The influences which surrounded the infancy of the English colonies were eminently favourable to robust growth. Coming of their own free choice, the colonists brought with them none of the injurious restraints which in the Old World still impeded human progress. The burdensome observances of feudalism were not admitted within the new empire. Every colonist was a landowner. In some States the settlers divided among themselves the lands which they found unoccupied, waiting no consent of King or of noble. In others, they received, for prices which were almost nominal, grants of land from persons--as William Penn, who had received large territorial rights from the sovereign. In all cases, whether by purchase or by appropriation, they became the independent owners of the lands which they tilled. At the beginning, they were too insignificant to be regarded by the Government at home: favoured by this beneficent neglect, they were allowed to conduct in peace their own public affairs. As their importance increased, the Crown asserted its right of control; but their exercise of the privilege of self-government was scarcely ever interfered with. The men who founded the New England States carried with them into the wilderness a deep conviction that universal education was indispensable to the success of their enterprise. While the French Canadian, despising agriculture, roamed the forest in pursuit of game, ignorant himself, and the father of ignorant children, the thoughtful New England farmer was helping with all his might to build up a system of common schools by which every child born on that free soil should be effectively taught. Thus widely dissimilar were the methods according to which France and England sought to colonize the lately-discovered continent. An equally wide dissimilarity of result was inevitable.