Twenty-Five Years 'In Residence'

THE twenty-fifth anniversary of the South End Settlement House, Boston, in itself a noteworthy event in the more recent life of the city, is worthy of wider recognition as representing a distinct phase of the social movement of the last quarter of a century. The general object of that movement, in the words of Jane Addams, was ‘ the effort to add the social function to democracy.’ Settlement work in particular had for its object the endeavor to arrest the segregation of classes which was rapidly going on in the larger cities of the country. The segregated classes, set apart by circumstance as if by force, were being recruited from the disabled or otherwise discouraged families of the native population; from immigrants of diverse nationalities; from the ranks of unskilled labor; and from that constant and considerable element born to the inheritance of poverty, or to those inheritances which predispose to poverty and crime. These classes filled the tenement houses of the congested districts, and overflowed into the abandoned homes of the declining neighborhood.

It is not surprising that the settlement idea, when applied to a condition at once so widespread and so acute, should seem somewhat limited in its scope; but the idea was at least clear and definite. Moreover, it was logical. It was obvious that the process of segregation could be arrested only through some actual and effective identification of society at large with the segregated classes. Various agencies were already at work among them to their ad vantage and for the public good — the religious mission, the charity organization, the public school. Even the political club, like Tammany, had a value in its work among the newer immigrants. But there still remained the need of something which should represent more simply and more completely the one idea of identification — not primarily that of giving or even of serving, but of sharing. This was the settlement idea, and the first step to be taken in carrying it out was for the settlement worker to go into residence in the neighborhood of the segregated classes.

There were two possible difficulties to be overcome: first, that of securing residents in sufficient numbers and of the right quality, and second, that of making their residence a social reality, a thoroughly human fact in the view of their neighbors. The first difficulty was not discouraging, for experience in matters of like concern had shown how ready was the response of the colleges, universities, and seminaries to the call to sacrificing service. The second difficulty was more serious. We shall fail to understand the significance of the settlement if we fail to understand the imperative and exacting nature of its underlying idea. Going into residence could mean nothing less to the resident than a process of naturalization. It was more than outwardly casting in his lot with his new neighbors. It meant the establishing of reciprocal relations with them. It meant the willingness and the ability on his part to receive from them as well as to give to them. It meant the interpretation to them and to himself of the possibilities of the common lot. It was not to be chiefly a matter of self-denial. It called for the enthusiasm of the initiative, the enthusiasm of insight and faith. It involved the immediate recognition, and later the understanding, of the resources of the neighborhood as well as of its necessities. It involved further the ability, through careful study and investigation, to relate both its resources and its necessities to those general economic conditions which affect so vitally the social status of every working community,

Such was the settlement idea, with its manifest opportunity and with its equally manifest difficulties, which was to be put to the proof. There stood to its credit, and to the very great advantage of those who were to try the experiment in this country, the experience of the men from the English universities who had gone into residence in the slums of London. The pioneers of settlement work in our American cities — Stanton Coit in New York (1886) and Vida Scudder (the Women’s College Settlement of 1889), Jane Addams in Chicago (1889) and Robert A. Woods in Boston (1891)—had made themselves familiar by studies on the ground with the principles and methods of the English settlements. Mr. Woods had been a resident at Toynbee Hall on a fellowship from Andover Seminary; and as a result of his experiences published the first book on the general subject issued in this country, under the title, English Social Movements.

Modifications of the settlement idea were necessary to adapt it fully to our social conditions; but the rapid growth of settlements when once the work had begun showed not only the inherent vitality of the idea but also its adaptability. In 1891 there were four settlements: two in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Boston; in 1897, seventy-four; in 1900, two hundred and four; in 1911, four hundred and thirteen; in 1916, more than five hundred.

The settlement motive has also gone out into the newer aims and methods of the churches and schools, and of community clubs. Growth is seen to be intensive as well as extensive. Settlement workers are coming to an increasing consciousness of the depth of their motive, as they have a better measure of the range of their work. Federations of settlements in the larger cities are bringing neighborhood workers together for the exchange of experiences, for the elimination of competition and cross-purposes, for sharing the results of the best skill and leadership, and for considering the most effective measures for influencing public opinion, or for securing desired legislation. There is a National Federation of Settlements with a constituent membership of nearly two hundred settlements and of several thousand residents. The Federation holds an annual conference ‘for the casting up of local community problems in their broader meanings and bearings,’ and for the furtherance of ends which can be effected only through ‘the massing of forces.’

This summary of growth, however, impressive as it is as evidence of increasing vitality and of cumulative power, does not answer certain questions reaching below organization and outward results, which are essential to any just appraisal of the present value of the settlements in their local or national service. There are three questions of this nature which seem to me to call for a definite answer.

Has the settlement idea proved a creative force capable of organizing and carrying out a specific work in the broad field of community organization?

To what extent has the settlement proved to be a contributory force of recognized value in the related field of economic and civic reform ?

And, perhaps most essential, how far has the settlement succeeded in developing a type of leadership fitted to meet and satisfy its requirements, and capable of taking a responsible part in the public service? It is evident that in the final analysis the whole question returns upon the resident himself, his personality, his resources, and the definiteness and sincerity of his purpose.

I

The settlement idea has virtually created a new social unit of very great possibilities out of the city neighborhood, corresponding in kind to the ward as a political unit, or to the parish as a religious unit. The city neighborhood of the congested districts may be said to be almost a self-existent fact. It is the inevitable consequence of congestion. It easily becomes an altogether dominant fact. It quickly fixes the grade of the individual and of the family within its limits. At its best, it creates a condition of social mediocrity. At its worst, it becomes an actively demoralizing environment, a forcing-bed of poverty and disease, the home of the gang, the haunt of the vices.

This demoralizing or depressing effect of the congested neighborhood had long been a fact of common observation, and had begun to be a fact of common concern. It was the distinction of the settlement that it seized upon this fact of neighborhood domination and reinterpreted it in terms of social value. The environment of the neighborhood was in itself neither moral nor immoral, but unmoral — simply a neutral fact. Why not, then, reverse the method of philanthropic effort, and instead of working for the rescue of the individual or the family from a bad environment, work, if need be, with redoubled effort but with better hope, to reconstruct the neighborhood with the consent and coöperation of its residents?

This idea of changing the character of a bad environment through the aid of those affected by it was not altogether original. It can be traced perhaps more directly than to any other source to the teachings and personal influence of Mr. Ruskin. As early as 1866 Octavia Hill, aided by Mr. Ruskin, had shown what could be done in changing over a low-type tenement house in London by making her home in the house and educating the tenants to the change while the physical transformation was going on about them. At about the same time, and with a like object, Edward Denison, a pupil of Mr. Ruskin, went ‘into residence,’ or, as it seemed to some of his friends, into social exile, in the Stepney district of East London; and later, Arnold Toynbee, acting under the same influence and to the same end. Then came in due time Toynbee Hall and the London settlements, to be followed, as has been seen, by the hundreds of settlements in this country.

The results to be expected from the application of the settlement idea must necessarily vary somewhat according to the characteristics of the neighborhood, and according to the special interests and aptitudes of the residents. Some neighborhoods open to settlement work, like the ‘ villages’ of Greenwich and Chelsea in New York City, contain a remnant of old inhabitants. Though invaded by the factory and the tenement, many of the old houses of the village remain, transformed into roomingor boarding-houses. This mingling of a decadent social element with the raw social material of the immigrant classes constitutes, wherever it is found, a distinct problem. Other neighborhoods are altogether made up of immigrants, homogeneous or heterogeneous as one nationality or many occupy the ground, and to be treated accordingly. The race-question is sensitive, and often complicated, even if confined to a single race. It may be desirable, for example, to prevent the too rapid Americanization of the more forward races, especially of the children, involving, as it often does, the loss of certain racial qualities of value to our composite national life. And there are other neighborhoods still in which the element of unskilled labor predominates, irrespective of nationality — where the sweatshop is typical of the industries; where the struggle for existence is acute; and where the consequent result is poverty and disease in many forms. It is evident that the various problems in such a district are at their root economic, and crowd the line of the living wage.

In less degree, and yet to an appreciable extent, results may be expected to vary according to the special interests and aptitudes of the residents. Settlement work is too personal to be standardized. While the general policy of all settlements is the same, every house has its distinctive character. The immediate motives leading to their establishment may vary from the religious, or ethical, or broadly human motive, to the educational, or even the more strictly scientific. The head of the house, as the permanent resident, is more than a directive force: his or her personality becomes a controlling influence. At the same time there is abundant room for the free play of each resident’s individuality. Personal qualities, as well as previous training, may find complete use.

And yet, all these diversities of personal gifts and personal interests are subordinate and tributary to the one supreme end of the neighborhood settlement, namely, to awaken the neighborhood to self-consciousness, to make it aware of its possibilities as a community, and to stimulate and aid in the work of reconstruction. Evidently the greatest gift for this object on the part of the residents is the gift of interpretation. Before the neighborhood can be expected to respond to any action in its behalf, it must feel that it is understood; and as the work advances, it must see that its latent and almost unconscious desires are discerned and expressed. Richard Watson Gilder called a settlement house the ‘House of the Interpreter.’ An old man in the Hull House neighborhood put this analogy in concrete and local terms: ‘We know we are here and Miss Addams knows we are here, but she knows we are here better than we know we are here.’

This process of interpretation and of reconstruction is of necessity slow and arduous. The drift of society in its lower forms is toward the defensive. There is an obstinate conservatism among the poor quite as marked as that among the rich. Any settlement neighborhood gives the impression of inaccessibility even when there is no barrier of language. But means of access are not wanting. Not infrequently the child leads the way. Concern for children is a fundamental and common interest, a fact which justifies the testimony of an experienced worker, that through the various efforts in their behalf, especially those of the neighborhood nurse, ‘ the children of many neighborhoods are better born and better nourished than they were a generation ago’; and further, that ‘young boys and girls are cleaner, brighter, better-mannered and better set-up than those of fifteen years ago’; and further still, that ‘more-boys and girls go to high schools and trade schools than ten years ago.’ According to the same observer, following out the educational and organizing work of the settlement, ‘Two decades of club work have prepared a generation capable of uniting for coöperative effort. The increasing readiness of neighbors to join with one another in securing public improvements, as school-centres, playgrounds, baths, gymnasia; their more positive attitude toward demoralizing and disintegrating agencies, both their own and those foisted on them from without, are evidences of the growth of the spirit of social reciprocity.’

The settlement does not enter a neighborhood to compete with other agencies. Two of its cardinal principles in relation to other agencies are, first, not to attempt to duplicate what is already being done to the advantage of the community, and second, to relinquish any service which can be accomplished equally well by others. Its first work, often quite prolonged, is to establish neighborly relations. It does not seek for immediate results. In this respect it was often a disappointment to its early friends and supporters. But the initial process cannot be hurried. It takes time to make the natural acquaintance of one’s neighbors, to remove any suspicion of patronage, to become an accepted rather than a tolerated member of the community. It takes time to make such an informing but unobtrusive study of neighborhood conditions as may allow the actual work of improvement to begin without blundering. It required years, as I recall, of quiet, inconspicuous personal work through its early home in Rollins Street before the South End House was able to establish its various working centres throughout the neighborhood. But over against this slowness in the process of incorporating the settlement into the neighborhood stands the equally plain fact of the rapid widening and deepening of all the currents of influence when once the incorporation has been effected. The years of deferred results are not wasted if they give the residents a sane understanding of the actual weaknesses and necessities of the neighborhood, a true estimate of its potencies as well as of its available resources, and above all a sincere appreciation of the people themselves in their individual and coöperative life. The struggle to create an effective social unit out of the average settlement neighborhood is continuous because of the heterogeneous and shifting character of the population; but in spite of these drawbacks, it is not too much to say that the tendency in many such neighborhoods is steadily toward stability and unity. The advance can be measured in terms which apply to the whole community.

II

In considering settlement work as a contributory force in the field of economic and civic reform we pass to a secondary though exceedingly important service. It is necessary to repeat that the chief end in view must always be the upbuilding of the neighborhood, its development into an effective social unit; while the test of success must be found in those results which can come only from loyalty to this original and originating purpose — to what has been called the ‘genius’ of the movement. ‘The settlements,’ says the head of the South End House, ‘deal primarily, not with causes running across the social strata, though they must not neglect these, but with the all-around human relations of the neighborhood.’ The significance of the various ‘causes running across the social strata’ lies in the fact that they represent those outlying conditions, chiefly economic, that press so hard upon the neighborhood environment. Poverty, much of idleness and crime, social discontent, unemployment, the contentions of labor, are all intimately related to wrong economic or civic conditions; and unless these are traced to their source, social workers will repeat the mistake of the early philanthropists in allowing charity to cover the sins of economic inefficiency and of civic indifference. That such is not the present liability is evidenced by the published investigations of the more advanced settlements. These show that research is not a mere byproduct of settlement work. Though projected from a background of knowledge acquired in the daily routine, it is carried out into the closest details of observation and study.

There are certain characteristics of the studies and investigations of the settlements which give them a unique value. Where the subject allows, they are marked by a comprehensiveness which is seldom found elsewhere. A neighborhood is studied as a whole in its historical setting, if it is on the decline, and in right perspective if it is in the stage of chaotic growth. The various matters which call for investigation are set forth in true proportion, a result which does not often attend the methods of purely specialized study. Studies like Hull House Maps and Papers — a presentation of nationalities and wages in a congested district of Chicago; or, more completely, The City Wilderness: a settlement study of the South End District of Boston, show as by the exhibit of a cross-section how varied are the forces and influences which are at work to mould the life of a settlement community. On the basis of such surveys the organization of the facts about population, work, and wages, standards of living, popular amusements, the sources of lawlessness and crime, the roots of political power, the state of education and religion, constitutes a fund of information invaluable to all who have to do with municipal affairs, or with the science of municipal government.

Another characteristic of settlement studies is the intimate and sympathetic character of the knowledge they reveal. In this respect they have a value beyond that of any ordinary statistical investigation. They bring to light many things which elude research, the things which come out of personal intimacies, which spring unexpectedly out of the contacts of the daily life: as seen in Mrs. Kelly’s studies into the sweating system, and into the overcrowded tenement, and in Mrs. More’s study into the actual standard of living in working-class families in New York, carried on at the Greenwich House, and published under the title, The WageEarner’s Budget.

A further variety of settlement study marks the psychological approach to the younger life which the settlement touches. Miss Addams’s Spirit of Youth and the City Streets has revolutionized the thought of great numbers of parents and has modified the attitude of entire communities to their young people. Young Working Girls, edited by Robert A. Woods and Albert J. Kennedy for the National Federation of Settlements, gives a summary of the evidence of two thousand social workers bearing upon this most perplexing and urgent subject, and is to be followed by studies of adolescent boys, and of pre-adolescent girls and boys.

The readers of the Atlantic have become acquainted with a highly specialized form of settlement work through the papers of Miss Wald (running through the year 1915) on ‘The House in Henry Street.’ This is primarily a nurses’ settlement, and very much of its success is due to its method of dealing with the problems of sickness and disease in the tenements. Through its thorough system of visitation it was able to understand the mental attitude of families toward the treatment of disease, to discover the meaning of the home instinct in regard to the care of the sick, especially of children, and to demonstrate the therapeutic value of the home under proper training as comparable with that of the hospital. The employment of the school nurse and the tuberculosis nurse, and the inauguration of the health-service of some of the industrial insurance companies, are among the results of this applied experience of the settlement. The public has shown its indorsement of the methods employed by contributing generously toward a million-dollar fund now being raised for the treatment of children of the city crippled by infantile paralysis, to be administered through the settlement and its branches.

In referring to the published studies or exhibits of some of the settlements no attempt has been made to give a bibliography. The references have been merely illustrative. The bibliography is already large and is rapidly increasing. But this represents only in small degree the actual part which is taken by the settlements in their semipublic service. The increasing wealth of detailed information about the conditions of life in tenement localities makes their knowledge and advice indispensable to those who are interested in obtaining remedial legislation. ‘Settlement workers are gradually learning,’ says one of the older residents, ‘that they have unique power with legislative committees when they come forward strictly on the basis of what they have seen and do know, giving chapter and verse out of immediate local experience. It is quite surprising how hungry the average legislator is for such testimony. Taken altogether, it is probable that the settlements have accomplished more by reinforcing the proposals for social legislation brought forward by others, than even through legislative enterprises in which they have taken the initiative.’ These‘legislative enterprises,’ however, have been of much local, and even national, value — the early factory legislation in Illinois, the Connecticut tenement-house act, the bar-and-bottle bill in Massachusetts, the national investigation into the conditions of women and children in industry, and the organization of the Children’s Bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor. It seems likely that, as the settlements are now more highly organized through city federations and through the National Federation, much larger use will be made of legislation to effect certain necessary reforms. I note that the discussions at the regular conferences are taking a broader range and a more positive tone. The effect of wide coöperative action has been to enlarge the sense of responsibility and of power.

III

Whatever may prove to be the value of the settlement idea or the practicability of its methods, the question of ultimate success must return upon the resident. Can the settlement develop a type of service and of leadership fitted to meet and satisfy its requirements? The requirements are, we have seen, peculiar. Settlement work is unique among the trained callings of its intellectual and moral grade. Though a highly trained calling, it cannot become distinctly a profession. The efficacy of the service rendered lies in its non-professional character. It is personal, to the exclusion of any suggestion or suspicion of professionalism. In like degree it is personal, to the exclusion of any suggestion or suspicion of institutionalism. The House is primarily a home among other homes. Men or women are ‘in residence’ for a purpose, but in a personal not in an official capacity. Their life is one of intimate and stimulating association, but with nothing about it to repress the play of individuality, or to separate the resident from the people of the neighborhood. Apart from the house or houses of a given settlement there are often working centres, and the general work must be organized under the guidance of an executive staff; but the amount of machinery is reduced to a minimum. The relative cost in organization and equipment, as I shall show later in a specific instance, is slight when compared with that of the maintenance of an institution. The great expenditure is in personal power.

Without doubt there is a tendency on the part of the larger settlements toward a degree of institutional development, but I think that the danger from it is not serious so long as the present preponderance of the personal over the institutional is maintained. There are few signs of any lapse in purpose or in spirit from the singleness and simplicity of the original idea. ‘ The institutional settlement,’ says Mr. Gaylord S. White of the Union Settlement, New York, ‘has always been regarded by the friends of the movement as in a measure a necessary evil — a development which might be required by the situation but permitted with regret. The older settlements will doubtless endeavor to continue to meet the needs that arise in their neighborhoods, so long as the municipality lags behind in its enterprises of social service, even if this necessitates a further development in the way of institutions. But when new settlements are organized, their promoters will do well to consider whether their opportunity does not lie in the direction of the simpler residential type.’

From the nature of the work the sources of supply for residents must be limited to the colleges. The limitation has its exceptions, but they are rare. A resident must have had the foundation at least for advanced training in economic and sociological studies. The settlement worker is constantly confronted with problems for which he must be reasonably prepared by previous study. His contribution to the intellectual equipment of the House determines in large degree his individual value. The study of economic problems, however they may arise, is teamwork. The intellectual capital for the business of the settlement is simply the sum total of the intellectual equipment of the residents. But the attitude of the resident toward his work is not simply or chiefly that of intellectual interest. It has in it the element of altruistic devotion. It is not the ordinary attitude taken toward business. It is to be classed rather with those callings which presuppose the spirit of consecration. I am not surprised to find that the Christian associations in the colleges have become a recruiting ground for the settlements. Neither am I surprised to find that there is a growing diversion from the ministry to the work of the settlements and to other kinds of related work, due partly to the greater independence and freedom which they allow, and partly to the permanency of service contrasted with the growing tendency to abridge the working years of the ministry by ‘the dead line of fifty.’

What of the graduates from settlement service, in so far as the settlements are training schools for public service, or positions of like responsibility and influence? I find in looking over a list which one house has given out of the present occupations of men who were former residents, but no longer in settlement work, some thirty in number, that seven now hold official positions in the public service, seven are secretaries of semi-public organizations, eight are connected with business houses chiefly as experts in employment, four are professors, and three are journalists. There is no reason to suppose that this exhibit is exceptional. A surprisingly large number of men trained in the settlements, many of whom have gained wide public recognition, are to be found in various positions of civic service, municipal, state, and federal. Several of the leading officials in the present administration of the city of New York were former settlement residents. The same general fact is to be noted in regard to the public service of women who have been, or who are still connected with the women’s settlements, of whom examples are Miss Addams of Hull House and Miss Wald of Henry Street, Mrs. Mary K. Simkhovitch of the Greenwich House, the centre of a remarkable group of municipal agencies, Miss McDowell of the University of Chicago Settlement, whose efforts brought about the national investigation into the conditions under which wage-earning women and children work, and Miss Julia Lathrop, head of the Children’s Bureau. The settlement gave women one of their first opportunities to enter upon public service. To-day they are in the majority in settlement work and their influence is proportionate to their numbers.

The settlement, besides doing its own specific work, has proved to be an avenue leading directly into those new fields of opportunity so inviting to those who wish to put themselves into some really serviceable relation to the isolated and unsocialized peoples. It has been found to stand in practice no less than in theory for intelligent and welldirected altruism. I believe that the more carefully its workings arc examined the more hearty will be the acceptance of the publicly expressed opinion of Mr. Roosevelt when Governor of New York: ‘It seems to me that this type of work is more important for our civic and social betterment than any other that is now being undertaken by any one, or by any society.’

IV

Although the twenty-fifth anniversary of the South End House, Boston, was the occasion, not the subject, of this article, a closing word of reference is due to the House as being in itself one of the most complete and consistent illustrations of the settlement idea. Forced by the needs of the neighborhood to take on a considerable institutional development, it has in no wise departed from the original residential type. This consistency of development has been secured by maintaining an unusually large residential force, and by scattering its working agencies throughout the district instead of concentrating them at one locality. There are in the settlement to-day thirty-two residents, twelve men and twenty women. Among these are five married couples having their own homes, two in apartments provided at the House, three at different points in the neighborhood. Nine of the residents are on salaries for full time and three for part time; four are holders of fellowships; the remainder are unpaid, five of whom devote their entire time to the work. To the residents are to be added over one hundred associate workers, a number of whom are from the neighborhood. The whole force is under the direction of a staff of six of the most experienced workers. One fourth of the residents have been in service for over four years. Mr. Woods has been the head of the House from the beginning, the only instance, except that of Miss Addams, of like continuous service. The exceptional permanency of the residential force has given special value to the social and economic investigations of the House.

As has been intimated, the South End House has developed, in a way unique among the settlements, the plan of distributing rather than of massing its various activities. In this way it gains direct access to the separate groups of different economic grades, and different nationalities, which make up a district population of 45,000, about equally divided between those living in tenements, and those living in lodgings in disused residence houses. Besides the headquarters and men’s residence (20 Union Park) there is the women’s residence, a ‘ Union’ for civic and recreational uses, a registry house for approved lodgings, a nurses’ house,—an offshoot from the women’s residence,— and a house of childhood. There are also several out-of-town houses known as vacation centres. One of the most interesting and useful of these last is the caddies’ home at Bretton Woods, a resort much desired and striven for as a reward for good ‘citizenship’ by the boys of the neighborhood, from whom the‘gangs’would otherwise be recruited.

The general management of the settlement is in the hands of a council of twenty-four elected by an association of some three hundred members. The finances of the settlement are on a democratic basis. The settlement is not underwritten by any wealthy patron, but is supported by annual subscriptions from members of the Association and from others interested in the work. The value of the unencumbered real estate is about $100,000, and the amount of the present endowment fund is $30,000. The annual cost of the settlement is about $20,000. I doubt if an example can be found, outside the range of the social settlements, of results of like character and magnitude attained with so great economy of material resources, because of such lavish and generous expenditure of personal service. This preponderance of personal service and sacrifice must always exist as vital to all settlement work; but in view of the results achieved, the question is pertinent whether the time has not now come for society at large to coöperate more freely through wise and adequate endowments insuring permanency of results.

The specific object of the settlement when first applied to social conditions in this country was, as we have seen, to arrest the process of segregation which was going on in all our larger cities. I think that we should now speak of this same object in much larger terms. When we now refer to the vast work of assimilating our foreign peoples we speak of their Americanization. We have not as yet, however, come to understand that any serious attempt to carry out this purpose must involve in a very real sense the re-Americanization of the native stock. Nowhere is this necessity more apparent than in the older communities like New England. The man of Puritan traditions and training has before him a much greater duty than that of tolerance or even of hospitality — the duty of understanding through study, sympathy, and coöperation the alien peoples with whom his lot is now cast. What can better serve to remind him of this urgent and impartial duty than the presence in the city of Boston, the great immigrant city of New England, of the organized groups of highly trained and sympathetic men and women committed to the task of unifying our diverse and discordant social elements, in the interest alike of native and of alien, but above all in the interest of the Republic? Evidently the emphasis will fall upon this unifying work differently in different parts of the country, but it must mean everywhere both the Americanization and the reAmericanization of our whole people, if we are to learn to think of the Nation according to its constituent elements and in terms at all commensurate with its manifest future. In the searching trial through which we are now passing, I believe it will be found that after the public school the social settlement has been the most direct and effective agency at work for the coherence and the integrity of the Nation.