umber of parents started to learn English
by taking lessons from their children, who themselves were learning
English in the local public schools.

The company's officials stated, in confirmation, that the Polish
settlers in their colonies were growing in dignity and self-reliance,
that they were assuming American characteristics and an American bearing.

TWO POINTS OF VIEW

As the colonies of the company are comparatively young, it is impossible
to foresee their future with certainty. So far they seem to be on a
sound basis, and their success rather than their failure is to be
expected. The soil is good and the settlers stick hard to their work on
the land. The first colony founded seems to be over the danger line
already. It is no longer under the financial control of the company, the
settlers have secured loans outside, and their farms are progressing
from the experimental stage to that of established security.

However, a settler expressed the following apprehension to the writer:

You see us, men and women, old and young, working here in the
wilderness like beavers, clearing and digging, scraping and
building. All are pressed hard by a strong hope of establishing a
permanent home and of earning future independence. But we still
live in makeshift houses, and so far only a few families are able
to make a living, bare and meager, out of their clearings,
diggings, and cows. The vast majority--almost all of us--have, at
times, to leave the farm in care of women and children and look for
work elsewhere--in Duluth, Chicago, Detroit--for the purpose of
earning bread for the family on the farm. A number temporarily hire
out to the company, but the latter's wages are considerably less
than we get in the industrial centers.

You have heard the company's officials and seen their doings, and
everything might seem to you to work smoothly for the benefit of
the settlers. Is it not so? For instance, the company claims that
it sells us tools at cost, but we already have found out in regard
to a number of things that the company makes a fair profit on them.
Again, the company claims that it runs the demonstration farms only
for our benefit, but as a matter of fact the company's aim is, as
we understand it, to build up a large farm estate on the best land
of the tract, and to sell us its products, seeds, breeding stock,