burlesque representations of both types. The one was the opposite of
the other in temperament, in habits, in personal ambitions. The German
sought the land, was content to be let alone, had no desire to command
others or to mix with them, but was determined to be reliable,
philosophically took things as they came, met opposition with
patience, clung doggedly to a few cherished convictions, and sought
passionately to possess a home and a family, to master some minute
mechanical or technical detail, and to take his leisure and his
amusements in his own customary way.

The reports of the Immigration Commissioner disclose the fact that
well over five and a third millions of Germans migrated to America
between 1823 and 1910. If to this enormous number were added those of
German blood who came from Austria and the German cantons of
Switzerland, from Luxemburg and the German settlements of Russia, it
would reach a grand total of well over seven million Germans who have
sought an ampler life in America. The Census of 1910 reports "that
there were 8,282,618 white persons in the United States having Germany
as their country of origin, comprising 2,501,181 who were born in
Germany, 3,911,847 born in the United States both of whose parents
were born in Germany, and 1,869,590 born in the United States and
having one parent born in the United States and the other in
Germany."[25]

The coming of the Germans may be divided into three quite distinct
migrations: the early, the middle, and the recent. The first period
includes all who came before the radical ferment which began to
agitate Europe after the Napoleonic wars. The Federal census of 1790
discloses 176,407 Germans living in America. But German writers
usually maintain that there were from 225,000 to 250,000 Germans in