Review of Old World Traits Transplanted
Clarence Rainwater
OLD WORLD TRAITS TRANSPLANTED. By ROBERT E. PARK, professorial lecturer, University of Chicago, and Herbert A. Miller, professor of sociology, Oberlin College. Harper, New York, 1921, pp. 309, $2.50
Allen T. Burns has rendered a fine service in directing the publishing of eleven volumes on methods of Americanization. Whatever Mr. Burns is willing to underwrite on the subject of Americanization bears the stamp of sanity, incisiveness and progressiveness.
The volume at hand approaches the Americanization question by making a psychological analysis of "immigrant heritages," which are defined as "fund of attitudes and values which an immigrant group brings to America — the totality of its sentiments and practices." These attitudes and values constitute the "fundamental patterns of life and behavior" which the immigrant possess when he arrives at our ports of entry. It is essential that all American citizens acting in the capacity of Americanization workers be put in command of these immigrant heritages, in order that they may enable the immigrants to contribute their best pattern ideas and sentiments to American life and so become assimilated.
In doing their task the authors have presented 168 illustrative excerpts from letters, articles and similar materials. From these there is drawn inductively the conclusion which are innate. These source materials are allowed first to speak for themselves, and then they are interpreted by the authors, who turn upon them their searchlight of scholarly and scientific training.
