for a rude and hardy race, that lived mostly out of doors, was once
made here almost entirely of such materials as Nature furnished
ready to their hands. Gookin, who was superintendent of the Indians
subject to the Massachusetts Colony, writing in 1674, says, "The
best of their houses are covered very neatly, tight and warm, with
barks of trees, slipped from their bodies at those seasons when the
sap is up, and made into great flakes, with pressure of weighty
timber, when they are green.... The meaner sort are covered with
mats which they make of a kind of bulrush, and are also
indifferently tight and warm, but not so good as the former.... Some I
have seen, sixty or a hundred feet long and thirty feet broad.... I
have often lodged in their wigwams, and found them as warm as the best
English houses." He adds that they were commonly carpeted and lined
within with well-wrought embroidered mats, and were furnished with
various utensils. The Indians had advanced so far as to regulate the
effect of the wind by a mat suspended over the hole in the roof and
moved by a string. Such a lodge was in the first instance
constructed in a day or two at most, and taken down and put up in a
few hours; and every family owned one, or its apartment in one.

  In the savage state every family owns a shelter as good as the best,
and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I
speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air
have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the savages their
wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the
families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where
civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a
shelter is a very small fraction of the whole. The rest pay an
annual tax for this outside garment of all, become indispensable
summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but
now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to
insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it
is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so
little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot
afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford to
hire. But, answers one, by merely paying this tax, the poor
civilized man secures an abode which is a palace compared with the
savage's. An annual rent of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars
(these are the country rates) entitles him to the benefit of the
improvements of centuries, spacious apartments, clean paint and paper,
Rumford fireplace, back plastering, Venetian blinds, copper pump,
spring lock, a commodious cellar, and many other things. But how
happens it that he who is said to enjoy these things is so commonly
a poor civilized man, while the savage, who has them not, is rich as a
savage? If it is asserted that civilization is a real advance in the
condition of man- and I think that it is, though only the wise improve
their advantages- it must be shown that it has produced better
dwellings without making them more costly; and the cost of a thing
is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be
exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. An average house
in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay
up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer's life,
even if he is not encumbered with a family- estimating the pecuniary
value of every man's labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive
more, others receive less;- so that he must have spent more than
half his life commonly before his wigwam will be earned. If we suppose
him to pay a rent instead, this is but a doubtful choice of evils.
Would the savage have been wise to exchange his wigwam for a palace on
these terms?

  It may be guessed that I reduce almost the whole advantage of
holding this superfluous property as a fund in store against the
future, so far as the individual is concerned, mainly to the defraying
of funeral expenses. But perhaps a man is not required to bury
himself. Nevertheless this points to an important distinction
between the civilized man and the savage; and, no doubt, they have
designs on us for our benefit, in making the life of a civilized
people an institution, in which the life of the individual is to a
great extent absorbed, in order to preserve and perfect that of the
race. But I wish to show at what a sacrifice this advantage is at
present obtained, and to suggest that we may possibly so live as to
secure all the advantage without suffering any of the disadvantage.
What mean ye by saying that the poor ye have always with you, or
that the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth
are set on edge?

  "As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any
more to use this proverb in Israel.

  "Behold all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the
soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

  When I consider my neighbors, the farmers of Concord, who are at
least as well off as the other classes, I find that for the most
part they have been toiling twenty, thirty, or forty years, that
they may become the real owners of their farms, which commonly they
have inherited with encumbrances, or else bought with hired money- and
we may regard one third of that toil as the cost of their houses-
but commonly they have not paid for them yet. It is true, the
encumbrances sometimes outweigh the value of the farm, so that the
farm itself becomes one great encumbrance, and still a man is found to
inherit it, being well acquainted with it, as he says. On applying
to the assessors, I am surprised to learn that they cannot at once
name a dozen in the town who own their farms free and clear. If you
would know the history of these homesteads, inquire at the bank
where they are mortgaged. The man who has actually paid for his farm
with labor on it is so rare that every neighbor can point to him. I
doubt if there are three such men in Concord. What has been said of
the merchants, that a very large majority, even ninety-seven in a
hundred, are sure to fail, is equally true of the farmers. With regard