The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-02-12
A SCHOOL OF
 CITIZENSHIP

The American International College at
 Springfield, Massachusetts, Trains
 Immigrant Races in American
 Ideals, So that Their Advent Into
 the United States Becomes Bless
 ing Instead of Menace.
 By Rev. R. Dewitt Mallary, D. D.,
 President.
 (Exclusive Service The Survey Press
 Bureau)
 That immigration occupies first of rank among present day problems, and that it underlies all industrial, economic and social questions may be taken for granted. It will also, be gen. erally admitted that the key to exist ing situation is education. The mar vel is that with a solution so effec- tive and plain neither Church nor State have seen fit to possess them selves of this key in any earnest. con- certed way A recent magazine arti- cle contains carefully tabulated statis- tics concerning phases of the immi- grant question, and the discussion, of which these tables form a part, con- cludes by saying "that in New York State no systematic education of the aliens has been attempted" Twenty years ago, the AIn0TlCdu College, was esta ablished to raise up, among the immigrant races in Amer ica, educated and trained immigrant leaders. Today this institution has hundred students from fifteen differ ent nationalities, mostly among the southeastern States of Europe, Italy, Greece, Armenia, with sprinkling from Russia, Poland Bulgaria, Servia, AL bana, Assyria, France( Sweden. apd Austria. The motive in the establish ment of the school was not America for the Americans but American principles for the world and everybody in this country true to those principles and ideals"
 The aim is by an education, at once civic, industrial. and special, as well as by. regular academic and collegiate courses and the whole under Christian (though not sectarian) auspices. to develop American citizenship and a trained lea dership among the immi- grant races in the United States The spirit of the work is broad and cath olic, character above creed, humanity above nationalism, and Christian brotherhood the best and biggest thing in the world The College is help highland to the immigrants; and the thumb of that hand, is the Christian motive: the index-finger, the academic and collegiate courses; the third finger the civic course of three years in the School of American Citizenship con- nected with the College; the fourth finger the special course in English as a language and as literature for those who only want English, and the fifth, the course in industrial training printing, etc.
 The graduates (of the institution number $40 from the college courses with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, which the College is empowered by the State to give. The School owns five acres of land in the city and on it's campus are five buildings at present so overcrowded with students that many have to be turned away.
 The American International College is thus seen to be doing for the immi- grant races precisely what the New England college and Tuskegee are do- ing for the Anglo-Saxon and colored races: nor should it be forgotten that the immigrant races come from lands of great antiquity, civilization and achievement, with literature that is immortal. Here is at once tremen- dous differentiation between them and the colored races which have no ante cedent civilization and no literature. Elin1ina ting great racial and anthro- pological contrasts there nevertheless remains to us the awful and disheart- ening reflection that these immigrant races coming to us by the million each year are thirty per cent lllIeraIe III the annual deposit they make upon cur stores. and more than forty and even sixty per cent, in the lands from which they came. The American In- ternational College does not take these illiterates, and it does not take any body below fifteen. Such may find their way into the public and even- ine schools The college take only the adult-youths who have had some ed- ucation who are disqualified for or handicapped in, our public schools. and who usually are too limited in their resources to enter an American col lege. The daily programme at the School comprises recitations in the morning, manual labor in the after noon by which the students pay in part their bills for tuition and board. and study in the evening. There is college Y. M. c. A. and the Greek students; of whom there are forty now attending the institution. recently gave