On the Firing Line in Education | Page 6

of our colonial life, early in the 17th century,
universal education has been a part of both our educational and our
governmental creeds. A program of compulsory education was early
found necessary, early adopted, and never abandoned. Beginning in
Massachusetts and going south and west, following considerably
behind but then keeping almost even pace with settlement and
development after statehood had come, legislation has decreed that
every child born into the land or coming into it by immigration shall
enjoy the advantages of education, at least to the extent of knowing
how to read and write the English language. Every state in the Union
has compulsory attendance laws upon its statute books. These laws are
not as thorogoing as they should be in many cases but yet, even as they
are, if enforced, they should leave almost no illiteracy among people
whose childhood has been spent in this country. For the least
satisfactory laws--those of some of the Southern states, Georgia, for
example, require school attendance for at least four months of each
year between the ages of eight and fourteen. But illiteracy, even among
our own people, has been revealed--too much of it. The laws have not
been enforced. There is the sore spot. Why have they not been enforced?
But of that later.
The education of adult aliens is another matter, and a very different one.
As a problem it is almost new. That is, it has been only in relatively
recent years that it has been recognized as such. True, for several years

some of the states most largely affected, such as Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and others have been wrestling with it,
but not very much has yet been attempted toward introducing the
compulsory features. And private agencies, philanthropic, industrial,
religious, political, and others have also done good work. But all that
had thus far been done had accomplisht little more, at the outbreak of
the war, than to open our eyes to the existence of a problem. And in our
leisurely way we were going about its solution. But war came. The
European nations were aflame. We had many Europeans in our midst.
Investigations were made. The universal draft was adopted. The
revelations were startling. It was discovered that in 1910 there were in
the United States 2,953,011 white persons of foreign birth, 10 years of
age and over, unable to speak the English language. Of these 56,805
were from ten to fifteen years of age, 330,994 between fifteen and
twenty-one, and 2,565,212 twenty-one and over. Note the number,
more than two and a half millions, twenty-one years of age and
over--men grown, fathers of families, many of them--unable to speak
the language of their adopted country! And of these 788,631 were
illiterate--unable to read or write in any language!
Nothing short of legal requirements on a large scale, and rigidly
enforced, absolutely free of cost to the immigrant, can ever remove the
menace. The law-making bodies of the country, both State and Federal,
must act and act quickly or this growing menace will get beyond our
control.
And the long catalog of physical defects--what shall be said of them?
Shall they be charged against the "educational forces" of the country?
Are they a disgrace from which we must "redeem" ourselves so that we
shall not become the "greater laughing stock"? It is perfectly evident
that somebody has blundered because the whole sad list of defects is,
speaking broadly, preventive and, for the most part, also remediable.
But where lies the responsibility--upon the home, the school, or society?
Of course, primarily, upon the home; the child comes from the home,
goes to the home, is a part of the home, is under the immediate control
of the home. But yet, many homes, especially homes of alien peoples,
are not sufficiently intelligent to have entrusted to them matters of such

far-reaching importance. And many others are not financially able to
have proper attention given.
But the school does know. And it, or what it represents, is abundantly
able financially to handle the matter. It knows clearly how the child
with physical defects is hampered in trying to perform its school work;
it knows, too, how seriously the entire work of the school is interfered
with when there are many such in the room; and it also knows the
handicap under which such unfortunate children face life when school
days are over. And the school knows, too, the preventive and
remediable natures of these defects. Possessing all this knowledge, why
has it not acted? To make a long story short, it has acted. To the extent
of its authority and with all the influence and power at its command it
has acted, has been acting for many years, and is still acting. For more
than a generation