The long and fruitful colonial period must not be overlooked by any honest student of American literature, yet it may fairly be regarded as no more than a preparatory stage. It has the same relationship to the whole story as do the ancestry, boyhood, and education to the development of an individual. In the broad and brief survey attempted in these chapters a few leading facts have been reviewed about the youth of America: (1) Everything characteristic of the early settlers was derived directly from England, those in the South representing the aristocratic traditions of king and court, and those in the North reflecting the democratic revolt of the Puritans. As a natural consequence of these differences the writing of books soon waned in Virginia and the neighboring colonies, but developed consistently in Massachusetts and New England. (2) The attempt of the Puritans to force all New Englanders to think the same thoughts and worship in the same way was unsuccessful from the start, and the most interesting writers of the seventeenth century reveal the spread of disturbing influences. The first three chosen as examples are Thomas Morton, the frank and unscrupulous enemy of the Puritans; Nathaniel Ward, a sturdy Puritan who was alarmed at the growth of anti-Puritan influences; and Roger Williams, a deeply religious preacher, who rebelled against the control of the Church in New England just as he and others had formerly rebelled in the mother country. (3) Even in the first half century a good deal of verse was written: sometimes, as in the case of "The Day of Doom," as a mere rimed statement of Puritan theology; but sometimes, as in the case of Anne Bradstreet and her followers, as an expression of real poetic feeling. (4) With the passage to the eighteenth century the community was clearly slipping from the grasp of the Puritans. Evidence is ample from three types of colonists: the Mathers, who were fighting a desperate but losing battle to retain control; Samuel Sewall, who, although a Puritan, was willing to accept reasonable changes; and Mrs. Sarah Kemble Knight, who said little at the time, but in her private journals showed the existence of growing disrespect for the old habits of thought. (5) Benjamin Franklin, whose work is more valuable than that of any of his predecessors, is also completely representative of the complete swing away from religious enthusiasm to a hard-headed worldliness which was prevailing in England in the eighteenth century. (6) On the other hand, Crèvecoeur, writing just before the Revolution, sounded the note of thanksgiving to the Lord that America was different from the Old World, and emphasized what were the conditions of life that were worth fighting to save. (7) Finally, out of all the roster of talented writers during the Revolutionary War, Freneau was selected as the most gifted poet of the period, both as an indirect recorder of the conflict and as an author of poetry on native