Till the first century of the Constitution is rounded out we stand all the while in the presence of that stupendous westward movement which has filled the continent: so vast, so various, at times so tragical, so swept by passion. Through all the long time there has been a line of rude settlements along our front wherein the same tests of power and of institutions were still being made that were made first upon the sloping banks of the rivers of old Virginia and within the long sweep of the Bay of Massachusetts. The new life of the West has reacted all the while--who shall say how powerfully?--upon the older life of the East; and yet the East has moulded the West as if she sent forward to it through every decade of the long process the chosen impulses and suggestions of history. The West has taken strength, thought, training, selected aptitudes out of the old treasures of the East,--as if out of a new Orient; while the East has itself been kept fresh, vital, alert, originative by the West, her blood quickened all the while, her youth through every age renewed. Who can say in a word, in a sentence, in a volume, what destinies have been variously wrought, with what new examples of growth and energy, while, upon this unexampled scale, community has passed beyond community across the vast reaches of this great continent! NOTES =Jamestown=:--A town in Virginia, the site of the first English settlement in America (1607). =Appomattox=:--In 1865 Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. =epic=:--A long narrative poem recounting in a stirring way some great series of events. =Governor Spotswood=:--Governor of Virginia in the early part of the eighteenth century. =Knights of the Golden Horseshoe=:--In 1716 an exploring expedition under Governor Spotswood made a journey across the Blue Ridge. The Governor gave each member of the party a gold horseshoe, as a souvenir. =Celts=:--One of the early Aryan races of southwestern Europe; the Welsh and the Highland Scotch are descended from the Celts. =Slavs=:--The race of people inhabiting Russia, Poland, Bohemia, and Servia. =Latin races=:--The French, Spanish, and Italian people, whose languages are derived chiefly from the Latin. =Orient=:--The far East--India, China, Japan, etc. =Norman=:--The Norman-French from northern France had been in possession of England for the greater part of a century (1066-1154) when Henry, son of a Saxon princess and a French duke (Geoffrey of Anjou) came to England as Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet line of English kings. =Stratford=:--A small town on the Avon River in England; the birthplace of Shakespeare. =dight=:--Clothed. (What does an unabridged dictionary say about this word? Is it commonly used nowadays? Was it used in Shakespeare's time? Why does the author use it here?) =see it steady and see it whole=:--A quotation from the works of Matthew Arnold, an English poet and critic. SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY