for years the trusted and honored and admired president of the Milwaukee Avenue State Bank, the depository of hundreds of working men and small tradesmen, wrecked the bank through speculations in real estate, fled to Africa, and was brought back and placed in the Joliet prison for a term of fifteen years."

65

As the regions into which the Scandinavian immigrants have gone so determinedly as agricultural settlers have gradually become more complex in their economic structure, these men and women have once more illustrated their notable capacity to adapt themselves to the new conditions and to share in new advantages. The second and third generation will probably develop much the same tendency city-ward which the Americans of the same class show so markedly; and they will take their share of the honors and emoluments of business, manufacturing, banking, the technical professions, and the so-called learned professions.

The Chicago papers for August, September, and October give full details of the wrecking of the bank and the career of its president. See Chicago Tribune, August 9 ff., 1906.

CHAPTER IX.

THE RELIGIOUS AND INTELLECTUAL STANDPOINT

The social results of the settlement of a body of aliens in any country, as compared with the economic, are far more undefinable and elusive, even when the settlement is compact and homogenous, like that of the Dutch in New York or the French in Louisiana. But when a particular element, like the Irish or the Scandinavian, in a complex population, is distributed over a wide area, with accessions running through three-quarters of a century, the problem of its social influence and importance becomes vastly more difficult. No study or observation of such a well-established racial group, outside of the purely statistical, at best can reach far beyond an impression or an individual opinion; it cannot arrive at a convincing and conclusive scientific deduction.1 Looked at in its length and breadth, the question of social results of Scandinavian immigration takes various forms. Have the foreign-born citizen and his immediate descendants adapted themselves rapidly and vitally to the best American customs in business, politics, education, and religion? Have they learned English quickly? What has been their attitude towards such questions as intemperance, slavery, and public honesty? Are they re-enforcing the best standards of public and private morality prevailing in the communities into which they come?

Fundamental to this discussion, is the general effect of the process of immigration and new settlement, upon the physical and intellectual state of the immigrant and his offspring. It has already been pointed out that the immigrants of the nineteenth century, like those hardy souls of the sixteenth, who left England, Holland, France, or Hall, Immigration, ch. viii.

Sweden, were the more adventurous and determined men and women of their parishes, and that the incidents and anxieties of settling up affairs in their old homes and of getting off for America, would stir to quicker thinking the minds of even the slow and inert. Then came the influence of adjustment to the ways of a new and larger world, with its greater distance, its more rapid communication, its more strenuous activities, its new language, and its different climate and diet; all these re-enforced the original, quickened impulse, and of necessity affected both subtly and powerfully the mind and body of two generations.

The change has in general been for the better, tho some observers think they see a retrogression, especially in physical respects. A Norwegian physician who spent about nine months in the United States in 1892, wrote for a Christiania medical journal an article in which he declared: "That the Norwegian race in the United States is declining physically, every one, I think, who has spent some time among our emigrated countrymen there must admit. But the change is a slow one." The causes, as he saw them, were the unwholesome climate of the Northwest, the unsuitable food of the farmers, the cold, damp houses of the prairies, and the abuse of alcoholic liquors and tobacco. By way of final summary of opinions, he states that "the general rule is that, these dark sides to the contrary notwithstanding, the social conditions in America and its democratic institutions are conducive to individual thinking thereby contributing to the development of individual talent, great or small as that may be."

The views of Dr. Kraft were more or less disputed by several Norwegian physicians in the United States, in The North for January and February, 1893. Dr. Harold Graff, writing to the periodical in which Dr. Kraft's article originally appeared, says: "With astonishing rapidity, the

2Dr. E. Kraft, "The Physical Degeneration of the Norwegian Race in North America," The North, Jan. 3, 1893,— translation from Norsk Magazin for Lægevidenskaben; Ch. Gronvald, "The Effects of the Immigration on the Norwegian Immigrants," appendix to the Sixth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Minnesota, (1878), II, 507-534.

wide mouth and ungainly nose of the specific Norwegian peasant type become modified and disappear, the difference between the physiognomy and facial expression of parents and children being often bewilderingly great..... I have interviewed some of the oldest and most experienced physicians practising in this country, and also other intelligent Norwegians who have travelled among their countrymen in the States, without as yet having heard any divergent opinion whatever. All agree that the Norwegian race in every respect is progressing in both mind and body." Others, who were not so sure of the physical improvement, agree as to the intellectual quickening. In a word, if the transplanting of the tree has not certainly produced an improved trunk or foliage, it has bettered the quality of the fruit. The next logical step is to attempt to estimate the value of such fruit in the American market.

The two obvious ways of determining the influence of a foreign element, are to compare it with some other foreign-born constituent longer and better known, and to compare it with the native American. The latter is the fairer criterion, but it is not easy to ascertain and define what are the purely American characteristics with which comparison is to be made. Statistics on social matters are so incomplete that reliance must be placed upon the consensus of opinion of thoughtful, sympathetic observers and students of American life, whether they be statesmen and philosophers bred in the United States, or scholarly, penetrating foreigners like James Bryce and Alexander de Toqueville. Such men of insight agree that the American ideal comprises love of freedom, independence, and equality; respect for law, government, education, and social morality (including reverence for the family and the home); and lastly a willingness to share the common burden and, if need be, to make a common sacrifice for the permanent welfare of the commonwealth.

3The North, Jan. 18, 1893, translating the article mentioned.

4 Bryce, American Commonwealth (3rd ed.), ch. lxxx; Matthews, American Character, 20-34; Roosevelt, American Ideals, ch. i, ii.

In acquiring the use of English and in maintaining high standards of education, the Scandinavians have an unimpeachable record which no other foreign, non-Englishspeaking element can equal. Illiteracy in Norway and Sweden is almost unknown. Taken together, these two kingdoms have less than one per-cent of illiteracy, and among the recruits in Sweden in 1896 only .13% were unlettered, and only .63% were unable to write.5 Personal acquaintance with many hundreds of Scandinavians, on both sides of the Atlantic, has failed to reveal to the writer a single adult who was unable to read and write.

One of the very first matters to receive attention in a` Scandinavian settlement in the United States, has been the establishment of a school, and, as speedily as possible, the instruction has been given in English, partly because the school laws of most of the States would not recognize a public school conducted in a foreign language, and partly because the settlers desired to have the children know English. For a year or two in some of the isolated communities, as in Arendahl, Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 1857-8, it was necessary to conduct the schools in Swedish or Norwegian; but only rarely has any attempt been made to continue systematic, regular instruction exclu

Statesman's Year Book, 1900, 1049; Kiddle & Schem, Dictionary of Education, 452. In the latter work, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland are marked with asterisks, signifying that they are practically without illiteracy. The contrast of these figures with the percentages of illiteracy of some other European countries is very striking. In 1890 the percentage of illiterates in Austria was 40%, in Hungary, 54%, in Italy, in 1897, among conscripts, 37.3% (reduced from 56.7% in 1871), and among those persons marrying, males, 32.9%, females, 52.13% (reduced respectively from 57.73% and 76.73% in 1871). For Russia the percentage is probably about 80%, perhaps as high as 90%. See Statesman's Year Book, 1900, 374-375, 392, 744-745. Statistical returns relating to German army recruits indicate that in 1896-7 only about .11% could neither read nor write. Ibid., 592. See also, Hall, Immigration, 46, 48, 54, 61, 141.

"History of Fillmore County, Minnesota, 346, 463,-a Norwegian school for one year in a private house, then an English school; Sparks, History of Winneshiek County, Iowa, 16-17.