214 HEREDITY IN RELATION TO EUGENICS 



their descendants have served the nation in many impor- 

 tant positions. 



b. The Germans. — The year 1845 marked the rapid rise of 

 the liberal spirit in Germany and a revolt against the at- 

 tempt of the ruling class to weaken representative govern- 

 ment. Then followed a great increase in immigration to 

 America, advancing to over 140,000 a year for the three years 

 1852-54. The German immigrants of this period were lovers 

 of freedom, full of courage and daring, and furnished the 

 Union Army during the Civil War with many of its best 

 officers. More recently the Protestant Germans have come 

 to us as unskilled laborers and, after working for a time as 

 farm hands, save enough to buy a place of their own. Great 

 numbers, however, settle in the cities, make useful clerks 

 and often rise to positions of trust. Germans are, as a rule, 

 thrifty, intelligent and honest. They have a love of art and 

 music, including that of song birds, and they have formed one 

 of the most desirable classes of our immigrants. 



c. The Scandinavian immigration first assumed consid- 

 erable proportions in 1866 at the close of our Civil War, 

 reached a maximum (105,000) in the prosperous year 1881, 

 and has since decHned somewhat, being now about 50,000 a 

 year. Our Scandinavian population is found chiefly in the 

 central west and northwest, above all in Minnesota, Wis- 

 consin and Iowa. It tends to group itself into colonies; for 

 example, 32 per cent of the entire population of Chisago Co., 

 Minnesota, consisted, in 1900, of immigrants from Sweden; 

 similarly, 26.5 per cent of the population of Traill Co. con- 

 sists of persons who sailed to this country from Norway. 

 In this tendency to form colonies the Scandinavian immigra- 

 tion of a decade ago shows much resemblance to that of the 

 early English of the 17th century. Such colonization is 

 bound to stamp the impress of the '^ national traits" upon the 

 community. These national traits include a love of inde- 



