no 
English and A merican Physique. [F ebruary , 
Germanisaiion of America. 
The Germanisation of America— by which I mean the 
introduction, through very extensive immigration, of German 
habits and modes of life and pleasure— -is also a phenomenon 
which can now be observed, even by the dullest and nearest- 
sighted, in the large cities of the northern portion of our 
country. As the Germans in their temperament are the 
opposite of the Americans, this change promises to be in 
most respeCts beneficial, encouraging in every way out-door 
life and amusements, tending to displace pernicious whis y 
by less pernicious beer and wine, setting the example of 
coolness and sobriety, which the nervously exhausted 
American very much needs. Quite true it is that the second 
and third generations of Germans do themselves become 
Americanised, through the effefts of climate and the con- 
tagion of our institutions ; but the pressure of immigration 
provides, every year, a supply of phlegmatic temperament.. 
The American race, it is said, is dying out ; but there is 
no American race. Americans are the union of European 
races and peoples, as lakes are fed by many streams, and 
can only disappear with the exhaustion of its sources. 
Europe must die before America. In sections of America 
as in New England, and in large cities, the number of 
children to a family in certain classes is too small lor 
increase of population ; hut these classes are a minority in 
society, and immigration is as certain as the future. 
Malthus forgot that the tendency of all evil is to cure 
itself - the poison and the antidote are rooted in the same 
soil "The improvement in the physique of the Americans ot 
the most favoured classes during the last quarter ot a 
century is a faCt more and more compelling the inspection 
both of the physician and the sociologist. Of old it was said 
that the choicest samples of manly form were to be found in 
the busy hours of the Exchange at Liverpool ; their equals, 
at least now walk Broadway and Fifth Avenue. The one 
need for the perfeaion of the beauty of the American women 
—increase of fat— is now supplied. 
The true philosophy on this as on all themes is neither 
optimism nor pessimism, but omnism, which sees both the 
good and the evil in nature, and aims to make the best of 
both America is now on the borders of its golden decade, 
in which the forces that renovate and save will be far 
mightier than the forces that emasculate and destroy. 
The typical American of the highest type will in the near 
