The examination of immigrants which I saw at Castle Garden, when I landed, had made me think that traditions did not count for much in Castle Garden. But my principal acquisition from my apprenticeship as greenhorn had been the recognition that there are great American traditions, and that the opportunities of this country are inaccessible to immigrants who, like Bilharz, do not understand their meaning and their vital importance in American life. Vila’s mother on the Delaware farm, my experiences with Christian of West Street, and Jim’s little sermons in the Cortlandt Street boiler-room had impressed this idea upon my mind very strongly. The mental attitude of a young Serb from the military frontier was naturally very receptive to impressions of that kind. My respect for the traditions of my own race had prepared me to respect the traditions of the country which I expected to adopt, and hence I was afraid that my cultural equipment was not up to the standards of the college boys who were brought up in accordance with American traditions. My subsequent experience showed me that my anxiety was justifiable. I have already mentioned that a short time before I ran away from Prague and headed for the United States I had read a translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It had been recommended to me by my American friends who gave me a free ride in a first-class compartment from Vienna to Prague. My mention of the name of this great woman, together with the names of Lincoln and of Franklin, as Americans that I knew something about, had won me the sympathy of the immigration officials at Castle Garden, who, otherwise, might have deported me. Her name was deeply engraved upon the tablets of my memory. The famous Beecher-Tilton trial was much discussed in those days in the New York press, and when I heard that Henry Ward Beecher was a brother of the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” my opinion of Tilton was formed, and no judge or jury could have changed it. Beecher’s photographs, which I saw in my inspection tours on Broadway, confirmed me in my belief that he was a brother worthy of his great sister. Young Lukanitch and his sister knew of Beecher’s fame and, although strict Roman Catholics, they consented to accompany me on my first pilgrimage to Beecher’s Plymouth Church, and there I saw the great orator for the first time.