Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-27

The investigation into the status OF the
children of immiS. ants in schools was
one of the most extensive planned ana
carried out by the immigration com1niS-
sion Inquiries We're made which reach
ed more than two million school children,
approxima tely a quarter Of a million OF
them in parochial schools. 1t also
reached some fifty thousand teachers and
upward of thirty thousand students In
the higher educational institutions of the
country The purpose was to ascertain
to what extent the children of foreign
parentage make use of our educational
system and what progress they make in
school work.
In the main the survey of the subject
was a general one but in number oil
cities having large percentage of chill
dren of foreign parentage the eXamlna-
ton was made more i'll detail. More
than half of all the school children in
the public schools of the thirty-seven
cities investigated were of foreign par
entage In fact fifty-seven out of every
hundred of the children were Of foreign
parentage. Some OF the cities showed d
remarkable proportion of such children.
In Chelsea and Duluth it was nearly
three-fOurthS, while IN New York. New
bedford, Chicago, Fall River and Shenan-
doah upward of two out of three We're
OF foreign parentaSe.
The children of the races who do not
speak English have rather a hard time
getting started There are a few eX
ceptions. For instance. in the case Of
the Swedes. there are only little more
than half as many OF their children be-
hind in their studies as there are among
the native American children. The lit
tie Dutch boys and gi Is show about the
same amount of precocity. But when it
comes to some of the other nationalities
there is q different story. TWo-thirds of
the Polish Jew children have an unequal
struggle in their work. while nearly two
thirds of the children from sunny south
ern Italy are unable to keep up with their
American ferow-pupils. More than half
of the Slovaks. Magyars, Poles. North
Italians and Jews are behind the normal
qualifications of their years.
<
And yet with all the difficulties eN-
perienced by the children of the nom
T. e sh-
Show Better Average spea king
Than American Negro. thew show
a better percentage Of pupils measuring
up to the average school standards than is
shown by the American negro. Whereas.
speaking foreigners children show only
fOrty-seven retarded pupils out of a hum
dred, while the negro children show
siXty-nine These figures are the most
extensive ever brought out concerning
the relative mentality of white and negro
children, and have added interest because
they come from thirty-seven cities only
one of which is south of the Mason and
Dixon line.
The teachers i'm the schools of the
cities investigated ought to be able to
sympathize with the struggles of the
children of imm grants, for it is shown
migrants themselves or the children of
immigrants. The majority of these
teachers, of course. came from north
western Europe. although other races
Irish furnish more than twice as many
teachers in the schools investigated as
any other race. In fact. they furnish
about two-fifths of al the school teach
ers of foreign parentage in those cities
more than the Germans, English and
Scotch-Irish together.
In the parochial schools covered by the
investigation it was found that children
of foreign parentage largely predominant,
nearly two-thirds answering this de-
scription. One-fourth Of them are of
Irish parentage.
One can scarcely overestimate the as
similatiOn force Of the public schools as
disclosed by the investigation. 1t shows
that the immigrants do not fail to put
their children into the schools, and that
once there they are certain to become
genuine Americans by the time they
leave school, We discover the American
ization process in nearly all lines of in
quiry which might indicate 1t. We see
them emulating our bad traits as we'll as
our good ones.