The desire for education and
betterment is as manifest as it is hopeful. No parents are more
ambitious for their children, or more devotedly attached to them, than
are the Italian immigrants who have brought over their families, and no
children in our schools are brighter or more attentive. There is good
blood in the Italian strain. They are an art and music-loving people,
and in this respect the southern Italians take the lead. They come from
a land of beauty and fame, song and sunshine, and bring a sunny
temperament not easily soured by hardship or disappointment. Otherwise
the tenement and labor-camp experiences in America would soon spoil
them. With the exception of the money they earn, the change has been for
the worse.
[Sidenote: Amazing Thrift]
The thrift of the Italians is proverbial. To earn and save money they
will live in conditions unsanitary, unhealthy, and degrading. It is not
because they love dirt and degradation, but that they want money so much
that they will put up with anything to get it. They can live and save a
bit where an American family would starve. They have fairly monopolized
for a time certain lines into which they entered--as the small fruit
trade, the bootblacking business, and other pursuits.
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