In the West one is frequently confronted by the question, What will be the effect on the Americans of the future of the vast hordes of Germans which yearly invade and settle in the country? Whole districts are occupied by them, beginning in Pennsylvania, to the exclusion of the English language. In the Western towns you will see street after street in which half, or more than half, the names are German. They have their own hotels, their own newspapers, their own theatres. It seems a greater invasion than that of the Roman Empire by their fathers. That overthrew the empire, and for a time disorganised society; it, however, did not extend the language of the Fatherland into Italy, Spain, or France. But here is a continuous stream of between 200,000 and 300,000, every year coming, not with sword and torch to slay and to burn, or to perish themselves, but with the axe and the plough to clear away the forest, and to cultivate the soil. Every one that comes is taken up into that entity which will be the America of the future. What then will be the effect? Many Americans fear that it will not be good. ‘Because,’ say they, ‘the Germans are deficient in spirituality.’ That is the word they use. ‘They have no religious devotion: this element appears to have been left out of their composition.’ I am disposed to think that they will have very little power to modify the future character of the nation. First, because they are all learning, and must all learn, the English language, which cannot but become their mother tongue. This being the case, they must imbibe the ideas current in America in that language; and so German ideas will fade away and die out of their minds. Another reason I have for my opinion is, that the conflict is between Germanism and New Englandism; and it is carried on upon what may be regarded as the soil of New England. But New Englandism is a far tougher plant, and one of far more vigorous growth than Germanism, especially when transplanted to another world, very unlike that of the Rhine and of the Danube. For these reasons I believe that the German invasion will be absorbed and lost in America. It will not Germanise the Americans, but will itself be Americanised. This applies to ideas, not to temperament, which is a matter of blood and nerves; and it is possible that the highly excitable American temperament may be somewhat calmed by the phlegm of Germany. But if this effect be produced, we can hardly expect that it will be lasting, for in time America will change the temperament of the German, just as it has changed the temperament of the Anglo-Saxon.