_The racial element_ in ethnical assimilation is gradually modified by the imperative adjustment of the immigrant to his new conditions of life. For the observer and student of history there is nothing more instructive and, at times, more pathetic than that borderland which lies between what has been and what is to be in the life of the immigrant. This violent breaking away from the past and gradual assimilation with the present has its dangers. Unknown and occult factors are at work with the blood of several generations, pulsating in the veins of the new Canadian. Whilst beckoning hands stretch out to receive him on our shores and initiate him into our national life, other hands, the hands of the dead, stretch out through several generations to lay claim on him. Like everything in nature this change or rather this transformation should be imperceptible. Mutual toleration is the factor of a healthy assimilation. This has given to the United States a greater solvent power than has been shown by any other nation, ancient or modern. Coercive assimilation arouses national feelings, alien elements, and racial self-assertion. The worst enemy of Canada is the political power which, to please a blatant, ultra-loyal faction, pursues the policy of crushing into uniformity the heterogeneous elements invited to the country and allured to our shores with the bait of liberty. This patriotism may be well called the last refuge of scoundrels; it is nothing but Prussianism wrapped up in the very folds of the Union-Jack. Therefore, when in the great work of Canadianization this law of social psychology is not observed, we not only prevent assimilation, but we deprive the nation of the fertilizing contact and invigorating contrast of various ethnical elements and ferment future conflict.