represent to him, in
achievement and of necessity.

Therefore, north and south, the first thought of the pioneer settler was
to establish the home; and the first requisite of the home is its
presiding deity, the wife. Thus the American woman had from the first a
peculiar value in the eyes of her husband; she was more surely "flesh of
his flesh and bone of his bone" than were other wives, for she shared of
necessity all his perils and triumphs, while his work was patiently done
for her as for himself. She represented to him his gage to fortune as
well as his best-beloved and most-needed companion; and she was
necessary to him. This attitude of the husband, unexpressed, perhaps
uncomprehended, was none the less effective in forming the womanly ideal
of the home. Because that home had been gained--in the aggregate at
last, in the individual at first--by the sweat of her goodman's brow and
was maintained and guarded by the labor of his hands and the courage of
his heart, therefore the American wife was conscious of a peculiar duty
toward the husband, a peculiar tenderness toward the home, which to her
represented as much as to him.

In this way and for these reasons the sanctity of the American home
became peculiarly marked, and there arose in that home an atmosphere of
holiness and purity that was in contrast to the households of other
nations at that day. There is no more appropriate place than this, on
the border line of the two epochs of colonization, when the American
type began to be defined and recognized, for a brief glance at the
American home in its spiritual features. As with the homes in rural
England, but differing in this respect, as in so many others, from the
city life of the mother country, the purity of the home was its most
noteworthy and carefully conserved feature. In many respects there was
likeness between the home of America and that of Holland; certainly,
though in many aspects the resemblance failed, there was a closer
resemblance than between the former and the home in any other nation.
Whether this came from the brief sojourn of the Pilgrims in Holland
cannot be said with certainty, though it seems most improbable; the
greater likelihood is that the conditions which prevailed in colonial
America were those best adapted to the genius of the Dutch people in the
matter of domesticity, as later shown in the somewhat similar conditions
and results in South Africa. Certain it is that the American hom