The Norwegian bears the stamp of a more primitive life. Squeezed into the few roods betwixt mountains and fjord, he has eked out the scanty yield of his farm by grazing the high glacier-fed meadows and gleaning the spoil of the sea. The need which ten centuries ago drove the Vikings to harry Europe, to-day forces their descendants into all the navies of the world. Granite and frost have made the Norse immigrant rough-mannered, reserved, and undemonstrative, cautious in speech, austere in church life, and little given to recreation. German _Gemüthlichkeit_ is not in him, nor has he the Irishman's sociability. Often he is as taciturn as an Indian, and the lonely farm-houses on the prairie, where not a needless word is uttered the livelong day, contribute many young people to the city maëlstrom. The Norwegian immigrant has the high spirit of a people that has never known the steam-roller of feudalism, of peasants who held their farms by allodial tenure, and could order the king himself off their land. He has more pride of nationality than the Swede, gets into our politics sooner, and is more aggressive in improving his opportunities. He has the name of being truer to his friends and to his word. Firms declare that they lose less by his bad debts. "The Swede," remarks an educator, "will show the white feather and desert you in a pinch; but not the Norwegian." A mine "boss" thinks he can distinguish Scandinavians by type. "The smooth, white-haired fellows," he says, "have a yellow streak in them; but the dark, or sandy-haired fellows, with a rough skin and rugged features, are reliable." In the Northwest, the nickname "Norsky" is more apt to be used in a good-natured way than the term "Swede." INTELLECTUAL ABILITY Since our editors and public men tender each nationality of immigrants--as soon as they have money and votes--nothing but lollipops of compliment, one is loth to proffer the pungent olive of truth. But it is a fact that many who have to do with the Americans of Scandinavian parentage question whether marked ability so often presents itself among them as among certain other strains. The weight of testimony indicates that resourcefulness and intellectual initiative are rarer among them than among those of German descent. Teachers find their children "rather slow," although few fall behind. Scandinavian students do well, but they are "plodders." They beat the Irish in close application, but less often are they called "brilliant."