able to answer in English whatever questions may be asked by the inspecting officers. Immediately a storm of objections burst forth. The plan is severe, unjust, useless, adjectives that might well tempt the intruding idea to hide its diminished head. But a new idea, once brought forth, cannot die until it has been tried and found wanting, and it is at least entitled to a fair hearing. First let us read over more carefully the Nation's unassuming editorial headed "The Proper Sieve for Immigrants." It first notices the recent increased interest in the subject and the enforcement of the existing immigra tion laws, and then speaks of the nature of the problem, referring to Professor Richmond Smith's book on Emigration and Immigration, in which "he gives it as his opinion that we have reached a point of development where we can supply our own wants so far as unskilled labor is concerned, and maintains the desirableness of some degree of exclusion on the general ground that each nation is bound to see that its own civilization does not suffer from an attempt to absorb foreigners in a lower state of civilization." "But neither he nor anyone else," the article continues, "answers the question, By what process shall we sift the desirable from the undesirable immigrants?" It goes on to prove the impossibility of determining every immigrant's character by consular certificate, or by any other method that has been proposed. It then presents the language test as a solution of the difficulty, showing that nearly all really secure and progressive modern states are based on community of language, and that it is only through a common tongue that men are able to feel and to think in the same way about public affairs, and to cherish the same political ideals.

The easy application of this test is shown, and the writer declares that more than any other way yet devised, it would shut out the undesirable element in immigration. In conclusion the article says that the object of all our

immigration law is to give the greatest benefit to American civilization, and that the fact that under such a limitation as the language test the large proportion of immigrants would be English, Irish and Scotch is no objection, since they are those who when they land, can “at once enter into intellectual relations with the community at large."

In a later num

So much for the Nation's first article. ber, it takes up the criticism of the press, and the various modifications of the plans, which have been suggested. The acknowledgment of the writer that as long as the foreign vote is so essential to the political parties, it will be impossible to take any practical measures toward restricting immigration gives food for thought.

The New York Times suggests as a substitute for the Nation's language test, a poll tax of sufficient value to prove that the payer is a thrifty and enterprising workman, but the Nation replies with the very true objection that public sentiment in this country is so thoroughly against property qualification, that popular indignation would put down even the suggestion.

One objector, in a letter published in the Nation, shows, from statistics collected in the state of Minnesota, that the percentage of criminals and paupers is below the average in the case of all foreigners except the English speaking races, who furnish three times their quota to the prisons and poor houses, and to whom the language test would be no barrier. Another, writing from the same state, says that the Germans and Scandinavians form. their best and most progressive citizens.

The amount of discussion that this proposition of a language test has aroused, proves that it is an idea worthy of consideration.

Probably the first objection that presents itself to most of us, is the great number of intelligent and law abiding foreigners, especially Germans and Scandinavians, who would be cut off from coming to America. If we look

at it carefully, however, the difficulty does not seem so great. We Americans are poor linguists and we do not realize to what an extent English is spoken and understood in Europe. The yearly crowds of tourists have made it a necessity to large numbers of guides and other servants of the public. Travelers tell us that in remote and almost unvisited corners of Norway and Sweden, they have rarely been unable to find some one who could speak English. If this language regulation were clearly recognized in Europe, the desire to learn English would be vastly increased, and some knowledge of the language would be easily obtained by the intelligent, industrious laborer. Against this, it may be urged that as foreigners readily pick up the language, why not in this country, where there is so much more opportunity? Those who urge this forget that the gate is now open to the lowest, the most ignorant and the most depraved, who, if this restriction were imposed, would turn from a country whose chief attraction is the gain it is supposed to yield, and the freedom it offers from prosecution for crime, and would be dealt with by the laws of their own land. It is a recognized fact, as Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge clearly shows in his article, in the May number of the North American Review, on "Lynch Law and Unrestricted Immigration," that European countries, have, for years, until the recent enforcement of our immigration laws, been shipping their criminals, paupers, diseased and insane to this country as the easiest means of getting rid of them. So-called charitable societies exist with the aim of providing funds for this purpose. Proper medical inspection will relieve us of the two last named classes, but has any better remedy than the language test been found, to exclude the others?

The statistics in relation to the preponderance of crime among the English speaking immigrants in Minnesota, are, we confess, a surprise. The foreign element in Minnesota is largely made up of Germans, Swedes and Nor

wegians, who are almost universally good citizens, but Minnesota has for years (we acknowledge that we make this assertion merely from hearsay) been the destination of a low class of English adventurers, and the results shown, from observation in this state, may not be generally true. But granting that the English speaking races are not always desirable (Who for instance would think of rating our Irish immigrant population with the Germans or Scandinavians?) Minnesota has comparatively few of the nationalities, which make the immigra tion problem one of the gravest danger and importance, the Italians, Sicilians, and Hungarians.

Mr. Lodge, in the article referred to, proves from government statistics that, while English, German, French, Dutch and Scandinavian immigration is undoubtedly decreasing, the stream from Italy, Sicily, Hungary, Russia, Syria and the far east is ever swelling, pouring in upon us men of the lowest grade, intellectually, physically and morally, men who have been so long under a stern, repressing government, that their only developed traits are a blind hatred of order and power in any form, and a mad craving for gain. These men know nothing of American institutions. They come over merely for a time, and, without becoming citizens, reduce the value of native American labor. These are the men to be feared, these are the men whom the language test will most certainly bar out, and we can afford to lose some who would make good citizens, if by this sacrifice we can defend ourselves from barbarians infinitely worse than those who surrounded Rome of old.

The English, Scotch and Irish at least have knowledge of our laws, our ideas and our government. They become citizens, and can be dealt with by our laws, but what can we do with those who have no ideas of law, of progress or of government? In some way it must be done, and it is more than worth while to examine carefully, before we throw it aside as useless, any scheme for protecting the civilization and future of America. E. K. ADAMS.

Editors' Table.

We have, all of us, read Louisa Alcott's works: we are, all of us, more or less familiar with certain events in her life; but perhaps few of us have been acquainted with it as a connected whole, as the beautiful sad story which Josephine Lazarus has written for us in the last number of the Century. To us Louisa Alcott has been the Jo of "Little Women," the "Mother Bhaer" of "Little Men." And Jo's character and Louisa Alcott's character are one and the same, but in "Little Women" we see so much of the fun and the merriment that the hardships, only slightly depicted, are almost forgotten, and the pain, the suffering of Louisa Alcott's after years Jo never underwent. The life as a whole Miss Lazarus has given us, the struggle, the toil, the triumph are all before us. We never knew Miss Alcott before, we never before loved, never appreciated Jo as we do now. Hereafter to us "Little Men" will never mean what it once did, but the girl in "Little Women" will be what she has always been, only claiming more love, more sympathy from her friends.

Admiring as we do the sketch in the Century, we, at least some of us, do not admit the final criticisms made of Miss Alcott's character and of her works. In fact we resent them. Are we "too persistently reminded of the material results-the money earned from her brains,' the comfort and ease purchased for her family"? Why should the word money mean anything to us here? Was it that she needed, that she toiled for, that she earned? We cannot be too persistently reminded of the material results of her work since the material results were-what she labored for, the comfort and ease of her family. One purpose she had always, one idea she kept before her, to give what she could, even all that she had, hand, heart