The Influence of German Culture on the United States: Anglo-Saxon and Teuton, Schemes and Mind Maps of Social Psychology of Emotion

Download The Influence of German Culture on the United States: Anglo-Saxon and Teuton and more Schemes and Mind Maps Social Psychology of Emotion in PDF only on Docsity! ANGLO-SAXON AND TEUTON. 117 If Americans no longer swear quite so much, if they are be- ginning to moderate their nasal tones, if tobacco-chewing and spit- ting are on the wane, if the feet are being brought down from the table to the floor—where they belong—this is probably due in great measure to foreign, and more specifically to German example. And in more fundamental ways, too, the same influence is felt. Germans have helped to moderate the dread austerity of the old Puritan Sunday, have opened the museums to the people, led them into the parks, and encouraged them in the enjoyment of innocent games. In general, they have contributed immensely toward the sweetening and brightening of life. The county fair is due to them, likewise the establishment of roof gardens. And though much still remains to be done, they are probably beginning to counteract the prevailing industrial disregard of human life, the careless, slipshod way of doing things, the hurry and superficiality and vulgarity, and imparting to the national character some of their proverbial thor- oughness, honesty, and depth of sentiment. So numerous and important, indeed, have been the contributions of non-English, and especially of Teutonic, races, that it is ludicrous to speak of the United States as an Anglo-Saxon country. As has been well said, Europe and not England is the mother of this coun- try. But as Germany is a vital part of Europe, so German influence has had a vital share in shaping the destinies of our land. ANGLO-SAXON AND TEUTON. RY THE EDITOR. '^r^HERE is much talk at present about the two great Anglo-Saxon 1 nations, by which are meant England and the United States, l)ut the use of the term "Saxon" is here too narrow. The Saxons in the Middle Ages were the people of northern Germany along the Rhine uj) to the Elbe. The Angles belonged to the same group which have been characterized as Eastphalians, Westphalians and Engres, or "inner ones" living between the eastern and western "blond-heads," for that is the name of people that are faal, or "pale- haired" as the corresponding English term would be. The Flemish, the Dutch, the Hanoverians and their neighbors belong to this same group. Some of these people left for Britain in historical times, about the year 449. Their symbol was the horse which is still used for the coat of arms of Hanover and Brunswick on the continent. 118 THE OPEN COURT. and the mythical leaders of the Anglo-Saxons bore the significant names Hengist and Horsa. The emigration of the Anglo-Saxons to England is the most recent establishment of a conquering people in its independence, and it happened that by two historical movements the original lan- guage became changed both in England and on the continent. In England the Norman conquest proved ruinous to the Saxon civili- sation and established a period of barbarism from which the Saxon language gradually developed as English. On the continent the language changed from Low German to High German through the Reformation, because Luther translated the Rible into a literary dialect which was used as the common means of German inter- state communication. The different courts of Saxony, Franconia, Thuringia, etc., used a dialect of High German character in which Luther wrote, although his own mother tongue was the Saxon of Mansfeld and Eisenach. The change from Low German or Saxon into High German was as radical as the change in Britain from Anglo-Saxon into English, and if these two changes had not taken place it is probable that the present language of the English might differ no more from the language of the North Germans than the language of Flanders from that of Holland. At any rate we notice that the missionaries whom Pope Gregory sent from England to Germany under Winfred (Boniface) did not encounter any difficulty in speech, and it seems that Winfred spoke his own language when preaching to the Saxons on the continent. These are ethnic facts and they are not lessened by intermar- riage and immigration from either side. German immigrants in England are frequent ; even among the most prominent diplomats we find German names and we must remember that such typical Germans as Kant are of Scotch descent. Among the officers of Wallenstein there was one by the name of Butler, among Frederick the Great's another by the name of Keith, and everybody knows Mackensen of the modern army. We may also add that Moltke's wife, Marie Burt, was of English descent. There are no two races on earth so similar as the English and the North Germans. They are even more near in blood than North Germans and South Germans. But nowadays we speak of the Anglo-Saxons and the Teutons as if they were wholly different races while they are not, and even the influx of Norman blood into the Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of Britain has not made much change because the Normans themselves were a Germanic race, not far removed from either the Teuton or the Saxon, or even from the