ence, not one was other than of Anglo-Saxon extraction; not one was of Teutonic or Latin descent. Of the fifty-six signers, forty-eight were American born, two were born in England, two in Scotland, three in Ireland, and one in Wales. Those who were born abroad came to America early; several of those born in America were educated in England. Environment, association, and training were English not "foreign," that is non-English.1

Nor can there be traced to the great German immigration of the nineteenth century the impress of the Teutonic mind on the American: nor have the Germans modified the political thought of America or moulded its social development. What the founders of the Republic established in the beginning and these men were Englishmen and remained Englishmen until they became Americans - has endured; fundamentally the same now as it was then, inspired by English training and English tradition; unchanged by forces other than English.

These are facts that neither prejudice nor "patriotism" can controvert. I hold no brief for the English. I repeat what I said in the first chapter of the first volume: I began my investigation with an open mind, without prejudice, and with indifference as to where my quest led. My sole desire was the ascertainment of the truth. Like many others with a general but inexact knowledge of the ele

1 Cf. Michael: The Declaration of Independence; Sanderson: Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.

ments that enter into the making of the American character, I believed at that time that psychologically the Americans had been influenced by the Dutch and the French, but I now see that this was an error. An investigator who is animated by no motive other than to find the truth must, if he is honest, let truth reveal itself in its own way, no matter how much it may run counter to popular beliefs. For the moment he may invite attack, but that is immaterial. Transient popularity no man cares for whose purpose is worthy.

In the first volume I dwelt at some length on the effect of the physical in its influence on character, partly because it is an element in race development which has not been given sufficient weight; and especially on account of its bearing on the formation of certain characteristics peculiarly American. One of my friendly critics, while generally approving my work, thinks that I have pushed my theories to "fantastic" lengths; and another, equally commendatory, airily dismisses Darwin's observation, that measurements taken during the Civil War showed that the "native" American had a larger bodily frame than recent German and Irish arrivals, by saying that "the great biologist was so far off his own ground that it is hardly necessary to examine this obiter dictum closely"; which I suppose means that the obiter dictum of Charles Darwin is of no consequence, while the obiter dicta of the anonymous book reviewer must be accepted ex cathedra!

To reviewers who so easily annihilate knowledge with a few drops of ink, I recommend the careful reading of the Report of the Immigration Commission,1 issued since the publication of the first volume of this work. Probably this Report may be regarded as obiter dicta, but at least it is of some interest to note that the investigations made by the scientific experts of the Commission sustain Darwin's "obiter dictum" and my own "fantastic theories."

To elaborate the theme would be to pile Pelion on Ossa, and in all probability still fail to convince those persons who regard the influence of the physical in race development as "fantastic"; or possessed of the requisite knowledge, one would be tempted to write on the origin and development of species, which in view of the existing library seems unnecessary. To any one who has been given the opportunity to study the races of men in their habitats, or, denied personal observation, has profited by the labor and learning of the masters, the conclusion is ineluctable that it is scientific and not fantastic to find the physical reflected in mental and moral characteristics. Even he whose study of nature ended in his childhood with Zoology for Beginners, and there learned that the domestic cat is the product of its environment and its habitat, cannot be so blind as not to see that in Europe as well

1 The Immigration Commission. A Partial Report to Congress on the Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants. Senate Document No. 208.

as in America and Asia there is a difference, both mental and physical, between the lowlander and the highlander; that people who live on the plains differ from those who live on the mountains; that those who cling to the seaboard are in many things unlike those who live far from the influence of ocean; that the effects of extreme heat and extreme cold, of a dry arid climate and one where much moisture prevails, are temperamentally reflected in a people or race.1 The subject must be left here.

Among his other shortcomings the author has been accused of an "exaggerated veneration" for the Puritan and of having attributed to him too great a share in the formation of American character. The American people have always been a sectional people,2 and it is doubtless somewhat of a blow to the amour propre of Southerners, to Virginians especially, who have been brought up on the traditions of Southern influence in Colonial times, to learn that it was the Englishman of Puritan Massachusetts, and not the Englishman of Anglican Virginia, who laid the foundation for the American system, who gave the American his mental bias, and taught him self-government.

Americans are justly proud of what they have accomplished - of their population, of their wealth, of their great cities; of the railroads they have built, and the rivers they have bridged — in a word, the

1 Cf. Draper: History of the American Civil War, vol. 1, sec. 1, passim. 2 See page 360, post.

material. Probably if I were an American these objective things would make a similar appeal to my imagination and I should regard them as the great triumph of my people. To me they make only a minor appeal. The great thing that America has done, the one thing that will make it imperishable, whether the fate of Tyre or Sodom or Nineveh or Herculaneum be in store for it, whether it shall be blotted from the face of the map and only a name remain, whether it shall forget its own teachings or remain faithful to them that one thing is that America taught the world the meaning of Democracy; 1 it was America that gave to the world the first concept of human liberty and encouraged man to seek his freedom; a thing so wonderful that now, like all great discoveries, we regard it as a matter of course; but a thing so momentous that it changed the thought of mankind and altered the relations of man to man. It was the Puritan who gave this thought to humanity. It was the Puritan who created Democracy. It was in the Puritan Commonwealth that liberty to resist oppression was born. Narrow, harsh, intolerant, bigoted these Puritans were, but despite the qualities that have given them

1

1 "Democracy had been hitherto only a ludicrous effort to reverse the laws of nature by thrusting Cleon into the place of Pericles. But a democracy that could fight for an abstraction, whose members held life and goods cheap compared with that larger life which we call country, was not merely unheardof, but portentous. It was the nightmare of the Old World taking upon itself flesh and blood, turning out to be substance and not dream."— Lowell: On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners.