TH

By EDNA PHILLIPS

HE PUBLIC LIBRARY'S share in the education of the adult foreignborn has consisted chiefly in supplying information through books to assist in an intelligent and loyal adjustment to a new country, help in the study of English, and conservation of the literary heritage of the various races.

Libraries have stressed first the need of reading in English and the study of United States history, ideals, and institutions. They believe it to be an asset to an American citizen also to have familiarity with more than one national literature; that it is compatible with the function of the library as a patriotic American institution to make accessible books that help retain and develop this cultural heritage. Books known in the former homeland have been a source of special happiness to those immigrants whose age prevents rapid assimilation.

Great Opportunity for Civic Service

Extensive inquiries indicate that work for the native illiterate by public libraries is a field that largely remains to be developed. A great opportunity for civic service exists in bringing to the public consciousness, through books and other material, a realization of the high rate of illiteracy here as compared with other leading countries. For example, an exhibit on illiteracy was arranged at the Cleveland library during the 1923 meeting of the National Education Association. Public libraries could endeavor to provide books adapted in form and substance to the use of adults achieving literacy; to have initiative in bringing this service to the attention of those eligible; and, as in foreign work, building on the past rather than attempting radically to change it. An appeal could be made to racial pride in the illiterate group among the southern mountaineers, negroes, Indians, and Mexicans by a wealth of literary material on the ancestral contribution of these peoples. For example, the Harlem Branch of the New York Public Library is building up a notable

Instances of Organized Effort

1. National.-The American Library Association's committee on work with the

foreign-born functions by correspondence through a membership of experts from different sections of the country. It has undertaken a series of booklets on the

Polish and the Italian immigrant, and has one on the Greek in preparation. These booklets briefly describe background and racial characteristics, and include a buying list of titles that have met the test of experience. The American Library Association's commission adult education has secured through a questionnaire data on Americanization undertaken by numerous libraries.

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2. Committees of State library associations. The New York committee on Americanization has been active in presenting the need for translating into foreign languages books reflecting American life, and has compiled a list of books suitable for this purpose. The Massachusetts committee on work with new Americans has had a series of articles on the use of the library translated into Polish and Italian, accepted for publication by 10 newspapers. It has compiled a list of histories of the United States and bilingual dictionaries in 13 languages. The Ohio committee on adult education and Americanization plans a State-wide survey.

Conferences of Supervisors and Librarians

3. Cooperation with State departments of education.-Those in charge of work with aliens in two divisions of the Massachusetts Department of Education called several conferences this year of Americanization supervisors and librarians to plan the best means of coordinating the work of the evening class and library The program adopted has been widely distributed. A similar conference was held in California in the summer of 1925. In that State the supervisor of education

practically every county of books supplied for collateral reading to assist in the work of eradicating illiteracy.

In Washington and South Carolina chairmen of illiteracy commissions say, respectively: "We have had material help from public libraries in work with adult illiteracy both through traveling collections and in direct service at library buildings." "The public libraries of South Carolina have shown a most cooperative attitude toward our work. Tomorrow I am getting from the Greenville Public Library 500 books to be used at the 'Opportunity schools."" The chief of the New York Immigrant Education Bureau speaks of splendid help from libraries in that State through the use of rooms for classes and exhibits arranged, as in Syracuse, New York, Binghamton, Albany, and Utica. He speaks also of traveling library service in connection with teacher-training courses.

Traveling Libraries are Circulated

4. State library commissions.-Small libraries usually depend upon State commissions for the loan of books in foreign languages. Among the commissions to have circulated traveling libraries of this kind are those of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. The last mentioned has, in addition to this, since 1913 had a position on its staff a secretary for work with foreigners who, through field work, lectures, and supervision of traveling libraries in 30 languages, cooperates with public libraries in developing this phase of service. The New Jersey commission has been instrumental in enlisting the aid of the State Federation of Women's Clubs and other agencies for those illiterates known as the "pinies." The library commission regularly supplies books for use in an educational campaign among them. Fresno County Library, California, feels the need of a specialist in work with aliens, but has already served foreign communities by having branch libraries

throughout the county and by deposits sent the high Sierra construction camps.

Below are indicated the chief ways a few individual libraries and commissions, chosen as typical of many others, have carried out work coming within the scope of this survey:

Books to Help in Assimilation and to Conserve Racial Culture

1. Selection.-Books for both the adult beginner of foreign birth and the native American lacking an education need to have short words but subject matter interesting to the grown person. Lists attempting to combine these two points as well as bibliographical work in foreign languages have been undertaken by public libraries at Minneapolis, Springfield, Mass. Detroit, Pittsburgh, Providence (in its Quarterly Bulletin) and the Massachusetts Division of Public Libraries. purchase of desirable foreign books has been helped also by selections in the A. L. A. Book List, the lists of the Worcester, Mass., St. Louis, and Chicago libraries. Especial difficulty is experienced in the compilation of foreign lists to get titles suitable for the immigrant reader.

The

2. The book and the borrower.-Most of the large libraries in the country and many of the smaller ones with an alien patronage supply books to help give men and women the first essentials of assimilation; a knowledge of the English language, of American ideals, history, national heroes, and form of government; also books in the native languages of the library's constituency. Especially distinguished in their meeting of this need have been the libraries at Cleveland, Buffalo, Providence, Los Angeles, Detroit, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Newark, Springfield, Mass., Passaic, N. J., St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, and

New York.

The great number of aliens and native illiterates spread in rural districts, factory communities, and other places removed from city life are generally served by small libraries, if at all. The librarian so situated has a rare chance for bringing the book and the borrower together. The small library at Hyannis, Mass., has thus attracted a circle of Greek women. Pascal D'Angelo, in his "Son of Italy," describes his struggle for self-education and his delight in finding that a man in ragged clothes had access to such books as "Prometheus Unbound" at the public library at Edgewater, N. J.

For the coal miners of Colfax County, N. Mex., illiterate in their native Spanish, the public library of Raton has done work praised by the former chairman of New Mexico's Illiteracy Commission.

Extension of Library Service to Nonusers

1. Evening schools.-The most important means of establishing relationship

with adult beginners has been through evening schools, by lectures to classes, and class visits to libraries for group instruction. The Milwaukee library has done especially constructive planning for this relationship; the librarian at Lynn, Mass., has personally met these classes every week of the school year in groups of not more than 30-it was found that rarely more than five or six had previously used the library; the head of the foreign work at the Springfield, Mass., library has built up contacts with local schools. It has been said that no library of its size in the Middle West has done more than that of Ottumwa, Iowa, in stimulating patriotic groups to plan classes for the civic instruction of men and women preparing for the naturalization court and for adapting library resources to help in this. In Providence a member of the library staff has been among those active in arranging for the civic instruction of 55 foreign-born women voters. This, in turn, has been influential in leading the League of Women Voters to appoint a committee to investigate the need for opening up a new department on this subject. When the Newark Museum, housed in the library, has had exhibits on China, Colombia, and the industrial arts, groups of foreignborn have been conducted through by a lecturer who in some cases was a teacher from the evening schools.

A Library Well Known in Europe

2. Publicity. The library personified in an individual who makes use of lectures and other contacts with racial groups is the most effective publicity. The printed word is an invaluable supplement. Initiative has been used by libraries at Buffalo, Minneapolis, and Seattle in sending printed information about book privileges

to the naturalization courts. The Seattle

library was chosen by Doctor Learned in his "Public Library and the Diffusion of Knowledge" to represent work done in this country for the alien. The use of the foreign press in Cleveland has been so gratifying in its results that it is said the work of that library is almost as well known in Prague as here.

3. District investigation.--The libraries of Chicago, St. Louis, Providence, Cleveland, and New York have made surveys of the different races locally served, the better to organize library work. Particularly, systematic neighborhood visiting was done over a period of several months by the staff of the Rivington Street Branch of the New York Library to get first-hand and unprejudiced information. A beginning has been made by the Los Angeles Library to reach out to those districts inhabited by the illiterate and in many cases shifting Mexican population.

4. Contacts through interests shared.The Boston Public Library has long placed importance on branch work in foreign districts and participates in the life of the newcomer through clubs, dramatics, etc., notably among the Italians of the North End. For this the director and the branch librarian were decorated by the city of Ravenna. A weekly push-cart service (even to the bell), chiefly of foreign books, has recently been established in the South End of this city. A spectator following its last trip counted 15 grown-ups at once waiting for books to be charged, and admired the initiative that had dared adapt the method to the situation.

The Milwaukee Library has sought to extend its service to union labor. To this end numerous meetings have been attended with deposits of books. The director of adult education has herself enrolled in one of the labor colleges the better to exchange information. The Massachusetts Division of Public Libraries has circularized 250 labor unions of foreign membership.

Means of Improving the Service

The following recommendations are presented:

1. That greater prominence be given work with the foreign-born and illiterates on programs for American Library Association meetings and at those State meetings in regions in which these problems are important (with the exception of Massachusetts and New York, this has not been emphasized heretofore).

2. That more State library associations so situated appoint committees to investi

gate and develop these phases of library activity and that more library commissions endeavor to appoint specialists to their staffs.

3. That more lists be made by central agencies to assist public libraries in purchase of suitable books.

4. That the purchase of books in easy English for adult beginners and of supplementary collections in foreign languages should bear a fair relationship in the book budget of the individual library to the share of taxes borne by the new American and the native illiterate.

5. That directors of individual libraries as well as State associations inform themselves to a greater degree on local illiteracy and consider the possibility of contributing to adult education through books to supplement class instruction, special effort in making contacts, and cooperation with schools, illiteracy commissions, State supervisors of education, and State organizations of literary re

sources.

Membership in the American Home Economics Association has grown from 1,200 in 1921 to 7,000 in 1925.

IT

F THE early Jesuits actually formulated the remark traditionally ascribed to them, "Give me the child up to his seventh year and I care not who has him thereafter," they knew more about human psychology than most other educators of that period. Since then the truth underlying that remark has been impressing itself more and more on the minds of psychologists, teachers, doctors, social workers, psychiatric experts, and psychoanalysts. But the tremendous decisiveness of those early years of childhood has not begun to impress the imagination of parents as it ought-at least of the

Practically every American mother of the younger generation now tries to keep pickles and strong coffee out of the stomachs of her young children; but the same mothers do not dream of trying as instinctively, as constantly, to keep fear and anger out of the children's hearts, exhaustion from the children's nerves, and confusion and ennui from the children's minds.

Too Little Attention to Intellectual Needs Nearly all mothers try energetically, nowadays, not only to keep young children from eating what will hurt their

children who are, let it be remembered, still completely in the hands of their mothers. We shall have a generation with infinitely steadier nerves, better mental balance, and a surer sense of moral

values when mothers of little children understand (as they understand now the need for clean milk and for dentistry) the need for activity, freedom, frequent change of occupation, a calm, goodnatured atmosphere in the home, and sympathy and understanding of child nature.

When mothers realize that to witness a bickering dispute between his parents is as poisonous for a young child as to eat decayed fish; when they understand that to feel a sickening helplessness in the face of injustice and physical violence is worse for a child than to break his arm; when they feel that to be nagged is worse than to have rotten teeth-why, we shall see fewer grown-ups with morbid mental twists and have fewer people in our insane asylums and prisons.

and-down-the-next mothers and fathers who are doing the actual bringing up of America's children of to-day.

There are moments, indeed, when one is almost inclined to rejoice in this easygoing ignorance of their responsibilities, when one sees an opposite type, the anxious, erratic, overconscientious modern young mother, half baked, half educated, trying to apply theories she does not understand to helpless little children who would be much better off if she let them alone. The same thing is true of occasional half-baked young mothers who fuss healthy children into ill health by trying to be too sanitary. And yet nobody doubts that the immense increase in information about the proper bodily care of young children has been of incalculable benefit to the physical health of

the Nation.

Need Information on Moral Health

If as considerable a percentage of just ordinary people in America could have even as elementary information about the proper conditions for moral and mental health of children as they now have about clean milk, well-cared-for teeth, and sunshine, we should have in a single generation an immense increase in the intelligence and moral health of the Nation.

Practically every young mother in America, if she has been a public-school child, realizes the importance of keeping the baby's milk bottle clean (something her grandmother did not in the least understand). If she could only acquire the same unquestioning conviction of the importance of answering a little child's questions intelligently.

need of the right kind of healthful food. But do you see them shaping their lives half as energetically to get for young children all they need of moral and intellectual food? You know you do not. If the child's physical needs interfere with adult convenience-it is a pity, but of course they must be seen to. If a child's intellectual needs interfere with adult conversation, he is shaken and told to "keep

still and not be such a bother."

Nobody would let a silly neighbor feed green apples to a 3-year-old child; but silly neighbors and aunts are too often allowed to amuse themselves by teasing a sensitive, high-strung child till he has a furious burst of impotent rage, whereupon he is reproved for the outward symptom of his moral misery, and told not to be naughty and bad tempered to grown-ups. This is quite as if he were reproved for the paroxysm of pain following green-apple eating, and informed that he is naughty not to have a stronger digestion.

In the short space of 30 years, or thereabouts, a complete revolution has taken place in the physical care and feeding of young children. Not only a minority of highly educated, carefully trained young mothers have learned the elements of healthy physical life for children, but the big majority of mothers everywhere, in city and country, have progressed from black ignorance and superstition into an understanding of what children's bodies need, so that their little boys and girls have an immensely better chance for physical health.

What is needed now is to bring about just such a transformation in regard to the moral and intellectual needs of young

sities

Forty-one State universities make provision for the professional training of teachers. In 19 universities these teacher

training facilities are termed "schools of education"; in 12, "colleges of education"; in 3, "teachers colleges"; in 5, institutions the work is carried on as a "departments of education"; and in 2 department of other colleges of the universities. Of the 34 schools and colleges of education, 26 are accorded independence in their operation and methods of work. The specific purpose of these professional schools, as stated in a study of the policies and curricula of schools of education in State universities, recently sity of Michigan, and A. H. Webster, of made by J. B. Edmonson, of the Univerthe University of Chicago, published by the Interior Department, Bureau of Education, as Higher Education Circular No. 30, is to equip for the highest professional service, through investigation and experimentation, to discover new truths, and to furnish leadership in edu

cational matters.

A lottery is regularly held to provide funds for the University of Concepcion, Chile. This means of support for this university was cut off by a Government regulation in October, 1924, but its reestablishment was recently authorized by a decree law. The lottery must terminate, however, when the net income produced by the interest on the university's reserve fund reaches 1,000,000 pesos yearly.

Associations

Study circles for parents are fostered

by the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, and they are rapidly increasing in numbers. A book has been adopted

as a basis of child study and a series of lessons has been published by the national congress.

"Preschool circles" as adjuncts to parent-teacher associations are also encouraged by the national congress. Atlanta, Ga., has 28 active preschool circles, and other cities have nearly as many.

Classes in parliamentary law for presidents and chairmen of parent-teacher associations have been organized in Kansas City, Mo., and in Camden County, N. J.

Study of music in the home is emphasized by the Massachusetts Congress of Parents and Teachers. With the encouragement of the commissioner of education for the State, teachers give to mothers counsel and help in the musical development of their children in order to build up a background of experience before school entrance.

At the recent State convention of Iowa parent-teacher associations a whole day was given to the discussion of the preschool child, another day to the child in the elementary grades, and another day to the adolescent period.-Fannie B.

Abbott.

Schools are crowded to the utmost throughout the Philippine Islands except in some Mohammedan communities, and

attendance is increasing even there. Three years is the average time spent in the public schools. In his annual message at the opening of the Philippine legislature, Governor General Wood stated that special effort had been made for the improvement of the primary and intermediate schools, where 951⁄2 per cent of the children receive their education. He recommended that four years be made the basic minimum of attendance, and that the minimum be raised to five years as early as possible.

Textbooks are supplied free to pupils of the public schools of New Brunswick up to and including grade 5 in the graded schools and standard 3 in the ungraded schools. The books are given to the children outright, not merely loaned, as in the United States.

For the first time in the history of New York City more than 1,000,000 children attended the public schools on the opening day.

IX-MONTHS' training for young men out of employment because they have had no opportunity to learn a skilled trade is planned by the British Ministry of Labor. Four training centers will be established, two nonresidential and two residential. The object of the training is to improve the men's general employability. Instruction will be given as far as possible on productive work, which has been found in practice to give the most effective training.

Men in nonresidential centers will be trained with a view to employment in England, and a certain proportion of those trained in the residential centers will go overseas. The training will be mainly agricultural, but some training as handymen will also be given with a view to increasing the suitability of the men for employment in the Dominions.

Applicants must be registered as unemployed, between the ages of 19 and 25 (up to 29 for ex-service men), and unOfficial report to Secretary of State.

skilled. The applicants for employment overseas must be provisionally approved by a representative of the Dominion authority, and must before entering training sign an undertaking to remain throughout the course, and as soon as possible thereafter to proceed to the Dominion concerned, if finally approved for employment there. They must be single men between the ages of 19 and 25.

The men at nonresidential centers will receive unemployment benefit, a personal allowance at the rate of 2s. 6d. per week and a free midday meal. The men in training at residential centers with a view to employment in England will continue to receive unemployment benefit, and will be required to pay 13s. per week toward the cost of board and lodging at the training center. Those training for employment overseas will receive free board and lodging, a personal allowance of 5s. per week, and railway fares to and from the center at the beginning and end of the course of training, but no unemployment benefit.

American Teachers

City of London vacation course in education will make special provision for American teachers in 1926. The enrollment is limited to 500, and 250 places will be reserved for Americans, according to Robert Evans, founder of the

course.

The course proper consists of 24 lectures in 4 subjects for each member, to be selected from three times as many. In addition visits are made to places of interest, addresses will be heard from "eminent personalities," and social occasions will be arranged. Right Hon. H. A. L. Fisher, warden of New College, Oxford, is principal of the course.

study for the students of the university of the country; then English was permitted as an elective instead of Latin; finally Latin was suppressed as an obligatory study and English was required of all. All students in secondary schools must take either English or German, and comparatively few elect German.

The study of English has become more and more fashionable, says Consul Marsh. Private students of English, especially ladies, have largely increased in numbers, and this has caused a great increase in the number of teachers; but really competent teachers are few.

A specialist in adult education has recently been appointed in the Interior Department, Bureau of Education. This office was provided for by Congress

Language

English is a popular study in Uruguay, according to a report just received by the Secretary of State from C. Gaylord Marsh, American consul at Montevideo.

popular demand. Work projected includes immigrant education, home education through reading courses, factory education, and prison education, in cooperation with extension departments of universities in the various States.

T

O SERVE at nominal cost clean, wholesome, well-balanced food, and by serving only foods good for children, to help them form good food habits and to teach them to enjoy right foods, are the aims of the lunch room of the Frank Ashley Day Junior High School, Newtonville, Mass. The menu is planned to meet the needs of growing children and is made up of foods easily digested and simple enough to make it possible for the children to be at their best for study after luncheon.

Only clean, wholesome food of good quality is purchased. It is well prepared and served in a clean, attractive manner. All sandwiches are wrapped, the milk bottles are wiped, and the fruit washed before serving. The menu always comprises a soup, hot cocoa, a hot dish, a vegetable, salad, two kinds of sandwiches, a dessert, fresh fruit, cookies, bread and butter, and ice cream. Enough variety is served to prevent monotony and the menus are never repeated on the same day of consecutive weeks.

Care is taken in planning the menus to include freely milk, vegetables, and fruit. It is gratifying to note that the demand for vegetables and the hot dish has increased appreciably since the lunch room opened and that graham-bread sandwiches are as popular as white. One of the favorite desserts is fruit, tapioca, and cream.

Typical Menu

quantity cooking, and although at no time are the cooking classes exploited for the sake of the lunch room, they nevertheless often prepare some dishes for the lunch room and in this way get valuable experience in large-quantity cooking. If the cooking classes were to cook entirely for the lunch room, there would be no opportunity to teach table manners or serving, nor sufficient time to study food values. It would also be difficult to teach cooking on the meal basis as it is now taught.

Unwholesome Foods are Taboo

Health work.-The Frank Ashley Day Junior High School lunch room is planned entirely on the health basis. Only foods good for children are served. Coffee, pastry, doughnuts, cinnamon buns, rich cakes, or "hot dogs" are not sold. The director feels that she is directly responsible for the food served and has no moral

right to serve anything that is not good for children. Through posters and work done in the cooking class on the study of food values, the students are interested and indirectly influenced in the wise choice of food.

Care is taken to safeguard the health of the students by wrapping all sandwiches, wiping milk bottles, and washing

fruit before serving. The dishes and silver are sterilized daily. The counters and tables are washed daily and wiped between luncheon periods. The lunch room is kept thoroughly cleaned, and everything possible is done to keep the food and lunch room in an ideal sanitary condition.

Main Corridor Leads to Dining Room

The Frank Ashley Day Junior High School lunch room is situated on the first floor directly under the auditorium. A corridor from the main hall leads directly into the dining room, which is 60 feet wide by 38 feet long on the girls' side and 40 feet long on the boys' side. The cement floor is covered with battleship linoleum and the brick walls are gray and oyster white. Four windows hung with pretty buffalo bagging stenciled curtains, designed and made by one of the drawing classes, make the room light and sunny, while baskets with growing plants hanging between each group of windows give the room a homey touch. Twenty yellow pine tables with 250 stools fitted with silence domes to deaden the sound provide accommodation for the students. Two similar tables with chairs on either side of the front of the room are reserved for teachers.