When retrieving a member from stringList1, you get an instance of java.lang.Object.
In order to work with the original type of the member element, you must first downcast it to String.
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
public class MainClass {
public static void main(String[] args) {
List stringList1 = new ArrayList ();
stringList1.add ("Java 5");
stringList1.add ("with generics");
String s1 = (String) stringList1.get (0);
}
}