6 are refusing to teach their children any language but English. There is, in this particular group, no understanding, no appreciation of the culture of another land. This was true in my own case until I began my training for Ameri­ canization work. Although I read the Scandinavian languages almost as easily as the English, I had had courses in four other foreign languages before having any instruction in Swedish. As la part of my preparation for the work of hastening the Americanization process, without loss of what is valuable in the foreign- born student’s background, I have taken courses in Swedish grammar, Swedish literature, Scandinavian history and Norse mythology. From observation and study so far, it seems to me we should have many better Americans if parents with a knowledge of another language would use it to some extent in the home and if high school and college students of foreign birth or parentage could study the language and literature of their fore­ fathers as the first modern language. As an instrument of culture, one language is as valuable as another, and we are certainly best fitted by nature to acquire and appreciate the social heritage of our own ancestors. To what extent can a high school pupil, of Teutonic stock, for instance, be expected to understand Freneh culture ? How well does even the average college student sense the difference between Teutonic and Medi­ terranean psychology? After my completion of the work in our ungraded village’ school, followed by a few aimless years, a most unexpected combination of circumstances brought higher education within the range of possibilities, first to my twin brother and later to me. With the exception of a few of our cousins, all boys, who had gone away for some high school or com­ mercial training, no young person in the community had at that time dreamed of any education beyond what the village offered. My brother finished the high school course in our county seat, twenty- five miles distant, with plans for uni­ versity training. I had then put in two years in the high school he was at­ tending, carrying extra credits to com­ plete the course in three years. In the fall our family moved to Minneapolis, where my brother entered the mining en­ gineering department of the state uni­ versity and I began my third year in high school, a month late. I was gradu­ ated in June following. Both of us had been dependent upon our own resources in meeting living and school expenses. After four and a half years of teach­ ing in the rural schools of Minnesota and North Dakota, I took a three months’ commercial course and then worked as a stenographer for a year in an office in Minneapolis. Upon resigning this first position in order to find some­ thing better, I began my experiences as a traveler, by a two weeks’ trip to the East. The “wanderlust” has been strong in me ever since; viking blood, I suppose. Some weeks of “job-hunting” brought work in which I could utilize both my business and teaching experiences, and THE WESTERN AMERICAN in addition learn something of the prob­ lems of the social worker. The position was that of State Agent for Blind, with headquarters at the state school for blind, and field work principally in the three cities of St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth, where three home teachers worked under my supervision. In the fall of 1916 I resigned my posi­ tion to take up a normal school course, as preparation for work in another sec­ tion of the country, the West, toward which my family was then looking as a possible future home of our “clan.” My sister had been settled in her own home in Portland for some years; my twin brother had vaguely planned to make his permanent home in some one of the western cities he had seen on his travels to western mining districts, as an engi­ neering student; my parents hoped for a more pleasant old age in a milder cli­ mate. I knew the West as a place to rest and play. In the summer of 1914 I had made a vacation trip to Yellowstone Park, and in 1915 I traveled for three months, my itinerary including the ex­ positions in California and two weeks in Portland with my sister. Although I had, during this brief visit, little oppor­ tunity for obtaining definite information regarding conditions of employment in Oregon, my observations indicated that it would be necessary for me to prepare myself for teaching in graded schools while waiting for an opening in some more specialized field where my business and social service experience could be more directly applied. Hence a normal­ school diploma became my next objec­ tive. With university credits, accumu­ lated by. summer school work at Minne­ sota University and correspondence­ study courses from Chicago University, I was able to complete residence study at the Winona State Teachers’ College in twelve months, some work on my courses from Chicago remaining to be done before my graduation from the ad­ vanced department. In February, 1918, I arrived in Port­ land, and the first of March I began work as principal of a semi-graded school on the coast, completing the school year for a young man who had enlisted. During the following summer I finished my university courses. As a normal­ school graduate, I was now in a position to do work more to my liking. At nor­ mal I had specialized in departmental and junior high school English. Owing to the abnormal conditions, however, I found myself beginning the school year as a high school commercial teacher, and, later in the year, I was teaching all the English of the four-year course. In the meantime, my family had “migrated” to Portland, my brother and his family in September, 1918, my parents in October, 1919. Our old home in Minnesota had been disposed of quite unexpectedly while my sister was back there on a visit. When news of this reached us in Portland, I had already made arrange­ ments to return to Minnesota, having become convinced that I could more quickly find a field of maximum useful- APRIL, 1923 ness, for a time at least, in an older community. The first of January, 1920, I began work as a departmental teacher of Eng­ lish in a Minneapolis school, a position which I regarded as a step toward the more specialized work of “Visiting Teacher,” a type of social worker just then being introduced into the school system. But the Americanization move­ ment was also getting under way at that time and, the following summer, my training for this field began with gen­ eral courses under Dr. Jenks, head of the Department of Anthropology and Amer­ icanization, and courses in technique from Dr. Anne Nicholson, director of Americanization in San Francisco. Dur­ ing the following school year I took most of the subjects offered in the de­ partment, with the instruction in tech­ nique from Miss Ruby Baughman, who came here from the position of director i of Americanization in Los Angeles. Last year I began work in the field as head of what we called the Extension Department at Minnesota College, in Minneapolis. Finding that institution in- I adequately equipped for work'along lines I broad enough to maintain a separate de- I partment for foreign-born, I resigned I my position at the close of our school I year. Since several of my students I wished to continue during the summer, I I organized classes to meet at my home I during the vacation months and, at the I opening of this school year, I decided to I continue my work independently for at I least a year, that I might round out ex- I perimental work begun with certain I types of students, especially the full- I time student, whom I could not hope to I find elsewhere. Of such students, for instance, one I young woman, Miss J., came to me last I year, “right off the boat” from Sweden. I During the first three months she had a I few lessons a week, with no work out- I side of class. After twelve months more, I of full-time work, she entered the Amer- I iean Business College, the first of this I year. A second young woman, Miss L., I who had been in this country a year and I a half, had first a few evening lessons, I last spring, and then began fulltime I work the last week in June. Since the I first of January she has had shorthand I in Miss J.’s class, with the rest of her I work here. Upon completion of the win- ■ ter term, she took state eighth grade ■ examinations in four elementary school ■ subjects, and on April first entered Miss I J.’s other classes, that is, she will com- I plete her business course in five months I from the first of April, Miss J. having I begun an eightmonths’ course in Jami- ■ ary. Miss L. now spends two hours here ■ once a week, two half-hour periods de- ■ voted to study, the other two to talking I on what she has read. One recitation I is given to civics, in preparation for al June examination in that subject, the ■ other to a story, chosen with a view to I giving a larger speaking vocabulary. ■ Miss L. talks continuously during these I recitation periods, with only the briefest! (Continued on page 11)