The Yakima Herald

THE ASSIMILATION OF FOREIGN IMMIGRATION

One of the most wonderful things in the study of sociological conditions in the United States is the rapidity with which the country can assimilate the great mass of foreign immigration that annually pours into this country from every land and from every condition known to social life.

Teeming thousands pour into the country but there is no denationalization. The American is still as typically an American as he was before the cosmopolitan horde poured in upon him at the high ratio that has obtained for the past few decades.

In other words the foreign element in our population is assimilated, and the descendants of the immigrant in the second or third generation are Americanized.

Expert students of types have set up facts to prove that there is a change in physical type as well as in mental and social characteristics. but that is far fetched in distinction with the change that is proven to take place in the social and political conditions, and the wonder is what is the mill through which immigration passes to effect the transformation.

The best answer is that it is mainly a matter of education, and by this is comprehended all the factors that help to mold and make men to conform to the social environment. It is this leaven of American social conditions that so soon breaks up the lump of foreign immigration and converts it into an assimilated product. Chief of these factors is undoubtedly the American public school, and the reduction wrought by the Americanized child upon the home life of the immigrant. It is, beyond question, a combination of these influences that impels the immigrant to seek naturalization and adopt citizenship.

Too much credit can not be given to the influence of the public schools as a factor in the assimilation process. Not only is its value known and positive in the nation but it has proven its worth in its extension into the colonies that have come under the protection of the flag.

When Cuba was under the protection of the United States the public school system was introduced and it is the one part that has stuck regardless of Cuban independence.

The little red school house followed the flag into Porto Rico and the Philippines and is one of the prominent features of the American system of control.

The Americanization of the Porto Ricans is the amazement of Europe and the comparative ease with which the transformation has been wrought is not only the source of wide comment but has been made the subject of expert investigation, and the savants who have had the problem in hand give full credit to the persuasive influence of the public school system which has developed ideals of patriotism, of religion and of domestic virtues and inculcated these virtues into the citizenship of the island.

This has fostered better feeling between the continent and the islands because of a better understanding and a better appreciation of the relations between the government and the governed. Citizenship, the duties of citizenship and the benefits of citizenship are better known because of this training and it is conceded that the American system is winning where others have failed because of this campaigning for public education as an integral part of the scheme for social uplift.