continent. The English language is spoken by more people than use
either the German, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese,
but the 150,000,000 who thus preserve the "mother-tongue" of the early
American settlers have to come into intimate contact with those of far
different lingual background. This difference in language, which is
found so often a barrier to unity between the respective parents of
the young people who choose each other in marriage, is but a sign and
symbol of deep-seated and ineradicable divergence in family tradition,
in fashion of customary ways of living, in scale of moral values and
in personal habits. It is rather a matter for astonishment that so
many "mixed marriages" turn out well than that a minority prove
disastrous. Mixed marriages will continue and with wider range of
alignment in the future than in the past. That is inevitable with our
increased complexity of life, which brings together in school and in
labor, in social gatherings and in political association, all sorts
and conditions of men, and women. Love not only laughs at prison bars,
love scoffs at parental differences as well as at parental control.
Yet is it true that wide divergence in family background is
accountable for many of the tragedies of broken families after love
has cooled and the facts of sober obligations incurred have become
obvious.

The great social need in the United States is for means of
acquaintance and friendship for the young in lines of association in
which a safe and helpful marriage choice may be made. William Penn
said, "Never marry but for love, but see that thou lovest what is
lovely." The effort of all social arrangements for the young in
families where the elders do not try to reinstate parental control but
rather to give a chance for safeguarded independence of choice is to
bring together young people who should find, each one of them in that
group, a chosen one of the right sort. Financial capacity, mutually
congenial relatives, suitable age and similar tastes, after
acquaintance giving reasonable basis for hope for permanent agreement
in essentials, might insure suitable marriages. The many advantages of
close friendships within a group bound together by similar culture and
outlook is the real reason for "society." Often foolish in its ways
and defeating its own higher ends, it is yet a real effort to give a
new and more democratic guidance through favorable circumstances,
rather than