Mrs Gaylord writes:

It will ever be difficult to understand how those sturdy farmers of New England could feed, clothe, and educate, even in the plainest manner, families of eight or ten children, from one of those rock-bound and unproductive New England farms.  But they did more than this--often giving one son, perhaps two, a college education.  And we know of one Vermont father and mother, who through the most unprecedented self-denial sent five sons to college, hoping all would become ministers of the gospel.

Such results were not accomplished wholly by untiring industry and strict economy, but head, heart, and hands worked together, and wrought out achievements worthy of a monument to perpetuate their memory.  And multitudes of monuments do exist with a foundation laid so deep in the hearts and lives of their descendants, as to go on from generation to generation and endure forever.  Their posterity is their monument.

This is the Eastern culture which bred and educated Reuben Gaylord and which he left to follow his call in the West.  Within a year of graduating from Yale, he went to Illinois, then the Western frontier, to teach at Illinois College.  He wrote on October 21, 1834, "I have long desired to see our western land, and now the way seems prepared for me."

Here is his early impression of the prairie, delivered in a letter to his niece dated May 2, 1835:

You may wish to know how I like the country.  I was disappointed at first, as the season was unusually backward, but spring has at length opened in all its beauty and loveliness.  The weather is warm and the trees are springing into new life.  The wild plum, red bud, and various other kinds are decked with blossoms.  The prairie flowers are inviting the admirer of nature, and showing the hand of God and His wisdom, as much as the bright luminary that dispenses its life-giving rays over all our system.