Saturday, February 11, 2012

Winthrop v. Smith

   When I read these two pieces I debated with myself as to which side I agreed with more.  In one aspect Winthrop is looking at the new world and all of the potential it has to be great.  This is nice and it shows how much faith the puritans had in their new country.  I also liked how he had such high hopes of building a strong Christian community.  The times were hard and being able to come together and help the people survive as a whole is truly a good idea.  I did strongly disagree with how Winthrop believed that people were assigned certain roles in life and they could never move up in wealth or jobs.  America is known now as being a place that allows people to have opportunities that they would never have in their home countries. 
  However, I also found myself agreeing with Smith's realistic ideas of marketing the new world.  In order to build America as an economic stronghold it is crucial to get the rich into the country.  If every person that came to America were poor and lacked the means to build up the country America at the present time would probably be a third world country.  A mix of both rich and poor would allow people to seek opportunity and the country would then continue to grow.  Also, I came to the conclusion that it would took a mixture of both Smith and Winthrop's ideas to help the new world prosper during that time period.

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