" This book was written by a French immigrant,
Hector St. John de Crevecoeur before the Revolution, and is informed by
an intense consciousness of the difference between conditions in the Old
and in the New World. "What, then, is an American, this new man?" asks
the Pennsylvanian farmer. "He is either a European or the descendant of
a European; hence the strange mixture of blood, which you will find in
no other country....
"He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great
_Alma Mater_. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race
of men, whose labors and prosperity will one day cause great changes in
the world. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the
progress of his labor; this labor is founded on the basis of
_self-interest_; can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children,
who before in vain demanded a morsel of bread, now fat and frolicsome,
gladly help their father to clear those fields, whence exuberant crops
are to arise to feed them all; without any part being claimed either by
a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord.
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