A professor compares his Celtic students to the game trout, which makes one splendid dash for the fly, but sulks if he misses it. A bishop told me how his prize-man, an Irish youth, sent to Paris to study Hebrew, was amazed at the prodigious industry of his German and Polish chums. "I never knew before," he wrote, "what study is." A settlement worker comments on the avidity with which night-school pupils in Irish neighborhoods select classes with interesting subjects of instruction, and the rapidity with which they drop off when the "dead grind" begins. Their temperament rebels at close, continuous application. The craftsman of Irish blood is likely to be a little slapdash in method, and he rarely stands near the top of his trade in skill. The Irishman succeeds best in staple farming--all wheat, all cotton, or all beets. With the advent of diversified farming, he is supplanted by the painstaking German, Scandinavian, or Pole. Work requiring close attention to details--like that of the nurseryman, the florist, or the breeder--falls into the hands of a more patient type. In banking and finance, men of a colder blood control. FUTURE OF THE IRISH-AMERICAN The word "brilliant" is oftener used for the Irish than for any other aliens among us save the Hebrews. Yet those of Irish blood are far from manning their share of the responsible non-political posts in American society. Their contribution by no means matches that of an equal number of the old American breed. But, in sooth, it is too soon yet to expect the Irish strain to show what it can do. Despite their schooling, the children of the immigrant from Ireland often become infected with the parental slackness, unthrift, and irresponsibility. They in turn communicate some of the heritage to their children; so that we shall have to wait until the fourth generation before we shall learn how the Hibernian stock compares in value with stocks that have had a happier social history. [Illustration: 1821-25 12900 1826-30 37800 1831-35 70300 1836-40 135100 1841-45 187100 1846-50 593600 {FAMINE AND { 1851-55 694700 {REBELLION IN IRELAND 1856-60 219400 HARD TIMES IN UNITED STATES 1861-65 196400 CIVIL WAR IN UNITED STATES 1866-70 239400 1871-75 295200 1876-80 141700 HARD TIMES IN UNITED STATES 1881-85 345400 FAMINE IN IRELAND 1886-90 310100 1891-95 227200 1896-1900 161200 HARD TIMES IN UNITED STATES 1901-05 184100 1906-10 155000 Immigration from Ireland 1821-1910] CHAPTER III THE GERMANS