One of the gravest answers to an argument which contains so much to command respect is found in the history of the New Netherlands.

In the early records of no one of the American colonies is there less manifestation of the Puritan characteristics than in the records of the colony that was absolutely and exclusively under Dutch control and made up chiefly of Dutch settlers.

Nineteen years from the beginning of the colony there was only one church in the whole extent of it; at the end of thirty years there were only two churches.

After ten years of settlement the first schoolmaster arrived; and after thirty-six years a Latin school was begun, for want of which up to that time young men seeking a classical education had had to go to Boston for it.

In no colony does there appear less of local self-government or of central representative government, less of civil liberty, or even of the aspiration for it.