136 REPORT— 1856. 



portion as liberty is rightly used, that security can be felt that the child is really 

 reformed. 



8. Wholesome direction sliould be given to the mental energies by no inconsiderable 

 amount of intellectual training. 



9. Every effort must be made to bring the tone of the school and the common feeling 

 of its inmates to the side of virtue, and into harmony with the instructors. The 

 religious element must be the prevailing one in the minds of the teachers; and must 

 infuse itself into all their intercourse with the children. This will have a greater 

 direct influence than any formal lesson. 



10. The will of the child must be enlisted in her own reformation. She must be 

 led to feel that obedience to the Divine Will is the highest good ; and to desire to 

 obey that Will. 



On the Tendency of European Races to become extinct in the United States. 

 By Edward Clibborn, Corr. Mem. Nat. Inst. Washington. 



The object of this paper was to exhibit the probability of the extinction on the 

 continent of North America, not only of the Celtic, or Irish race, but of all other 

 European races, provided intercourse with Europe was entirely interrupted. 



The argument was based on a fact admitted everywhere in the United States, that 

 the town populations there are more healthy and productive than those of the 

 country districts; and that as the law of extinction of town populations exists in the 

 United States, as well as in Ireland and other parts of Europe, and as the annual 

 loss of population cannot be supplied by the country districts, which are, on the con- 

 trary, in a measure replenished by the towns in the United States, it follows, that in 

 the course of a few generations, both the towns, as well as the country districts, 

 ■would be left without inhabitants, — provided the annual deficiencies in both were not 

 supplied by the emigrants from Europe. 



It was admitted there were some favoured localities in the United States where 

 the population of European extraction increases by reproduction, and which in some 

 degree helps to replace the loss of population in other districts, which are, however, 

 by far the more numerous. It was however argued, from the general unfitness of 

 the climate to the European constitutions, coupled with the occasional pestilential 

 visitations which occur in the healthier localities, that on the whole, or on an average 

 of three or four generations, extinction of the European races in North America 

 would be almost certain, if the communications with Europe were entirely cut off. 

 And thus the facts indicated by the extinction of the colony from Iceland, in Nara- 

 ganut Bay, — the extinction of French and German settlements in the West, — of 

 Spanish settlements in the South, — the non-increase of the numbers of people 

 representing the old settlers in New York, Maryland, and especially the families 

 who with Penn colonized Pennsylvania, — all told the same sad story, and led to the 

 inference, that the continent of North America had not been, and was not likely to 

 become, a homestead to the European races, and which would, from the force of cir- 

 cumstances not likely to change, die out if the intercourse with Europe wereprevented. 



It was also explained, that the probability of the United States being long a tem- 

 porary homestead to the European peoples was greatly endangered, if not prospectively 

 barred, by the Chinese emigration, entirely antagonistic in its sympathies, which had 

 begun to flow in, and which, at no very distant period, promises to overrun the 

 ■whole country with an increasing population, whose constitution was perfectly adapted 

 to the climate, it might be said, in the inverse ratio of its unwholesomeness to the 

 European constitution ; thus giving the Chinese rice cultivators and others extra- 

 ordinary opportunities of plantation not offered to any Europeans, except in a very 

 few limited localities, the population of which, in the course of time, could not stand 

 their ground against overwhelming and surrounding populations perpetually at war 

 with them; so that it was clear from causes now in operation, that no matter how 

 favourable the circumstances of the European peoples in the United States were, 

 their extinction at no distant period was certain, provided the connexion of America 

 with Europe ceased. 



