Addision County does not materially differ
from that of the other Counties in this State, and other New Eng-
land States. The whole exhibits the influence of the spirit of emi-
gration and colonization, which has prevailed and increased since
the first settlement of the country. The character of the whole
population of the country has been modified and, in many respects,
we think, improved by this disposition, especially in its spirit of en-
terprise and individuality. An individual, who has courage to leave
the place of his birth, and remove three hundred or a thousand miles
to the outskirts of civilization to better his condition, learns that there
are other places and people besides those he has left behind, and per-
haps equal or superior to them. His A'iews are enlarged, and his inqui-
ries are no longer confinedto the limited sphere of his early home,
and he begins to think there may be still other regions beyond and
elsewhere. If he has energy to remove once, he has still mor6 to
remove again, when profit or pleasure tempt him. He learns also
that there are other countries beyond the oceans, which encircle
him, and he looks to them as fields for indulging his thirst for spec-
ulation or his curiosity. "Wherever he locates himself, he finds
other men and other customs and manners and ideas which are
new to him, and which he studies, and thus improves his own, and
shakes ofi" his provincial habits and prejudices.
Added to this cause, which to some extent is common to all the
States, the early settlers of Vermont experienced a long course of
discipline in the hardships and self-denial