versity of human life which is always before our eyes! Think of the 208,309 scholars reported in 1865 in our public schools, and the average attendance of 86,674 in those schools, and over 100,000 scholars in regular attendance in all our schools, both public and private.* Think of our galleries of art, private and public, and our

great libraries and reading-rooms, like the Astor, the Mercantile, the Society, and the Cooper Institute. Consider the remarkable increase of private libraries, such as Dr.

*For a History of the Schools and the Public School Society, by Hon. Hooper C. Van Vorst, see Appendix No. XV.

Wynne has but begun to describe in his magnificent volume. Think of our press, and its constant and enormous issues, especially of daily papers, which are the peculiar literary institution of our time, and alike the common school and university of our people. Our 350 churches and chapels, 258 of them being regular churches of all kinds, can accommodate about 300,000 hearers, and inadequate as in some respects they are, as to location. and convenience, they can hold as many of the people as wish to attend church, and far more than generally attend. Besides our churches and chapels, we have powerful religious instrumentalities in our religious press, and our city is the center of publication of leading newspapers, magazines, and reviews, of the great denominations of the country. In these organs the best scholars and thinkers of the nation express their thoughts in a way wholly unknown at the beginning of the century, when the religious press of the country was not apparently dreamed of. The higher class of religious and theological reviews that are published here are, perhaps, the best specimens of the most enlarged scholarship and severe thinking of America, and are doing much to educate an enlightened and truly catholic spirit and fellowship. If the question is asked, in view of all these means of education, what kind of mind is trained up here, or what are the indications of our New York intelligence, it may not be so easy to say in full, as to throw out a hint or two by way of suggestion. There is, certainly, what may be called a New York mind and character, and there must be from the very nature of the case. Some characteristics must mark each community, as the results of birth and breeding; and however great the variety of elements, some qualities must predominate over others in the people, as in the climate and fruits of a country. Where two tendencies seem to balance each other for a

time, one is sure, at last, to preponderate, and to gain value and power with time, and win new elements to itself. It is not hard to indicate the essential New York character from the beginning. It is positive, institutional, large-hearted, genial, taking it for granted that all men are not of one pattern, and that we are to live by allowing others to have their liberty as we have ours.

*

"How far assimilation in its various forms of thought and life is to go, we can only conjecture; for the process has but begun. Our community, like every other community, must go through three stages of development to complete its providential evolution: aggregation, accommodation, and assimilation. The first stage is aggregation; and that comes, of course, with the fact of residence. Here we are, about a million of us, aggregated on this healthy and charming island, and here we most of us expect and wish to stay. We are seeking our next stage, and wish accommodation not with entire success, and the city is distressed by prosperity, and is like an overgrown boy, whose clothes are too small for his limbs, and he waits in half-nakedness for his fitting garments. In some respects, the city itself is a majestic organism, and we have light, water, streets, and squares, much to our mind, always, of course, excepting the dirt. The scarcity of houses, the costs of rent, living, and taxation are grievous, and driving a large portion of our middling class into the country. Yet the city is full and overflow

* In this connection the following emigration statistics are of value. During the year 1871 the number of passengers who arrived at the port of New York were as follows: Ireland, 50,220; Germany, 88,601; England, 51,027; Scotland, 10,154; Wales, 1,224; France, 4,245; Spain, 130; Switzerland, 2,630; Holland, 929; Norway, 2,718; Sweden, 10,749; Denmark, 2,210; Italy, 2,309; Portugal, 48; Belgium, 161; West Indies, 215; Nova Scotia, 53; Japan, 14; South America, 85; Canada, 68; China, 246; Sicily, 12; Mexico, 29; Russia, 713; East Indies, 6; Turkey, 8; Greece, 7; Poland, 763; Africa, 8; Central America, 35; Australia, 22. Total arrivals, 271,067, of whom 41,428 were citizens, leaving the number of aliens 229,639.

ing, and is likely to be. The work of assimilation is going on, and every debate, controversy, and party, brings the various elements together; and we are seeing each other, whether we differ or agree. Great progress has been made in observing and appreciating our situation and population. Probably New York knows itself better to-day than at any time since its imperial proportions began to appear. In politics, police, philanthropy, education, and religion, we are reckoning our classes, numbers, and tendencies, and feeling our way towards some better harmony of ideas and interests. The whole population of the city was, by census of 1860, 813,669; and by the census of 1865, 726,386. The voters number 151,838; native, 51,500; foreign, 77,475. Over twenty-one years, they who cannot read and write are 19,199. Families number 148,683. Total of foreigners by census of 1860 was 383,717; and by the census of 1865, 313,417. Number of women, by census of 1865, was 36,000 more than of men, and of widows, over 32,000; being 25,000 more widows than widowers. The Germans, by the census of 1860, numbered 119,984; and by the census of 1865, 107,269. This makes up this city not the third, but the eighth city in the world as to German population. These German cities have a larger population: Berlin, Vienna, Breslau, Cologne, Munich, Hamburg, and Dresden. The Irish, by the census of 1860, number 203,700; and by the census of 1865, 261,334.

"New York now, we believe, has a million of residents, and either peculiar difficulties in the census commission of 1865, or peculiar influences after the war, led to the appearance of diminishing population. Certainly we have, of late, gained numbers, and have not lost in variety of elements to be assimilated. The national diversities are not hostile, and we are seeking out their best, instead of their worst, qualities. Italian art and French

accomplishment we can appreciate without forgetting that we are Americans. We are discerning in our New York Germany something better than lager beer and Sunday concerts, and learning to appeal to the sterling sense and indomitable love of liberty of the countrymen of Luther and Gutenberg. The Irish among us, who make this the second if not the first Irish city of the world, and who contribute so largely to our ignorant and criminal returns, we are studying anew, and discerning their great service to industry and their great capacity for organization. We find among them good specimens of the blood of the Clintons and the Emmets, and are bound to acknowledge that, in purity, their wives and daughters may be an example to any class in America or Europe. Old Israel is with us too in force, and some thirty synagogues of Jews manifest the power of the oldest organized religion, and the example of a people that cares wholly for its own sick and poor; willing to meet Christians as friends and citizens, and learn our religion more from its own gospel of love than from its old conclaves of persecution. We often see

other types of the Oriental mind in our streets and houses, and it will be well for us when Asia is here represented by able specimens of her mystical piety, and we learn of her something of the secret of her repose in God, and give her in return something of our art of bringing the will of God to bear upon this stubborn earth, instead of losing sight of the earth in dreams of pantheistic absorption. In many ways the various elements are combining to shape our ideas and society, and fill out the measure of our practical education.

"Yet, probably, the most important assimilation, as already hinted, is that which is going on here between the various elements of our American life in this mother-city, which is destined, apparently, to be to America what Rome was to the tribes that thronged to its gates. What has