It is almost superfluous to add that there are thousands of immigrants, even of the newer races, who live in conditions wholly different from those we have been discussing. Individuals of every race, in large numbers, have succeeded in raising themselves from the lowly estate of their compatriots, and establishing homes of culture and refinement, even of luxury. Examples of this class are prominent, and are frequently referred to. Yet in spite of this, the slum remains the characteristic home of the average immigrant to this country, and as such it must be reckoned with. The influence of the slum must of necessity be hampering and degrading to its denizens. No poorer training school for American citizens could be devised. Not only is the life prejudicial to health and morals, and destructive of ambition, but it precludes practically all incidental or unconscious contact with the uplifting influences of American life. Almost the only actively assimilating agency with which the slum dweller comes into immediate relationship is the public school, and this lacks much of its value as an assimilating force in districts which are so largely foreign that the pupils meet few, if any, children of native-born parents. Any practical program for solving the immigration problem must attack the slum boldly. In the words of Mr. Frederic Almy, “You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and you cannot make an American citizen out of a tenement slum. The slum must go. If you spare the slum, you will spoil the child.”[215]