"MY COUNTRY" The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the country, when it has made us into good Americans.

I am glad it is mine to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case.

You should be glad to hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders.

And you will be glad to hear of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.
How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American?
By the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade.
When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study had been idle until then.

The reader, the arithmetic, the song book, that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration.