in many cities and in some of the Western States enabled them to have
German taught in the public schools, though it is only fair to say
that the underlying motive was liberalism rather than Prussian
provincialism. Frederick Kapp, a distinguished interpreter of the
spirit of these Forty-eighters, expressed their conviction when he
said that those who cared to remain German should remain in Germany
and that those who came to America were under solemn obligations to
become Americans.

The descendants of these immigrants, the second and the third and
fourth generations, are now thoroughly absorbed into every phase of
American life. Their national idiosyncrasies have been modified and
subdued by the gentle but relentless persistence of the English
language and the robust vigor of American law and American political
institutions.

After 1870 a great change came over the German immigration. More and
more industrial workers, but fewer and fewer peasants, and very rarely
an intellectual or a man of substance, now appeared at Ellis Island
for admission to the United States.[28] The facilities for migrating
were vastly increased by the great transatlantic steamship companies.
The new Germans came in hordes even outnumbering the migrations of the
fifties. From 1870 to 1910 over three and a quarter millions arrived.
The highest point of the wave, however, was reached in 1882, when
250,630 German immigrants entered the United States. Thereafter the
number rapidly subsided; the lowest ebb, in 1898, brought only 17,111,
but from that time until the Great War the number of annual arrivals
fluctuated between 25,000 and 40,000.

The majority of those who came in the earlier part of this period made