Like every other European, I had gone to North America with the fixed idea that it was the country of the practical spirit _par excellence_, and that the Americans were all men who did not lose themselves in dreams, but lived in reality, intent on shaping it to their own ends, and acquiring by the most rapid means the tangible and sure blessings of life—riches, prosperity, power, and the mastery over nature. I was convinced that they knew better than anyone else the art of increasing the comforts, and diminishing the difficulties, of life by the intelligent use of the means furnished by nature, fortune, and preceding generations. I expected, therefore, to find in America, many facts and few ideas; an intelligent and vigorous egoism omnipresent; scanty traces of idealism, and but little faith in the transcendent principles which so often lead dreamers—individuals and nations—to toil and fight for fair but unreal chimeras, in the vain hope of distant glory or grandeur. So my first surprise, and a very great one it was, arose from my examination at close quarters, of the policy pursued by the United States in dealing with the immense herds of immigrants, who yearly pour into their harbours from all parts of the Old World. In South America, I had closely observed the cautious prudence and really practical sagacity with which the republics try to prevent the continual immigration of foreigners from disturbing too profoundly the political balance of the State, by reserving the government to small oligarchies born and educated in the country, and therefore capable of directing public affairs with a certain continuity of projects and of national spirit. This policy of the South American republics is, I know, severely criticised in Europe, and especially in Italy, by too many persons who judge the affairs of the New World by the standard of the ideas of the Old. But to a historian of Rome, like myself, to whom history has taught the great internal difficulties which were caused in every ancient state by the μέτοιχοι or _peregrini_, this policy seemed practical and reasonable, at least if it be granted that the principal task of every state is that of solving in the best possible way the problems of the hour and leaving to the future its own problems.