In the hearing before a congressional
committee for the establishment of a Children's Bureau, residents
in American Settlements joined their fellow philanthropists in
urging the need of this indispensable instrument for collecting
and disseminating information which would make possible concerted
intelligent action on behalf of children.
Mr. Howells has said that we are all so besotted with our novel
reading that we have lost the power of seeing certain aspects of
life with any sense of reality because we are continually looking
for the possible romance. The description might apply to the
earlier years of the American settlement, but certainly the later
years are filled with discoveries in actual life as romantic as
they are unexpected. If I may illustrate one of these romantic
discoveries from my own experience, I would cite the indications
of an internationalism as sturdy and virile as it is unprecedented
which I have seen in our cosmopolitan neighborhood: when a South
Italian Catholic is forced by the very exigencies of the situation
to make friends with an Austrian Jew representing another
nationality and another religion, both of which cut into all his
most cherished prejudices, he finds it harder to utilize them a
second time and gradually loses them.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321