A family, a tribe, or a nation, which has largely recruited itself by adopted members, cannot be the same as one which has rever practise ed adoption at all, but all whose members come of the original stock. But the influence which the adopting community exercises upon its adopted members is far greater than any influence which they exercise upon it. It cannot change their blood; it cannot give them new forefathers; but it may do everything short of this; it may make them, in speech, in feeling, in thought and in habit, genuine members of the community which has artificially made them its own—
EDWARD A, FREEMAN:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.