Clearly, if we are to build up a united and wholesome national life, such attitudes of aloofness as have persisted will have to be abandoned. If that life is to be enriched and varied--not monotonous and mechanical--the lowly and the simple, as well as the great and the mighty, must be able to make their contribution. This contribution can become possible, not as the result of any compulsory scheme, but of conditions favoring noble, generous, and sympathetic living. The family is an institution based on the affection of the parents and their self-sacrifice for the life and future of their children. Of all institutions it exemplifies the power of co-operative effort, and demands sympathetic and patient understanding. This is perhaps especially true of the foreign-born family. This discussion of the family problems of the foreign-born groups in relation to the development of a national consciousness and a national unity is based on the belief that no attempts at compulsory adjustment can in the nature of things be successful. Sometimes the interests of the common good and of the weaker groups demand for their own protection the temporary exercise of compulsion, but the real solution lies in policies grounded in social justice and guided by social intelligence. HOMES STUDIED The material in this study is of a qualitative sort. No attempt has been made to organize a statistical study. The problems of family life do not lend themselves to the statistical method except at great cost of time and money. A large body of data with reference to conditions existing during the decade just prior to the Great War, exists in the reports of several special government investigations, especially the report of the United States Immigration Commission, that of the United States Bureau of Labor relating to conditions surrounding women and child wage earners, and that of the British Board of Trade on the "Cost of Living in American Towns." The regular publications of certain government bureaus, especially the United States Children's Bureau, the Bureau of Home Economics in the United States Department of Agriculture, and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, were found useful. These publications have been studied so far as they discuss the problem of family life. Their contents are presented only in illustration or in confirmation of statements made.