and should be allowed wherever they can be honestly claimed.

Evening schools, as carried on in Boston, New York, Chicago and in other progressive cities, are an immense benign force to disintegrate aggregations of foreigners. They are doing a work which the public does not half appreciate. To be convinced of their merit, visit an evening school in the Russian, Greek, or Bohemian quarter of Chicago, and witness its success in teaching great classes of those nationalities our letters and the elements of our civics.

For the most part, evening schools reach. only the young. In all centers of dense alien population they should be authorized, equipped and encouraged to take in adults. The most un-American of our settlers, the elderly excepted, would like to learn English, which desire, properly appealed to and backed by ampler school facilities, would effect the nationalization of many. Churches and Sunday schools might usefully establish evening classes to assist in this most patriotic enterprise. It would be

missionary effort of incalculable value. The instruction should be exceedingly simple, as that in the evening schools of foreigner districts usually is-English, reading, spelling, and writing, the rudiments of arithmetic and geography, American history and the nature and frame of our government. Music should be a strong feature. Most pupils would join in it while all would enjoy. A proportion of the teachers should, if such can be found who are proficient in English, belong to the pupils' own blood.

It has been suggested that night school attendance be made obligatory for adults or for certain classes of them, as day schooling is for children, with the view of familiarizing them with the English language and American customs. This would involve much hardship, as nearly all who would be affected are poor and must work when they can get work, be it day or night.

The day public schools are the strongest social force we have, drawing together the various and complex elements of society and breaking down social barriers. To them

we must look as our fundamental solvent of "foreignism." More than aught else, or all else, they bring it about that the rich and the poor meet together in harmony. They foster patriotism and a democratic spirit, helping to create good citizens. Children reared in a patrician atmosphere almost inevitably grow anti-social, wanting in public spirit. Youthful prejudices are tenacious. It is well that the bank president's and the butcher's son study and play side by side, and that the better dressed of the twain often has occasion to envy the other his superior ability.

CHAPTER IX

THE BEEF SUPPLY

N New York State some time since a

IN

worthy and distinguished gentleman died. At the funeral the officiating clergyman naturally dealt in eulogy. When he had used up an hour and a quarter in discoursing upon the luminous and extraordinary virtues of the deceased, members of the congregation began to withdraw. Gathering himself in the way of peroration, the speaker asked, "Now, beloved friends, in view of the lofty and unparalleled virtues of our departed brother, where shall we place him? Shall we place him among the angels?" Pausing an instant, as if someone had replied that an angel's altitude was not exaltation enough for so good a man, the clergyman cried again, "Shall we place him. among the archangels?" Seeming to hear that even an archangel's eminence would not suffice, the preacher vociferated still more loudly, "Where, then, shall we place