New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-07-21
NEW ENGLAND TODAY.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE TELLS THE STORY
OF A CENTURY'S CHANGES.
WHAT NEw-ENGLAND HAS BECOME UNDER
LIBERTY, EQUALITY AND PROTECTIVE
TARIFF 49, CURIOUS FACTS FROM

THE CENSUS REPORTS.
Some tlirty-two years ago | received visit
In Roston from a comm ssioner whom the French
Government had sent abroad to study foreign
systems of education. lie had begun In Cauadu'
had then struck our Western States, hau sohe
as far as Louisiana, and then had returned thIoush
the South TO New England. He had found every
where, New-Engand teachers in the pubic scnoo's
This would not lie so now to so large an eA'"ho'
But then. as he nut it in his exaggerated Frchch
way, every school-mastcr and schoolmiStresS was
from Connecticut or Massachusetts
1T is q thing unknown, he said. Nowhere
in the world. or IN history, has 1t been observed
that two provinces should furnish the teachers
for \ whole nation | have said that when l
cone 70 New ENGLAND shall obtain the stausnc
~ an arrangement so remarkable. And now
that I come here nobody knows anything about
it, and nobody cares"
This was perfectly true | worried myseh ana
my friends for some time TO try to oDtaih SONIC
statistic" about it. But there was none oil any
value We all knew that our brothers ana sis'eIS
and cousins had gone West But now many
had gone or what they were doing, we could not
tell. The only definite fact | received IN my
INQUIRY was from the Rev. Dr. Joseph Allen, one
of the noble men who taught and trained New
England his life long lie had been, Tor nearly
half century, the minister OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL
farming town in Worcester County, Massachusetts,
OF perhaps 500 people l said to him. 10"
many Of the young people who have left your
schools have been teachers in other schools
And he said, All of them" After this time
Uncle sam began TO count his chickens and
children more carefully And it appears from
tie census of 1880 that at that time 6l6,Ouo
New-E nganders, men and women, lived IN States
of the United States outside New-England How
many lived or live in other nations Of the world
no one knows except the recording angel ana
those whom he has told.
Now this passion for emigration is something
which was not at all expected by the old calculat-
ors Ezra Stiles, as intelligent a man as lived
in the middle of the last century, published
half-century sermon in 1850, in which he pre-
dicted the condition of New-England in 1850.
lie calculated and proved very well that her
population slowed away east OF the hudson klVer
would be seven million and half They were
all to he God-fcaring men and women OF tie ola
Connecticut Congregational type, and they were
to ret on eXccllently well. All this calculation
hinged on the presumption, which came nearly
true. that the population would double in every
Twenty-Five years and on the other presumption,
which did not prove true al all. that 10 one
who had the good luck TO be born in New-Eneand
would ever 20 away, if he could help 1t, to live
or TO die.
1t can hardly be doubted that Or, Stilcss
figures were correct as far as the increase went,
and that there are now living in the world more
than 1900, 900 people who are descended from
the New-Englanders of 1850. But of these
$4,000. 900 hardly 100000 are living In the
New EngGnd Of to-day. The census of 1850
showed that zoos, 900 New-Englanders were
then living in tie States in which thcy were
born, $4,000 in other New-Easland States,
and G1G,0O in other States and Territories of
the United States. That census gave total of
3,G43, 900 Inhabitants Of this country who were
born in New-England. The population of New
England. according TO the census of 1880 was as
follows: New Englanders living in the States
where they were born, 2,60s, 900; New-England-
crs living in other New-England States. $4,000.
Other natives Of United States living III New
England, lSS, 900; persons born abroad, S32, 600.
Total 4,047, coo.
These figures make a population 10000 larger
than the total population given by Government.
But such tables cannot be expected 10 correspond
with absolute precision. The variation is much
less than might be eXpectedJ
or these four million people living in New
England in 1880. the census reports that rather
more than 100000 were Of foreign birth or
parentage The larger proportion Of these lived
in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Massachusetts,, with total population Of l,7s3,-
Os5 had ssO,73l Of whom one or both parents
were of foreign birth. Rhode Island, with total
population Of 276,53l, had 1929 of whom one
or both parents were of foreign birth. Connect-
cut, with total population of 622,70O, had 276,-
s34 of foreign birth. The proportion Of people
of foreign parentage was almost exactly 30 per
cent in Massachusetts,, nearly SO per cent in
Rhode Island and rather more than A per cent
in Connecticut. The proportion Of such persons
in the whole of Ncw-Engand was 81 per cent.
In Massachusetts the proportion in any hundred
Of those Of foreign birth gave about GO per cent
of Irish parentage, per cent Of Canadian parent
age. l2 per cent Of English and Scotch parent
age per cent of German parcntage, and the rest
OF other nations, including the Scandnavians.
In all these computations the Indians and other
"colored people" are Of course included among
the natives The Indians numbered 400, a
cain of 364 over the census return Of 1870, and
the colored people $685. about per cent Of the
whole
From these figures, which ] have condensed as
closely as | could. it Will be seen that the New
England of to-day is very different from the New
England Of English descent which President
Stiles looked forward TO. | am sorry to have Il
take figures which ten years Old INC
conditions Of Massachusetts resemble those OF The
other Ncw-England States 50 closely that similar
changes may be largely observed in all. The
great wave of Canadian emigration showed IT.
power in 1885 much more than in 1850. II
1875 there had been $4,000 persons Of Canadian
birth in Massachusetts, In 1855 there were 147,
352 The increase, 81 600 is explained entirely
by the presence of $4,000 French Canadians il
1885 who had come to work in the New-Engan'
factories This emigration. which, to a limte'
extent had existed for many years, has been nov
for fifteen years a larger element in changing Tin
native population of Ncw-England than an
other. Such changes. and perhaps greater ac
curacy in the enumeration, considerably aiiec
the proportion of races as shown by the Massa
chusetts census of 1885. The whole populatio