instances are day-school teachers rendering service over and above the usual burden of dayschool work; the principals are either day-school executives or professional men of the community. If our expectation works out-namely, that the evening school in the future will not overshadow the day classes of one type or another—then it will be perfectly possible for all the teachers and executives needed in the evening classes to be members of the parent organization—namely, the day school for immigrants-and, consequently, all our workers in evening schools may be trained specialists working in the evening as a part of a normal assignment. Up to the present there seems to have appeared no practical solution to the fundamental difficulties inherent in the evening school. Our plan consists in reducing the evening school to a subordinate position in a larger organization and in supplying teachers and executives, not from the day-school force as overtime workers, but from the larger organization, the day school for immigrants, as regular workers meeting a normal assignment. This plan appears not only educationally desirable, but economical.

In setting forth this conclusion it is assumed that we are to set about seriously to make adequate provision for the schooling of the immigrant, which involves additional legislation and more adequate funds. We need fear neither the necessity of drastic legislation nor that of largely increased appropriations. As has been stated, our evening-school appropriations do not

exceed 1 per cent of the total appropriations for all school purposes, as shown in the school budgets of cities like Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. More than half the communities having considerable immigrant populations have no evening schools and spend nothing; those which do maintain evening schools spend an infinitesimal amount. If all the communities where the need exists would appropriate an amount equal to 5 per cent of the total school appropriation, everything here recommended could be carried out effectively. It is doubtful whether the evening school needs for its maintenance a sum exceeding 1 per cent of the total school budget. In view of the limited number of immigrants who can attend, and of the essential limitations of the evening school as an institution for Americanization, it is not feasible to spend large sums of money for this purpose. If Americanization is worth attempting at all, the public ought not to hestitate to provide the moderate funds necessary.

CITIZENSHIP TRAINING FOR CHILDREN

The discussion up to this point has dealt with institutions for the education of adults; we must proceed now to deal with public institutions designed for the education of children. The most significant potentialities for the citizenship of the nation must be sought in the education of the children. We may, by educational influences, effect some changes in the habits and dis

position of the adult, and what we are able to do in this direction is worth while; but we can build far more fundamentally and enduringly in the character of the child.

Most of our immigrants are either adults or above the compulsory school age. It is natural, then, that in discussing educational institutions designed to meet the needs of the immigrant we deal chiefly with part-time and supplementary forms of education suitable for employed adults. Children of immigrants young enough to come under compulsory-school-attendance laws go to the regular schools. The methods of treating non-English-speaking immigrant children in public schools vary by communities, but not enough to make it possible to say that we treat immigrant children differently from the way in which we treat native children. There is general agreement in -the practice of progressive communities in grouping older immigrant children in special classes for intensive work in English, in order that they may acquire the common tongue as a tool for work through which they can be advanced rapidly to classes of children of their own age. Many of our larger cities maintain what are known as "steamer classes," or "special English classes," where this program is carried out; this procedure is found in cities like New York, Boston, Detroit, and Cleveland. There is much evidence of the continuance in some communities of the bad practice originally in vogue in all cities-namely, the grouping of non-English-speaking children of all ages and degrees of maturity in the lowest

grades of the schools, on the assumption that they could more suitably or more economically be given instruction in English in this manner. This practice is demoralizing to the children who actually belong in the lower grades and discouraging to the immigrant child, who may naturally fail to feel a spontaneous affection for American institutions in the unfavorable school environment into which he is forced. It would not be an unnecessary safeguard to require by legislation that communities make special provision for gradation of immigrant children in the schools, after the present practice of the cities commended above.

THE LAWRENCE PLAN

There are instances of communities attempting more ambitious plans than special classes for non-English-speaking children. The city of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1918 organized a whole elementary-school district around the idea of giving the pupils a distinctly superior training in citizenship. Lawrence is one of the most outstandingly immigrant cities in the nation; the industrial strife that has focused public attention on this city during recent years is sufficient evidence of the need of energetic attention to the quality of citizenship in this community. Many of the causes of unrest may be purely economiclow wages and poor living conditions; but again, much of it undeniably is due to the sudden accumulation of a population that is non

English-speaking and unassimilated. The city of Lawrence, consequently, presents an appropriate situation for a determined experiment in Americanization, with the method of approach through the children in the schools.

The Oliver elementary school of Lawrence, comprising 1,400 children, has been chosen for this educational experiment in Americanization. It must not be assumed that the children attending this school are mostly non-English-speaking; they are, in fact, in large part native born of foreign parentage. The purpose of the plan is to give a more effective training in American citizenship than is given in the typical public school. The experiment is particularly significant because of our consciousness that while we have appreciated the importance of good citizenship as a fundamental school objective, we have not specifically shaped the influences of the school to this end, as has been indicated in Chapter I. What Lawrence is attempting may be a forward step which all public schools should undertake; the growing tendencies in American life give increasing justification for such a procedure.

We may quote from the stated aims of those conducting the experiment in Lawrence:

The Lawrence plan was born of our belief that every schoolboy and schoolgirl in the country ought to know and appreciate the privileges and duties of being a good AmeriWe aim to teach the sacrifices and achievements of our forefathers in founding our democracy, to point out the promises of our future as well as its perils, and to warn of the grave menaces to democracy which confront us to-day.

can.