THE CALL OF THE LAND 



mians have here and there asked the same 

 but in vain. 



It is doubtful whether the public school 

 teaching of German has anywhere been of 

 much assistance in keeping up the German 

 Wesen in a community. The purpose and 

 method of the instruction have, and rightly, 

 been made such as to render it beneficial to 

 all pupils, general and literary, no mere 

 drill in speaking. And the reason why cities 

 decline to take up Bohemian, Swedish, and 

 Russian is that the literatures of these 

 tongues are deemed of too little value to the 

 constituencies at large. 



Close to language as a conservator of 

 "foreignism" stands religion. Men coming 

 here addicted to a given rite which they 

 richly associate with the land of their birth, 

 its language, government, and customs, can- 

 not see these accompaniments dissolve with- 

 out feeling that essential faith and worship 

 are going by the board. They therefore 

 try to retain and bolster items of their old 

 nationality, standing together to fight off 

 whatever antagonizes that. Many settlers 



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