FEBRUARY, 1925
THE UNITED AMERICAN
people has not been heard in the discussion of the national
issues affecting the various phases of our Americanization
problem;
Reminiscently reviewing the accomplishments dur­
ing recent years, resulting from work by trained
Americanization teachers, Professor Herlihy says:
The school programs of Americanization have prospered
and have helped hundreds of thousands of adult aliens during
the past five years because the classes have been taught by
trained teachers, inspired with ithe challenge of patriotic
service in this work. Teacher training programs have been
eonducted in fifteen or more states and the value of such
taming is very apparent in the longer evening school terms
and in the high, average percentage of attendance in the
classes for adult aliens. The teachers and supervisors who
have participated in these Americanization courses realize
that time limitations do not allow for a thorough treatment
of the subject during the course. Every teacher must devote
a great deal of time to reading, study, and thoughtful intelligent
testing of methods and results after the formal work of the
course has been completed.
In this connection it is interesting to note that
fifteen states have discarded the untrained volunteer
system and adopfted teachers’ training programs. The
results thus obtained, as set forth by Professor
Herlihy, amply attest to the wisdom of this procedure.
In those states they have apparently found “the key
io the trouble” of schools with no attendance — the
greatest and most persistently continuous grief in
Portland, Oregon, where $15,000.00 for adult alien
education classes was voted by the School Board, for
the school year of 1924-1925.
In this criticism there is no intent to place the
Jlame upon the superintendant of the Public Night
¡Schools, who necessarily has to conduct the schools
"with the teaching material at hand. Most of the
teachers engaged would become thoroughly efficient
if given an opportunity to take a teacher training
purse in one of the state-supported state educational
institutions, even if it were nothing more than a short
term in one of the summer school centers.
This the State must supply.
People who hold important positions in this city
Americanization activities, yet are discouraging or
fending their influence to discourage the adoption of
1 state program of teacher training, as the first
Essential step to a state program of Americanization,
pnnot avoid the open suspicion of ulterior motives.
The Portland Americanization Council, which is
[financially sustained by the Community Chest, in the
amount of $3000.00 annually, pledged itself in the
Beginning of the school year to direct its secretary’s
activities, for this year, exclusively along lines of
school attendance education among the foreign-bom
people. In this respect the results do not tend to
»indicate the Council and its field secretary. The
working plans of the Council, as well as the methods
applied for their execution, are apparently very much
h need of revision.
The registration of adult immigrants in the Port­
land night schools this semester, however, shows
no increase above the attendance of the school year
of 1923-1924. The night school superintendent re­
ports an average attendance this year of six hundred
and nineteen, from a total registration slightly above
Page Seven
seven hundred. This, he states, was the exact average
attendance for the previous school year, the total
registration being slightly higher for that year.
A little more attention to the Council’s field­
work might help a great deal, but after all, it is
a question if we are not again confronted with the
absence of adequate training.
Here is where the angle of social Americanization
work enters in.
Upon the approach depends so much, if we are to
be successful in our Americanization work all around.
Americanization efficiency calls for constant and
intensive study. The individual teacher can do this
after the foundation has been laid. To obtain this a
specific course of instruction and training must be
provided.
In conclusion let us quote one of the most learned
students and teachers of Americanization, Dr. Albert
E. Jenks, of the National Research Council, from his
address before the recent Washington meeting of the
Department of Immigrant Education, N.E.A.:
Very correctly the Americanization worker has come to
realize that his task has a genuine scientific foundation. A
fundamental part of this consists of objective knowledge con­
cerning the groups of peoples with whom he works.
We must avoid the two frequent errors of minimizing the
importance of mental, ethnic and national groups; and the
primitive conception that differences between human groups
are sure marks of inferiority.
The goal of universal likeness among groups of people is
one impossible and false. The goal is for each group,
without fail, to add its contribution to the ever richer and
more varied peoples and cultures of developing humanity.
The American national group has already started to perfect
its contribution, that of an ever developing democracy guaran­
teed to its citizens by written legal procedure.
So the Americanization worker needs to know these bi­
ological, political, economic, social and cultural types of facts
about immigrant groups which will enable the worker to
assist the immigrant most quickly and happily to add his
contributions to this nation which he came to help perfect.
It must be remembered that persons from these' many
groups of immigrants are not soulless pawns to be picked up
at will and placed here and there. Each comes from a vital
group of people which, perhaps, for thousands of years, has
had its physical and cultural personality. Each has developed
its own physical type, economic process and a government, to
provide its needed food and protection, its philosophies, has
developed its system of morals and religion in an attempt to
satisfy its hungry soul. Each group has made and is still
making in its home nest an important and necessary contribu­
tion to world civilization.
The task of the Americanization worker is to assist the
immigrant peoples toward enabling them to help America
make her important and needed contribution.
Thank God for the men and women of America,
native and foreign-born, who are answering the call
and enlisting for service in this national movement
of a scope the like of which there is no parallel in the
history of our country.
THE ART OF LIVING
To touch the cup with eager lips and taste, not drain it;
To woo and tempt and court a bliss and not attain it;
To fondle and caress a joy yet hold it lighter,
Lest it become a necessity and cling too tightly;
To smother care with joy, and grief with laughter;
To hold the present close, not questioning the hereafter;
To see the sun sink in the West without regretting;
To hail his advent in the East, the night forgetting;
To have enough to spare to know the joy of giving;
To thrill response to every sweet of life, — That’s living.