difficulty of
reaching a common ideal and method of living when language is a barrier
and not an aid to companionship. This barrier of language to the
foreign-born is often cited as a reason why the immigrant is
handicapped. It is also a reason why social efforts and religious
influences often fail of success and why so many native-born Americans
fail to understand the newer Americans. If, as many prophesy, the
English language becomes the standard tongue for business and diplomacy
and literature, all the best products of every nation being made
available by translation, at least, for those speaking English, it can
become that ruling tongue only by slow degrees. Meanwhile, the chasm
between citizens of a common country made by differing languages may be
bridged by far greater effort on the part of older Americans gifted in
the use of foreign tongues. We see women by the hundreds flocking to
Europe and the East to "get local color" and perfect themselves in
foreign languages, who might find at their own doors, among those
illiterate in English, but with a wealth of knowledge of their own
native literature and speech, men and women who would be able, if
rightly approached, to exchange national values both in literature and
history to mutual advantage. The need of adult education on the part of
the foreign-born is not always a need to be met by condescending from
above to those of low intellectual estate. It is often a mere
requirement to master another form of speech by those, already
linguists, or at least in possession of a broader use of language than
is the average citizen of the United States. The ways of social helping
in this line are many and of the highest political importance. The
variety of languages spoken in the United States, however, is not so
serious an obstacle to the intercommunication of our population for
political information and in organization for common ends of the public
good as is the shameful condition of illiteracy among the electorate.
The foreign-language publications in the United States numbered, in
1914, 1404, of which 160 were dailies, with total circulation per issue
of 2,598,827, and 868 weeklies with a total circulation per issue of
4,239,426, and other publications to the number of 376 with a total
circulation per issue of 3,609,735. These foreign-language journals are
not all or many of them devoted to "stirring up strife" and do not
prevent absorption of the foreign-born in the body