‘The quota, dear Lysis,’ I said, ‘is another of the mystic numbers of the Americans and one that serves their desires. For by means of varying numbers reached in an obscure manner they control the admission into their country in such a manner that very few can come of those who will be likely to resist having their souls made for them, but a greater number of those who yield easily to Americanization. In particular, is it contrived that hardly any of the Mediterranean peoples shall be admitted, for these peoples are the hardest of all to Americanize, as they have lived in civilization for so great a time.’ ‘I understand,’ said Lysis. ‘But the people who are least unwelcome to-day are the partly civilized peoples of North Europe and the British Isles. For these people are not so wild as to be dangerous and they have lived in a hard struggle with nature which has made material prosperity seem to them an extremely great thing and one worthy of great efforts. Now material prosperity is what the Americans offer, and it is the inducement always held out when those who make opinion wish to persuade the populace to any particular course.’ ‘But,’ asked Phaelon, ‘why did you not tell the undesirables what you knew about America, so that they would have been glad they had been shut out? It does not sound much fun being an alien in America to-day.’ ‘It would be grievous indeed,’ I said, ‘did not the aliens live together in communities, but so banded they maintain their own life and reproduce Greece or Italy beyond the seas, as is the purpose of a colony. And it is a source of merriment to these men to be told to think American thoughts, as the judges say who make them citizens.’ ‘Yes,’ said Agathon, ‘but it is not merriment for their children who become Americans.’ ‘They enjoy it,’ I said, ‘for the children of bad Greeks make good Americans. And bad we must consider the Greeks to be who leave Greece and risk their souls in America for the sake of wealth. Such folk do nothing to lead the Americans to Greek thought.’ ‘Being such lovers of profit,’ said Agathon, ‘they are timid and have little influence.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but coming from civilization they have characters of their own, and are richly individual, for that is the mark of civilization, but having left Greece for gain they have no proper sense of being members of a political community, while the Americans are filled to excess with that sense. But an alien child brought up in America will often be both an individual and a citizen.’ Lysis here said: ‘Might not such an alien child combine the faults rather than the virtues of both types?’ ‘That happens,’ I replied, ‘and I have great fears for Xantippe’s children if she keeps them there to be Americanized.’ ‘I may be a blockhead, Socrates,’ said Lysis, ‘but I should like to hear you explain much more fully about the strength of the soul when it is Americanized.’