The educational influences
and social environment were assumed to be not only subtle, but
all-pervasive and powerful. That this theory was to a large and even
dangerous extent erroneous the observation of the last fifty years has
proved, and our Massachusetts experience is sadly demonstrating to-day.
It was Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, years ago, when asked by an anxious
mother at what age the education of a child ought to begin, remarked in
reply that it should begin about one hundred and fifty years before the
child is born. It has so proved with us; and the fact is to-day in
evidence that this statement of Dr. Holmes should be accepted as an
undeniable political aphorism. So far from seven or fourteen years
making an American citizen, fully and thoroughly impregnated with
American ideals to the exclusion of all others, our experience is that
it requires at least three generations to eliminate what may be termed
the "hyphen" in citizenship. Not in the first, nor in the second, and
hardly in the third, generation, does the immigrant cease to be an
Irish-American, or a French-American, or a German-American, or a
Slavonic-American, or yet a Dago. Nevertheless, in process of tune,
those of the Caucasian race do and will become Americans. Ultimately
their descendants will be free from the traditions and ideals, so to
speak, ground in through centuries passed under other conditions.
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