast Day, for the exuberance of May muster. 
 The electric telegraph was a mysterious novelty. Stage-coaches 
 still creaked and rattled over many routes of traffic. Railroad 
 trains were drawn by small, asthmatic locomotives, having large 
 smoke-stacks, shaped like an inverted volcano and pouring forth 
 proportionate volumes of smoke. Delays were frequent, to slake 
 the thirst of the engine and replenish the itinerant wood-pile 
 which served as fuel. The cars had low, flat roofs and small, 
 cinder-cemented windows, and were but little better ventilated 
 than the drawing-room cars of the present day. The railroad 
 system of New England has always been rich in "junctions," 
 where, in the early days, the traveller awaited his "connecting 
 train " for periods ranging from a fleeting hour to undetermined 
 stretches of duration. It is a curious fact, noted by the late Pro- 
 fessor Phelps in his poetic tribute to Essex Junction, that there 
 was always a cemetery near, catering perhaps to such wayfarers as 
 might sink under wasting afflictions or be suddenly stricken at 
 the lunch counter. Beyond the reach of the railroads, wood and 
 farm produce were carried to market by river boats and coasting 
 
schooners, which brought back the " W. I. goods and groceries " 
 of the country store. It was still the day of large families and 
 small travel, of near-by markets and local peculiarities. 
 
 The smallness of travel applied only to landsmen, and not to 
 the farmers who ploughed the deep. Coves and harbors along the 
 coast were lively with Down- East punkies and clippers, and with 
 the curing and storing of fish. Daniel Webster, trying a case on 
 Cape Cod relating to a small harbor in the South Pacific, found 
 that seven of the jury had often visited the harbor and knew all 
 about it. The commander of a Russian exploring expedition, 
 engaged in one of the early attempts to square the arctic circle, 
 became lost in a fog as he was about to secure his fame by sur- 
 veying the terminal facilities of the earth. When the fog lifted, 
 he found himself in the midst of a Yankee fleet and near a harbor 
 which was their regular base of supply for cruises to the north- 
 ward. The wives and daughters of Nantucket climbed up to the 
 " whale-walks " on their house-tops to watch for returning husbands 
 and fathers. Bangor was the largest pine-distributing centre on 
 the continent, and the lines of the Gloucester fishermen had gone 
 out through all the earth. The New England of the Puritans had 
 reached the height of its prosperity and the golden age of its 
 literature. It was making ready for its day of trial and sacrifice 
 in the Civil War. 
 
 About the middle of the century the rapid extension of railroads 
 brought the " rocky farm " into contrast and competition with the 
 "rich prairie." The Walker tariff of 1846 and the opening of 
 new markets stimulated the building of large factories and 
 hastened the "rush to the cities." The discovery of gold on the 
 Pacific coast aggravated the Western fever, while famine and dis- 
 turbances abroad were start,ing a migration across the Atlantic. 
 The growth of shore fishing and the canning of sea-food were 
 beginning to affect the deep-sea fisheries, when the reciprocity 
 treaty of 1854 opened our markets to Canadian fishermen. The 
 surviving monsters of the deep were seeking discreet seclusion 
 just as the introduction of mineral oils rendered their pursuit less 
 profitable. 
 
 If some supernatural observer could have taken a bird's-eye 
 view of New England in 1850 and again in 1900, he would read 
 the story of change in plain characters. Approaching New 
 England, as would become a Superior Intelligence, by way of 
 
5 
 
 Boston, he would find the region for some fifteen miles around 
 the gilded dome on Beacon Hill so "filled in " as to form a con- 
 tinuous city with a million people, nearly half of them — figuring 
 back for three generations — being Irish, about one-sixth "Old 
 Americans," and the rest Germans, British, Scandinavians, 
 Italians, Frenchmen, Chinamen, and citizens generally. Moving 
 along the seacoast, his eye would be caught by the bleaching 
 " whalers " labelled as curiosities at the New Bedford docks, by 
 the villas and palaces at Newport, by the sagging wharves of 
 Salem and Newburyport, and by huge hotels at every sandy beach 
 from Narragansett to Old Orchard. In smaller harbors he might 
 see a trim Yankee clipjSer lying idly in the mud at the head of the 
 cove, while a splendid pleasure yacht rests at anchor within the 
 point. An old weather-cured skipper, whose voice pierced the 
 fogs of the Great Banks and rose above the blasts of the Horn, 
 is perhaps taking out a party of land lubbers and lubberesses in his 
 catboat to fish for scup or flat-fish. In river valleys the smoke 
 of factory chimneys would draw attention to busy cities, wherever 
 water power had fixed a site for manufacturing. In their suburbs 
 he would mark the hard roads, with their maze of wires and buzz 
 of trolleys and lines of thrifty dwellings. He would note that the 
 forests had been thinned and shrinking back up the mountain 
 ranges and toward the northern border. He would miss the 
 flocks and herds which dotted the hill pastures, and would linger 
 above the scrubby fields, tumble-down fences, and decaying houses 
 of the abandoned farms. Less often he would come upon a de- 
 serted church, a ghastly hulk, weather-stained and crumbling, win- 
 dows blind and glaring, ridge-pole sunken, lightning-rod loosened 
 from the tottering steeple, and drooping like the bedraggled feather 
 of a fallen outcast. In the streets of the cities he would be im- 
 pressed by the large plate glass windows of the shops, with their 
 display of attractions, and by the variety of fruit and produce 
 offered for sale. He would be surprised at the large number of 
 old and young wearing glasses, and would perhaps notice how 
 rarely he met a person pitted with small-pox. He would wonder 
 at the cleanliness of the street crossings, till he observed the 
 trailing skirts of the ladies. In Fall River, with 85 per cent, of 
 foreign population, he might inquire his way half a dozen times 
 before meeting a person who spoke English. 
 
 Having left a New England of full-blooded Yankees, which 
 
6 
 
 supplied its own wants and sent little abroad, he finds a popula- 
 tion half foreign, dependent on others for its corn and grain and 
 beef and mutton, but supplying half the nation with boots and 
 shoes, making three-fourths of its cottons and using half its wool. 
 
 Early in the century, each farm, like the community, was self- 
 sustaining. The " independent farmer " was indeed independent. 
 Food and clothing are both grown on the farm. He made his 
 own sleds, brooms, medicines, vinegar, soap, ox-yokes; some- 
 times his own tools, rope, shingles, boxes, barrels, and furniture. 
 He drew sweetness from rock-maples and dipped light from tal- 
 low. He got his pins from the white-thorn bush in the pasture. 
 He grafted trees and painted buildings. ' He would " like to 
 see anything he couldn't do." The congenial practice of swap- 
 ping helped him to be independent even of money. The home- 
 spun idea was the key to everything in life and character. 
 Clothing being made at home, the flax grown and the sheep 
 raised corresponded to the number in the family. Little money 
 was needed ; and, there being little money and little knowledge of 
 the outer world, there was small temptation to extravagance. 
 Everything centred in the home. A hundred associations, now 
 things of the past, solidified family life. A farmer setting out for 
 church in his broadcloth coat might notice the very sheep whose 
 greeting would remind him that he was wearing the wool at 
 second hand. He w^ould pass the fields where his straw hat and 
 dinner basket had grown, and where the linen of his wife's go-to- 
 meeting gown had blossomed. The leather of his boots had been 
 grown and perhaps tanned on the farm. The striking of fire 
 from a flint and drawing of water with a sweep were picturesque 
 rites, a communion with the localized spirits of fire and water, 
 which were cheapened as matches were carried in the pocket 
 and pump handles bobbed in the kitchen. 
 
 The modern system of division of labor has brought the New 
 England farmer many comforts and advantages, and mocks him 
 with a vision of many more. Supplies and appliances better than 
 were made at home are laid at his door, and many are wonder- 
 fully cheap. The Standard Oil Company has taken charge of 
 candle-dipping. Factories at Lowell and Fall River maintain a 
 continuous spinning-bee. The trouble is that they all want 
 money. Before he thinks of buying comforts or luxuries, there 
 are certain fixed charges to be met, — for taxes, labor, commer- 
 
cial fertilizers, and groceries, with demand for tools, machinery, 
 harnesses, wagons, and a hundred other things. In the scheme of 
 specialization where comes in the specialty which is to bring the 
 New England farmers their share of the medium of exchange ? 
 Those who have not emigrated have answered the question to 
 some extent by leaving the rougher lands for market gardens, 
 poultry, fruit, and dairy farms ; but the result of changed condi- 
 tions has been the disappearance of the agricultural New Eng- 
 land of fifty years ago. 
 
 In the manufacturing towns .which have become the centre 
 of characteristic life, changes have been chiefly in the way of 
 growth and expansion. Before 1850 factory work had been done 
 by young people from the farms. In summer the factory bell 
 aroused the town at half-past four in the morning for a day's 
 labor of thirteen hours. Wages were low, but board could be 
 had at $1.00 to $1.50 by the week. Native labor was soon dis- 
 placed by foreign, the early immigration being Irish ; and the 
 Irish have been succeeded by the incursion of French Canadians, 
 beginning twenty years later. At present these latest arrivals, in 
 a solid body of half a million, compact in language and intact in 
 religion, are testing the digestive powers of New England. 
 
 Manufacturing industry, along with its growth, has passed 
 through a process of evolution. Many small local factories found 
 themselves unable to compete with the resources of the larger 
 centres, and have dropped out. The location of factory towns was 
 fixed at first by water power, but of late the mills have become 
 largely independent of water. The advantage of cheap transpor- 
 tation and the effect of competition have been shown in the con- 
 centration of cotton mills around Narragansett Bay and Buzzards 
 Bay. 
 
 The church and school of Puritan New England have been 
 differently affected by these fundamental changes. The division 
 into sects had occurred in the first half of the century, the Bap- 
 tists, Universalists, Methodists, Unitarians, etc., separating from 
 the Congregational order and the Episcopalians and Presbyterians 
 coming in. The breaking up was natural in a time of mental and 
 spiritual ferment, though the causes affecting individuals were 
 doubtless varied. In the case of Zephaniah Cross the going over 
 to the Baptist communion was due to the Eastman auction. A 
 bellows-top buggy was sacrificed at such figures that Mr. Cross 
 
8 
 
 was constrained to bid it in. The lofty " bellus-top " would not 
 turn back, and on arriving at his stall in the orthodox church sheds 
 he found himself unable to drive under the roof. The horse 
 sheds of the Baptist society were built upon more liberal lines, 
 and after a season of earnest deliberation he became a convert to 
 the doctrine of immersion. 
 
 In cities and thriving towns the problems of the churches are 
 little different from those which are found under like conditions 
 elsewhere. In the villages and hill country the division into 
 sects has proved a serious disadvantage. Even country churches 
 are more comfortable than fifty years ago. It was not much 
 before 1850 that stoves were introduced. There are many tradi- 
 tions of the opposition with which this symbol of worldly luxury 
 was received. In one church it had been finally decided to use 
 stoves for the first time upon a certain Sunday. A strong oppo- 
 nent of the innovation had been but a short time in his pew before 
 he found the heat insufferable. He first removed his overcoat and 
 then his coat, only to learn that, owing to delays, no fire had as yet 
 been started in the stoves. Stoves were generally placed in the 
 rear of the church, on either side ; and products of combustion 
 were supposed to be carried through a long rambling stovepipe, 
 suspended by wires under the galleries, to chimneys at either side 
 of the pulpit. The intrusion of any secular concern upon the 
 peace of the Sabbath jarred upon the senses. Pat Rogers from 
 time immemorial had conducted a laundry at Hanover in the in- 
 terest of Dartmouth students. He was a familiar figure trundling 
 the " wash " to his laboratory or wheeling back the laundered 
 residuum. On a quiet Sunday morning a conscientious student 
 was shocked to see Mr. Rogers delivering a portion of his finished 
 product. Patrick explained that it was a case of peculiar exigency. 
 " What will become of you if you thus desecrate the Sabbath ? " 
 " I dunno, sor. I s'pose likely I'll fetch up at the baad place." 
 " Ah, but think of what that means ! What will you do there .-" " 
 "Oh, begobs, I s'pose I'll gwan aboot the same as here, — wash 
 for stoodents." 
 
 Education has no story of decay except in decreased at- 
 tendance at rural schools and disappearance of many of the 
 unendowed academies. The strength of the old district school 
 was in the close relationship of teacher and pupils. The school 
 like the home was full of local associations and individual char- 
 
acter. The school-boy of fifty years ago remembers the noon- 
 mark on the window-sill, the crack in the floor where classes toed 
 the mark, the raspberry bush inciting^ to tardiness, and the 
 birch provided in the compensation of nature as a corrective. 
 
 The learning of a few books " by heart " fostered exactness of 
 knowledge, with freedom and accuracy in giving it expression. 
 If written examinations had prevailed in those days, the scholars 
 would have compared favorably with those of the present day in 
 preciseness of definition and in ability to tell what they knew. 
 
 Children went barefoot in summer. In winter the boys wore 
 home-made caps with flapping ear-laps, home-knit comforters, 
 and copper-toed cowhide boots, periodically greased to exclude 
 the elements. It is a strange but true story of the force of early 
 habit that an honored and well-known scholar, sitting at a formal 
 dinner and becoming abstracted during the brilliant monologue of 
 another distinguished guest, was seen anointing his boots with 
 the oil of the salad cruet. 
 
 After spinning-wheels and looms were carried to the attic, few 
 families could afford to buy store clothes. They made up the 
 cloth at home, allowing liberal margins to growing boys, some of 
 whom never attained the full standard of their sleeves and 
 trousers. Children in the old times were so numerous that like 
 silver in the days of Solomon they were nothing accounted of. It 
 is certainly a change to the present age when the child is father 
 of the man, and of the grandparent and of the whole community. 
 One sympathizes with the man mentioned by Mr. Emerson who 
 felt it a misfortune to have been born when children were nothing 
 and to have lived until men were nothing. 
 
 As late as 1850 all the colleges of New England were "seats of 
 learning " of the old-fashioned sort. At the opening of the 
 academic year the country colleges welcomed the candidate for 
 matriculation mounted on a farm wagon, drawn by the horse 
 which could be most easily spared from farm work, and bearing 
 the blessing of his mother and the seed-cakes of his grandmother. 
 Chapel exercises were held before daylight in midwinter, in 
 chapels lighted by candles and heated by the Aurora Borealis. A 
 chronic form of suicide, known as "boarding one's self," was not 
 uncommon. The lack of amusements and of rational forms of 
 exercise led to such laborious forms of pleasantry as gathering the 
 blinds and gates of the village upon the campus or the elevation 
 of a horse or cow to the college belfry. 
 
lO 
 
 Higher education has not merely become higher, but broader, — 
 too broad, as old-fashioned people think, to be deep. Wealth has 
 increased at the old centres of learning. Wisdom could not fail 
 to accumulate when, as has been remarked, so much is brought in 
 by successive classes of Freshmen and so little is carried away by 
 Seniors. / 
 
 The lyceum was another power in education which brought 
 the Mahomets of New England to the mountains of New Hamp- 
 shire, Vermont, and the Berkshires. Newspapers now bring a 
 larger world to the same hill country, but without the personal 
 magnetism and touch of enthusiasm inspired when Emerson, 
 Holmes, and Phillips lectured in the meeting-house and college 
 students boarded 'round in the school district. There was also 
 an agreeable reaction on the minds and pockets of the lecturers. 
 Dr. Chapin used to say that he valued the fame derived from 
 lecturing, F-A-M-E standing for Fifty And My Expenses. Mr. 
 James T. Fields having given one of his charming lectures in the 
 missionary spirit in a small place, where no amount had been 
 agreed upon, his charges were discussed with the Lecture Com- 
 mittee. "We had calkerlated," said the Si,pokesman, "to make 
 it five dollars ; but it wa'n't exackly what we expected, and we 
 have conclo/Dded that tew fifty would be abaout right ! " 
 
 The railroads and newspapers have also robbed the tavern of 
 its importance as a social club. In the stage-coach days the 
 tavern-keeper was a person of importance and dignity. He 
 gathered news from travellers and hobnobbed with public men. 
 Neighbors dropped in with gossip, which he was expected to 
 broadcast. He was a combined bulletin board, club steward. 
 Exchange, Board of Trade, and Associated Press. It is a tribute 
 to the old New England tavern that a large proportion of the men 
 who have made the reputation and managed the business of the 
 great hotels of New York as well as in more distant cities served 
 their apprenticeship in New England, and largely on main lines of 
 stage traffic which ran from Boston up through New Hampshire. 
 With the decrease of road travel taverns sank into a desuetude not 
 wholly innocuous. In "wet" or semi-wet towns they became a 
 " hang-out " for local sons of Belial. At arid cross-roads it 
 became difficult to obtain nourishment except at stated times. An 
 indulgent landlady might fry the wayfarer a few buckwheat cakes 
 and a cup of tea, but eggs and meat were hard to find. The 
 
II 
 
 bicycle has not done all that was expected as a reviving force ; , 
 but the general reaction of city on country is slowly awakening 
 the country hotel. 
 
 As educational forces and means of grace, we should not omit 
 the maiden aunt, who in the big New England families was as 
 much an institution as the New England conscience, which, in- 
 deed, she personified and guided in practical channels. As 
 depicted in a sketch of the "New Hampshire Way of Life," by 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn, the work in the house " was done by the wife, 
 daughters, and maiden aunts, who were apt to inherit a residence 
 in the old house upon their father's death, and who were indis- 
 pensable to the simple life of the rural community. Theodore 
 Parker used to quote an aunt who said, ' Mr. Parker, the position 
 of a maiden aunt is very important : without maiden aunts the 
 world could not be peopled, sir ! ' There was more in this odd 
 remark than met the ear. In the nursing and pupilage of New 
 Hampshire children the aunt bore a great part. Besides nursing 
 the sick, they were usually tenders of other women's babies and 
 instructors of children as they grew older. Emerson's Aunt 
 Mary bore the largest part in his education and that of his 
 brilliant brothers. Being asked once what he should have done 
 without her, he said : ' Ah ! that would have been a loss ! I could 
 have better spared Greece and Rome ! ' " 
 
 To appreciate what the loss of Greece and Rome would have 
 meant to our fathers and grandfathers, it is only necessary to 
 take up the " occasional literature " of fifty years ago, entitled, 
 perhaps, " An Historical Address upon the Opening of the Toll- 
 bridge across the Onion River " or " Remarks upon Thanksgiv- 
 ing Day, suggested by the Protracted Drought." The subject 
 matter would be found to consist largely of reflections suggested 
 by ancient history and of moral deductions therefrom. The 
 ordinary tone of writing was stilted and full of mild moralizing. 
 For a chance example, in a magazine article of 1852, describing 
 the wearing apparel of early New England, we note, after a de- 
 scription of the shoes of our forefathers, " While appendages for 
 the feet are properly provided, true ornaments of the mind and 
 heart should not be neglected." 
 
 In spite of ministers and schoolmasters and maiden aunts, 
 and perhaps in protest against the strictness of their training, 
 there has always been a streak of " queerness " running up 
 
12 
 
 through the New England granite. The fathers were shrewd and 
 practical ; but, as Miss Gorren in a recent essay on the Anglo- 
 Saxons well remarks : " Their close attention to the realities 
 of life seems to unfit the mind for correct judgment in abstract 
 things. Nowhere are so many persons of sound intelligence in 
 all practical affairs so easily led to follow after crazy seers and 
 seeresses. An active mind refuses to be shut out from the world 
 of the highest abstractions ; and, if not guided thither by regular 
 training and habit, it will set off even at the tail of the first 
 ragged street procession that passes." 
 
 It must be allowed that there has always been in the New 
 England character a certain streak of superstition. The Yankee 
 housewife was careful in observing signs, even to such trifling 
 matters as the dropping of a dish-cloth or the overturning of salt. 
 Farmers are still found who are guided in the planting of crops 
 and the slaying of swine by phases of the moon. Since the day 
 of witchcraft the force of superstition has been weakened ; but as 
 late as March of the present year the newspapers were reporting 
 an enormous business transacted in the city of Boston in the 
 advertisement and sale of so-called luck boxes, — small boxes con- 
 taining a brass ring, supposed to emanate from India, but really 
 manufactured at Lynn. They were sold at ninety-nine cents 
 apiece, and were guaranteed to confer the favors of fortune. 
 When the business of this good man was interrupted, there were 
 said to have been more than twenty thousand letters in the post- 
 office inscribed with his address. 
 
 Perhaps the characteristic New England humor derived its 
 flavor from the same causes. Repressed intensity sought expres- 
 sion in a shrewd exaggeration which was made picturesque by 
 habits of close observation. So of the oft-mentioned Connecticut 
 man, who returned from a tour of Europe unwilling to admit that 
 he had seen anything more remarkable than at home. " You say 
 you went across Switzerland into Italy. You must have been 
 impressed by those mighty mountains." '* Wall, now you speak 
 on't, I dew remember I might ha' passed over some risin' 
 graound." A tourist inquires of a native sitting on the tavern 
 porch at Colebrook, with face red from exposure to the elements 
 (and also, it being Independence Day, to alcoholic stimulants), in 
 regard to running certain rapids in the upper Connecticut in a 
 canoe. 
 
13 
 
 " Go over 'em in a canoe, why .... you couldn't go over 
 them falls in a balloon." For a single illustration of the quaint, 
 earthy, Yankeeish sayings, I refer again to " The New Hampshire 
 Way of Life." An old carpenter named Herrick, full — as became 
 his occupation — of wise saws, was at work shingling the Close 
 barn. Deacon Close was an extremely small man, with an ex- 
 pression of worried importance, caused by a long search for the 
 elusive penny among the rocks of the hill farm. His mental as 
 well as physical powers had succumbed to the lapse of years. 
 " Jeems" came up from the hay-field, and called out to Herrick, 
 who was shingling the roof, " Mr. Herrick, have you seen anything 
 of father lately ? " "Oh, yes," was .the cheerful answer, " I see 
 the old cat cair him under the barn abaout half an hour ago." 
 This, too, appeals to the mind by the vivid picture which it sug- 
 gests. The humor in this exaggeration was sometimes uncon- 
 scious. The antipathy of New England housekeepers to dirt is 
 well known. Their life was such a wearisome contest with dust 
 that they often prematurely resolved themselves into it. One of 
 these housekeepers, expecting a visit from friends, by a special 
 effort made her house spotless and speckless. She greets her 
 visitors at the door with the hearty invitation, " Come right in, if 
 you can — for the dirt." 
 
 The literature of New England was an outgrowth of the native 
 characteristics of the people, of their homely philosophy and 
 shrewd humor. It was the offspring of church and school, and 
 was not without the usual characteristics of a minister's son. An 
 interesting study of its relation to its stern parent is offered in 
 Mr. Sidney George Fisher's " Men, Women, and Manners in 
 Colonial Times." The expansion of literary life began late irl 
 the eighteenth century with the decline of the Puritan domination, 
 with the relaxation of severity and the freeing of the individual 
 judgment. Most of the great actors in the literary drama were 
 descendants for many generations of New England ministers, 
 whose minds were trained to shrewd investigation and close 
 analysis. These literary men were all born between 17S0 and 
 1827, the time of change from total repression to absolute free- 
 dom. They lived amid inspiring events, not unlike those of the 
 Elizabethan era ; a vast expansion in discovery and settlement 
 toward the West ; with the wars and rumors of wars of a heroic 
 age. They were stimulated by the rising spirit of invention and 
 
H 
 
 discovery. They produced a literature which was complete in 
 poetry, romance, philosophy, history, and theology, as well as 
 criticism. As was the case with the Jews and Greeks, and in 
 England and France, it had its basis in the united feeling of a 
 people having a distinct national character ; and, in the opinion 
 of this writer, its failure to continue was due to the material 
 transformation of New England, which has broken up its con- 
 tinuity. 
 
 Coming now to the moral, which must be drawn in the old- 
 fashioned way from these comparisons, we find it colored by 
 individual bias. The elderly pessimist sighs for the ' simple, 
 hearty enjoyments of the good old times ; the neighborly running 
 in to borrow a rising of yeast or a setting of eggs ; the Sociable 
 which came as a January thaw in the neighborhood winter; the 
 blazing hearth, with pie closet and rum closet inviting consultation 
 on either hand. He is heard to speak of the aping of empty 
 gentility, of formal calls and stupid receptions, of vulgar display 
 and snobbish extravagance. The student of sociology, developed 
 under the new system, points out the barrenness and narrowness 
 of the life of the fathers, its poverty and lack of color. He calls 
 attention to the prim and clammy aristocracy which grew up 
 wherever circumstances permitted, as in the cities from Boston to 
 Portland. With the logic of results in his favor, he plans to force 
 restored vitality upon the disheartened hill towns by University 
 Extension and systematic lecturing. The old-school philosopher 
 complains that the cut and-dried ward caucus is shutting off the 
 open discussion of the town meeting. He says that the doctrine 
 of foreordination has been transferred from religion to politics. 
 Our opinions, like our wearing materials, come to us machine- 
 made. He pictures the disgrace which would have overtaken a 
 freeman who sold his blood-bought rights as a voter for pieces of 
 silver. Now he knows of hundreds — The younger man inter- 
 rupts merely to remark that the broader discussions which have 
 come in with the modern press and a freer social life have 
 rendered needless these endless powwows over the choice of a 
 fence-viewer or culler of staves. Except for the occasional and 
 uncertain opportunities offered by a fire or a funeral, the town 
 meeting was the only occasion when our grandfathers could get 
 together and talk things over. 
 
 It has to be admitted that the praise of old-fashioned social 
 
15 
 
 life will hardly bear examination. The necessities of things had 
 made the exaltation of " work " a sort of mechanical religion. 
 Faces, even of the young, assumed a set, anxious, but determined 
 expression. Their life was described by that long and dreary 
 word " utilitarian." The farmer thought of the cloud-capped 
 mountain as a convenient but unreliable barometer, and of the 
 joyous cascade as a feature of the grist-mill. Economy was a 
 fetich, and extravagance a sin. The good times which the young 
 people managed to have stand out by contrast against the cold 
 uniformity of the sombre background. The characteristic traits 
 of the New England of fifty years ago were the natural outcome 
 of such a life working upon such material, — versatility, " capable- 
 ness," practical skill, shrewd common sense, with lapses into gul- 
 libility, close observation and quaint remark, earnestness, philo- 
 sophic humor, craving for knowledge, ambition to " be some- 
 thing." They were close-mouthed and close-fisted, self-contained, 
 and self-assertive. No other race of farmers " have had such 
 acute intelligence, reverence for learning, and keen sense of the 
 superior importance of spiritual things." For six generations 
 they worked in their narrow training school, without realizing that 
 they w^ere victims of special hardship. But, when a broader life 
 was offered, they lost no time in going out to preach the sermons, 
 teach the schools, edit the journals, make the laws, build up the 
 business, and take charge of the purses and principles of the 
 whole nation. 
 
 Their lives of patient self-denial were not without a craving for 
 brightness and beauty. It seldom went farther among the men 
 than to express itself in neat dooryards and trim fences and in 
 the stately trees which lined the streets of every village. Our 
 grandmothers loved the scent of lilacs and syringa and the 
 cheeriness of hollyhocks and tiger lilies. In the days when car- 
 pets, except rag rugs, were an unheard of luxury, Mrs. Rowe has 
 told us that a good sister secured a large square of sail-cloth, and 
 with a few crude colors painted upon this canvas rude patterns 
 of familiar flowers, chiefly blue roses and green lilies, covering 
 the whole with a thick coat of varnish. Everybody came to see, 
 and wonder and admire, Deacon Close among them. Turning 
 his honest, weather-beaten face earnestly upon the erring sister, 
 he exclaimed, " Do you expect to have all this, Sister Meiggs — 
 and heaven, too ?" 
 
i6 
 
 The characteristic craving for knowledge included all things, 
 great and small. It never overlooked the most trifling details of 
 other people's affairs. Wendell Phillips is sometimes quoted as 
 saying that the Puritan hell would be a place where every one 
 had to mind his own business. A minister's wife, after a some- 
 what disturbed pastorate in a town in Eastern Massachusetts, 
 described it as having the quiet of the grave — without its peace. 
 Jerry Hatch has been consumed with curiosity for years in trying 
 to determine whether the stones which glitter in the brooch worn by 
 the Widow Stillings, as she makes her majestic progress into church, 
 are the "ginooine " thing. The widow passes away suddenly and 
 apoplectically. The brooch is understood, at her special direc- 
 tion to have been consigned with her to the casket, and no 
 opportunity offered to "view the remains." Jerry's suspicions 
 are confirmed ; but he is overheard to remark gloomily, " I shan't 
 find aout till the Day o' Judgment, and then there'll be so much 
 goin' on that it's more'n likely I sh'll forget all abaout it." 
 
 The old and new are now so closely interwoven that they may 
 be compared side by side in any corner of New England, as was 
 brought to mind by a recent bicycle trip beyond the beaten path 
 in Connecticut. We had been told that good accommodations 
 could always be had at Poole's Corners ; and Captain Poole was 
 found hospitably disposed, but there was to be a dance in the 
 hall over his store. 
 
 "You see," he explained, "we're goin' to hev a kind uv a 
 social gatherin' to raise money for a new hearse. There's a room 
 I s'pose you could have, but I've kinder promised it to the feller 
 that plays the bull-fiddle. He's always a-tunin' of it up, and then 
 they'll want to leave their hats and things there and be runnin' 
 in and out till pretty late. You'd do better to go on to the Tuttle 
 place, — Mrs. Whipple Tuttle's. It may bother ye a shade to 
 locate the place," continued the captain, observing the deepening 
 shadows. " Tuttle's ruther a common name here, and so I may 
 say is Whipple. Turn down there by John Bazro's shoe shop. 
 Yes, that's his sign, — Jean Bergeron, — queer way of spellin' 
 them Frenchmen have. Then keep a-bearin' to the left till you 
 come to a big yeller house with a wind- wheel. You can't miss 
 it. That ain't the place, but it's the John Henry Tuttle place ; 
 and there you leave John Hen's barn on the left, and go past 
 Aunt Jim's, then by a red house, — John Tuttle's (Red House 
 
17 
 
 John we call him), — and, lemme see, there's one other house to 
 the right, — John Hen's John lives there now, — and right next is 
 the widder's." At the foot of a long lane we found a man finish- 
 ing some work in the dusk, of whom we inquired, " Is that Mrs. 
 Tuttle's house up the lane ? " 
 
 " Yes " (with an amiable grin). " Do they accommodate people 
 with rooms and — er — something to eat .'' " " Yes." 
 
 "Do you think they can take care of us?" (With gratifying 
 smile.) " Yes, yes." 
 
 We toiled up the lane to learn that it was a private retreat for 
 the feeble-minded, and that no further applications would be re- 
 ceived. '• But your button-headed baboon at the foot of the lane 
 said you entertained travellers." 
 
 " Oh, he's a Polock." 
 
 There was so much difficulty in finding Mrs. Tuttle's — with a 
 light sprinkling of rain beginning to fall — that we stopped at a 
 comfortable-looking house on the way. It proved to be a Mrs. 
 John Whipple's place, Mrs. Whipple had " nothing in the house," 
 " and I can't give you no separate room. You might sleep with 
 the hired man. He's real clean for one of them Rooshan Finns." 
 We thanked her, and moved on to Mrs. Tuttle's. It was a large 
 house, rambling loosely in two general directions. Mrs. Tuttle 
 could not provide for us, but thought that Mrs. Tuttle Whipple, 
 "right in the next house," would furnish accommodations. We 
 proceeded to the next doorway, and knocked several times. A 
 faint light appeared at the end of the hall, which blew out before 
 the lady carrying it reached the door. 
 
 " Is this Mrs. Tuttle Whipple ? " we inquired. 
 
 "No, sir," — in a slightly injured tone, — "this is Mrs. Whipple 
 Tuttle to whom you were just speaking at the other end of the 
 house. This is a kind of double house. I told you the next 
 house." 
 
 We apologized, and groped our way to the next building, which 
 was gloomy and unlighted. After pounding on the door, we heard 
 a door open, apparently in another building; and a woman's form 
 was seen approaching. 
 
 " Is this Mrs. Tipple Whup — er — pardon — Mrs. Tuttle 
 Whipple ? " 
 
 " No, young man, it is not. It is Mrs. Whipple Tuttle. I told 
 you to go to the next house. This ain't no house. It's the Catho- 
 lic church," • 
 
i8 
 
 We went to the next edifice, and knocked again. An elderly 
 lady appeared in the distance with a dim candle. It must be Mrs. 
 Whipple Tuttle again. 
 
 " Er — is this Mrs. Whittle Tupple, — I mean Mrs. Tuttle 
 Whipple ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the lady, "but I don't want any" — 
 
 " Not at all, madam. We only want something to cat. Will pay 
 for whatever " — 
 
 " Oh, well, it's after our supper time ; but we got up a supper 
 for six Eyetalian laborers that are workin' on the mill-dam. Bein' 
 the night before a holiday, they must 'a' gone down to the village 
 and got drunk. So if you " — 
 
 We ate the supper of the six sons of Italy, and slept the sleep 
 of the righteous anaconda. 
 
 As to the comparative advantages of the old way of life, if any- 
 body wants to try for himself, as a native philosopher observed, 
 " there ain't no law agin it." Only a few days ago a man went 
 into a store in Fairfield, Me., and remarked that everything 
 except the boots that he had on — namely, stockings, shirts, under- 
 clothes, outside clothes, and cap — were spun, woven, and made by 
 his mother. The fact that we seldom hear of such cases confirms 
 the general belief that the new order of things, from a material 
 point of view, is an improvement. 
 
 The Puritan New England was like a mighty tree, which, after 
 a slow, patient growth of two hundred years and sending its seeds 
 to float upon the Western air, bowed before the storms of change. 
 
 But strong shoots are springing up in the old soil. There 
 seems to be a feeling in many quarters that New England is in a 
 bad way. Look through an index of periodical literature for the 
 past ten years, and you find information grouped under such 
 heads as the following : — 
 
 NEW ENGLAND: 
 Decline of ; 
 Decay of Rural ; 
 Decadence of Thought of; 
 Problems of Churches of; 
 Crisis in Industries of. 
 If there has been any general decline in material prosperity, it 
 is not a matter of record. The census of 1895 showed a gain in 
 population in Massachusetts of 15 per cent., about the same as in 
 
19 
 
 Wisconsin, in the growing region of the West. The percentage 
 of increase throughout New England for the past ten years will 
 be found to be the largest for any decade since 1850. Bank 
 clearings, railroad earnings, savings deposits, school appropriations, 
 and other barometers fail to show any area of depression. In 
 New England it is particularly true that social changes depend 
 on economic conditions. During the general sluggishness of 
 business the present advantages of cotton manufacturers in the 
 South were brought into marked prominence. As was the case 
 in New England fifty years ago, they are favored with an abun- 
 dance of native labor at low wages, and are free from restrictions 
 as to age of operatives and hours of labor. The wage-demanding 
 element is not yet organized. Southern manufacturing will in- 
 crease to the benefit of the South and advantage of the whole 
 country. Jobbers of boots and shoes in the West will become 
 manufacturers. In these and other lines, local manufacturers will 
 supply their own tributary country with many grades of goods. 
 How far they will cut into New England business is not yet clear. 
 Relations between labor and capital will in time be figured as 
 closely as in the East. With materials like wool and cotton, which 
 are compact in bulk and converted into fabrics with little waste, 
 the question of advantage in freight rates depends upon nearness 
 to the consumer. Iowa creameries can deliver butter in the New 
 York market to better advantage than a farmer twenty miles aw-ay 
 in Westchester County, because the bulky Western grown feed- 
 stuffs, the raw materials, freights on which are prohibitory to 
 the Eastern farmer, are converted at home into a concentrated 
 product. But there is no such difference between wool and 
 woollens or between cotton and cotton fabrics, or even between 
 leather and boots and shoes. 
 
 In New England, manufacturers have a large market at home 
 which geographically belongs to them. The recent meetings of 
 manufacturers in Boston were largely occupied with discussions of 
 the growth of exports. We grow the cotton of the world and let 
 others profit by its manufacture, standing fifth in the list of export- 
 ing nations and below the inland republic of Switzerland. Last 
 year the United States produced 11,078,000 bales of cotton, out 
 of a total world's product of 12,949,000 bales. New England 
 manufactured about one-fourth as much as Old England. Yet the 
 exports of Great Britain were to those of America nearly in 
 
20 
 
 the mystic ratio of i6 to i. Our sales of cotton goods in Latin 
 America in the decade ending 1898 were less than 6 per cent. 
 of their total purchases. With cottons and other classes of goods 
 the problems of overproduction and home competition may per- 
 haps be met by studying the tastes of foreign consumers, extend- 
 ing facilities for American banking and trading, and promoting 
 reciprocal trade. It is possible that the time may come when all 
 the cotton grown in the South, on both sides of the Mississippi, 
 will be manufactured in the South. If the future deprives New 
 England of the material to continue what is now her greatest 
 industry, it is not too much to assume that Yankee ingenuity will 
 by that time have found something to take its place. 
 
 The woollen industry has the advantage of the pre-eminence of 
 Boston as the American market for raw wool. The wool market, 
 in return, is assured of its position by the proximity of factories 
 and by its hold on the business community. Boston bank presi- 
 dents understand the grading and market value of wools, and favor 
 the storage certificates of the wool warehouse as security for 
 advances. 
 
 In all her industries the lack of home supplies of coal works 
 against New England. However, she is in partnership with the 
 force of gravitation, and has in her water power a resource to fall 
 back upon, in these days of coal and steam, and one which may 
 render her independent of coal, as the development of electric 
 power from water is perfected. Abundant water power, close to 
 ocean transportation, forms a good basis for permanence in manu- 
 facturing industry. Manufacturing seems likely, in the future, to 
 make restitution to the fields and forests which it has drained in 
 the past. The deserted hills are perfectly adapted to raising 
 sheep, and sheep would be the ideal means of restoring the sight- 
 liness and fertility of the old pastures. The time will come, with 
 growth in grace, when the American people will eat less pork and 
 more mutton. The forefathers should have been guided by the 
 Old Testament on this point. The great Hebrew law-giver never 
 showed more plainly his oneness with the divine will than when he 
 branded pork as an abomination before the Lord. A people can- 
 not go on consuming fresh pork without becoming shiftless in 
 habits and sodden with drugs. The time must come when this 
 obscene beast shall be dislodged from its incumbency on the 
 American stomach. The hills of New England should be a 
 
21 
 
 source of supply to the woollen mills of the Merrimac and Black- 
 stone, as are the highlands of Scotland to the mills of the Cheviot 
 and Tweed. Even at present prices, sheep will more than pay the 
 cost of keeping. The old-time flocks of sheep would come back 
 but for the capital required to restore fences, barns, and pens. As 
 people lapse into poverty, they find that they can afford to keep 
 more yellow dogs. And this is another fact which deters the 
 average farmer from becoming a shepherd. The counteracting 
 influence of a dozen good sheep dogs might do as much for the 
 restoration of a decadent hill town as a university settlement. 
 
 As is the sheep to the woollen trade, so is his cousin, the goat, 
 to the manufacture of boots and shoes. Of recent years our 
 manufactures have grown to such an extent as to tax the entire 
 world to supply our demand for goat, calf, and sheep skins. 
 During the past eight months we imported sixty million goat skins, 
 and the imports of other skins have increased in the same propor- 
 tion. The tough and self-asserting goat is less liable than his 
 gentler cousin to the inroads of dogs and other disorders, and 
 there are projects on foot for peopling the pastures of the aban- 
 doned farms with the goat and gamboling kid. 
 
 Again, this is the age of wood pulp. Holyoke and other river 
 towns have built up a paper industry which, if fostered by wise 
 forestry laws, will supply New England with a permanent source 
 of wealth within her own borders. Spruce logs float down the 
 Connecticut and the rivers of Maine, and are transformed, not 
 only into paper, but into the multitude of articles now made from 
 wood pulp. The granite quarries and fisheries will always remain 
 substantial sources of wealth ; while, of course, the coupons to be 
 clipped from the summer boarder test the utmost powers of the 
 imagination. New Hampshire expects before many years to 
 derive from this source a cash annual income of $15,000,000 or 
 $20,000,000. 
 
 Although in a period of transition, there is good reason to 
 believe that the industrial development of New England has not 
 come to a halt. As it expands, it seems to be certain that the 
 greater part of Southern and Eastern New England will become 
 suburban. The electric cars are doing away with the crowded 
 tenement house. Bicycles at low prices help to make the me- 
 chanic independent of space. This region will be filled with com- 
 fortable homes, with space for lawns and trees, while the interven- 
 
22 
 
 ing land will be devoted to market gardening and intensive farm- 
 
 ing. 
 
 Such a community is graded and assorted in tastes, occupations, 
 and intelligence, — very different from the simple uniform society 
 of fifty years ago, but permitting a freer and broader life. It 
 should appeal to the student of social science as a promising field 
 for the new American home, where one can get more out of life 
 than in the glare and clang of cities or the far-away quiet of the 
 farm. The democratic spirit, which has showed amazing leaven- 
 ing power, may have enough persistence to soften class distinc- 
 tions and preserve respect for labor. 
 
 The hill towns also seem to have passed the turning-point in 
 the depression which resulted from their elevation. Their vitality 
 depends on underlying conditions, which are more in their favor 
 than at any time in fifty years. If Horace Greeley were alive, he 
 might say, " Young man, stay right where you are." The Inter- 
 state Commerce Law has been of some help to Eastern farmers. 
 The virgin soils of the West are exhausted, and artificial fertilizing 
 has become a factor in the cost of production even beyond the 
 Mississippi. Western lands are no longer free, but the supply of 
 cyclones and locusts was never more bounteous. The city has 
 come nearer the country, and is constantly increasing its social 
 and material opportunities. Hard-working, saving foreigners are 
 taking a turn at the deserted farms. 
 
 The old American stock have stayed at home on thousands of 
 farms. They control the Boards of Agriculture, agricultural so- 
 cieties and colleges, and are slowly overcoming the difficulties 
 which beset the New England farmer. They have made some 
 progress in co-operation, which is nowhere more important than to 
 farmers, but from the nature of things nowhere more difficult to 
 attain. They are seeking to apply the methods which prevail in 
 other industries, such as tjie saving of by-products, exact and 
 thorough cultivation, wholesale buying and direct selling, atten- 
 tion to labor-saving crops, like hay and fruit, and studying the 
 tastes and habits of the consumer. 
 
 The friendly interest of the cities is a matter of policy for the 
 future as well as obligation for the past. In the age of collectiv- 
 ism, votes are still distributed among individuals ; and New Eng- 
 land farmers in a crisis vote and act for order and stability. Our 
 great statesmen, merchants, and soldiers come from the farm. 
 
23 
 
 While the present standard of our great men is phenomenally 
 high, we must not allow the source of supply to deteriorate. 
 Farmers lead a life which every son of Adam ought to lead. 
 Many of our millionaires would go back and run a farm if they 
 could afford it. 
 
 The rural villages have also their social problems and sharp 
 contrasts. There are many indications of the growing up of a 
 landed aristocracy. Wealthy people spend more time each year 
 in their country houses. The situation is full of problems, but 
 problems are the New Englander's vital breath. Looking at the 
 difficulties of the past, any future seems easy. Other portions of 
 the country boast of their " resources," — rich mines, fertile soils, 
 soft skies, inexhaustible forests. As Preston, of South Carolina, 
 said, New England has nothing to offer but granite and ice, — 
 " nothing but rocks and ice " ; and of late the factories are rob- 
 bing her of even her homespun ice. 
 
 The modesty of New England in treating of the civilization 
 which she built up and of her influence on other regions is pro- 
 verbial. She might dwell with equal modesty and volubility upon 
 what she has done at home in meeting the changes of the nine- 
 teenth century. For a single item, think of the social and 
 sanitary problems involved in the sudden crowding of the cities 
 and swarming in of a tenement population. Yet the death-rate 
 in Massachusetts in 1890-95 was but little different from 
 that in 1856-60, Scarlet fever and typhoid fever, which 
 stood high in the list of causes of death in 1856, have disap- 
 peared from among the first ten causes. The improvement has 
 kept pace with increase in public water supplies and growth of 
 sanitary science. 
 
 The European peasant comes in with listless, sullen face, and 
 clumsy walk. His dirty-faced children go to school under the flag. 
 In ten years there is little to distinguish them from other 
 Yankees. Their sons will deliver addresses in Faneuil Hall, and 
 become members of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery. 
 
 It is a time of transition for New England at the end of the 
 century as it was in 1850, One prophecy seems safe, — that 
 nothing in the future will test her powers of adaptation and 
 assimilation more severely than the changes of the past fifty 
 years. 
 
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