Designed by John A. Roebling, constructed by W. A. Roebling. From a photograph from John A. Roebling & Sons Company. ALBERT FINK After an engraving in "Scribner's Magazine," May, 1888. CANTILEVER BRIDGE, NIAGARA . Designed and constructed by Charles Conrad Schneider. Designed and built by The Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. From a photograph by N. L. Stebbins. Built by William Cramp & Sons, who supplied the photograph. TAMMANY TIGER LOOSE ("What are you going to do about it?") FREDERICK WILLIAM HOLLS . From a photograph. From the "Monograph on Francis Lieber," by F. W. Holls. CARL FOLLEN 214 From the Works of Charles Follen, edited by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen. GERMAN-AMERICAN TEACHERS' SEMINARY, MILWAUKEE, WIS. 240 THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES INTRODUCTION THE value of any foreign immigration is dependent upon two factors, first, upon the readiness of its assimilation with the native stock, and secondly, upon the more positive quality of favorable influence upon the adopted country. In the historical outline presented in the first volume, the value of the German element becomes manifest mainly when measured by the standard of assimilation. This assimilating process was accelerated by three causes: first, by kinship with other leading formative elements of the nation; secondly, by equal distribution of the German population over the whole territory of the United States; and finally, by the extensive settlement of the German colonists on the frontier and in Western territory, where the moulding forces typically American were most potent. It will be the purpose of the remaining portion of the present work to apply to the German element the second standard of measurement, that of favorable influence upon the land and people of the United States. Frequent illustrations of such influence have already been furnished in the historical narrative of the first volume. From the very beginning of the colonial period and continuously throughout the history of the United States, the Germans were seen to furnish brawn, brain, and blood in the building of colonies and cities, in the development of the nation's material resources, in the struggle against wild nature and savage foes, in the war for political independence, and in the rescue of the Union from disruption and disgrace. Such service is equivalent to favorable influence. Still it is possible and useful to trace influences of another kind. When Baron Steuben became the inspectorgeneral and drill-master of the American army, he was not only grafting the system of Prussian military discipline on the American root, but he was also exercising a function in which the German nation has led the world, that of the teacher and scholar. The German cosmographers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries furnished the charts and maps that directed the mariners of all nations on their voyages of discovery. In the nineteenth century Germany's schools, from the kindergarten to the university, furnished models for imitation, nowhere to greater advantage than in the United States. Influences of this kind are of historical significance, not only for the recipient, but also for the nation that gives; since that people should be rated highest that has yielded the most frequent and lasting influences upon the human world.1 The reproach is frequently heard, coming from their kinsmen abroad, that the Germans in the United States did not adequately impress their particular type of culture or civilization upon American life. The criticism is based upon a misconception of conditions. The German people came to America not as conquerors, but as immigrants seeking homes. Not alone in the physical sense is America a crucible of nations, in which the representatives of all European races are thrown together with the native American for the survival of the fittest, but in the matter of all cul1 Cf. Karl Lamprecht, Americana, p. 96. (Freiburg i/B 1906.) tural values also a similar melting process takes place. No incoming stock can infuse into the American mould any element of its culture unless a thorough test has gone before. If the process prove the fitness of the new, an ally may often be found in the native American, who will strive earnestly for its recognition and final adoption. Thus it happened with German music. The beginnings of the development of musical taste were difficult, yet the Germans were aided in their final victory by the coöperation of New England, which of all localities had been at first most conservative. The examination of influences such as have taken root in American soil, either planted by the German element in the United States or brought over from Germany by native Americans, will be the purpose of the remaining part of this work. The subject has been divided into eight chapters, of which two are concerned with the material development of the country as far as that has come under German influence, (a) agriculture and allied manufactures, (b) industries requiring special training, and several others in which Germans are prominent. One chapter is devoted to the Germans in American politics, another outlines Germany's influence upon the American educational system. Two chapters treat of the Germans in music and the fine arts, illustration and caricature, literature and journalism. The concluding chapter attempts to define the social and moral influence of the Germans in localities where they are thickly settled. In view of the fact that the question has frequently been raised, whether the German influence has been commensurate with the volume of the German population in the United States, the writer has considered it essential that a numerical estimate of the German element be placed at |