though that does not categorically follow. But it is no test whatever of whether the citizenship instruction which he is getting is making him a good citizen, or, to be more specific, an intelligent voter. It may indeed be so conducted as to make the transition between the old-world ideas about the responsibilities of citizenship and the new more difficult than it would otherwise have been.

The bulk of immigrant education being carried on outside the public schools is under the auspices of these two groups, and there are so few agencies organized solely for the purpose of Americanization that we are not going to get far until, in terms of results, the two things are segregated.

Perhaps this rather long excursion into the more theoretical aspects of Americanization has been unwarranted, and lest you feel that there has been little of a practical nature in this paper, let me return to the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association. What I have said, I think, should make it quite clear that in so far as that association has failed to live up to its opportunities in the matter of Americanization the fault lies with the Americanization movement and the current conception of its objectives, rather than with those who have directed the policy of this particular association. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that it has been more keenly alive, and that both its tangible and intangible results have been greater, than most of the community organizations with which I am familiar. To ask an outside organization to come in and make a critical study of their whole program from the standpoint of Americanization, as did Mr. Franklin of The Council on Immigrant Education last year, is not only a unique attitude for a social agency to take, but it indicates what we found-an appreciation of the extreme difficulty of getting observable results, and an exceedingly sincere interest in doing so.

There have, within the last four years, been developments which seem to us significant:

Participation. Theoretically, the association at the outset was democratically organized, with a membership in the neighborhood, an annual meeting, and the like. Actually, as Mr. Franklin has pointed out, this theoretical organization was finally abandoned and the quarterly meetings discontinued. The participation of the neighborhood is now sought through key individuals who are elected to membership, the Slovak-American Club, the several other adult clubs which meet in the building, the boys' and girls' clubs of the association, and in various other informal ways.

From the standpoint of Americanization, the fact of participation should, I think, be considered as an end in itself. It is a means of bringing about that transition between the old and the new, and an evidence that it is happening naturally and normally; new habits are formed by activity, new ideas take real root only if there is real opportunity for their expression. Racial barriers can only be broken down as the immigrant finds an opportunity for participation in terms of American organization, rather than in terms of his own specialized interests and societies.

With Mr. Franklin's implied assumption that this participation can come as well or better through conference, the joint conduct of activities, and the like, than through a form of organization which is only theoretically demonstration I am in full accord, for one of the things we must learn is, I think, that the mechanics of democracy do not assure its reality. I should like to raise two questions from the standpoint of a policy which believes that active participation and the assumption of responsibility for community enterprise by the different races in a neighborhood is one of the best means of their assimilation: first, Is not the size of the Bowling Green program very much larger than this neighborhood could itself ever finance or direct? Second, If this is so, and I think it is, is not an insuperable barrier thereby raised to real participation on the part of the groups in the neighborhood, the participation which comes from the acceptance of final responsibility for leadership, policy, and finance the participation which might have come with a smaller, less institutionalized program? Perhaps I should put a third question: How far does the fact-if it is a fact that the neighborhood can never assume the fundamental responsibility for the program act as a barrier to its accepting any? And in asking these questions please do not feel that I am in any way questioning the desirability of the association's program, nor even really question that, if alternatives are implied, the one which it has chosen is not the most socially desirable. All I am doing is throwing for debate the questions as to whether that participation by foreign-born individuals and groups in a community, which seems to me one of the evidences that Americanization is going on, is possible of achievement with a program in relation to its community such as that of the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association.

English.-Knowledge of the English language is one of the few results in the field of Americanization which is at present observable and measurable. The association has, since 1920, made several experiments in this field of activity; at present a thriving class of man, many Slovaks, is being carried on by a special teacher. There is also a class for women conducted by the director of social service. These things are definite, tangible, and desirable.

On the other hand, quite in contrast to the health field, there has been no study of the language "mortality" of the district. There has been excellent cooperation with the health department and almost no cooperation with the evening-school department, which conducts a school only six blocks away. It is a school which needs very much also the stimulus of outside interest.

Citizenship. Amongst the agencies in New York which are assisting people to fill out their naturalization papers, to iron out technical difficulties either in the naturalization bureau or in the court, the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association stands high. Four hundred and fifty were given such assistance last year, and except for two or three agencies in other parts of the city which do nothing but that, the number is larger than most of the standard social agencies.

Moreover, there has been an emphasis on citizenship which has had a real influence in increasing the number of those who apply.

On the other hand, it has been, on the whole, a matter of "helping men become citizens," rather than "preparing them for it." One cannot teach loyalty to the Constitution or the flag, but you can give a prospective citizen information about our history, our form of government, the geography of the country, similar to that which a graduate from the elementary grade gets. There has been nothing of this sort in the program nor are there facilities elsewhere in the district.

Other departments.-What, if any, results from the standpoint of Americanization can be observed from the other activities of the association? Frankly, we have no definite answer. It is desirable that the death-rate be lowered and that tuberculosis be decreased. Does the fact of that reduction constitute an Americanizing influence in the laws of very many of the individual members of the Bowling Green community? It is desirable that mothers come to the clinic for prenatal care, and that they bring their babies for health examination. Does that care and that attendance at the clinic make for a breaking down of oldworld traditions and the acceptance of American standards? Very likely, but how, and how measure it? It is desirable that outdoor toilets be eliminated, that overcrowding in apartments be done away with. Does that elimination by an outside force make for changing attitudes in standards of living? Possibly, but where and how? We Americans think it is desirable that the boys and girls of the community be given leadership in organizing themselves into clubs and athletic teams. Does that organization lead them into an adjustment to American ways of doing things which their parents did not have? Does it in any way reach back to the parents born abroad and help them to understand America? Or does it widen the inevitable breach between the two?

I have already said that we have no satisfactory answer. Yet, speaking specifically again, to the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association we may point out this: Each one of the races in that neighborhood—the Slovaks, Greeks, Syrians, Poles, and the others, bring with them to this country certain values and attitudes in regard to most of the things which the general program is attacking. The people in each one of these races have lived in different kinds of homes in their mother countries. Each has ideas about health and sanitation. Their ideas and attitudes are, in all of them, very bad from the standpoint of modern scientific public health, but real from the standpoint of the psychology of the individual. The social and family traditions are equally different: the place of the woman in the home; the kind of entertainment the girls can go to, and when; attitude and habits of play, and the like. It is the clash between these attitudes and habits and the values which the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association is trying to substitute that constitutes the Americanization process.

I think it is fair to say that none of these other departmental programs have

been organized from this point of view. The doctors and nurses and plan leaders have been American, and have not understood as a matter of fact it is probably impossible to get doctors or nurses who do understand-the reasons for, and the traditions behind, the habits of such different races as the Slovaks, Syrians, Greeks, and Poles. The association has not made serious study of the practical relation of these backgrounds to the concrete work which it was undertaking. Personnel has not been selected from that point of view. On the one hand, Americanization has been considered as a segregated field with an inadequately developed program of specialized activities. On the other, the establishment of typically American standards of health and recreation has been interpreted as resulting in the general Americanization of the community, but with very little consideration of the relationship of these standards to the traditional and habitual ones which the immigrant brought with him. The focus of each department's program on this problem-the study of its work and its results in these terms-would constitute a very real contribution to Americanization.

What, then, are we to conclude about observable results in community organization from the standpoint of Americanization?

First, that the Americanization movement has given us no standard whatever for judging the psychological substitution of new values for old, which is the basic fact in the Americanization process. This applies to other fields of social work just as much as to that of community organization.

Second, that of the results which are most observable, the ability to speak English stands first, and that while the actual instruction in English is the function of the teaching profession, just as is the conduct of the health clinic the function of the medical profession, the community association has a similar organizing function: to raise the standard of English speech in the community, which it ought to be equally possible to measure.

Third, that in giving assistance to people in filling out citizenship papers we have another function whose results it is possible to measure, and that in preparing for citizenship we have an educational task to which the community association's relation is the same as the task of instruction in English.

Fourth, we suggest, at least, that the fact of participation in the conduct of activities and the assumption of responsibility for policies by the foreign residents of the community is one of the best means of facilitating the Americanization process, and one of the results which it is possible to observe and for which measurements can be set up.

Fifth, that from the standpoint of Americanization the conduct of our standard American program of health, recreation, social service, are not ends in themselves, and that only in so far as they touch those vital contact points between the old and the new in the lines of the individual immigrant and consciously direct the substitutions which are being made are they achieving results from the standpoint of Americanization.

May we, finally, pay our tribute to the Bowling Green Neighborhood

Association. You cannot but have been impressed, as we were in our study last summer, with their constructive achievements in this particular district. There has been from the beginning a willingness to look facts in the face, not only scientifically to study the problems of their neighborhood, but to examine critically their own program. I know of very few organizations who would be willing to have their results and their program in this extremely embryonic and nebulous field of Americanization subjected to the close scrutiny of outside investigation, and I hope I have made it plain that whatever of criticism may seem to be implied in this paper is criticism of the general state in which Americanization today finds itself, rather than criticism of the association. With such feeble light as there has been to guide them, Mr. Franklin and his predecessors have been struggling with this problem, and struggling, I think I can honestly say, with much more effectiveness than very many of the community organizations in New York City. That for this meeting he should have offered us a laboratory for critical discussion is in itself a contribution that is as valuable as it is unusual.

THE VIEW OF THE CHURCH

Rev. William F. O'Ryan, St. Leo's Church, Denver

I can only briefly indicate my views on the church in its relation to local community work. I believe these views are common to most clergymen of my denomination; indeed, I cannot imagine any of them thinking differently. To all finely organized and highly purposed community endeavor the church can have no other feeling than generous commendation. Whether we take the whole village, or town, or city, or the unfortunately placed district where our underprivileged fellow-citizens are compelled to live, all organized inspiration and work for the advancement and edification of our fellows is precisely of the very essence and purpose and only justification for the existence of the church.

Among the energies of today, the neighborhood house in the poorer and congested districts of our cities, when properly conducted, is an institution that must meet the church's warmest approval. Indeed, many of our parishes, in the larger cities especially, have such houses for social, educational, and recreational conveniences among the parishioners, and it would appear today to be the immediate ambition of all our parishes to have such a center. And this is true not of American cities only, but of many through the world. I visited last summer in London two such settlements in the very wretched districts of the East End; I found them in charge of wealthy ladies of the noblest blood of England. I was pointed out two or three in the Dublin slums. To be sure, these were not in the widest way community houses, their work being confined to one denomination.

Forty years ago I was familiar with the young university settlements of London, which have in modern times been the inspiration and suggestion of all