The San Francisco call., 1899-05-18
NO IDEA OF THEIR NUMBER
THEY PAY NO TUITION FEE AND
HAVE ALL PRIVILEGES.
One School Has Turned Away White
Children for Lack of Room While
japanese Were occu-
pying Desks.

There is no telling by the figures of the
school census just how many Japanese
are enjoying the benefit of free entry into
Ihe schools of this city They are not
ciaSsed as Mongolians, and that is the
only class distinction made Should a
claSs be composed of forty-two whites and
three Japanese children it is carried on
the books of the department as a class of
forty-five. They are not separated in any
way, either in the schoolroom or in the
statistics of the board, and so there can
be no more than a guess, and that
very rough one at the number now at
tending the public schools.
The department has never taken any ac-
ton in regard to the little brown men
except on one occasion, when the Super
intendent tried TO collect a tuition fee
from each. Under the law, non-residents
must pay certain fee every year for the
privilege of attending the city schools,
and it was conteuded by the Superintend-
ent of Schools that the Japanese pupils
were nOn-residentS. As soon as this deci-
sion was made known and the first at
tempt was made to collect the fee the
missionaries who worked among the Jap
aneSe here commenced to oppose the
proposition. 1t was claimed that the
japanese attending the schools were resi-
dents, as they were under the guardian
ship of residents and had severed all con-
nection with the land of their birth The
night made against the proposition caused
II to be laid aside, and now the Japanese
nave an equal chance with the white chill
oren OF the city.
over 100 is the smallest estimate any
one IN authority al the office of the School
Board would put upon the number now
in the schools OF this number the greater
portion attend the night schools as nearly
all OF them work in the day time AS a
rule, they are good pupils. They attend
strictly 10 business and there has never
been a complaint to the board from
teacher, classmate or parent. In the
Washington Evening School there are
twelve and in the Lincoln Evening School
there are fifteen. while the other evening
schools will show less than those num-
berS In each.
In the day schools ten or twelve would
be considered good number, and it is
not often the figure rises so high but
the japanese have been becoming moro
numerous as the years pass, and where
q Few years ago japanese scholar
caused remark, now he is not thought OF.
The greatest complaint against the free
dom of the schools for the Japanese
comes from the Western Addition. where
the schools are already very much crowd
cd. and it frequently happens that white
scholars have been turned away for lack
of room while at the same time there
were attending the same school several
Japanese pupils, none of whom were pay
ing cent of tuition. This is reported
TO have happened out at the Pacific
Heights School in more than one in
stance
1t is urged. too, that numbers of Jap
8uese far beyond the legal school age are
attending the public schools; they have
given their age as being much less than
1t is and so come in with younger chill
dren. There are many full-grown Jap
anese who are now attending the pri-
mary classes with children of from to
10 years old.
Superintendent Webster says he is will
ing to make every Japanese who claims
he is under legal guardianship in this
city prove that fact or pay the regular
tuition fee. He is also willing TO ascer-
tain the exact number and standing of
the japanese on the school rolls, and he
viii probably set about this at once in
response to a request to that effect from
the president of the Western Addition
improvement Club, the organization
which started the present agitation.
The Chinese have a school of their own
and they have to attend that school or
no other, and the only way to exclude the
Japanese, in the opinion Of the Superin-
tendent Is 10 pass a similar law restrict
ing all Japanese TO certain schools