The meaning of the word American as applied to the inhabitants of the United States, has undergone a great change as they have multiplied fifteenfold in numbers and many times in varieties of nationalities in the course of a century. In that progress the Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes have played a conspicuous and constructive part. As late as 1840, American ordinarily meant a white person of English descent, born in America or resident in the United States long enough to understand and accept as fundamental and vital certain political and social ideals and ideas. That simple and definite significance applies no more. The American race is already alarmingly complex, tho the old type has been more closely adhered to than would be expected from an enumeration of the elements which have gone into the crucible. In temperament, early training, and ideals, the Scandinavians more nearly approach the American type than any other class of immigrants, except those from Great Britain. In such features as adaptability and loyalty without reservation, no exceptions need be made. They have not come to the New World merely to get away from Europe, nor to escape Siberian exile or an Abyssinian war; nor has their motive been one of ordinary adventure-seeking. Theirs has been a determined purpose and a serious resolve to "arrive" somewhere in America, and, finding their places, to fill them with honorable endeavor and steady ambition. They have come as families, or with a wholesome desire to establish families for themselves. Most of them have fallen considerably below the best types of their own nationalities; their conservatism has sometimes been of the degenerate sort bordering on stolidity; their independence and individualism has come painfully near stubbornness; and their shrewdness has not infrequently developed into insincerity. They have now and then manifested a clannishness which led them into disagreeable, if temporary, complications. The fact that this characteristic or that tendency exists in an immigrant or alien element, should not cause disturbance of mind to the good citizen, the statesman, or the scholar; the real question is whether this characteristic or tendency is growing stronger or disappearing more or less rapidly. For example, is the stolidity of a group deepening, or does mental agility develop in the second and third generation? That the Scandinavians have readily outgrown much of their clannishness, perceptibly quickened their energies in the new environment, and developed notably in social, commercial, and political efficiency cannot be seriously questioned by any one who studies their activities as a whole, or who has observed them for two generations.