One of the difficulties, perhaps the greatest, in the way of such endeavors is the common practice of all our foreigners to colonize, both in the city and in the country, thus creating for themselves an environment which perpetuates indefinitely the alien characteristics peculiar to them. The foreigner remains a foreigner still. He has simply transplanted the environment in which he was born, minus some of its burdens, from the Old World to the New, and he may continue the remainder of his life in the midst of these surroundings as much an alien, right here in Chicago, as if he had never crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He looks with distrust and with contempt upon the institutions of this land because he does not understand them, and he is suspicious of every stranger who is _hostis_ (an enemy) until he knows him. The foreign settlements in the country districts are, if possible, still more unaffected by the influence of their larger environment than the foreign colonies in the cities. In many portions of our land it is possible to travel for miles through a foreign country, as far as population is concerned, and not seldom is the second generation as thoroughly foreign as their parents, so that an American may need an interpreter at every house if he intends to transact business there. Under such conditions it is very evident that the moral, intellectual, or religious development of these communities would be the work of ages, if dependent upon the forces within themselves. The cultivating power must come from without and be shot through and through them, so that the individuals and the families in them may somehow come under the influence of that larger environment lying outside of their immediate colony, or the years will only perpetuate the conditions which in our day have become not only interesting but very serious social problems for Americans to solve. Such an outside penetrating power is the American public school. Here is an institution which, whatever else it does not do, certainly fosters a spirit of patriotism and of loyalty to the flag that floats above it. No other land can be as dear to the children educated here as this land; no language will be more thoroughly theirs than the language of their books and teachers; and thus it will be found that in any foreign community where the children attend the public schools, American ideas and standards of life are permeating it with a power which must eventually change it into an American community.