Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: III THE UNDERMINING OF AMERICAN EDUCATION In spite of the favourable conditions in America, the German conspiracy would not have succeeded except for the efforts of the exceedingly able men who, in ever increasing numbers, came from Germany to occupy chairs in our universities, important positions in industry, banking, and in the editorial offices of German language newspapers, and to fill the pulpits of German churches. These men had drunk deep of modern German philosophy and were completely obsessed by Pan-German ambitions and by Germany's manifest destiny of world power. The great mass of the population of German descent had little in common with them and little interest in their schemes— they were satisfied with America and with its opportunities and were willing to forget the old country. Left to themselves they would in afew years have become assimilated in our population. The second generation invariably became most eager and whole-hearted in their Americanism. Even the opposition to the Bennett Law, in Wisconsin, had little immediate political significance. It was rather expressive of the attachment of a population, largely of German birth, for the language of their fatherland. The German names which have appeared in every casualty list of our armies are convincing testimonials of the genuine patriotism of the great majority of our citizens of German descent. What came to be known as the "German movement in America"—a movement which aimed at the consolidation in one compact bloc, racially, economically, and politically of the entire German element in the United States, and the definite relation of that bloc to the German advance to world power—did not have its origin among the laymen. An attempt had been made as far back as 1885 to strengthen and perpetuate Germa...