188 NATIONAL GROWTH AND NATIONAL CHARACTER 



a language of simple vocables and simpler phonetic and simplest 

 syntax, with little formal grammar save that borrowed from 

 decadent or dead dialects, with an indefinitely extensible series of 

 oral and graphic symbols for discrete ideas, with a vocabulaiy 

 enriched by contributions from all other tongues, with a most 

 economical orthoepy, and with a perfected lexicon save for the 

 barbarous orthography inherited from lower culture. Language 

 is a mechanism for shaping and expressing thought, just as the 

 locomotive is a mechanism for transporting men and merchan- 

 dise, and relative efficiency is beneficial in one case as in the 

 other ; throughout the world the proficiency of peoples may be 

 measured (other things equal) by the efficiency of their lan- 

 guages; and the most efficient of all, as indicated by the laws 

 of linguistic development, is that produced by the concentration 

 and integration of the tongues of Europe and western Asia on 

 the British isles. The Briton of three centuries past was strong 

 in many ways; yet no small part of his strength must be as- 

 cribed to that efficient mechanism of expression which left him 

 larger balance of brain energy for other duties. 



The linguistic factor combined with others in giving strength 

 to the Briton, and Britain began colonization with an unparal- 

 leled heritage of human excellence. The vigor of the Viking, 

 the courage of the Celt, the nobility of the INorman, the energy 

 of the Angle, the incisiveness of the Saxon, the dauntlessness of 

 the Dane, the gallantry of the Gaul, the freedom of the Frank, the 

 rovingness of the early Roman, even the stoicism of the Spartan, 

 had come down to him through the blood of sires and dames of a 

 hundred generations, or had grown up in him through centuries of 

 intellectual commerce. The Briton of that day stood forth pre- 

 eminent in perfection of body and brain, the paragon of human 

 excellence ; for his superb stock (made Anglo-Saxon by a figure 

 of speech only) summed the excellencies of a thousand tribes 

 and a hundred nations, concentrated through uncounted centu- 

 ries. It was from this singularly prepotent stock that the Amer- 

 ican colonists sprang. 



The British and Dutch and other north-European pioneers 

 in the New World were something more than mere representa- 

 tives of the strongest stock of humanity extant; they were 

 picked men and women, impelled to adventure of body and mind 

 through hereditary aptitude for vigorous activity. Many of them 

 had made preliminary essays in adventure by land and sea be- 

 fore fixing eyes finally on Atlantic's shore of promise; some of 



