THE OCCUPATION OF THE LAND 165 



was manifested by the founding of Hope College as 

 an academy in 1851 and as a college in 1866. They 

 became a highly respected element in the population 

 of Michigan. The settlement began in privation and 

 extreme suffering like that of the Pilgrims of 1620; 

 but their industry and sobriety subdued the wilder- 

 ness and made of central western Michigan one of 

 the most highly developed farming areas of the State. 

 Even in point of numbers the Dutch element became 

 important. The United States Census of 1910 makes 

 the foreign whites reporting Dutch as their mother 

 tongue to number 92,694 (p. 979). This population 

 is centered heavily in Kent and Ottawa counties. Of 

 Kent's population in 1910 (nearly 160,000), ap- 

 proximately one-fifth was born in Holland or the 

 children of parents born in that country. This 

 represents, no doubt, a considerable urban popula- 

 tion. However, the statement still applied to some 

 7,000 of the county's inhabitants living outside of 

 Grand Eapids. In Ottawa — a more definitely rural 

 county — the proportion of direct Dutch descent was 

 still greater, one-third of the population in 1910 

 being of Holland birth or parentage for both father 

 and mother. Allegan County also showed a strong 

 Dutch element. 



The Finnish element in the rural population of 

 Michigan is very largely, although not exclusively, 

 in the Upper Peninsula. The Finns seem to have 

 been attracted hither chiefly by the opportunity for 

 work in the woods and mines. Finland is, however, 

 primarily an agricultural and not a mining country, a 



