standards of living. How is he ever to attain the true American standard if he never crosses the threshold of an American home? Not long ago a well-educated foreign worker startled his audience by telling them that he had been laboring in their city for over six years and had never been invited to an American home. People are honestly seeking how to reach Italians, but they do not use the most potent means at their disposal to establish a point of contact their homes."

Much that has been written in the preceding paragraphs will be suggestive in this connection. The National Americanization Committee has prepared a fine program of activities for mothers' organizations, which includes this standard for individual women: 1. Americanize one immigrant woman.

2. Teach English to one foreign-born mother.

3. Put one immigrant family on your calling list.

It would be impossible to estimate the enormous transformation. that could be wrought if every Christian woman would earnestly set herself to the task, taking the foreign-born woman who lives nearest her as her particular work and care. The relation of an American family or visitor to the Italian home, while friendly and sympathetic, should be guarded against an ill-considered charity or patronage.

IV. The American Individual and the Italian

To know one Italian or a single Italian family intimately; to have entered with sympathy into his or her life story, ambitions and progress; in the real spirit of comradeship to give oneself heartily as to a new friend here is an opportunity for every American. Multiply these comradeships a hundred thousand times and forces will be set at work that will mean more to the Italians of this country than scores of settlements or social agencies.

V. The American Evangelical Church

1. Community Work. With the sympathy and service of Jesus as its burning passion in inspiration, it would be expected that the Christian church will be first and foremost in its solicitude and care for the immigrant, as he makes his adventure in the new world so full of vexing problems. As a local church presses its program of missionary education, it should include a first-hand

study of the conditions of life in the Italian or other immigrant community nearest at hand. This near-by need should be kept before the congregation and the church school in some graphic and appealing way. It should be accompanied by some definite program of service.

The local church should put its forces back of all well-accredited community movements making for the common welfare. The church furnishes a large share of workers actively engaged in social betterment. Their outlook and experience should be capitalized in the church's missionary or social service committee. When in any city or town there is outstanding need in the Italian or other immigrant colony, and efforts to arouse the American constituency have failed, a church or group of churches may well take the matter in hand and work confidently in the faith that the enterprise, when demonstrated, will be taken over by the city or community. A kindergarten in the immigrant section of Gary conducted by the Women's Missionary Societies of Indiana was the pioneer kindergarten in that great industrial center now noted throughout the country for its progressive public schools. Where such a community service is undertaken by a local church, it must not expect immediate returns in the terms common to its evangelistic propaganda. The service rendered must be reckoned worth while in itself. All the preceding sections bearing on community and welfare work will be suggestive to churches.

2. The Evangelical Church and the Religious Needs of the Italians. (a) Why carry on religious work for Italians? Any specific religious work undertaken by a church or group of churches must be based on a clear and unmistakable conviction that the Italians of the community have social and religious needs which are not being met by the Roman or any other churches. In a statement concerning the work of the Congregational Church. Philip M. Rose, supervisor of Italian Congregational churches in Connecticut, writes: "While showing all tolerance for and willingness to co-operate with the Italian Roman Catholic Church. we must recognize that the majority of our Italian-Americans are, spiritually, unchurched, and hence are our legitimate field." In the pamphlet, "Religious Work Among Italians," Mr. Mangano frankly estimates the loyalty of the Italian to his traditional faith: "It is a common belief among Americans that all Italians are Roman Catholics, and there seems to be good reason for this impression. Out of Italy's population of 36,000,000 there are

not more than 60,000 Protestants, but there are unnumbered thousands, yes, tens of thousands of anti-clerics and even atheists. Ninety-nine per cent. of the Italians landing on our shores would give the Roman Catholic as their religious belief, but if questioned a large number would add that they were not faithful to its celebrations nor its services, except perhaps at times of births, deaths, and marriages." A questionnaire sent to all Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational Italian pastors on the question "What per cent. of Italians in your colony are loyal to the Roman Church?" evoked an amazingly unanimous reply, "About one-third." One or two reported, one-fourth; and one reported, one-half.

In one city of Massachusetts, out of a population of 1,700 Italians, of whom only sixty attend the Roman Church; and in another city there is a colony of 6,000 Italians, of whom only 300 attend that church. There is a colony of 35,000 Italians in Brooklyn which has only one Italian church, seating at the utmost 400 persons. It conducts three masses on Sunday, and granting it were filled to its capacity each time, it could only minister to 1.200 persons, less than 4 per cent. of the population. Out of 600,000 Italian population of Greater New York, the Roman Church, by its own figures, so far as I could obtain them, lays claim to only 180,000, including children, as members of the Roman Catholic Italian churches-less than one-third of the total Italian population.

There is need for the widest publicity of these facts in order to refute the common charge of proselyting, which all evangelical mission work among the Italians meets, and also because officials of city departments, health, probation, juvenile court, and charity organizations, and even school teachers, commonly assume that all Italians, adults or children, are Catholics, and insist on treating them as such.

Religiously then, Italians both in Italy and America may be divided into four general groups: (1) All who are loyal to the Roman Church; (2) a larger group who are indifferent to religion; (3) the atheistic, anarchistic group, which is actively hostile to religion of whatever name; to this latter class belong the great throng of younger men who have lost faith in Roman Catholicism and who firmly believe that all religions are only worn-out superstitions, imposed upon ignorant people to keep them in subjection; (4) the membership of the evangelical churches.

(b) An objective. Religious work among Italians is no longer an experiment. The statistical table in the Appendix of "Religious Work Among Italians" indicates over 325 Protestant churches and missions employing the Italian language, with 14,000 members and over 15,000 in church or Sunday schools. The figures, moreover, do not in any adequate degree convey the influence which these 325 churches and missions are exerting in Italian communities. In the beginning of Italian work in this country many missions were started under serious limitations. Stores were rented and meagerly equipped; budgets were small and not always assured; leadership available was frequently poorly trained and as poorly paid. While many such enterprises have since developed into strong churches, it is the conviction of a number of leading denominational agencies that a bolder faith and larger enterprise ought now to characterize our work with Italians. When a new work is contemplated, the church or committee concerned ought to "count the cost." When the field has been carefully surveyed and the need demonstrated, a program should be drawn up forecasting the equipment required; provision should be made for a staff of thoroughly trained and competent workers; an ample budget should be assured. Unless it is the purpose of those concerned to carry the work through to some worthy conclusion, it were better and fairer to the Italians not to begin. The initial years of pioneering in this new home mission field have established a more or less definite form for an organized religious work among Italians. The Bureau of Foreign Work of the Board of Home Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Episcopal Church has set up the following program of work for the local Italian church: 1. Approach to the family as a whole.

(a) Home visitor, a woman speaking Italian, with the American training and American spirit. Such a one, bilingual, could work with little children in English, and conduct older classes possibly in Italian. The problem is one of young women as well as mothers. The future objective is to be young Italian women thoroughly trained.

(b) Family gathering for everybody in the church parlors or church house. Music, games, pictures, etc. Recognize the family unit.

(c) Meetings in the home. The coming of the stranger draws all the neighbors in so that a program may be used. Special attention to home meetings for girls.

2. Approach in Italian for adult Italian groups.

(a) Religious services of worship in Italian. (Members of the staff should speak both English and Italian.)

(b) Volunteer workers: A lawyer, a physician, an employment agent, and a printer, whose services may be used for help among the Italians in the community.

(c) Mothers' clubs in Italian.

(d) Men's clubs for learning English and citizenship (civic questions, citizenship papers, etc.).

(e) Use of Italian literature.

(f) Religious instruction in Italian.

(g) Illustrated lectures.

(h) Italian patriotism as point of contact (Italian days, the 20th of September, Columbus Day, etc.).

(i) Make use of musical interest.

3. Approach in English to children and young people.

(a) Attendance at English church services.

(b) Religious instruction (Sunday school).

(c) Related week-day club activities, emphasis on expressional work, such as recreational clubs, gymnasium clubs, choral societies, dramatic clubs, Boy Scouts, Knights of King Arthur, Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, sewing, painting, drawing, and sculpture.

(d) Illustrated lectures and moving pictures.

(e) Daily Vacation Bible school.

(f) Flower Mission.

(g) Fresh air work.

(h) Camps.

The conduct of religious work with Italians is discussed in a practical way by Mr. Mangano in "Sons of Italy," Chapter VI. Out of a wide range of experience and observation, recommendations are also made in "Religious Work Among Italians" concerning a more comprehensive attack, a plea for a better considered, adequately equipped, and worthily supported work for Italian communities. The question of workers, the message, literature, and publications are also discussed.

(c) Leadership. The family should be the unit of our interest. The adult members are seldom accessible except through the ministration of an Italian-speaking pastor or missionary. The trained and diligent Italian pastor knows his