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years the query as to whether a Pequot warrior had a soul became suddenly less important than the practical question as to whether the Pequot should be allowed any further chances of taking the white man's scalp.
On this last issue the colonists were unanimous in the negative.
It would be easy to multiply such instances of a gradual change of view.
But beneath all the changes and all the varieties of individual behavior in the various colonies that began to dot the seaboard, certain qualities demanded by the new surroundings are felt in colonial life and in colonial writings.
One of these is the instinct for order, or at least that degree of order essential to the existence of a camp.
It was not in vain that John Smith sought to correct the early laxness at Jamestown by the stern edict: “He that will not work, neither shall he eat.”
Dutch and Quaker colonies taught the same inexorable maxim of thrift.
Soon there was work enough for all, at good wages, but the lesson had been taught.
It gave Franklin's Poor Richard mottoes their flavor of homely, experienced truth.
Order in daily life led straight to political order, just as the equality and resourcefulness of the frontier, stimulated by isolation from Europe, led
New Haven. Yale University. Press. 1921.
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