A Nation in the Loom: The Scandinavian Fibre in Our Social Fabric / An Address by Rev. R. A. Jernberg

by R. A. Jernberg

In speaking of the development of the Scandinavians in the United States, it must be evident, therefore, that the premises from which we start are very different from those in the case of almost any other foreigners among us; for the development of the qualities which many of them bring from their native lands would mean anything but the peace, prosperity or happiness of this. But the Scandinavian, however crude or untutored he may appear, is recognized even by those who love him least as having in him the elements that are the terror of evil doers. When the anarchists of Haymarket fame were on trial for their lives in this city, their counsel requested that no Scandinavian should be accepted on the jury, saying, that he would challenge every talesman of Norse blood on the ground of his nationality. The Scandinavians everywhere felt complimented by the challenge, and the lawyer was certainly correct in his estimate of them.

The most serious charge that can be brought against the Scandinavians in this country as a class is, that they are behind the times. Since the days of Gustavus Adolphus and his work for the Reformation the northern nations have had little influence upon the life of Europe. Charles XII. of Sweden for a time disturbed the peace of Russia, and Napoleon managed to mix up the Scandinavian countries in his difficulties with England, but with these exceptions no great interest has been felt for the world outside by the people of the North. While the great world south of him was moving forward through revolutions of governments and of thought, the Scandinavian sat still at home, pondering the question how the stones around him might be made bread. In the onward march of the world he was almost forgotten up there in the frozen north, and in his isolation his ideas and his interests narrowed down to the affairs of his own little circle, which to him became of supreme importance. Class distinctions, almost as severely marked as by the Hindu caste system, gradually divided each little community, and they still remain in a great measure, in spite of the modern renaissance which the Scandinavian countries have experienced during the present century. In religious affairs there has been until recently a regime as autocratic almost as that of the Czar. All Scandinavians since 1550 until the latter half of this century were by reason of their nativity members of the Lutheran church. When one ventures to separate himself from that church he voluntarily ostracises himself from the society in which he has had a standing hitherto, and is made to feel that his religious views are revolutionary and anarchistic, refusing obedience to appointed authority in spiritual things. This pressure unquestionably hinders the work of the reformed churches in Scandinavia no less perhaps than the intolerant dogmatism of the State Church, which unblushingly arrogates to itself the monopoly of Christian truth and the right to teach it. These characteristics have been intensified and stereotyped by the isolation of the people, so that the work of bringing those who come to this country into sympathy with the social and religious ideas of life here must of necessity be a work of time and of patient education.

One of the difficulties, perhaps the greatest, in the way of such endeavors is the common practice of all our foreigners to colonize, both in the city and in the country, thus creating for themselves an environment which perpetuates indefinitely the alien characteristics peculiar to them. The foreigner remains a foreigner still. He has simply transplanted the environment in which he was born, minus some of its burdens, from the Old World to the New, and he may continue the remainder of his life in the midst of these surroundings as much an alien, right here in Chicago, as if he had never crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He looks with distrust and with contempt upon the institutions of this land because he does not understand them, and he is suspicious of every stranger who is hostis (an enemy) until he knows him.

The foreign settlements in the country districts are, if possible, still more unaffected by the influence of their larger environment than the foreign colonies in the cities. In many portions of our land it is possible to travel for miles through a foreign country, as far as population is concerned, and not seldom is the second generation as thoroughly foreign as their parents, so that an American may need an interpreter at every house if he intends to transact business there. Under such conditions it is very evident that the moral, intellectual, or religious development of these communities would be the work of ages, if dependent upon the forces within themselves. The cultivating power must come from without and be shot through and through them, so that the individuals and the families in them may somehow come under the influence of that larger environment lying outside of their immediate colony, or the years will only perpetuate the conditions which in our day have become not only interesting but very serious social problems for Americans to solve.

Such an outside penetrating power is the American public school. Here is an institution which, whatever else it does not do, certainly fosters a spirit of patriotism and of loyalty to the flag that floats above it. No other land can be as dear to the children educated here as this land; no language will be more thoroughly theirs than the language of their books and teachers; and thus it will be found that in any foreign community where the children attend the public schools, American ideas and standards of life are permeating it with a power which must eventually change it into an American community.

So well is this understood by those who are the guides and teachers of certain foreign nationalities among us, and who would, if they could, keep them forever intact from the influence of American life, that they spare no pains to shield them from it, and withdraw their children and youth from the teaching of the public school, putting them into schools of their own where their foreign ideas and their foreign tongues may be perpetuated in the next generation. This is the meaning of Protestant parochial schools, no matter what other explanation of them is offered.

The Scandinavians do not fall under censure in this matter. They have not as a rule set up their own schools in competition with the public school, but they have schools of a higher grade. Most of these were first established to furnish ministers for their own churches. Gradually, however, they have come to feel the pressure of their larger environment, so that their curriculum is now usually arranged with a view to giving all the inhabitants of the entire community the benefit of their instruction. Thus in the Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., representatives of seven different nationalities were in attendance last year; while the Swedish college in Rock Island, Ill., had fifty-one Americans, fifteen Germans, two Persians and two Hebrews among their five hundred students. The Luther College in Decorah, Ia, claims to send more young men to the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore for postgraduate study than any other western college. Several of these Scandinavian schools have come to see that they must adapt themselves more and more to the demands upon them from the entire community, and open the doors to all applicants for an education without regard to nationality. The principal of one of these schools writes: "Our school is not a Scandinavian, but an American institution of learning in the fullest sense of that word." Perhaps in no other sphere is the development of the Scandinavians into Americans better illustrated than in this evolution of their higher schools, for this tendency is not sporadic, but general; and when we remember that there are fifty-one such institutions in the Northwest, with five thousand young men and women studying in them, we begin to realize their importance, with their tendency towards a universal and liberal education, as factors in the development of the Scandinavians in this country.

It has already been intimated that this evolution of the Scandinavian schools has been compelled by their environment in American communities more than by any inherent desire of their own. One of these influences has been the attractions which American schools and colleges in the Northwest have especially offered to the Scandinavian young people. The University of Minnesota for example, offers an attractive course in Scandinavian literature under a very capable teacher in that department, and some effort in the same direction is made by the Chicago University. Carleton College has taken a still more decided step by establishing a complete Scandinavian department for the benefit of the young people of that race who may prefer to attend a purely American institution.

Another influence which is permeating the densest Scandinavian communities and is reaching the most isolated families is exerted by the Scandinavian press. The importance of this factor will be understood, at least in part, when we know how generally the Scandinavians are a reading people. According to our last census there are 933,349 of them in the United States who were born across the sea. The one hundred and twenty-seven newspapers published for their benefit here, have a circulation of 885,549. That is to say, if the immigrants were the only subscribers to these papers, every one of them with the exception of about 50,000 would be a subscriber to a newspaper in his own tongue; and it may be added that these 50,000 really represent the children for whom almost nothing seems to be done in this particular. Papers like the Youth's Companion and St. Nicholas are almost unknown to the Scandinavian children in America, but thus is the second generation woven into our social fabric. It is evident, of course, that these one hundred and twenty-seven Scandinavian newspapers are read by as many of those who are born here, as by those of the other class, for it is usually estimated by newspaper men that every copy of a weekly paper is read on the average by five persons. No less than 4,427,740 Scandinavians, therefore, in this country would be constant readers of their own papers. As there are only half as many persons here who are able to read the Scandinavian languages, it may be concluded that this entire people is keeping abreast with the history of the great world outside their own immediate circle, however narrow and contracted that may be.