I. THE WILDERNESS AS THE GARDEN OF POLITICAL LIBERTY
The pioneer and frontiersman of early America are very strange beings when viewed from our present social customs, or as studied from the so-called refinements of modern interests and conveniences, but, no doubt, the problem is now before us, which shall be the makers of America, the pioneer view of freedom and right, or influence from the present methods of material distinctions and individual success. We may be sure that whichever one of these ideas gets first to the heart of the American boy, that is the ideal that will make of him the resulting man. The American boy loves to go to the bottom of things and so the submarine idea of interests is full of fancies. He likes to get to the top of things and the airship carries him away on the wings of adventure. But this all is merely because he likes freedom and conquest. There is a limit to the submarine and the airship, as there is to all machinery ideals, but there was no limit to the frontiersman and the pioneer. The boy wants no limit, and there is the same opening now to be a frontiersman and a pioneer in human values as there ever was, provided they are human values and not individual aggrandizement. The only consideration is that the scenes have changed and the obstacles known as “things in the way” are different.
The pioneer and the frontiersman were laboring to achieve something far more important than clearing away trees, killing wildcats or subduing the wild men of the wilderness. Such dangerous and exciting work was but an incident in the great struggle. They were striving for a safe, free and sufficient living for family and home. But far greater than the economic interest was the ideal interest of freedom from the will of overlords. That sublime goal of human endeavor is probably no nearer the heart’s desire now than it was then. Society is not yet out of the wilderness of wildcat schemers and wild men monopolists.
The American boy has an immeasurably greater opportunity to continue the heroic and patriotic work of the frontiersman and pioneer. The safety, freedom and sufficiency of America is merely well started on its second period. The first great epoch of American humanity became symbolized in the life of Washington and the second in the life of Lincoln. If there is a third great symbolic character, it is yet to come. The American boy must feel the meaning combined in Washington and Lincoln if he is to be a pioneer civilizing, socially and politically, the frontier of America for a nobler world.