ce in America for 200 years as well.

Our ancestors brought with them from {19} their native land a simple,
just, Teutonic structure of society and government, the base of which
was the _individual free-man_. The family was considered the social
unit. Several families near together made a township, the affairs of
the township being settled by the male freeholders, who met together to
determine by conference what should be done.

This was the germ of the "town-meeting" and of popular government. In
the "witan," or "wise men," who were chosen as advisers and adjusters
of difficult questions, exist the future legislature and judiciary,
while in the king, or "alder-mann" ("Ealdorman") we see not an
oppressor, but one who by superior age and experience is fitted to
lead. Cerdic, first Saxon king, was simply Cerdic the "Ealdorman" or
"Alder-mann."

They were a free people from the beginning. They had never bowed the
neck to yoke, their heads had never bent to tyranny. Better far was it
that Roman civilization, built upon Keltic-Briton foundation, should
have been effaced utterly, and that this {20} strong untamed humanity,
even cruel and terrible as it was, should replace it. Roman laws,
language, literature, faith, manners, were all swept away. A few
mosaics, coins, and ruined fragments of walls and roads are all the
record that remains of 300 years of occupation.

And the Briton himself--what became of him? In Ireland and Scotland he
lingers still; but, except in Wales and Cornwall, England knows him no
more. Like the American Indian, he was swept into the remote,
inaccessible corners of his own land. It seemed cruel, but it had to
be. Would we build strong and high, it must not be upon sand. We
distrust the Kelt as a foundation for nations as we do sand for our
temples. France was never cohesive until a mixture of Teuton had
toughened it. Genius makes a splendid spire, but a poor corner-stone.
It would seem that the Keltic race, brilliant and richly endowed, was
still unsuited to the world in its higher stages of development. In
Britain, Gaul, and Spain they were displaced and absorbed by the
Germanic races. And now for long {21} centuries no Keltic people of
importance has maintained its independence; the Gaelic of the Scotch
Highlands, and of Ireland, the native dialect of the Welsh and of
Brittany, being the scanty remains of that great family of related
tongues which once occupied more territory th