The question has sometimes arisen why so many of the second-generation Germans appear inferior in social character to their immigrant parents. A hint of the reason is found in what has just been said. Whatever elements of superiority were shown by the immigrant artisan-farmers or the highly educated Germans, the social advantages accruing therefrom were personal, and in a slightly developed western society could not be handed on to the next generation. In the cities it frequently was possible for men of high ideals and fine social status to provide equivalent opportunities for their children. But not so on frontier farms. There it was a rare case when an education or training like that received by the father in the old country could be supplied. Accordingly, the sons of the most intelligent, dignified, and worthy German farmer, if they became farmers in succession, might perhaps turn out mere farmers, with none of the graces or exceptional social virtues of the parents, and little except the memory of a parent’s high respectability to distinguish them from the farmer sons of the clumsiest peasant. However, this is but half the story. If the superior Germans reared families incapable of remaining on their own social plane, other types of Germans, who in their own persons counted for less, frequently had the happiness to see their children advance to a position perceptibly higher than their own. Natural gifts, industry, the social opportunities which yield to the key of economic success availed much. Sometimes the presence of a good school, a wise and helpful pastor or some other worthy friend gave the necessary impulse. The process, in fact, does not differ essentially from that which, throughout American pioneer history, has enabled the deserving to press forward and permitted the weak, indolent, or vicious to fall behind in the social competition. It is impossible to say how many German families made a step, or several steps, upward, and how many others slipped back. The delinquents may perhaps exceed the meritorious in number, but probably not, and the impression that the children of German immigrants shame their parents is almost certainly an illusion which would be likely to disappear if the facts were fully known.