foreign-language schools and their opponents do not always correspond
to the reality. It has been the writers impression that the defenders
were inclined to diminish the negative influence of these schools, while
their opponents in a number of cases saw these schools darker than they
really were.

For instance, it was a usual experience of the writer, when he arrived
in an immigrant colony and explained either to individual leaders or to
a meeting of the whole colony the purpose of his inquiry, to receive at
the outset the following answer: "Well, we are all Americanized; we are
all Americans; we understand and speak the American language and love
the country; we are not a colony at all, but just plain American people
of a certain old-country stock," etc. When it developed that the
language of their church service and the teaching language in their
private schools was their old-country language, the leaders began, with
certain embarrassment, to admit that the old folks and the late arrivals
do not understand English, and therefore the mother tongue of the
parents becomes the home language for both the young and old. And since
some settlers intend to return to the old country, and do not like to
lose their former nationality--their old-country tongue is used in the
churches and taught in the schools.

Perhaps the Polish settlers were most outspoken in their attachment to
their nationality, while the German settlers were either silent or
denied their preference for the German nationality; their main argument
in favor of the use of German in their churches and schools was based on
purely religious grounds. It was solely on this religious ground that
they explained the higher proportion of German-language schools to the
number of German immigrants than obtains in any other immigrant national
group. The Jews claimed that their racial characteristics, such as diet,
moral conceptions according to the Mosaic laws, and study of Hebrew
history, were really contributions to America. They justified on this
ground the cultivation of their racial differences, maintaining that
there is nothing in this opposed to American ideals, but that, on the
contrary, it is in accord with what this country stands for and fosters.

On the other hand, the opponents of foreign-language schools often
viewed them as the sole hindrance to the better understanding and
acceptance of American ways and institutions, the creators of
disloyalty. They would