There yet remains to be considered the matter of the quality of immigrants to-day as compared with those of past generations. In regard to this but little can be said in the way of positive declarations. Quality in an immigrant is a very uncertain matter, and differs according to the individual point of view and prejudices. What may seem to an employer of labor high quality in an immigrant may appear quite the reverse in the eyes of a minister. With the facts of immigration in mind, each student of the question must determine for himself whether the quality of our present immigrants compares favorably with that of earlier groups. There is, however, one consideration to which attention should be directed when examining changes, which has materially altered the character of immigration. This is the selective influence of the act of immigration itself, upon those who are to come. It used to be the prevailing idea that the immigrant represented the better individuals of his race or class, that he was more daring, energetic, or enterprising. Traces of this notion are still very common.[343] There was, moreover, a great amount of truth in this view during earlier periods of immigration. Many of the migrations of two or three centuries ago were inspired by religious or political motives, or very often by a combination of the two. Such was the exodus of the Huguenots from France, of the Palatines from Germany, the Puritans from England, the Scotch-Irish from Ireland. In such cases as these, emigration implies strength of character, independence, firmness of conviction, moral courage, bravery, hatred of oppression, etc. Motives such as these played no small part in immigration movements even as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. More than this, it is doubtless true that the earliest immigration from any region at any time involves a certain degree of ambition, independence, courage, energy, forethought, all of those characteristics which are required in the individual who forsakes the known for the unknown, the familiar for the untried, the stable for the unstable, the certain though hopeless present for the hopeful but uncertain future. Such were the early immigrants to this country from every land—not north European alone, but south European. They possessed something of the intrepidity and daring of pioneers. They had the strength of character to break the shackles of age-long tradition and custom, and, taking their destiny in their hand, seek their fortune in a new and unknown land. In this respect all new immigration differs from all established immigration.