THE BEGINNING Franklin's foot took hold upon the soil of the new land.

His soul reached out and laid hold upon the sky, the harsh flowers, the rasping wind.

He gave, and he drank in.

Thus grew the people of the West.
The effect upon different men of new and crude conditions is as various as the individuals themselves.

To the dreamer, the theorist, the man who looks too far forward into the future or too far back into the past, the message of the environment may fall oppressively; whereas to the practical man, content to live in the present and to devise immediate remedies for immediate ills, it may come sweet as a challenge upon reserves of energy.