USA > Pennsylvania > The making of Pennsylvania; an analysis of the elements of the population and the formative influences that created one of the greatest of the American states > Part 9
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An exception must be made, however, in favor of some of the Reformed and Lutherans. Their leaders, Schlatter and Muhlenberg, never resisted education. On the contrary, they deeply regretted its absence, and made every effort to have it. But they were thwarted in colonial times by their own people. After the Revolu- tion the Reformed and Lutherans combined in establish- ing Franklin College at Lancaster, in 1787, under the notion, unfortunately very prevalent at that time in Pennsylvania, that different religious bodies could go into partnership in a college.
The plan failed, of course, and the college was closed in 1821. About eighteen years afterwards it was revived into a respectable academy, and in 1850, the Reformed having bought out the Lutheran interest in it, they united it with a college of their own called Marshall, which they had established at Carlisle in 1825. The combination, now known as Franklin and Marshall, at
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Lancaster, is prosperous and hopeful, and shows the conservatism which has always marked the Reformed, by adhering to the old-fashioned course of classics and phi- losophy. The Reformed have also Albright Institute, at Myerstown, and Ursinus at Collegeville. The Lutherans have Thiel at Greenville, Muhlenberg at Allentown, Penn- sylvania at Gettysburg, and Susquehanna at Selin's Grove.
The sects, however, remain unchanged, although the Quakers, who once held almost the same opinions about higher education, have in recent years branched out into three flourishing institutions, Haverford, Swarth- more, and Bryn Mawr.
Wickersham, in his " History of Education in Pennsyl- vania, " while he laments the persistent hostility of the German population to education, insists that on their arrival as immigrants they were not so much opposed to it, and on the whole would have compared favorably in this respect with English immigrants of the same class. Their rapid degeneration was due, he thinks, in great part to their refusal to learn English, which isolated them and cut them off from the social, political, and com- mercial currents of the time.
Their habit of sequestering themselves on farms, and their division into numerous sects, each one too poor to have good educational means of its own, and too much at variance with the others to unite with them in a general system, tended to intensify the narrowness and isolation of their language. They were unaccustomed to local self-government, had not the Englishman's instinct for acting as an organized community, and were used to having education provided for them by a higher au- thority. Christopher Dock seems to have some such
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idea as this in his mind when he says, " It was before known to me that school-teaching in this country was far different from in Germany, since there the school stands upon such pillars that the common people cannot well overthrow it." *
The reasons that the Germans themselves have given for their opposition are, that in their experience, in the old world, learning was always connected with the states and churches that persecuted them; some of the most learned men had been their bitterest enemies, and had led the worst and cruelest attacks on their lives and liberty. Colleges were closely connected in their minds with theological schools, and theology was an evil. That occasional individuals, like St. Paul, might combine learning with Christianity was possible. But St. Paul, before his conversion, had used his knowledge for nothing but persecution, and such men were at best uncertain lights.
Many of them said, bluntly, that schooling made boys lazy and gave them a dislike for farming. They also feared that high learning, which with many of them began at grammar and geography, would destroy some of the peculiarities of their religion. Some of them, true to their suspicious instincts, saw in the schools nothing but a conspiracy of lazy people to get salaried positions for themselves out of the hard-earned savings of the honest farmer and mechanic.
It is impossible to form any exact estimate of the numbers of the Germans. All calculations of the Penn- sylvania population in colonial times are but little better
* Pennypacker, Historical and Biographical Sketches, 98; Wicker- sham, History of Education in Pennsylvania, 123.
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than guesses. Some insist that up to the Revolution fully half the people of the province were German. One estimate places their numbers for 1730 at thirty thousand. Governor Gordon's estimate of the whole population for the same year was forty-nine thousand, which gives the Germans considerably more than half. Seventeen years later another governor gives them three-fifths out of a total of two hundred thousand. Other estimates give them ninety thousand in 1750 out of a total of two hun- dred and seventy thousand, and one hundred and forty- four thousand six hundred and sixty in 1790 out of a total of four hundred and thirty-four thousand three hundred and seventy-five. In recent years it has gen- erally been believed that about one-third of the people of the State are German, or of German descent. Frank- lin's rule of thumb, by which he always estimated the colonial population of the province as one-third Quaker, one-third German, and the remaining third miscellaneous, was probably not very far wrong.
As the Germans kept arriving in increasing numbers, not a little hostility was felt towards them by the Eng- lish. It was feared that they might come in such swarms as to change the character of the colony, and it was several times suggested that they be permanently dis- franchised. The governors of the province, though compelled at times to regulate their admission, were, on the whole, in favor of them, for the proprietors could have no strong objection to such numerous purchasers of land who usually paid for what they took, and seldom attempted, like the Scotch-Irish, to exercise squatter sovereignty.
The opposition to them, such as it was, usually came
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from the assembly or from men like Franklin and James Logan. Franklin was always very outspoken in his dislike, called them " Palatine boors, the most stupid of their race," and believed that their refusal to adopt the English language and customs was a serious injury to the province. Sometimes he said they would take no interest in politics, and at other times sweep everything before them. He busied himself to make application to the British government to prevent their coming, but nothing was accomplished except the imposition of a small head-tax. He joined in every plan for their edu- cation, and at one time went so far as to add a set of German types to his printing establishment in the hope of publishing a German newspaper and German books in the English interest.
One of their most earnest advocates and friends was the eccentric Dr. Rush. His first argument was that if they continued to cling to their language it would be the channel through which the knowledge and discoveries of the wisest nations in Europe would be brought to America, and his second, that the more they learned their own language the more they would become ac- quainted with English. Both assertions have been! - abundantly contradicted by experience.
It is not to be supposed that the Pennsylvania Germans were in any sense disloyal to America. In colonial times, when the French occupied the present site of Pittsburg and threatened to press on to the Susquehanna, the Germans werc seriously suspected, but apparently with- out much foundation. In modern times their feeling and position are beyond question. They readily joined the Native American movement of 1850, and usually show
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considerable contempt for the modern German immi- grant who is forever talking of the fatherland.
As they are American at heart, it is all the more reason why they should become American altogether, and give up the mere sentimental devotion to the language and ways of a country which they deserted two hundred years ago because they could not endure it. They have more to gain by helping to make Pennsylvania a homo- geneous united commonwealth, than by clinging to the mere shell and appearance of a system and nationality in which they long since ceased to believe. We can easily forego the great amusement of hearing negroes, in some of our counties, speaking Pennsylvania Dutch, and we can also forego the unpleasant spectacle of white men speaking debased and barbarous German-English. The attempt to maintain two languages in the same community inevitably ends in injuring both and render- ing them useless for the best purposes of literature.
By refusing to adopt English ways the Germans injure themselves more than they injure the State. They often bring upon themselves unnecessary poverty, ignorance, and suffering, and exclusion from advancement and pleasures. The Huguenots, who were more easily assim- ilated than any race that has ever come to us, losing all their foreign characteristics in the first generation, have reaped their reward, and can, it is said, trace their blood in more prominent and important men, in proportion to their numbers, than any other element of the population except the English.
The modern German immigrants often stand out against assimilation in the same way as their brethren in Penn- ylvania. Where they are well scattered among the
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native population their efforts usually fail. But where they get together in bodies, as in Pennsylvania, and as recently in some of the Western States, they are able to accomplish a large part of their purpose; and some of them have been visionary enough to suppose that they could in time make German the language of the United States.
The consequence of these attempts has been that, as shown by statistics, the Germans in America, in proportion to their numbers, have produced fewer remarkable and prominent men than any other division of the people. The race is not in itself deficient. But when it isolates itself in an American community it is cut off from the best development of that community, and also from its old associations in Europe, and inevitably deteriorates.
In Pennsylvania the Germans themselves have at times been conscious that they have not done all that was to be expected from their numbers, and their writers and orators have made excuses for them, and sometimes complained that justice had not been done them. But in attempting to offset criticisms by enlarg- ing on the services the Germans have rendered America they often go too far and claim too much. As with all other foreign elements of the population, the hint is, of course, thrown out that in some mysterious way they were the real creators of the United States. Rupp, in his notes to Rush's " Germans in Pennsylvania," goes so far as to say, " It was to the German farmers America owed her independence."
As a separate, distinct nationality living among us the Germans have accomplished comparatively little,
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and they have only themselves to blame for not mingling more with the rest of the people. There has been, it is true, a good deal of assimilation accomplished, especially in parts of the State where the Germans were few and well scattered among the rest of the people. Most of the families that settled in Philadelphia and German- town have been long ago absorbed, and in other places a steady, though very slow, process of amalgamation can be noticed.
Many of the names gradually became anglicized. Bossert becomes Buzzard; Fluck becomes Fluke; Op den Graeff, Updegraff; Conderts, Conrad; Scherker, Yerkes ; Tissen, Tyson ; and Schmidt, plain, honest Smith. In some places the curious phenomenon is seen of a large family, part of whom retain their name in the old German, while the rest are gradually anglicizing it, to the great confusion of the sheriff's jury-list and the tax-assessor.
But in the counties where the Germans have always lived in masses there is comparatively little change; and, judging by the trifle that has been accomplished in a hundred and fifty years, complete absorption and a homogeneous population are still five hundred, if not a thousand, years away. The public school system, from which something was expected, has thus far accomplished but little. In fact, nothing will be of any avail except such a breaking up as will produce a great deal of intermarriage. It has long been a common and careless boast with us that we could quickly absorb any foreign element. So we can, and so can any nation when the foreign element is well scattered ; but where it congests in masses we are as slow with it and perhaps slower than other people.
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Those of the Pennsylvania Germans who had the good sense to drop Germanisms and Americanize themselves, and especially those who are the result of intermarriage with English or Scotch-Irish stock, are as good as the best. Conrad Weiser was among the Germans who fled to the Tulpchocken Valley from the injustice they were suffering in New York. His name is now almost for- gotten ; but during the period of the French and Indian Wars it is to be found on almost every page of the "Colonial Records." He was the proprietary inter- preter, Indian agent, and negotiator of treaties, and as such played a most important part. Like Muhlenberg and every other German who has become prominent, he adopted America without qualification, and was one of the trustees of the society for establishing English schools among the Germans.
Muhlenberg's family is a striking instance. A thorough believer in the English, he was careful to have his chil- dren taught their ways. They were put in charge of an English woman for that purpose, and were well repaid for it. Peter Muhlenberg became one of the distinguished generals of the Revolution. Frederick was the first speaker of the National House of Representatives, and had a long and honorable political career. His grand- son, the Rev. Dr. Henry Augustus Muhlenberg, became a clergyman of wide influence and distinction in the Epis- copal Church. Not only has the family had these well- known members, but in its numerous branches through- out the Union is often found in positions of prominence and importance.
Throughout the State and in Philadelphia, numerous instances can be found of Germans who, having been
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willing to emerge from the nationality of the country they had deserted, have become distinguished in the paths of science, business, or politics. They have fur- nished governors for the State, professors for colleges, and German families have become well known in social or fashionable life. Dr. Gross, one of our most dis- tinguished physicians, and Dr. Leidy, a very distin- guished man of science, were of the Germans. Seven of our governors have been of the same stock,-Snyder, Hiester, Shulze, Wolf, Ritner, Shunk, and Hartranft. It was under Governor Wolf's administration, and with his assistance, that the public school system was adopted throughout the State, although most of his countrymen were opposed to it, and a memorial gate-way at Easton commemorates him as the father of the public schools.
Rittenhouse, the first American astronomer, and one of the famous astronomers of the world, was brought up among the old Mennonites, near Germantown, and was half Hollander and half Welsh. Dr. Caspar Wistar, who upheld the fame of Philadelphia for remarkable physicians during the beginning of the present century, was half German and half English, and, in fact, the Wistar and Wister families, very well known and of much eminence in Philadelphia, are an interesting instance of what may be the result of blending the German and English stocks.
There were also two very remarkable Pennsylvanians who, although the Germans do not appear to have claimed them, had, nevertheless, some of the blood in their veins. Jeremiah Black, in some respects the ablest man Pennsylvania has produced since the Revolution, traced his lineage partly from the Scotch-Irish and partly 1
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from the Germans. Bayard Taylor, the only man of any real literary genius born on our soil, was half Quaker and half German.
The Camerons, so long in possession of political con- trol in the State, were also partly Scotch-Irish and partly German. In fact, wherever the Germans have emerged from their isolation, either by intermarriage with the English or by adopting English ways, they have been the gainers by it, and have still been able to retain any sen- timents for their origin that were valuable. The Muh- lenbergs, though completely Americanized, have always been noted for their affection for the past; and Governor Wolf found that he could love his ancestors and at the same time favor public education.
But to most of our Germans greatness still means to have a great farm. They cling to the land and to country life more persistently than even the Scotch- Irish, and it has been said that fully eighty per cent. of them are farmers. Scattered all through the State, and in the majority in many counties, they have stamped the country population, and, perhaps, the typical Pennsyl- vanian, if such a person is possible in so mixed a com- munity, with many of their characteristics. Their heavi- ness, however, has its advantages. They are generally a most thrifty, conservative people, always husbanding their resources, qualities which, if the State ever becomes homogeneous and they are amalgamated with the rest of the people, may produce very great results.
Their farms are often found to have descended from father to son for more than a hundred years, in many cases untouched by a mortgage, and they are among the most skilful and successful farmers in the world. Albert
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Gallatin once said of them, "In Pennsylvania the Ger- mans are the most ignorant, but the best political econo- mists. They give any price for the best land, and hold it all."
Travellers on the Pennsylvania Railroad are often sur- prised, as they pass through Lancaster County, at the enormous size and peculiar construction of the barns. New Englanders, coming from a rocky soil, where all the crops that are ever gathered can be stored in an or- dinary stable, are always very much amused, and think it a foolish waste of money for a farmer to build a barn fifteen times as large as his house. They are not aware that they are passing through one of the garden spots of earth, and if they knew the nature of our German they would have no fears of his spending a dollar or enclosing a square foot of space that was not absolutely necessary for the housing of his enormous crops .*
* Cassell's History of the Mennonites; Rush's Germans in Pennsyl- vania (with Rupp's notes); Pennypacker's Historical and Biographical Sketches ; Rupp's Thirty Thousand Names of German Immigrants ; Mann's Life of Muhlenberg ; H. A. Muhlenberg's Life of General Peter Muhlenberg ; Ayres's Life of W. A. Muhlenberg; Harbaugh's Life of Schlatter ; Harbaugh's Fathers of the Reformed Church; C. Z. Weiser's Life of Conrad Weiser ; Wickersham's History of Education in Pennsyl- vania; Haldeman's Pennsylvania Dutch; Martin's Mennonites; Penn- sylvania Dutch and other Essays ; Mittelberger's Journey to Pennsylvania ; L. T. Reichel's Early Moravians; Rosengarten's Pennsylvania Dutch, Nation, vol. ix., 583; Pennypacker's Colonial Reports; Sachse's Ger- man Pietists of Pennsylvania; Heydrick's Genealogical Record of the Schwenkfelders.
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CHAPTER V.
THE MORAVIANS.
THE Moravians deserve mention separate from the other Germans; for, although they belonged to the pietist movement, their origin was different, and they were also in other respects very unlike the rest of their countrymen.
Their sect was originally not German at all. Their proper title was Unitas Fratrum; and they arose in Bohemia, and the neighboring province of Moravia, about the beginning of the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years before the Mennonites were heard of, and two hundred years before the advent of the Quakers. They were the result of that early outburst of the Reformation inspired by the preaching of John Huss. They studied the Bible and held the doctrine, which characterized so many of the early reformers, that the efficiency of a sacrament depended on the righteousness of the officiating priest.
At first they were inclined to be very fanatical. They could not allow themselves to take an oath, go to war, fill any civil office, or even carry on a mercantile busi- ness which involved the sale of anything but the bare necessities of life. They held the seven sacraments of the Roman Church and many of the usual doctrines, but explained them in a Protestant way, which took
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them entirely outside of Romanism; and they also preached that awful heresy, liberty of conscience.
As time went on they broadened themselves, and when the movement under Luther came they had three or four hundred churches and about two hundred thousand members. At that time they became more like the other Reformed churches on the continent and dropped five of their sacraments. They grew with the growth of Protestantism in Bohemia; and so well did Protestantism prosper there that in 1620, out of three million inhabitants, there were only about two hundred and fifty thousand Roman Catholics.
But the Roman Catholics of that time still retained some of the old mediaval courage of their convictions. They lived their dogmas logically and were not obliged to fritter away their meaning to suit a modern liberalism. Within two years they completely wiped out of exist- ence the whole of that luxuriant growth of Protestantism in Bohemia. They had learned some lessons in the Reformation and were careful to make as few martyrs as possible, so that only twenty-seven of the leaders were put to death. The rest of the procedure was a model of thoroughness and success.
Every Protestant church was confiscated and either levelled with the ground or turned into a Catholic church. Every Protestant clergyman was banished. The property of all prominent Protestants was confis- cated. Commissions were sent roving through the country banishing all the common people who would not recant. Laws were passed by which none but Catholics could be citizens, none but Catholics could marry, and all Protestant inmates of hospitals were
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The Making of Pennsylvania
expelled unless they recanted. Every Protestant book and every book in the Bohemian language that could be found was destroyed, and one Jesuit attained great honor because with his own hands he had burned sixty thousand volumes. When Bohemia got through with this conversion and the thirty years' war that followed, her population of three millions was reduced to eight hundred thousand.
What was left of the Unitas Fratrum scattered itself in Poland, Hungary, Transylvania, Prussia, and Silesia, grew weaker and weaker, and finally seemed to have nothing left but the succession of its bishops. It would soon have disappeared forever had it not been revived in 1722 by Count Zinzendorf, a remarkable young German nobleman, who adopted religion as the occupation of his life. About three hundred people who had main- tained the old faith in secret in Moravia migrated to the count's estate in Saxony, and from these the sect was renewed.
The three hundred emigrants were of the Slavonic race; for Moravianism had up to that time been exclu- sively a Slavonic religion. But the aftergrowth was all German. Zinzendorf was a German Lutheran of the pietist type, and the Moravians became engrafted on the pietist movement. Henceforth they were a German sect, and soon began to adopt ideas and feelings which would have astonished their Slavic originators. The old race knew them no more, and the change was rather curious. There are many instances in history of a race changing its religion, but comparatively few of a religion changing its race.
Like every other German sect, they of course took
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their own view of pietism, and to say that they were Pietists is a very vague description of them. Muhlen- berg's followers among the Lutherans were also Pietists, and yet very different from the Moravians, and by no means friendly with them. Indeed, the Moravians stood more aloof from the rest of the German population in Pennsylvania than any of the other German sects.
They had the general pietistic principle of revolt from formal and systematic theology. They adopted the feet- washing ceremony, or sacrament, of the other sects, and had somewhat of the same leaning towards communal life which appeared among the Tunkers. They were opposed to all kinds of warfare, and took no interest in politics and government, and they had a system for watching each other's conduct and administering disci- pline in families very much like that of the Quakers.
They were at one period of their history overwhelmed by a flood of emotionalism, and used expressions which were extravagant and almost unintelligible in German, and seem still worse when translated into English. They dwelt upon the sufferings of Christ, his wounds, and the scenes of his passion, in a way which seemed fanciful and childish even to people from the continent of Europe, and to English and Americans irreverent and shocking. They made an extraordinary use of the highly figurative language of love in the Song of Solo- mon, and appeared to be attempting to realize the Saviour by an effort of the imagination, falling in love with his image as one falls in love with an earthly sweetheart. In this they resembled some of the other pietist Ger- mans.
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