In the end, no doubt, many foreign-born housewives have learned to care for their homes and raise their families as systematically as their American neighbors, who have had fewer difficulties to contend with. It is, however, a wasteful system which leaves the instruction of the immigrant housewife to the chance instruction she can gain from fellow countrywomen who have themselves learned only imperfectly. If the community only realized what the difficulties were for the housewife from a different civilization, it would undoubtedly stretch out a friendly and helping hand to assist her over the first rough path. Whatever form this help takes, it must be offered in the spirit of friendly co-operation, and not of didactic superiority, if the desired result is to be gained. FOOTNOTES: [13] Details may be secured from the National Housing Association, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City. [14] Chicago Housing Studies, _American Journal of Sociology_, vol. xx, p. 154. [15] Children's Bureau Publication No. 9, "Infant Mortality, Johnstown, Pennsylvania," p. 29. [16] See Edith Elmer Wood, _The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_; _Report of Massachusetts Homestead Commission_; _Reports of United States Housing Corporation_. [17] Edith Elmer Wood, _Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_, chap. viii. [18] Edith Elmer Wood, _Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner_, p. 233. [19] _Survey_, June 28, 1919. [20] See _Annual Report of the Immigrants' Protective League, 1910-1911_, and Abbott, _The Immigrant and the Community_, chap. v, "The Special Problems of the Immigrant Girl." IV PROBLEMS OF SAVING There has been in the past much harsh and thoughtless criticism of the foreign-born groups, because of the extent to which they have seemed able and willing to subordinate present necessities and enjoyments to provide for certain future contingencies. PRESENT AND FUTURE NEEDS Many of those who come to this country are in debt for their passage. Others have left near relatives at home who must be helped to come over. Some have come, intending to establish themselves and to be married here. Some expect to take back a part of their earnings to better the condition of those left behind. Their coming, whether to stay permanently or to return, often does not relieve them of their obligations to the group in the old country. One of the strongest impressions that the reader gets from the letters in _The Polish Peasant_ is that of the frequency with which relatives in the old country ask for money from the one who has gone ahead. It is not only his wife and children, or aged parents, that ask for money, but all the members of the wider familial group, and sometimes even friends with no claim on the score of kinship.