492 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



people about them, but they became the greatest active exponents of 

 these ideals, and for over 500 years they were the main defence of 

 Christian Europe against the Turkish tribes of Asia that followed closely 

 in their footsteps. 



Manifestly the western civilization thus upheld by the Asiatic Hun- 

 garian in eastern Europe is different in many ways from Anglo-Saxon 

 or Germanic culture. Whereas a high degree of individual liberty has 

 been the aim of both, the one has succeeded in attaining its goal by 

 making self sacrifices and compromises for the common good, while the 

 other has not yet attained complete freedom, largely because of a failure 

 to understand the essential differences between liberty and license. In 

 Hungary to-day we have a sad example of this seeming lack of ability 

 to forget individual differences for the common good. In the eastern 

 half of the monarchy, a Hungarian minority holds the non-Magyar races 

 in just such political serfdom as they themselves were subjected to before 

 1866, when the Prussians established the preeminence of Germany in 

 Austria. And yet, in all fairness, we must not too hastily assume that 

 the Teutonic races have a monopoly of that political unselfishness which 

 makes self government possible. 



The Pole might justly say that the rebellion of the barons and the 

 Magna Charta, which they exacted from King John, and which we are 

 inclined to consider the first great step in the establishment of political 

 equality was, in reality, no different from the republic of nobles in their 

 own land, for, in each case, the mass of the people were little better off 

 than before, both being left in a condition of practical serfdom. And 

 the Hungarian might almost with equal truth say, that he is no more 

 domineering over the non-Magyars in eastern Hungary than is the 

 German minority over the Czechs in Bohemia, and the Poles in Gallicia. 

 Whatever may have been the cause, the fact remains that the Irishman 

 at home has never been able to attain any higher degree of political 

 equality than the Pole or Hungarian, yet the Irish descendants of the 

 immigration of fifty years ago have absolutely amalgamated with us, 

 and now conform to the highest type of American citizenship. 



The final amalgamation of the Slav and Hun with our native stock 

 is a foregone conclusion, but what the final effect will be depends largely 

 upon the time taken to complete the alloy. Were it possible to so regu- 

 late the numbers of the new arrivals that they would never be in excess 

 of the number of their children attending our public schools, the 

 problem would easily adjust itself, for then we should always have more 

 real Americans in the making than we have non-Americans in reality. 

 A study of the history of the Hun and Slav, and a careful analysis of 

 their respective national characteristics, seem to warrant the conclusion 

 that they are both amenable to the ways of western progress, and that 

 we have more to fear from their great numbers than we have from any 

 undesirable qualities inherent in themselves. 



