In Benjamin Franklin’s civic pride and his projects for the improvement of Philadelphia, we see another aspect of the philosophy of doing good. At the same time we may recognize the zeal for reform that has long been a characteristic of American life. In his attention to the details of daily living, Franklin shows himself as the observant empiricist. (46)As the successful engineer of ways to make the city he loved cleaner, safer and more attractive he continually sponsored new institutions that were proof that the applications of reason to experience were fruitful in the real world.(47) "Human bliss," observed Franklin, "is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. " Franklin typifies that aspect of the American character that is attentive to small details as well as over-all great plans. (48)The practical idealism of America lies in our capacity to work for our ideals step by step, to recognize that the perfect world is never achieved but that we may approach it gradually by a creative attentiveness to each aspect of life around us.In the American tradition Franklin stands as a man who preached thrift, frugality, industry and enterprise as the "way to wealth". (49)He grew to maturity in an American tradition that was older than he was, according to which such virtues as thrift and industry were not enough to bring a man success; he had also to practice charity and help his neighbor. Wealth was a token of esteem of the Divine Providence that governs men’s affairs, and thus the accumulation of riches was not sought for its own sake alone. Furthermore, wealth and position, being marks of the divine favor, conferred an obligation; a successful man was a "steward", holding the world’s goods in trust for the less fortunate.(50) Being an American meant for Franklin a passionate love of country and a devotion to a democratic point of view in which the rights and liberties of his fellow men were guaranteed and protected. As her foremost citizen in the eyes of the world, he was the champion of her cause in Britain for more than a decade before the Revolution and her representative in France during the years of conflict. America was fortunate in having a man of his stature and ability to serve her during those years; the skills he had acquired in mastery of life and the world’s affairs were brought to bear on the issues of state in patriotic service. An old hand at presenting "causes" in the public press, he presented the case for America in British newspapers and magazines-under various pseudonyms, just as he had done at home in his Pennsylvania Gazette. 49
"Frontier", one of many English words that took on new meanings in North America, has assumed as well a role in explaining the continent’s history during the past five hundred years. In time the word has acquired other connotations, both positive and negative. Among historians, the term "frontier" is most closely associated with Frederick Jackson Turner, whose essay profoundly influenced American historiography for forty years after its publication in 1893. Reacting against historians who considered American history essentially an outgrowth of British and European institutions, Turner argued that Old World customs and attitudes broke down and reformed in America’s radically different physical and social environment. The opportunity of "free land" drew pioneers westward into settings that required them to modify or scrap entirely many of the institutions and values of their previous lives. The result was a "merged nationality", a distinctive culture and people. Although he emphasized the positive, Turner observed that the same conditions that had helped reshape the society had less desirable effects. For instance, as early governments they had to create political forms almost on the fly, they were less likely to innovate than to copy what they knew from the past. The tension between change and tradition was played out in gender relations. Frontier conditions often required women to take on roles usually reserved for men, but the crushing load of work made women’s lives difficult and dangerous and left little room for individual fulfillment outside their labors. By Turner’s death in 1932, more fundamental critiques of his ideas were being heard. Some stressed that many other factors—among them patterns of immigration, American society’s middleclass nature, etc.—influenced the national character at least as much as the frontier. Others argued that class divisions and social and economic hierarchies have been much more a part of American life than the frontier-inspired equality implied in Turner’s work. The effect of these various critiques has been paradoxical. No longer considered the primary formative force on continental history, the frontier has been more broadly defined and its explanatory power has grown. Recent research has explored the interactions among Europeans, Euro-Americans, and Indian peoples. Along the various frontiers there developed what the historian Richard White has called a "middle ground", cultures of overlapping customs and mutual borrowing in which all sides created new terms of understanding and exchange. Consequently, many tribes merged and consolidated to meet the threats and opportunities posed by the newcomers. A frontier in this sense was certainly not a division between "civilization and savagery", but rather a place where peoples, ideas, cultures, and institutions came together and interacted on many levels, sometimes mixing and sometimes conflicting but always in mutual influence. We may infer from the second paragraph that Turner believed______.
American history grew out of British and European traditions
B. America’s environment was not well prepared for institutions from Europe
C. situations in the U.S. adapted old World values
D. "Free land" opportunity required pioneers to form a new culture