The educational advantages of the Plymouth colony were meagre, and the little learning that existed was picked up in the old English way by home instruction.  This deficiency was due to the stern conditions of a farmer’s life on Cape Cod Bay, where the soil was poor and the climate severe, necessitating the constant labor of the whole family.

Nevertheless, the Plymouth colony was always an example to its neighbors for thrift, economy, and integrity, and it influenced to industry by proving what might be done on a barren soil.  Its chief claim to historical importance rests, of course, on the fact that, as the first successful colony on the New England coast, it was the cause and beginning of the establishment of the other colonies of New England, and the second step in founding the great republic of the United States.

[Footnote 1:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 112.]

[Footnote 2:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 114-117.]

[Footnote 3:  Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 4th series, II., 158-163.]

[Footnote 4:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 130-133; Winslow, “Relation,” in Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrims, 280-284.]

[Footnote 5:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 149-168; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 40.]

[Footnote 6:  Gorges, Description of New England (Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 3d series, VI., 80).]

[Footnote 7:  Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, p. 33.]

[Footnote 8:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 170.]

[Footnote 9:  Maine Hist.  Soc., Collections, 2d. series, VII., 73-76.]

[Footnote 10:  Adams, Three Episodes of Mass.  Hist., I., 152.]

[Footnote 11:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 238.]

[Footnote 12:  Palfrey, New England, I., 222, 285.]

[Footnote 13:  Hubbard, New England (Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 2d series, VI., 110).]

[Footnote 14:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 237; Planters’ Plea (Force, Tracts, II., No. iii.).]

[Footnote 15:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 237-258.]

[Footnote 16:  Ibid., 248.]

[Footnote 17:  Hazard, State Papers, I., 298.]

[Footnote 18:  Bradford, Letter-Book (Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 1st series, III., 63); Plimoth Plantation, 284-292.]

[Footnote 19:  Bradford, Letter-Book (Mass.  Hist.  Soc., Collections, 1st series, III., 53).]

[Footnote 20:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 350.]

[Footnote 21:  Winthrop, New England, I., 139.]

[Footnote 22:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 395-401.]

[Footnote 23:  Plymouth Col.  Records, I., 133.]

[Footnote 24:  Bradford, Plimoth Plantation, 437-444.]