Here we have men, who have already spent a long day of ten or twelve hours at heavy toil, seeking night after night to acquire, through the aid of an instructor, a smattering of our language. Are they not, even after a few months of instruction so obtained, better fitted to participate in the life of a young country, and does not the work of the Reading Camp Association offer one means of solving the problems raised by the increasing inflow to Canada of other peoples? 58

Fitzpatrick's remarks on the goal of "Canadianization" of immigrants struck a similarly balanced tone:

What does instruction in citizenship involve? We mean by it, instruction in civics, in social rights and responsibilities. Our foreign-born workers are entitled to the education which will enable them more fully to understand what their rights are and how to secure them, and at the same time what are the attendant obligations and how to observe them. Through the instructor the foreign-born workman ought to be taught to read and write....they will learn, too, what government can do and is doing for them and what they can do and ought to do for the government. 59

In a letter written in 1912 R. W. Leonard, Chairman of the Commissioners of the Trans Canada Railway (and a heavy employer of immigrant labour), commended the work of Fitzpatrick and his colleagues:

From what I have seen of the work of your Reading Camp Association during the past few years, and having visited your Camps occasionally, I have formed a very favorable impression of the work you are carrying on.

I enclose my cheque for $250 with best wishes for the success of your efforts in endeavoring to give the newly-arrived immigrant and the laborers employed on our public works some education that will tend to help them to become more desirable citizens.60

When taken out of their social and political context, these sentiments convey an air of impartiality and reasonableness. Indeed, who could argue with the goal of helping immigrants to become more desirable citizens? Of course, what are missing are the definitions of these terms and phrases (e.g. "desirable citizens", "social rights and responsibilities", "problems raised by the ... inflow to Canada") and more fundamentally, the question of who is defining them and what is their location in the class structure. Here the rhetoric of immigrant educators concealed the reality of deep divisions on "immigrant question" which rendered a 'neutral' or 'impartial' stance impossible. To place the views of those concerned with immigrant education in their proper context in the post-1907 period, it is necessary at this point to explore the range of attitudes regarding immigration from Southern and Central Europe that prevailed in Canada at the time.