Granting the evident natural law that development is the result of activity of faculty, and, as a consequence, that individual improvement must come from individual exertion, it may be safe to say that the scope of government should be such as to give or permit the greatest normal and harmonious activity to the units of population, in order to bring about the greatest amount of aggregate excellence and happiness; and still it appears to be a matter of experience and experiment, in which science and altruism play but a subordinate part. Nevertheless, there should be investigation of governmental experiments, and the great and ever recurring question is, What do these show? Has government help promoted individual competence, and has it promoted the general welfare? In answering this question it will not do to look at it as a whole; each experiment must be taken by itself, and there must be an elimination, so far as may be, of complicating and conflicting elements. Of course there will be no attempt in this paper to do more than report upon a single phase of government help, and one, too, which to my knowledge has never been utilized for throwing light upon the great economic question. I refer to the settlement of Oregon and Washington under government auspices. It would seem as though there never existed more favorable conditions for a successful experiment in planting a model colony than were found here upon this Northwest coast. Certainly nature was lavish and the government munificent, and if these are chiefly instrumental in putting a community on its feet to stay, here should be found the living proof. Let us see; and first as to the country. The Cascade range of mountains, a high ridge bearing north and south, nearly parallel to the eastern shore of the Pacific Ocean and about one hundred miles therefrom, divides the states of Oregon and Washington into two unequal parts, popularly known as Eastern and Western Oregon and Washington. Bordering the coast of both states is another ridge, much lower, and between these two mountain ridges, are cross mountains connecting them, and forming valleys with independent river systems. These western valleys are but little above the sea level, have moist, equable climates, abundant timber, and rich soils; while the country east of the Cascades is an elevated table-land, sparsely wooded, quite arid, is subject to greater extremes of heat and cold and possessed of a strongly alkaline soil.