An illustration of how readily the foreigner may respond to the least show of kindness and fellowship is afforded by the following incident. A traveller on a west-bound train out of New York was accosted by a young Italian immigrant, who handed him a card of the Italian Immigration Society on the reverse of which was written, “Please direct this man to Santa Cruz train.” Now it happened that the American had once visited Italy and had picked up a smattering of the language, and partly by this and partly by the use of signs he did his best to convey the desired information. He then asked the young man into his own seat; and, as they talked together of Italy and the places the American had visited, the youth’s face glowed with the joy of remembrance. And then it was revealed that this sturdy and warm-hearted Italian, from whom the American might have turned as from a “dago” and “scum of the earth,” was one of the heroes of the Great War; that he had been wounded in the terrible disaster of Caporetto, and had received from the Italian minister of war testimonials and medals for gallant conduct in battle. It is at least a question whether a vast amount of time, energy, and money has not been misspent in a hysterical endeavor to get the adult immigrant to change his vernacular and foreign ways. Realizing from my own experience, both as a student and as a teacher of English to foreigners, the immense effort necessary to acquire even a rudimentary knowledge of a strange language after the plastic period of youth has passed, I am convinced that too much stress may be laid upon the importance of the mere acquisition of the English language by the adult immigrant. A change in the manners and customs of the immigrant has undoubtedly a useful and necessary part in his Americanization; but undue emphasis upon mere externals may, with its false implications, easily create erroneous impressions. Just now there comes to mind in this connection an illustration prominently displayed upon the front page of one of our most respected periodicals,--a photograph of an immigrant mother standing between her two sons, one of whom is garbed in American hat and overcoat, the other in uncouth workaday attire. Beneath the picture appears this question, “Which is Americanized?” One feels he must protest against the shallow and all too prevalent thinking which finds in the mere alteration of language and dress the essentials of Americanism, and which consequently has so little constructive and farsighted assistance to give to the momentous work of Americanization. It has been far too frequently demonstrated that a person may not only wear American clothes and speak English fluently, but may have been educated from his youth up in American institutions without being really Americanized.