millions who, more than all others, so much need to be taught these
invaluable, first lessons of life.

The tide of emigration from the seaboard to the West has usually
followed parallel lines; so that we find the State of Texas settled, for
the most part, by people from the States lying upon the Gulf, while in
Missouri they hail largely from the Carolinas, and from what were once
known as the border slave States. Going farther north, to Minnesota, a
preponderance of the New England element is found; though people from
all the various States of the Union are encountered to a greater extent
than in any of the others lying in the Northwest; and this fact is
important as one of the circumstantial evidences of the great repute
this State bears, _par excellence_, in the matter of her climate. We
cannot suppose that this minor and miscellaneous population were
attracted hither from any special attachment either to the people or the
institutions of the commonwealth, but rather in quest of that health
and vigor lost within their own warm, enervating, or miasmatic homes,
which so abound in all the central and southern portions of the Union.
Finding their healths measurably benefited by a residence here, they
have brought their families, engaged in their various callings, and may
now be found settled permanently in their new homes throughout all the
towns and villages of the State.

Minnesota is known as the New England of the West, this appellation
growing out of the fact that the great preponderance of her citizens, as
before stated, are either of New England birth or origin; and this
well-merited _sobriquet_ has, likewise, an additional application, since
the general face of the country is diversified and quite in contrast
with the endless stretch and roll of the shrubless prairies of some of
the other great western and adjoining States.