OUR FOREFATHERS IMMIGRATION 



11 



the country wich is now called Sweden was not at all inhabited. We Swedes 



possess a country which neither we, nor our forefathers, have taken from any 



other race. We Swe« 



des have ourselves 



»made» our country, 



have cultivated the 



land and made the 



roads. We have thus 



an unusually good 



»title» af our land. 



Celts, Germans, 

 and Slavs, with many 

 other peoples in Euro* 

 pe speak, as do Per* 

 sians and Hindoos, 

 languages which are 

 related, and which 

 form the great Indo» 

 European, or — as it 

 is also called, though 

 not so correctly, — the 

 t^ Indo»Germanic family 

 of languages. All these 

 peoples are supposed 

 not only to speak 

 languages which have 

 their origin in the same 

 root, but also to have 

 themselves a common 



Fig. 1. The country of the Teutons 2,000 years B. C, (shown by the 

 dotted portions). The districts (Finland, the Baltic provinces belonging 

 to Russia, and the country round the Vistula, etc.), to which the 

 Teutons had already migrated during the stone age, are not given 



on the map. 



origin. 



Some scholars 



have supposed that the home of the Indo^Europeans was to be found in the 

 countries round the Southern Baltic. 



My opinion is however, that this supposition can not be correct. 



Here in the Scandinavian North, we have the home of the Teutonic race, but '^ 

 not that of the Indo«Europeans. All that I know of the remote ages, when the 

 Indo«Europeans left their native land to spread over the earth, has convinced me 

 that we cannot take upon ourselves the honour of our country being the cradle 

 of the Indo-European race. 



It is honour enough that the Teutons became Teutons in our country: a race 

 who has inscribed its name on many pages of the history of civilisation, and 

 who — I hope — will, even in the future, have a great mission in the mutual 

 work of furthering the wellfare of Mankind. 



