WISSLER] OPPORTUNITIES FOR CO-ORDINATION 9
can be met by the application of the appropriate scientific technique.
I repeat then, that the anthropologists are ready. Unlike the psychologists they have not had their chance; the hope is that it will come through this new organization. We look to the psy- chologists with their long experience in human engineering and their large and varied personnel to lead out. Of specific problems there is no end.
For example, many years ago an anthropologist discovered some curious retarding influences when he compared the statures of children in a charitable institution with those living at home. 1 His suggestion was that some forces might operate in institutional life to retard development. The problem, then, is do children in even the best of charitable institutions grow as we think they should? Let us as psychologists and anthropologists attack this question to find out what zoological and psychological factors are involved here. Suppose, in short, that we investigate the whole case of institutional life to see what is happening to these children. This would present a fine opportunity for the psychologists and anthropologists to work side by side, but above all, to render a great public service.
Again, we hear a great deal about Americanization and Ameri- canization programs. The idea in this is to make one people of all who reside among us, but few will go so far as to say that this implies amalgamation. What is really meant is complete culture uniform- ity. Hence the problem in Americanization is to bring about the complete adoption of our culture on the part of immigrants of different cultures.
It is common knowledge that immigrants from cultures obviously different from our own settle in colonies where they maintain their native languages and customs. Some necessary adjustments seem to be made to the political and economic complexes of our culture, but otherwise the group exists as an area of foreign culture. This is recognized in popular speech when we speak of "Japanese colonies," "Italian colonies," "Armenian colonies," "Finnish colonies," etc. In such colonies we recognize a menace to our own
1 A. Hrdlicka, Investigations on One Thousand White and Colored Children. New York, 1904.
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