B COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 321.9 The Athenæum Press GINN AND COMPANY. PROPRIETORS BOSTON U.S.A. PREFACE We are on the threshold of a new era in the history of immigration in this country. The combined effects of the European war and the new immigration law of 1917 will be so great as to render much of our antebellum literature on immigration out of tune with the new order. Hence the need of a representative volume summarizing the best thought in past and current literature on immigration and Americanization. The book aims to cover the field of immigration and Americanization from every possible point of view, subject to the limits of a single volume. It is particularly designed to meet the needs of high schools, colleges, universities, and Chautauquas, which have been frequently at a loss in recommending to the student, investigator, official, or general public a handbook on these twin topics. This reference book is the outgrowth of several courses on these subjects for teachers at Boston University and of similar courses for workers with immigrants under the joint auspices of the Old South Historical Association and the University Extension Division of Massachusetts Board of Education. Much of the material of the present volume was critically examined and tested by the students in the light of definite standards of choice, primarily with the idea of making available to the general reader and special student alike the best that there is in the literature to date, covering many centuries and countries and, therefore, necessarily scattered and inaccessible. These selections have been so arranged as to present not only a chronological but a logical development of the subject matter, including the most significant recent contributions to the all-important problems of Americanization in terms of the broadest American spirit. The volume should prove a useful handbook for similar courses in immigration and Americanization which are growing in number and variety in colleges and Chautauquas, as well as |