Scorn of the immigrant is not peculiar to our generation. A search of old newspaper files will show that the arrival of great numbers of immigrants of any one nationality has always been considered a problem. In turn each nationality as it became established in the new country has considered the next-comers a danger. The early history of Pennsylvania records the hostility to the Germans—“fear dominated the minds of the Colonists”—despite the fact that the German invaders were land-owning and good farmers. An Irish boy observed to one of our residents that on Easter Day he intended to kill his little Jewish classmate. Having had long experience of the vigorous language and kind heart of the young Celt, she paid little attention to the threat, but was more startled when the soft-eyed Francesco chimed in that he was also going to destroy him “because he killed my Gawd.” “But,” said the teacher, “Christ was a Jew.” “Yes, I know,” answered the young defender of the faith, “He was then, but He’s an American now.” Despite its absurdity, was not the boy’s conception an exaggerated illustration of that surface patriotism which is almost universally stimulated and out of which soul-deadening prejudices may grow—may take root even in the public schools? * * * * * Great is our loss when a shallow Americanism is accepted by the newly arrived immigrant, more particularly by the children, and their national traditions and heroes are ruthlessly pushed aside. The young people have usually to be urged by someone outside their own group to recognize the importance and value of customs, and even of ethical teaching, when given in a foreign language, or by old-world people with whom the new American does not wish to be associated in the minds of his acquaintances. This does not apply only to the recent immigrant, to whom his children often hear contemptuous terms applied. I remember attending a public hearing before the Department of Education of New York City at which Germans vigorously urged the study of their native tongue in the public schools, because of the impossibility of persuading their children to learn or use the language by any other means than that of having it made a part of the great American public school system. It is difficult to find evidence of any serious effort on our part to comprehend the mental reaction upon the immigrant of the American institutions he encounters. Indeed, gathering up the story of the immigrant, I sometimes wonder if he, like the fairies, does not hold up a magic mirror wherein our social ethics are reflected, rather than his own visage. What we are to the immigrant in our civic, social, and ethical relations is quite as important as what he is to us. We risk destruction of the spirit—that element of life that makes it human—when we disregard our neighbor’s personality. * * * * *