efended the settled
country against hostile Indians. They were distinguished especially for
their general intelligence, their hospitality, their independence and
bold enterprise. They had schools and schoolhouses, erected churches,
and observed the sabbath.

A law abiding people, the pioneers made laws and obeyed them. They were
loyal American citizens and strongly attached to the National
government.

The pioneers were religious, but not ecclesiastical. They lived in the
open and looked upon the relations of man to nature with an open mind.
To be sure their thoughts were more on "getting along" in this world
than upon the "immortal crown" of the Puritan. And yet in the silent
forest, in the broad prairie, in the deep blue sky, in the sentinels
of the night, in the sunshine and in the storm, in the rosy dawn, in
the golden sunset, and in the daily trials and battles of frontier
life, they too must have seen and felt the Infinite.

Nor is it a matter of surprise that the pioneers of Iowa possessed the
elements of character above attributed to them. In the first place, only
strong and independent souls ventured to the frontier. A weaker class
could not have hoped to endure the toils, the labors, the pains,
and withal the loneliness of pioneer life; for the hardest and at the
same time the most significant battles of the 19th century were fought
with axes and plows in the winning of the West. The frontier called for
men with large capacity for adaptation--men with flexible and dynamic
natures. Especially did it require men who could break with the past,
forget traditions, and easily discard inherited political and social
ideas. The key to the character of the pioneer is the law of the
adaptation of life to environment. The pioneers of Iowa were what they
were largely because the conditions of frontier life made them such.
They were sincere because their environment called for an honest
attitude. Having left the comforts of their old homes, traveled
hundreds and thousands of miles, entered the wilderness, and endured the
privations of the frontier, they were serious-minded. They came for a
purpose and, therefore, were always _about_, doing something. Even to this
day, their ideals of thrift and "push" and frugality pervade the
Commonwealth.

And so the strong external factors of the West brought into American
civilization elements distinctively American--liberal ideas and
democratic ideals. The broad rich prairies of I