Of course there are many reasons for this:  the quizzical temper of the community at large, the constant revelation of graft, the distorted school discipline which makes tardiness a more serious offense than lying or theft; the neglect to organize athletics and play for ethical ends; the criminal’s code with regard to examinations—­a code very prevalent in secondary schools, both public and private—­that cheating is in order if one is not caught; the bitter and damaging personalities of party politics and the very transient honors of American public life; and, perhaps chief of all, the very elaborate provision for every child with the implication that he does the school a favor to use what is provided rather than the imposition of an obligation upon him both to help in securing the efficiency and beauty of the school and to discharge his just debt to society in the measure of his ability as boy and man.

Another productive cause of poor citizenship is the general contempt in which immigrants are held, and especially the treatment accorded them by the police and by most of the minor officials with whom they come in contact.  This primitive disdain of “barbarians” is common among the school children and tends to make the foreign children more delinquent and anti-social than they would otherwise be.  A very recent case sums up the situation.  A gang of five Polish boys “beat up” a messenger boy, apparently without provocation.  A Juvenile Protective officer visited the home of one of these young thugs for the purpose of talking with the mother and getting such information as would aid in keeping the boy from getting into further trouble.

The mother was found to be a very intelligent woman and explained to the officer that her boy had been constantly angered and practically spoiled at school; that it had been ground into him that he was nothing but a “Polack,” and that no good thing was to be expected of him.  The school boys had taken a hand in his education; and by reflecting in their own merciless way the uncharitable judgment of their elders had helped to produce this young pariah.

If one will but travel on the street cars in the crowded districts of our great cities and note the churlish discourtesy and sarcastic contempt with which “the foreigners” are generally treated, or will take the pains to ascertain how cruelly they are deceived and fleeced at almost every turn, one will soon conclude that we are making it very hard for these people and their children to become grateful and ardent citizens of the republic.

Looking to the improvement of this condition, while vocational training promises something by way of an economic basis for good citizenship, too much must not be expected of it alone.  For if vocational efficiency be created and released in an environment devoid of civic idealism it will never pass beyond the grub stage.  It will merely fatten a low order of life, and this at the expense of much that would otherwise lend verdure and freshness, shade, flower, and fruit to the garden of our common life.  The able man or the rich man is not necessarily a good citizen.