The frontier measured men by what they did, not by what they said, nor by what their ancestors had done for them. There was no bondage to superior birth, to fashion, or to custom, which had kept Europeans half slaves. The influence of the frontier made our ancestors, almost as soon as they landed, begin to differ from those of the same race in Europe. The American public school is the great agency which continues the influence of the frontier. In Europe, the children of the wealthy went to one school and those of the poor to another. It was fortunate that the frontier could have only one school for the children of all. Our public schools still follow the fashion of the frontier and continue to be a common meeting place for the children of all classes. In this way, the influence of the frontier for democracy, for the common mingling of all classes, survives in our public school system. Summary of Points of Emphasis for Review.—(1) The location of the frontier in 1860, (2) why the frontier line remained nearly stationary for half a century, (3) the central region as Mark Twain saw it on the Overland Stage route, (4) how messages were carried across the continent before the telegraph, (5) why there was a rush westward after the Civil War, (6) freight charges before the railroads, (7) need of transcontinental railroad, (8) building the Union and Central Pacific railroads, (9) how the railroads changed the West, (10) new western states, (11) unjust treatment of the Indian, who is driven to the warpath, (12) how the Indian problem was solved, (13) the settlement of Oklahoma, (14) the influence of the frontier upon American life. Activities. Read or ask your teacher to read to you some passages from Roughing It, by Mark Twain. Imagine yourself "Buffalo Bill," and write a letter to an eastern friend to describe your early life. Give a three-minute talk on the growth of the West, as it appeared to an Indian. Make a moving or progressive picture tape on strips of paper, from three to five inches wide, pasted together, end on end, so as to be sufficiently long. Show the development of the West by cutting out pictures and pasting them on the tape, or by making original drawings showing in order the Indian, buffalo, hunter, fur trader, miner, Oregon home seeker, stagecoach, pony express, telegraph, railroad, cowboy with cattle, Roosevelt in Dakota, farmer with fields of wheat and corn. This will furnish hints for the pageant suggested on the following page. Answer the question at the end of the section headed "Western freight service before the railroad" (p. 449). Write one hundred words on the subject, "Why I am Sorry (or Glad) that the Frontier has Disappeared." (The teacher should read to the class enough from Turner's Frontier in American History to show how the frontier helped make our democracy what it is. This is one of the important facts in our history.) Present a pageant called "The Growth of the West." In successive scenes the children should take the parts of the various types characteristic of the West. The Oregon Trail should be shown with its followers succeeding each other in proper order. Ingenuity will find a way to present the Indian, trapper, fur trader, miner, buffalo, stagecoach, cowboy with cattle, railroad, and farmer with wheat and corn. References for Teachers.-Hough, The Passing of the Frontier (Chron. of Am.); Sparks, National Development, XV., XVI.; Paxson, The New Nation, IX.; Turner, Frontier in Am. Hist.; Paxson, The Last Am. Frontier, XI.-XXII.; Beard, Contemporary Am. Hist., 1-46; Adams, Log of a Cowboy; Hart, Am. Hist. Told by Contemporaries, IV., 515-517, 649-651; Wister, The Virginian (fiction). For Pupils.-Roosevelt, Stories of the Great West, 109-254; Barstow, Progress of a United People (Century Hist. Readers), 36-69, 135–140; Fairbanks, The Western U. S., 187-214; Hart, Source Book of Am. Hist., 366-369; Western Frontier Stories Retold from St. Nicholas; Shinn, The Story of the Mine. Fiction: Altsheler, Horsemen of the Plains; Last of the Chiefs; Clemens, Roughing It; Garland, Son of the Middle Border; Boy Life on the Prairie; Grinnell, Jack, the Young Ranchman; Jack Among the Indians; Jackson. Ramona; Otis, Seth of Colorado. Western Cowboy |