172 RURAL MIC IJ WAN 



points in the Lake Superior region where Finns con- 

 gregate for the purpose, merit more attention than 

 they have received. 



Testimony is not lacking from authorities as to 

 the capacity of the Finn for assimilation into Ameri- 

 can life. They point to the supreme test of assimi- 

 lability, the frequent inter-marriages between those of 

 Finnish and of native American stock. The Finnish 

 farmer is the most teachable of any national element 

 and his capacity for cooperation is notable. If a 

 Finnish farmer loses a horse or a cow, it has been 

 observed, his neighbors make up a contribution that 

 compensates the loss of the animal. They are 

 mutually very helpful in time of trouble. Coopera- 

 tive business enterprises are common among them. 

 At the little Finnish settlement at Eock in Delta 

 County, there has been conducted a cooperative store, 

 flour-mill, creamery, insurance society, and pure- 

 bred bull association. This case is not imique by 

 any means. 



It is striking that more than one-fourth of the 

 Finns in the United States — numbering more than 

 200,000 when classified by their mother tongue — 

 dwelt in Michigan in 1910, and presumably do so 

 still. At that time an excess of 11,000 persons in 

 Houghton County were born in Finland, with large 

 numbers in Marquette, Gogebic and the other coun- 

 ties adjoining Lake Superior, a much smaller pro- 

 portion in the southern counties of the Upper Pen- 

 insula and a very trifling but widely scattered 

 Finnish population in the Lower Peninsula. While 



