ians are an amalgamation of the best--that is, the hardiest
and most enterprising--elements of all the German districts. The
purest blood and the most active brains of the old empire left their
homes on the Main and the Weser to colonize and conquer under the
leadership of the Teutonic order. The few drops of Slavic blood are
nothing in comparison. Slavic names of towns and villages do not prove
Slavic descent; else, by like reasoning, we should have to pronounce
"France" and "French" words implying German blood, and "Normandy" an
expression for Norse lineage. So far from being composite, Berlin is
ultra German. It is more national, in this sense, than Dresden, where
the Saxon court was for generations Polish in tastes and sympathies,
and where English and American residents constitute at this day
a perceptible element; more so than Bremen and Hamburg, which are
entrepots for foreign commerce; more so than Frankfort, with its
French affiliations. The few Polish noblemen and workmen from Posen
only serve to relieve the otherwise monotonous German type of the
city. The French culture assumed by Frederick the Great and his
contemporaries was a mere surface varnish, a passing fashion that left
the underlying structure intact. Furthermore, Berlin is profoundly
Protestant. The Reformation was accepted here with enthusiasm, and its
adoption was more of a folk-movement than elsewhere, Thuringia alone
excepted. By virtue of its Protestantism, then, Berlin is accessible
to liberal ideas and capable of placing itself in the van of progress
without breaking abruptly with the past. Its liberalism, unlike that
of Catholic Paris, does not lead to radicalism or communism. Finally,
it is to be borne in mind that Berlin, having become the official
capital, must of necessity attract more and more the ablest men
from all quarters of the empire--the members of the imperial Diet,
politicians, lobbyists, bankers, speculators and their satellites.
Along with the good, it is true, comes much of the bad. Berlin is
unquestionably the present goal for needy and unscrupulous adventurers
of the worst sort. Not a few pessimists, native and foreign, have
made the fact a text for dismal prognostications of the city's future
degeneracy. Yet this is taking a shortsighted and unjust view of
things. The great mass of the population is still sound to the core.
The unsettled state of monetary and social relations cannot but be
transitory, and compulsory educa