WISCONSIN

One hundred and sixty-six Catholic; 124 German Lutheran; 19 Adventists; 22 Christian Reform. There is a total of 331. Of these, 190 maintain as many as eight grades, and 62 maintain more than eight grades. In the grades below the high school there is an attendance of 43,836, and in the high schools, 2,813. There are employed about 1,200 teachers. Eighty-six schools use German as a medium of instruction, German partly; sixteen use Polish; 5 use French. Only 2 schools in the state give no time to the teaching of the English branches. Seventy per cent of all the schools use the English language only as a medium of instruction. The census of the state contains 892,787 children of school age, five to nineteen years, inclusive. There are enrolled in the public schools of the state, 635,020. We regret that we have not yet the data from Saginaw and Detroit. The city of Detroit alone would perhaps show a parochial-school attendance as large as the parochial-school attendance of all the rest of the state.

In a Finnish colony in upper Michigan the writer found three one-month religious summer schools, well attended. One of the leaders of the colony stated that they have only Finnishteachers in these schools and the teaching is in Finnish. The program contains mainly religious instruction and a limited amount of Finnish history. The expenses are paid by the church treasury. The people want these schools for maintaining their religion among the children as well as for sentimental nationalistic reasons. The schools are conducted in the public-school rooms during summer vacations.

In the same section of the state the writer visited an old and comparatively large Polish colony, located at Posen. His field notes supply the following information: There is at the church a four-room parochial school, housed in a substantial brick building, with five teachers, including the priest. The school year lasts ten months. Teaching is in English, except that an hour each day is devoted to the Polish language and Polish history. The priest admitted that the teaching of religion is in Polish. The school program is the same as in the standard public schools of eight grades. The same textbooks are used. Although the law does not require examination of the children, nevertheless to appease the county officials and show the efficiency and value of their school they send the children to the county board of education for examination, and the county board has always expressed great satisfaction with the advancement in education of the children of the Polishschool. The teachers are all Poles, appointed by the bishop, candidates being presented by the priest.

The need of this school the priest explained as follows: It Americanizes the children more quickly than the American school—that is, it is more efficient in teaching the children the American ways of life and American history than the American public schools, for the teachers are all Poles, know their people and their psychology better than do the teachers in the public schools. During a later discussion the priest admitted that the church service is in the Polish language and that the Polish school exists rather for sentimental reasons of a racial character than for practical reasons. The settlers also claimed that the Polish school and the church service in the Polish language are needed, for the reason that they like this better; they complained that the expenses are too high; they would have the county or state help them. Sometimes a few adults come to the school, but they are irregular in attendance.

The priest explained that the issue of the immigrant schools in the state has become practically a political issue, and to his mind it ought not to be, at least not in such a sharp form. Prohibition of these schools would have a bad effect on the foreign-born population. The schools might be modified and reformed and the state mightexercise some sort of control and supervision over them, but only so far as it is agreeable to the colonies themselves. In this way the schools would be a valuable asset to the education of the people. They would work toward Americanization, better than the ordinary public schools, for they can reach the depths of the soul more easily than the American schools. He believed that his school would be an ideal means to this end.

The writer observed in this colony that the majority of the colonists are of the second and third generations. Not many families are foreign born. The colony is on the way to Americanization. The main causes holding it back are as follows: the colony is to a large degree isolated from the outside world; the Catholic Church and its schools are keeping the Polish language and the racial characteristics very much alive. The writer heard in the town grown-up people talking Polish. All the people the writer met spoke English fluently. In the street he noticed several groups of children playing; some spoke Polish, some English. Two boys were talking together, one speaking Polish, the other English. In watching and hearing the boys, the writer felt the influence of the Polish church and school over them. The faces and build of the people have a specific Slavic character. Otherwise their appearance is American.

At Holland, Ottawa County, Michigan, there is a large long-established Dutch colony, the vast majority of the settlers being already of the second and third generations. The colony is far advanced on the way to Americanization. The writer found the town and farming districts surrounding it almost the same as any native rural district. He did not hear any Dutch spoken in the streets, stores, or public offices. Yet the Dutch language was the language of the service in the churches and the teaching language in the parochial schools up to recent years. In regard to this fact the local church head explained to the writer:

Aside from a number of lower parochial schools, there is one parochial high school and one parochial college, Hope College. The high school is a preparatory school for the college. The college prepares ministers for the village churches. The language used in the high school and college was formerly Dutch. They taught Dutch history, literature, and mainly religion—Bible study. But during late years English has become the teaching language, and the Dutch language has remained only as a subject of study. Up to this time the leaders of the colony have been working toward Americanization unconsciously, but now they have awakened to the fact that the Dutch are rapidly Americanizing. They accept this fact as a desirable one, and are now working consciously toward the end of Americanization. They realize that even if they would like to keep the Dutch nationality alive in the colony, they would not be able to do it, so that they yield to the inevitable. The activities in the church and parochial schools have now to be turned more toward Americanization.

In a German colony at Au Gres, Michigan, the writer learned that the colonists have a parochial school in which the teaching is in German. They teach the German language, the Lutheran religion, and the rudiments of sciences. The church is composed entirely of Germans. Both ministers are appointed by the German Synod. The Congregational church has Saturday and Sunday school. The Saturday school lasts from nine until twelve in the morning, and the Sunday school from nine until ten in the morning. The teaching is in German; the subject is Bible study, and also the learning of the German language and the singing of hymns. The meaning of these schools was explained to the writer by the settlers as follows: The parents would like to have their children know the German language, be able to read and write German, and be instructed in religious matters, for neither German nor religion is taught in the American schools. The local native settlers stated to the writer that the German parochial school ought not to be there. It is a Germanizing school, opposed to America and Americanization, they argued.

The Superintendent of Public Education of the State of Wisconsin told the writer that there is no law enabling the public authorities to superviseor inspect the private schools or even to collect information in regard to them, except in a roundabout way. There is a law requiring that the county boards keep records of school attendance and this law enables the county boards to learn the attendance of every school in each county. The enrollment in private and parochial schools in Wisconsin was as follows:

TABLE VIEnrollment and Teaching Force of Private andParochial Schools in Wisconsin, 1914–15 and1915–16[29]1914–151915–16Number attending private or parochialschools only—counties24,37025,373Number attending private or parochialschools only—cities21,73618,556Number attending both public and private,or parochial schools—counties34,33534,958Number attending both public and private,or parochial schools—cities1,4413,276Teaching force of private and parochialschools in counties:Men288Women600Total888909

There was a case in Wisconsin in 1918 of a German father sentenced to five years in thepenitentiary for persuading his son to evade the draft. An editorial commenting on the case said:

This man, though German in every sense of the word, was born in America. Yet when he was on trial he had great difficulty in understanding questions put to him in English. Born in America, educated in American schools, nearly fifty years old, yet "he had great difficulty in understanding questions put in English!" Why? Because in the German—not American—community in which he was raised the education of American citizens was conducted in German.

A rural postmaster of German descent in a small backwoods town in Wisconsin, who claimed to have lost long ago his faith in "the Kaiser's Fatherland," as he put it, stated that there are thousands and thousands of such victims of the German parochial schools in the state, who, though born and brought up here, are unable to converse freely in English. This is especially true among those who live on farms in a German colony and go only to a German school and church.

Now these people suffer and are ashamed of themselves. But who is responsible? I think both the German clergy and other leaders for victimizing these people, as well as the American public for allowing such mischief.

In regard to the situation in South Dakota, the Federal Bureau of Education reports (Bulletin, No. 31, 1918) that,

some counties, Hutchinson, for example, are largely peopled by German stock. A large portion of the school population attend German Catholic and German Lutheran parochial schools in which German has been used largely as a medium of instruction. (Recently stopped by order of the State Council of Defense.) In this county, and in Hanson County, the German-Russian Mennonites still live the quaint community life brought with them from Russia. German, not English, is the language of the villages, although in most of the schools English is the medium of instruction.

The California Commissioner of Public Education stated to the writer that the state authorities have no right to interfere in any way with the private and parochial schools and that he is not legally able to collect any information in regard to these schools.

Even the leaders of the Russian sectarian peasant colonies maintain some sort of a private school of their own. The San Francisco colony has classes for children two evenings a week, in which they are taught reading and writing in the Russian language. In Los Angeles the colony leaders explained that their children learn the Russian language in their homes, where Russian is spoken exclusively, and that they learn Russian reading and writing in their Russian private evening schools, one hour each evening. The peasants themselves teach them. The parents have to pay certain small sums to the teachers.

The leaders expressed a keen desire that the city should provide them with a Russian school, for they would like to have their children able to read, speak, and write the Russian language. If they should not be able to settle in America on the land they would be compelled to return to Russia. The leaders of the Russian colony at Glendale, Arizona, said that they are attempting to teach Russian to their children in the evenings and other spare time, but owing to lack of time and proper teachers they have not made much progress.

The local manager of the Hirsch fund in Woodbine, New Jersey, a Jewish colony, stated that there is in the colony a Hebrew school supported by individuals and to a certain degree by the Hirsch fund. It is a Hebrew school connected with activities of the synagogue, maintained for religious purposes. It corresponds to the parochial school of Christian churches. About sixty pupils attend this school.

It goes without saying that during war-time excitement, with its heightened suspicion, the statements made by the defenders of the foreign-languageschools and their opponents do not always correspond to the reality. It has been the writers impression that the defenders were inclined to diminish the negative influence of these schools, while their opponents in a number of cases saw these schools darker than they really were.

For instance, it was a usual experience of the writer, when he arrived in an immigrant colony and explained either to individual leaders or to a meeting of the whole colony the purpose of his inquiry, to receive at the outset the following answer: "Well, we are all Americanized; we are all Americans; we understand and speak the American language and love the country; we are not a colony at all, but just plain American people of a certain old-country stock," etc. When it developed that the language of their church service and the teaching language in their private schools was their old-country language, the leaders began, with certain embarrassment, to admit that the old folks and the late arrivals do not understand English, and therefore the mother tongue of the parents becomes the home language for both the young and old. And since some settlers intend to return to the old country, and do not like to lose their former nationality—their old-country tongue is used in the churches and taught in the schools.

Perhaps the Polish settlers were most outspoken in their attachment to their nationality,while the German settlers were either silent or denied their preference for the German nationality; their main argument in favor of the use of German in their churches and schools was based on purely religious grounds. It was solely on this religious ground that they explained the higher proportion of German-language schools to the number of German immigrants than obtains in any other immigrant national group. The Jews claimed that their racial characteristics, such as diet, moral conceptions according to the Mosaic laws, and study of Hebrew history, were really contributions to America. They justified on this ground the cultivation of their racial differences, maintaining that there is nothing in this opposed to American ideals, but that, on the contrary, it is in accord with what this country stands for and fosters.

On the other hand, the opponents of foreign-language schools often viewed them as the sole hindrance to the better understanding and acceptance of American ways and institutions, the creators of disloyalty. They would close all foreign-language schools in the country at once, without any further consideration.

As a result of the war-time revelations and excitement, certain changes have taken place in these schools. In a number of states the use of a foreign tongue as a teaching medium and even as a subject of study in the common schools hasbeen prohibited. In a number of places the immigrant leaders themselves have voluntarily changed their teaching language to English under the pressure of both public opinion in general and that of the members of their own group. "It is an injustice to our own people if we teach them a foreign tongue instead of the language of this country," stated a Lutheran pastor to the writer.

But in many cases the nationalistic leaders expressed their dissatisfaction with the changes "enforced" upon them. They expressed the opinion that after peace is established their people would have things their own way through their votes. Many of them are already naturalized and still more are going to be.

The elementary foreign-language schools undoubtedly perform a service in preventing the disruption of families and are justified to this extent. The question arises, however, whether much more cannot be done to assist the parents, through evening schools and home teachers, to learn the language and customs of the country. If this work could be adequately done, it would not be necessary to hold the children back by teaching them a foreign language, only to be used to bridge a temporary gulf in their homes.

The justification for foreign-language elementaryschools does not apply to the higher institutions. In the Dutch colony at Holland, Michigan, the writer was struck by the fact that while the people were largely Americanized and English had become their home or mother tongue, the colony leaders insisted on the Dutch language in their high school and college. The only explanation given was that this was done unconsciously. During recent years they had become conscious of the need and the inevitableness of Americanization, and, as a result, had substituted English for Dutch in their higher schools.

The Jewish colony in Woodbine, New Jersey, had a Jewish agricultural college, supported by the Hirsch fund. To the writer's inquiries as to why there was need of a special Jewish agricultural college, why the Jewish boys cannot enter American agricultural colleges, receiving scholarships from the Hirsch fund if need be, the answers of the authorities were varied: They had to follow the will of Baron de Hirsch; in a special Jewish institution the Jewish boys are kept from "going astray"; teaching and training can be better adjusted to the peculiarities of the Jewish boys, etc.

There is no question that the foreign-language private schools have done great harm to thecountry as a whole and to the immigrants themselves. The question is, What has to be done?

The parochial schools must be regulated by the following measures: All elementary private schools should be licensed or registered in the office of the public-school authorities; all should meet the same requirements as the elementary public schools in regard to the qualifications of teachers, school terms, program, teaching language, and inspection and direction by the public-school authorities. Exception might be made to permit religious instruction certain definite hours during the week to the American-born children in English and to recently arrived immigrant children in their mother tongue as well as instruction in their mother tongue as an extra cultural subject. The lessons should be given by a duly qualified teacher.

In another volume[30]of these Studies there is a further discussion of a successful experiment along this line. The parochial schools of New Hampshire have co-operated voluntarily with the state authorities. Progress toward regulation and the establishment of a minimum standard in all schools in the state has been made. Only through some such provision can this country insure equal opportunity to its potential citizens.

Immigrant or foreign-language churches are needed by the immigrants so long as they have not learned to understand the English language. But for those immigrants who have been long enough in this country to know English and for the immigrants' children born in America no foreign-language churches are needed. If the church authorities conduct the church services and activities in a foreign tongue for those immigrants who understand and speak English, they then do this for racial or nationalistic reasons—as a service to the old country or to a nationality other than the American nationality. That this is often the case is shown by the fact that certain foreign countries have been financially supporting churches here for their people who have come to America; for instance, the former Russian monarchy gave liberally for the establishment and upkeep of Russian Greek Orthodox churches in this country.

In the use of foreign language in nearly all the rural colonies visited by the writer where therewas an immigrant church, the language used in the church services was the old-country tongue, although occasionally the services were bilingual, both English and the foreign tongue being used.

In North Dakota an American minister described the situation as follows:

Most of the German Catholic and Lutheran church services are in German; some are bilingual. The Lutherans almost entirely have all-German services. In the western part of the state a Bohemian or a Slav can get only the German tongue. Scandinavian churches also use their own tongue. All foreign churches here use their own languages. Quite a number of foreign ministers are foreign born. Some can scarcely speak English.

At a hearing before the state Americanization Committee in Lincoln, Nebraska, held in the fall of 1918, a large number of the priests and pastors of immigrant churches testified as to the use of the old-country language in their church services and pleaded for its retention. It was apparent from the testimony that the foreign-language church service was prevalent throughout the state in the immigrant churches. Practically every priest or pastor claimed that the majority of his congregation could not understand services in English.

The following extracts from the testimony are characteristic. Peculiar emphasis was laid by the church authorities upon the fact that although the people might understand and speakEnglish fluently in their everyday affairs, yet they could not understand church service or religious instruction when these were given in English.

Statement of H. F. Hensick, Madison, Nebraska, pastor of German Evangelical Lutheran Church:

In my own congregation in Madison there are thirty-six who are not able to understand the religious instruction in English; they are those who were born in this country or who came here years back.

Statement of Richard Kuehne, Lincoln, Nebraska:

We have in Lincoln about eight thousand German-Russian people; the most of them cannot follow an English sermon at all.

Statement of M. Lehninger, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, representing Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of Wisconsin and other states:

While there are a good many people who do understand English well and speak it quite fluently in everyday conversation, they all have had their religious instruction in German, and they understand a German sermon where they cannot understand an English one. The people of my church have come partly from Germany and partly from Canada, and many communicant members are native-born American citizens, and still it is a fact that perhaps only half a dozen members of the two hundred and fifty communicant members will have the full benefit of an English sermon.

Statement of Vic Anderson, Minden, Nebraska, Swedish Lutheran:

It is my judgment that 35 per cent of our people do not understand preaching in the American language. They can do business in that language, but when it comes to understanding the interpretation of the Bible, they would like to have it in the Swedish language because that is the language that their fathers and mothers taught them in.

Statement of John H. Steger, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, St. Paul German Church:

Half of my congregation cannot understand the English language.

Statement of C. F. Brommer, Hampton, Nebraska, Lutheran pastor:

In every congregation, but mostly in the congregations of the city, we have people who understand the English sermon as well as the German sermon, and then I think the majority speak, read, and write English, in common, everyday life, perfectly, but they still would derive greater benefit from the German than the English sermon, and I think there are probably nearly 98 per cent of our congregations and people who do not understand the English sermons and never will learn to understand them. These are mostly old people. When they came here they did not have the time nor the opportunity to learn the English language.

Statement of Adolph Matzner, Lincoln, Nebraska, representing the Nebraska district of the German Evangelical Synod of North America:

The majority of the voting members of our congregation are immigrants. They came to this country thirty or forty years ago; they settled in the country; they had no opportunity to get acquainted and to learn the American language. In the country and small towns they have no night schools, and these people never had a chance to learn the Americanlanguage. We have members in the congregation who are able to understand it, or at least able to do their business in the American language. They can talk to you about politics and about the weather, but they cannot get the benefit from an American sermon that they can from a German sermon. They would perhaps understand a sermon on how to keep cool on a hot day, but when you come to a sermon on religious subjects they are not able to understand it.

Most of the priests and pastors stated that there were so many difficulties in the way of having separate English and foreign-language services, the former for the children and those who understand English, and the latter for the old people who do not understand English, that it would be practically impossible to do this. The argument usually given was that presented by Joseph G. Votava of Omaha, a Roman Catholic, representing the Bohemians:

About having separate meetings for the old folks and the children—this question came up from Greeley County, and they wanted us to have our German service between nine and ten, and Sunday school between ten and eleven, and from eleven to twelve an English sermon. The old folks and the children come together in the same vehicle, and they certainly don't expect the children to sit down on the curbing or in the shade until the old folks get through, and therefore it is hard to separate the meetings in the rural districts, of which we have many congregations all over the state.

That it is possible to have bilingual services successfully was testified to by John P. Gross, Hastings,Nebraska, a United States citizen born in Russia, representing the Adams County Council of Defense. He said:

Then we were told to have one preaching service a week in the English language, and we all agreed to do that, and we were told we could have as much German besides that one English sermon as we wanted. And we agreed to have that one English sermon. I went to my congregation of three hundred and fifty people, at least half of whom did not get any benefit from the English sermon, and I put it before them and told them, this is what we are requested to do; you don't have to do it, but they would like to have you do it, and they unanimously voted in my church, and every other church in the county, to adopt the plan. Our congregations in the evening are not as large as before because some of the older people do not come now, but enough come to church who are living in our community so that we can hold the service. So we have lost in one way, but we are slowly gaining along another way; one old grandfather there said it would have been better if these plans had been adopted fifteen years ago. And this plan has worked very satisfactorily in our county.

In several of the rural immigrant communities visited by the writer there were successful bilingual churches. In the Polish colony at Posen, Michigan, the sermon in the Catholic Church is in two languages, Polish and English. The priest explained that the Polish language is needed, as the people, especially the older people, understand it better and the priest is able to penetrate their souls more intimately in their mother tongue. The English language is needed for two reasons: among the colonists are a fewAmerican farmers who belong to the same church and do not speak Polish; and a few of the younger generation understand English better than Polish, especially those newcomers who have been born outside of the colony among Americans.

In the Dutch colony at Holland, Michigan, the churches are bilingual. One service in the morning is in the Dutch language and the other in the evening is in the English language. English has become a necessity because a number of the young people have difficulty in understanding Dutch, and also because a number of the congregation are either native born or of some other nationality.

On the whole, the writer, in his field study, was impressed by the fact that the rank and file of the immigrant congregations favored the English-language service, while the priests and pastors were opposing it. Whenever an English-language service had been lately introduced it had been done under the pressure either of the members of the congregation or of the state Council of Defense.

The clergy often maintained that the foreign-language service was needed, even in cases where the members of the congregation were largely American born and understood and spoke English well in everyday life. Perhaps the mostconspicuous in making such claims were the German Catholic and Lutheran priests and pastors. According to a number of them, no other language than German is suited for services, no matter how far advanced the church members are in the use of English.

There were cases where among the membership of a German-language church there were Bohemians or Scandinavians or Poles. To the writer's question whether services for these people were conducted in their mother tongue, the answer was usually given in the negative, with the explanation that there was no money to engage additional preachers and that these people understood German well. The only explanation of such extreme claims for foreign-language services is the nationalism of the clergy.

Certain church authorities hinder amalgamation of the immigrants by making severe requirements in regard to "interfaith" marriages. For instance, in a case where one party is Catholic and the other is not, the Catholic Church requires a written sworn statement from both parties in regard to certain conditions which they must fulfill in their married life. What these conditions are the following blank given to the writer by a Catholic bishop shows:

In Casu Disparitatis Cultus.

Vel Mixtae Religionis.

FORM OF PROMISE TO BE SIGNED BY THE NON-CATHOLIC PARTY.

AGREEMENT

I, the undersigned, never baptized (baptized in the .......... Church), of .......... do hereby promise that if .......... receives from the Bishop a dispensation to marry me, I will never by word or act interfere with .......... faith in the Catholic Church or with .......... practice thereof, and that I will not prevent the children of either sex to be born (and already born) from being baptized and brought up in the faith and practice of the Catholic Church. I also promise that in the solemnization of my marriage, there shall be only the Catholic Ceremony.

Signed in presence of......................... .........................Date .........................

FORM OF PROMISE TO BE SIGNED BY THE CATHOLIC PARTY.

I, the undersigned, of .........., a Catholic, wishing to marry .........., unbaptized (baptized in the .......... Church), do hereby promise that, if the Bishop finds canonical cause for granting me a dispensation, I will have all my children baptized and reared in the Catholic Church, and that I will practice my Religion faithfully and do all I can, especially by prayer, example, and the frequentation of the Sacraments, to bring about the conversion of my consort.

Signed in presence of......................... .........................Date .........................

There is no question that such requirements may prevent a number of marriages between native born and immigrants, when one is a Catholic and the other a non-Catholic. It is not always possible for a non-Catholic to follow the required conditions and as a result family quarrels and the disruption of families may occur. The writer has observed three such cases. In one case there were involved a native and an immigrant, and in two cases immigrants alone.

A similar ban or check on interfaith, which often means international, marriages is found among sectarian immigrant groups. Their extreme religious sentiment prevents them from marrying outsiders, and as a result inbreeding occurs. They marry close relatives and defectives. For instance, near Lincoln, Nebraska, where a small German colony of Mennonites is settled, the birth of idiots and otherwise defective children was so noticeable that the colony's leaders and their neighbors decided to bring about a change. The marriage of close relatives was prohibited and the ban on marriage with outsiders was done away with. This change has had a very good result, according to the colony's leaders. The change was possible only because the sectarian beliefs had been weakened under the pressure of the general American conditions.

The orthodox Jews are similarly opposed tothe marriage of their members with the Gentiles. So far as the writer has learned, they do not require signed promises. They are uncompromising in such matters and ostracize any one of their members who marries an outsider.

The usual explanation of the need of such a ban or check on interfaith marriages is that if the parents are of different faiths the children will be lost to the Church. Whatever the explanation or justification of the Church opposition to interfaith marriages, it often applies to immigrants and makes for their continued separation from America.

Very often the priests and pastors of the immigrant churches are freshly arrived immigrants themselves. They scarcely speak English and know little about America. Consequently they are not able to educate the members of their congregations in American ways. On the contrary, they tend to criticize America and favor their old country in their sermons, public addresses, and activities. During recent years quite a number of such church heads have been prosecuted in the courts for their seditious utterances and activities.

Testimony given at the hearing before the state Americanization Committee in Lincoln,Nebraska, showed how many of the ministers know little of the English language and little of America:

Joseph G. Votava of Omaha, representing the Bohemians, Roman Catholic, stated:

A great many of the ministers have come from foreign churches and countries, and if you gentlemen were forced to listen to them making English sermons, I don't know whether you would go to church very often or not.

Rev. F. E. Pomp, Omaha, representing the Swedish Evangelical Mission Association of Nebraska, said:

A great many of the ministers in our denomination were born in Sweden; some preach very well in English, but the majority, perhaps, of those born in Sweden cannot preach in the English language.

The statement of Rev. Matt W. Nemec, Wahoo, Nebraska, Bohemian Roman Catholic, was:

There are eight of these gentlemen who have come over here and are in training, and they cannot speak the English language fluently, and it would be a great hardship for them to come up before the young people who speak English very well and try to preach in English.

An immigrant church can do much toward the amalgamation of its members. There are a fewimmigrant churches, Catholic as well as Protestant, which are doing valuable work in this direction. But while an immigrant church can do much good it also can do much harm when its services and activities are conducted in the spirit of preference of the old country to America. To prevent such harm some action must be taken by the public.

The writer recommends that the immigrant church heads (priests, pastors, ministers, rabbis, and others) should be American citizens either by birth or by naturalization. Foreign-language services should be conducted for freshly arrived immigrants only, and for those old-time immigrants who have not mastered English.

Immigrant churches should be required to report regularly on the Americanization progress of their congregations (number of families, home language, service language, naturalization, etc.) to the state or Federal Bureau of Education.

The preceding three chapters show how important is the public school as an instrumentality of Americanization. The question is whether the rural public school meets present-day requirements. Field investigations and search through both public and private reports have convinced the writer that the rural public school is the most neglected class of all the educational institutions in the country. It is far behind the times. It not only does not adequately meet the problem of immigrant children, but it does not even root out illiteracy from the rural population in general. Some of its limiting features are inevitable, while others are gradually being changed.

The great majority of rural public schools are one-teacher schools. The Commissioner of Public Education of California stated that there were in the state of California in 1918, 2,300 one-room public schools and 410 two-room schools. Overa third of all the Wisconsin school children, city as well as country, and 42 per cent of the Wisconsin school-teachers, are found in the one-teacher country schools.[31]A report on school conditions in Arizona shows that 149 rural schools, or 70 per cent of a total of 214 reporting, are one-teacher schools.[32]

The one-teacher school usually means a crowd of children of various grades taught by one teacher during the same day. In most cases the recitation work can go on only with one grade at a time, while the other grades have to do study work. Without the supervision of the teacher, this is much less efficient than the recitation work. About two thirds of the rural teachers answering questionnaires sent out by the United States Bureau of Education[33]instructed eight or more grades and held from twenty-two to thirty-five classes a day, which means that the recitations averaged the absurdly short time of nine to thirteen minutes. A few teachers manage to lengthen the recitations by a system of organizing the grades into groups and of combining classes, but this is the exception, not the rule.

As a rule the one-teacher schools have limitedroom and equipment. Most of these schools visited by the writer were small one-room frame buildings with porchlike attachments on which were built a tiny hall and dressing "rooms." Quite a few did not have even these "modern conveniences." The toilets are usually at a distance from the building and are not always kept clean.

Several teachers stated that the smallness and poverty of the schools have a depressing influence upon the teachers and prevent any great respect on the part of the people toward the school.

A third defect of the one-teacher school consists in its monotony and lack of color and variety as compared with larger schools. Rivalry is lacking and the recreation enterprises are limited. Of course, much depends upon the qualities of the individual teacher, but a good teacher does not stay long in a one-teacher school; she is attracted by better opportunities elsewhere.

Dissatisfaction with the one-teacher school the writer found to be quite general, even among the immigrant settlers. The Finnish settlers at Rudyard in upper Michigan expressed the wish that the government should give a better public-school system, although the existing schools were said to be standard schools. They wanted three or four-room schools, a better heating system, and higher salaries for teachers. Only in this way could better teaching forces be attracted and kept steadily in the same schools.

The Polish colonists in Posen, Michigan, explained that they have six one-room standard public schools in the colony and its vicinity, but that as the teacher has to deal at the same time with eight grades the efficiency of her work is naturally below what it should be. The settlers said that consolidation or enlargement of the schools is badly needed. No agricultural training is included in the school work.

Reverend Kuizinga of the Dutch colony at Holland, Michigan, stated that in the backwoods parts of the colony, in purely rural districts, the school activities ought to be more efficient than they are; certain schools might be consolidated so as to make fewer grades for one teacher, teachers' salaries must be increased, and the program for teaching citizenship broadened.

A leader of an Italian colony at Canastota, New York, stated that the Italian parents appreciate the schooling of their children, who attend the American public schools, speak English among themselves, and prefer the American to the Italian ways of life. In regard to the same colony, the county school superintendent said that the Italian children attend school fairly regularly, are able pupils, and excel American children in their studies.

There is at least one school district in the same colony which has a defective one-teacher school, which the writer chanced to visit. Thetrustee of the school, an American woman, married to an unnaturalized Italian settler, said that she was worried about getting a school-teacher for next year, as the county pays only $17 a week. Last year it paid $15, and that was an increase of $3 over the former salary. She thought the county might possibly pay $20 this year if she could not get anyone for less. The people did not like the teacher they had last year—they thought she did not know enough. There are now seventy-three children of school age, but there were only twenty-six before, and the schoolhouse is only large enough for twenty-six. The building is very small, oblong in shape, with a small partition at one end for cloakroom and entrance. The school board voted $250 for enlarging the building and taking down the partition, but the trustee was certain that this would not be done for that small sum, as "lumber is so high, and the carpenter wants something." The building needed painting and a number of the windows were broken The woman said that last year many children of school age worked instead of going to school, as there was nobody to force them to go. Now that she was trustee, she said, she would see that everybody went.

The defects of the one-teacher school have led to the consolidation movement which is rapidly developingthroughout the country. The Superintendent of Public Instruction of North Dakota reported in 1916 that the consolidated school was becoming more and more the school of the rural districts and he recommended liberal state aid to these schools. There were at that time 123 "open country" consolidated schools in the state and 210 town consolidated schools, the latter being in reality rural schools.

One county superintendent reported that in the last two years a number of districts had voted to consolidate their schools; another said that 40 per cent of the pupils were attending consolidated schools. The Rural School Commissioner of Minnesota stated that consolidation has a very promising growth in the state; that 210 districts have been organized, half of which were established during the two years ending in 1916. And so the story goes in each state that has a largely rural population.

There is some opposition to this movement by parents who live farthest from a proposed consolidated school, because of the distance and inability to provide children with hot lunches. But this opposition is easily overcome by the provision of public transportation facilities for the children and by serving hot lunches at the schoolhouses. Some opposition comes from the landowners in the neighborhood of a one-teacher school which has to be closed on account of consolidation.Their fear that there will be a lowering of land values is baseless, as the settlers in that section get much better school accommodations through consolidation than they had before.

Advantages of the consolidated school over the one-teacher school are obvious. It makes possible a better division of time in recitation and study. The teaching is more efficient on account of specialization and a better and more stable teaching staff.

In the office of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, North Dakota, the writer found the following statements in the reports of various county superintendents for 1916.[34]

Barnes County:

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