Excerpt
Long before the modern dogma took hold that early childhood experience determines adult character, Alexis de Tocqueville applied the idea to America. Convinced that the childhood of the United States was to be found in colonial New England, he wrote, "if we would understand the prejudices, the habits, and the passions which rule" the life of the mature man, "we must watch the infant in his mother's arms." Today, however, not many Americans--not even, perhaps, many New Englanders--feel that in observing the strict Protestants who emigrated to New England nearly four centuries ago they are watching their younger selves.