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 the educational forces of the country have been engaged in a nation-wide educational campaign designed to make clear to the homes of the country and to the voters of the country the growing seriousness of the situation. On the lecture platform and from the Gospel pulpit, in the educational press and in the popular magazine, aye, in the daily newspaper, in private conversation and in public discussion, in season and
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