of notables, did not migrate in numbers until the middle of the nineteenth century, and in addition to the restraints of language and poverty they found the roads to prominence preoccupied.

Besides the accident of precedence in time, a second factor, distinct from race itself, has contributed to the eminence of one race over another. The Huguenots and the French, according to Lodge's statistics, show a percentage of ability in proportion to their total immigration much higher than that of any other race. But the Huguenots were a select class of people, manufacturers and merchants, perhaps the most intelligent and enterprising of Frenchmen in the seventeenth century. Furthermore, the direct migration from France to this country has never included many peasants and wage earners, but has been limited to the adventurous and educated. Had the French Canadians, who represent the peasantry of France, been included in these comparisons, the proportion of French eminence would have been reduced materially.

The same is true of the English. Although sprung from one race, those who came to America represented at least two grades of society as widely apart as two races. The Pilgrims and Puritans of New England were the yeomen, the merchants, the manufacturers, skilled in industry, often independent in resources, and well trained in the intellectual controversies of religion and politics. The southern planters also sprang from a class of similar standing, though not so strongly addicted to intellectual pursuits. Beneath both these classes were the indentured servants, a few of whom were men of ability who were forced to pay their passage by service. But the majority of them were brought to this country through the advertisements of shipowners and landholders or even forcibly captured on the streets of cities or transported for crimes and pauperism. Though all of these classes were of the same race, they were about as widely divergent as races themselves in point of native ability and preparatory training.

The third and most important cause of eminence, apart from ancestry, is the social and legal environment. An agricultural community produces very few eminent men com

pared with the number produced where manufactures and commerce vie with agriculture to attract the youth. A state of widely diversified industrial interests is likely to create widely diversified intellectual and moral interests. Complicated problems of industry and politics stimulate the mind and reflect their influence in literature, art, education, science, and the learned professions. Most of all, equal opportunity for all classes and large prizes for the ambitious and industrious serve to stimulate individuals of native ability to their highest endeavor. It was the deadening effects of slavery, creating inequalities among the whites themselves, that smothered the genius of the southerner whether Englishman, Huguenot, or Scotch-Irish, and it was the free institutions of the north that invited their genius to unfold and blossom.

These considerations lead us to look with distrust on the claims of those who find in race ancestry or in race intermixture the reasons for such eminence as Americans have attained. While the race factor is decisive when it marks off inferior and primitive races, yet, in considering those European races which have joined in our civilization, the important questions are: From what social classes is immigration drawn? and, Do our social institutions offer free opportunity and high incentive to the youth of ability? In so far as we get a choice selection of immigrants and in so far as we afford them free scope for their native gifts, so far do they render to our country the services of genius, talent, and industry.

It is the distinctive fact regarding colonial migration that it was Teutonic in blood and Protestant in religion. The English, Dutch, Swedes, Germans, and even the Scotch-Irish who constituted practically the entire migration, were, less than two thousand years ago, one Germanic race in the forests surrounding the North sea. From the earliest times the habits of thought and mode of life of the Teutons was independent and contributed to the development of a sturdy self-reliance. So the awakening of Europe found the strong individualism of the Germanic races had prepared the hearts of men for the doctrines of political liberty and constitutional government of the succeeding century. These ideas were more strongly developed as those among

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whom they took root fought stubbornly for what they held to be the right. They proclaimed the liberty of man to decide for himself how he should work out his own destiny.

From the standpoint of the age, this doctrine was too radical. It tended to break up existing society into sects and factions, and to precipitate those civil wars which ended in an aristocratic reaction. When this reaction came the numerous Protestant sects of the extremer types found themselves the objects of persecution, and nothing remained but to seek a new land where the heavy hand of repression could not reach them. Thus America became the home of numberless religious sects and denominations of these several races. From England came Congregationalists (the Pilgrims), Puritans, Quakers, Baptists; from Scotland came Presbyterians; from Germany came Quakers, Dunkards, Pietists, Ridge Hermits, Salzburgers, and Moravians.

It is not to be inferred persistent persecution alone in the early colonial period caused immigration. In point of numbers, commercial enterprise was probably equally influential. In Holland all religious sects were welcomed with a liberality far in advance of any other nation, and, at the same time, the Dutch people were the most advanced in the modern pursuits of trade and commerce. The Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam was therefore a business enterprise, and neither before or after the conquest by the British was there any religious obstacle to the reception of other races and religions. In this respect New York differed widely from New England, where religious exclusiveness preserved the English race as a peculiar people until the middle of the nineteenth century. So diverse were the races in New York, and so liberal were the opportunities open to all, that Governor Horatio Seymour was able to say that nine men prominent in its early history represented the same number of nationalities. Schuyler was of Dutch descent, Herkimer of German, Jay of French, Livingston of Scotch, Clinton of Irish, Morris of Welsh, while Hamilton was a West India Englishman, and Baron Steuben a Prussian.