Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/437

 CHAPTER XXII. THE GERMANS. Origin of Race — Colonial Germans — Prominent Teutons— Ger- mans in Goodhue County— Early Settlers in Various Town- ships — German Soldiers — German Officeholders — St. John's Hospital and Training School — German Industries— German Churches— Written by Prof. F. W. Kalfahs. The earliest information we have of the Germans, the peo- ples and tribes who dwelt among the dense forests that stretched from the Rhine to the Vistula and from the Danube to the Baltic Sea, comes to us from the Romans, the principal authority being' Tacitus. The term German is of Celtic origin, though its mean- ing is not precisely known. It was in all probability borrowed by the Romans from the Gauls. The Germans are a group of Indo-Germans or Indo-Aryans. They are the aborigines of central Europe, near the Baltic Sea, according to recent researches of Schrader, Hirt, and Hoops. Tacitus speaks of the Germans in contrast to the over-refined Romans, who were morally corrupt, as being tall and slender of stature, healthy, robust and of handsome appearance. Their virtues were purity of morals, hospitality, loyalty, honesty, open- heartedness. "Women were held in high esteem, and they con- sidered matrimony as sacred. The cause of German emigration was religious and political suppression ; as war, revolution and persecution on account of their religion! Other causes were social evils ; as famine, pesti- lence, poor soil, and excess of population. The first Germans came to the United States in 1683 from Frankfort-on-the-Main, and under the leadership of Pastorius settled in Philadelphia. The German emigrants did not merely look for material and physical advantages as to where they could find the best land and where to get the most money for their labor; they also con- sidered the religious and ethical phase. They looked for re- ligious toleration, to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. They chose not the South under the curse 365