London to John O 1 Groat's. 39 



nationalise the heterogeneous elements of our popula- 

 tion. Men, women, and children, speaking all the 

 languages and representing all the countries and races 

 of Europe, are streaming in upon us weekly in widen- 

 ing currents. The rapidity with which they become 

 assimilated to the native population is remarkable. 

 But there is one element from abroad that does not 

 Americanise itself so easily and that, curiously, is one 

 the most American that comes from Europe in other 

 words, the English. They find with us everything as 

 English as it can possibly be out of England their 

 language, their laws, their literature, their very bibles, 

 psalm-books, psalm-tunes, the same faith and forms of 

 worship, the same common histories, memories, affini- 

 ties, affections, and general structure of social life and 

 public institutions ; yet they are generally the very last 

 to be and feel at home in America. A Norwegian 

 mountaineer, in his deerskin doublet, and with a dozen 

 English words picked up on the voyage, will Ameri- 

 canise himself more in one year on an Illinois prairie, 

 than an intelligent, middle- class Englishman will do 

 in ten, in the best society of Massachusetts. Now, I 

 am not dallying with a facetious fantasy when I ex- 

 press the opinion, that the life and song of the English 

 lark in America, superadded to the other institutions 

 and influences indicated, would go a great way in 



