If Boston is no longer a great centre of literary production, it
remains, with its noble public library in its midst, and with Harvard
University on its outskirts, a great centre of culture. I shall always
remember a luncheon party at Harvard, where I was the guest of an
eminent Shakespearean critic, and had for my fellow guests a very
learned Dante scholar (one of the most delightful talkers imaginable), a
famous psychologist, a political economist, and a lecturer on English
literature. The talk fell upon the depopulation of New England, or
rather the substitution of an alien race for (I had almost said) the
indigenous Yankee stock. There was some discussion as to whether the
Yankee was really dying out, or had merely spread throughout the West,
taking with him and disseminating the qualities which had made the
greatness of New England. It was not denied, of course, that westward
emigration has much to do with the matter. The New England farmer,
unable to stand up against the competition of the prairies, has betaken
himself to the prairies so as to compete on the winning side. But one of
the company maintained that this did not account for the whole
phenomenon. "The real key to it," he said, "lies in such a family
history as mine. My grandmother was the youngest of thirteen children;
my mother was the eldest of five; my brother and I are two; and we are
unmarried."

I am inclined to think that this story of a dwindling stock is typical,
not for New England alone, but for other parts of the Union. It seems as
though the pressure of life in the Eastern States, and perhaps some
subtle influence of climate upon temperament, were rendering the people
of old Teutonic blood--British, Dutch, and German--unwilling to face the
responsibility of large families, and so were giving the country over to
the later and usually inferior immigrant and his progeny. I am not sure
that it might not be well to cultivate a new sense of social duty in