Mick Maurer.com > St. Louis Germans by Edward King 1848-1896

ST. LOUIS GERMANS AND AMERICANS--SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY--EDUCATION

The Great South: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi,
Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland.
Electronic Edition.
King, Edward, 1848-1896
Illustrated by Champney, James Wells, 1843-1903

The crowd awaiting transportation across the
stream has always been of the most cosmopolitan
and motley character. There may be seen the
German emigrant, flat-capped and dressed in
coarse black, with his quaintly attired wife and rosy
chilnren clinging to him; the tall and angular Texan
drover, with his defiant glance at the primly
dressed cockneys around him; the "poor white"
from some far Southern State, with his rifle
grasped in his lean hand, and his astonished stare
at the extent of brick and stone walls beyond the
river; the excursion party from the East, with its
maps and guide-books, and its mountains of
baggage; the little groups of English tourists, with
their mysterious hampers and packets, bound
toward Denver or Omaha; the tired and
ill-uniformed company of troops "on transfer" to
some remote frontier fortress; the smart merchant
in his carriage, with his elegantly dressed negro
driver standing by the restive horses; the hordes of
over-clothed young commercial men from the
Northern and Western cities, with their mouths
distended by Havana cigars, and filled with the
slang of half-a-dozen capitals; and the hundreds of
negroes, who throng the levées in summer,
departing in winter like the swallows, at the
slightest hint of snow, or of the fog which from time
to time heightens the resemblance of the Missouri
capital to London.

THE old French quarter of St. Louis is now entirely given up to business, and but little of the Gallic
element is left in the town. Some of the oldest and wealthiest families are of French descent, and
retain the language and manners of their ancestors; but there are few exterior traces of French
domination. Souvenirs still remain; streets, both English and American in aspect, bear the names of
the vanished Gauls. Laclede has a monument in the form of a mammoth hotel; and the principal
outlying ward of the city, crowded with vast rolling-mills, and iron and zinc-furnaces, is called
Carondelet.

On the Illinois side of the river the village of Cahokia still lingers, a moss-grown relic of a decayed
civilization, its venerable church, Notre Dame des Kahokias, being the most ancient building in the
West. But not one of the great circular stone towers, erected in early times as defences against the
Indians, remain; block-houses and bastions have been replaced by massive residences, in which
live the merchant princes of the day.

"The Hill" is traversed in every direction by horse railroads; and a few minutes' ride will take one from
the roar of business into a quiet and elegant section, where there are miles of beautiful and costly
dwellings. As the ridges rise from the river, so rise the grades of social status. Mingled with the
wholesale establishments, and the offices of mining and railway companies in Main and Second
streets, parallel with the river, are hundreds of dirty and unhealthy tenement houses; on Fourth, and
Fifth, and Sixth streets, and on those running at right angles with them, are the principal hotels, the
more elegant of the shops and stores, the fashionable restaurants, and the few places of
amusement which the city boasts; Beyond, on the upper ridges, stretching back to Grand avenue,
which extends along the summit of the hill, are the homes of the wealthy.
The passion for suburban residences is fast taking possession of the citizens of St. Louis, and
several beautiful towns have sprung up within a few miles of the
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city, all of which are crowded with charming country houses. Lucas Place is the Fifth avenue of St.
Louis, and is very rich in costly homes surrounded by noble gardens. The houses there have not
been touched by the almost omnipresent smoke which seems to hover over the lower portion of the
town. In Lucas Place lived the noted Benton, and there he foamed, fretted, planned his duels,
nourished his feuds, and matured his magnificent ideas. The avenues which bear the names of
Washington, Franklin, Lindell, McPherson, Baker, Laclede and Chouteau all give promise of future
magnificence.

St. Louis is not rich in public buildings, although many of the recent structures devoted to business
are grand and imposing. The hotels partake of the grandeur which distinguishes their counterparts
of other cities; on Fourth and Fifth streets there are many elegant blocks.

The street life is varied and attractive, as in most southern towns; and the auction store is one of the
salient features which surprise a stranger. The doors of these establishments are open from
sunrise until midnight, and the jargon of the auctioneer can be heard ringing loudly above the rattle of
wheels. The genius who presides behind the counter is usually some graduate of the commerce of
the far South.

Accustomed to dealing with the ignorant and unsuspecting, his eloquence is a curious compound of
insolence and pleading. He has a quaint stock of phrases, made up of the slang of the river and the
slums of cities, and he begins by placing an extravagant price upon the article which he wishes to
sell, and then decreasing its value until he brings it down to the range of his customers.

On Saturday evenings the street life is as animated as that of an European city. In the populous
quarters the Irish and Germans throng the sidewalks, marketing and amusing themselves until
midnight; and in the fashionable sections the ladies, seated in the porches and on the front
door-steps of their mansions, receive the visits of their friends.

A drive through dozens of streets in the upper portion of the city discloses hundreds of groups of
ladies and gentlemen thus seated in the open air, whither they have transferred the etiquette of the
parlor. A far more delightful and agreeable social freedom prevails in the city than in any Eastern
community. The stranger is heartily welcome, and the fact that most of the ladies have been
educated both in the East and the West, acquiring the culture of the former
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and the frankness and cordiality of the latter, adds a charm both to their conversation and their
beauty.

At the more aristocratic and elegant of the German beer gardens, such as "Uhrig's" and
"Schneider's," the representatives of many prominent American families may be seen on the concert
evenings, drinking the amber fluid, and listening to the music of Strauss, of Gungl, or Meyerbeer.
Groups of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen resort to the gardens in the same manner as do
the denizens of Dresden and Berlin, and no longer regard the custom as a dangerous German
innovation.

The German element in St. Louis is powerful, and has for the last thirty years been merging in the
American, giving to it many of the hearty features and graces of European life, which have been
emphatically rejected by the native population of the more austere Eastern States. In like manner the
German has borrowed many traits from his American fellow-citizens, and in another generation the
fusion of races will be pretty thoroughly accomplished.

There are more than fifty thousand native Germans now in St. Louis, and the whole Teutonic
population, including the children born in the city of German parents, probably exceeds one hundred
and fifty thousand. The original emigration from Germany to Missouri was largely from the thinking
classes--professional men, politicians condemned to exile, writers, musicians, and philosophers,
and these have aided immensely in the development of the State.

The emigration began in 1830, but after a few hundreds had come out it fell off again, and was not
revived until 1848, when the revolution sent us a new crop of patriots and statesmen, whose mother
country was afraid of them. Always a loyal and industrious element, believing in the whole country,
and in the principles of freedom, they kept Missouri, in the troublous times preceding and during the
war, from many excesses.

The working people are a treasure to the State. Arriving, as a rule, with little or nothing, they hoard
every penny until they have enough with which to purchase an acre or two of land, and in a few years
become well-to-do citizens, orderly and contented. The whole country for miles around St. Louis is
dotted with German settlements; the market gardens are mainly controlled by them; and their farms
are models of thorough cultivation.

In commerce they have mingled liberally with the Americans; names of both nationalities are allied in
banking and in all the great wholesale businesses; and the older German residents speak their
adopted as well as their native tongue. At the time of my visit, a German was president of the city
council, and bank presidents, directors of companies, and men highly distinguished in business
and society, who boast German descent, are counted by hundreds.

German journalism in St. Louis is noteworthy. Carl Schurz and his life-long friend and present
partner, Mr. Pretorius, are known throughout the country as distinguished journalists, and have even,
as we have seen in these later days, played no small role upon the stage of national politics.

The failure of the Liberal Republican movement rather astonished the masses of the Germans in
Missouri, who had the most unwavering confidence in the
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ability of Schurz to accomplish whatever he chose; and has left them somewhat undecided as to
what course to pursue in future. There are four daily German newspapers in St. Louis, one of which
has been recently planted there by the Catholics, who have also started a clever weekly, in the hope
of aiding in the fight against the new principles put in force by the Prussian Government--principles,
of course, largely reflected among the Germans in America. The sturdy intellectual life of the Teuton
is well set forth in these papers, which are of great ability.

The uselessness of the attempt to maintain a separate national feeling was shown in the case of
the famous "Germania" Club, which, in starting, had for its cardinal principle the non-admission of
Americans; but at the present time there are 200 American names upon its list of membership. The
assimilation goes on even more rapidly than the Germans themselves suppose; it is apparent in the
manners of the children, and in the speech of the elders.

German social and home life has, of course, kept much of its original flavor. There are whole
sections of the city where the Teuton predominates, and takes his ease at evening in the beer
garden and the arbor in his own yard. At the summer opera one sees him in his glory.
Entering a modest door-way on Fourth street, one is ushered through a long room, in which ladies,
with their children, and groups of elegantly dressed men are chatting and drinking beer, into the
opera-house, a cheery little hall, where very fashionable audiences assemble to hear the new and
old operas throughout a long season. The singing is usually exceedingly good, and the mise en
scène quite satisfactory. Between the acts the audience refreshes itself with beer and soda-water,
and the hum of conversation lasts until the first notes of the orchestra announce the resumption of
the opera. On Sunday evenings the opera-house is crowded, and at the long windows of the hall,
which descend to the ground, one can see the German population of half-a-dozen adjacent blocks,
tiptoe with delight at the whiff of stolen harmony.

The "breweries" scattered through the city are gigantic establishments, for the making of beer ranks
third in the productive industries of St. Louis. Iron and flour precede it, but a capital of nearly
$4,000,000 is invested in the manufacture, and the annual productive yield from the twenty-five
breweries is about the same amount. Attached to many of these breweries are concert gardens,
every way scrupulously respectable, and weekly frequented by thousands.

The Germania and Harmony Clubs, and a hundred musical and literary organizations use up the
time of the city Germans who are well-to-do, while their poorer brethren delve at market gardens, and
are one of the chief elements in the commerce of the immense and picturesque St. James Market,
whither St. Louis goes to be fed. The Irishman is also prominent in St. Louis, having crept into the
hotel service, and driven the negro to another field.

The operation of the German upon the American mind has been admirably exemplified in St. Louis
by the growth of a real and noteworthy school of speculative philosophy in the new and thoroughly
commercial capital, at whose head, and by virtue of his distinguished preëminence as a thinker,
stands William T. Harris, the present superintendent of the city public schools. Mr. Harris,
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during his stay at Yale, in 1856, met the venerable Alcott, of Concord, and was much stimulated by
various conversations with him. At that time he had studied Kant a little, and was beginning to think
upon Goethe.

The hints given him by Mr. Alcott were valuable, and some time afterward, when he settled in St.
Louis, and came into contact with Germans of culture and originality, his desire for philosophical
study was greatly increased and strengthened. In 1858 he became engaged in teaching, for eight
years conducting one of the city graded schools.

The first year of his stay in St. Louis he studied Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," without, as he says,
understanding it at all. He had been solicited and encouraged to these studies by Henry C.
Brockmeyer, a remarkable and brilliant German, and so enthusiastic for Kantian study that he awoke
a genuine fervor in Mr. Harris. They arranged a Kant class, which Mr. Alcott on one occasion visited,
and in a short time the love for philosophical study became almost

fanaticism. A number of highly cultured Germans and Americans composed the circle, whose
members had a supreme contempt for the needs of the flesh, and who, after long days of laborious
and exhaustive teaching, would spend the night hours in threading the mysteries of Kant. In 1858 Mr.
Harris claims that they mastered Kant, and between that period and 1863 they analyzed, or, as he
phrases it, obtained the keys to Leibnitz and Spinoza. The result of this long study is written out in
what Mr. Harris calls his "Introduction to Philosophy," in which he deals with "speculative insights."
Every one, he claims, will have the same insight into Kant, Leibnitz and Spinoza as he did, by reading
his "Introduction." He already has a large number of followers, many of whom, according to his
confession, apply his theories better than he does himself: and his Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, started boldly in the face of many obstacles, has won a permanent establishment and
gratifying success.

Among the most prominent members of the Philosophical Society, definitely organized in 1864, were
Mr. Brockmeyer, J. G. Werner, now a probate judge, Mr. Kroeger (a stern, unrelenting philosopher,
enamored of Fichte, translator of the "Science of Knowledge," and author of a "History of the
Minnesingers"), George H. Howison, now in the Boston Institute of Technology, and Mr. Thomas
Davidson, one of the most profound students of Aristotle in this country. Mr. Brockmeyer is the
accomplished translator of Hegel's "Logic."

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy was prompted in this wise: Mr. Harris wrote a "Critique upon
Herbert Spencer's First Principles," which was
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offered to The North American Review, but the editors failed to discover anything in it save that it was
very audacious, and returned it to the author. Mr. Harris thereupon boldly started his own journal in
April of 1867. The publication is gaining ground in this country, and has won a very wide and hearty
recognition in Germany and among thinking men throughout Europe.

Mr. Harris has been an indefatigable worker, as well as a deep thinker, for a score of years. The
impetus given by him and his confreres to the growth of a deep and pure literature in the West and
South is as yet too little appreciated. A brilliant talker, a man of great originality, and of positive genius
for analysis, he is fitted to shine in the brightest of the world's capitals, but loves his Southwestern
home, and will doubtless remain in it. The teachers grouped around him in his work of directing the
schools of the new metropolis are brilliant men and women, thoroughly in love with their work, and
animated by his inspiring presence with the proper spirit.

The Germans have, as a rule, frankly joined hands with the Americans in the public schools, and
have imparted to them many excellent features. The composite system differs largely from that in
vogue in other cities. There is, of course, a very large Catholic population in St. Louis, but it is pretty
evenly balanced by German skepticism.

The city public schools are utterly secular in their teaching, but, notwithstanding that fact, the
priesthood makes constant and successful efforts to keep Catholic children from them; and
wherever a new public school building is erected, Holy Church speedily buys ground and sets up an
institution of her own. The Catholic laity of St. Louis, however, are, perhaps, if they spoke their real
sentiments, in favor of the public schools; and there has been a vast advance toward liberalism on
their part within the last few years. The Catholics have eight or nine out of the twenty-four members of
the school board, and of course have much to say.

It is wonderful that in a capital where the population is so little gregarious, and where, up to last year,
it has been so comparatively indifferent to lecture courses, such an earnest interest should be taken
in the schools by all classes. All the powers relating to the management of the schools are vested in
a corporate body called "the Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools," the
members of the board to be elected for terms of three years. The school revenue is derived from
rents of property originally donated by the General Government, by the State school fund, and from
taxes of four mills on the dollar on city property, the yearly income from these sources averaging
perhaps $700,000. The school board has authority to tax to any amount.

Between the district and the high schools there is a period of seven years, during which the pupil
acquires a symmetrical development admirably fitting him for the solid instruction which the finishing
school can offer. But out of forty thousand children enrolled upon the public school list, only about
two and a-half per cent. enter the high school. The feature of German-English instruction has
become exceedingly popular, and the number of pupils belonging to the classes increased from 450
in 1864-65, to 10,246 in 1871-72. The phonetic
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system of learning to read was introduced in the primary schools in 1866, and has been attended
with the most gratifying results.

The city acted wisely in introducing the study of German, as otherwise the Teutonic citizen would
doubtless have been tempted to send his child to a private school during his early years. Now native
American children take up German reading and oral lessons at the same time as their little German
fellow-scholars; and in the high school special stress is laid upon German instruction in the higher
grades, that the pupils may be fitted for a thorough examination of German science and literature.

The growth of St. Louis is so rapid that the school board has been compelled to build several large
new school buildings annually, each capable of containing from seven to eight hundred pupils. The
introduction of natural science into the district schools is indicative of liberal progress. Normal
schools in St. Louis and at Kirksville and Warrensburg are annually equipping splendid corps of
teachers. The public school system throughout the State is exceedingly popular, judging from the
fact that a quarter of a million of children attend the schools during the sessions.

The State fund appropriated to school purposes is usually large, and although there have been
objections to local taxation for school support in some of the counties, the taxes have generally been
promptly paid. The largest and finest edifices in such flourishing cities as St. Joseph, Kansas City,
Sedalia, Clinton, Springfield, Mexico, Louisiana, and Booneville are usually the "school-houses;" and
in Kansas City, which was without railroad communication in 1865, the school buildings are now as
complete, elegant, and large as any in Boston or Chicago. The School of Design in St. Louis,
conducted by Mr. Conrad Diehl, is rapidly growing, and has already won enviable praise in the most
cultured art circles of the East.

The Catholic population within the archdiocese of St. Louis is certainly very large, probably
numbering two hundred thousand persons; and from this population at least twenty-five thousand
children are furnished to the one hundred parish schools attached to the various churches in the
diocese. None of these schools receive any aid from the common school fund, and the pupils are in
every way removed from the influences of secular education, and made a class by themselves.

It is estimated that the Catholics now own more than four million dollars' worth of church and school
property in Missouri; and in their various colleges,
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convents, seminaries, and academies in St. Louis and the other large cities of the State they have at
least fifteen hundred students. They have kept well abreast of the tide of secular education, and bid it
open defiance on all occasions, while the skeptical and easy-going German laughs at their zealotry,
and the American shuts his eyes to their growing power.

Vast as is the growth of colleges and schools of various other denominations, such as the Baptist,
the Methodist, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the Catholics keep even with them all.
Ever since old Gribault, the first pastor in St. Louis, led his little flock of five hundred Frenchmen to
the altar, Mother Church has been bold, dominant, defiant in the young capital of the West.

In St. Louis I was especially interested in "Washington University," conducted by Rev. Dr. Eliot, so
long pastor of the First Unitarian Church in that city. The institution has had a superb growth since its
founding in 1853-54, despite the unfortunate intervention of the war, and now has more than eight
hundred students in its various branches. Nourished by generous gifts from the East, it has made
great progress in its departments of civil and mechanical engineering, mining and metallurgy, and
architecture, and its law department is ably supported.

To that section of the University devoted to the special education of women, known as "Mary
Institute," the flower of Missourian girlhood annually repairs. The University seems to have had an
almost mushroom growth; yet its culture is solid and substantial. The State University is located at
Columbia, and has also been characterized by a remarkable growth since the war. During the
struggle its buildings were occupied by United States troops, and its sessions were entirely broken
up; the library was dispersed, the warrants of the institution were afloat at a discount, and various
prejudices had nearly ruined it.

At last Rev. Dr. Daniel Read took the presidency; and the reorganized University comprises a normal
college, an agricultural and mechanical college, opened in 1870, law and medical schools, and a
department of chemistry, and now has attached to it a "school of mines and metallurgy," established
at Rolla, in South-eastern Missouri. Into this mining school students flock from all directions, turning
their attention toward a scientific development of the mineral resources of the State. Women have
finally been admitted to the University, and, at the commencement of 1872, a young lady was
advanced to the baccalaureate grade in science.