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Committee has received a report, to train not only teachers of foreign-born adults, but also directors and organizers of Americanization work.* A six weeks' course was offered in the summer of 1919, which embraced not only immigration problems and problems concerning the foreign-born in their American environment, but also the study of Americanization movements throughout the country generally, anthropology, and the methods of teaching adults. Beginning with the season of 1919-1920 a four-year course was offered, devoted entirely to the training of teachers, organizers and directors of Americanization work. This covered

the subects taught in the summer school and in addition a more intensified study of foreign and American peoples, civics and government, economics, labor problems, housing problems, socialism, social statistics, social psychology, eugenics, and other subjects which were elective. The requirements for both admission and graduation conform to those of the College of Science, Literature and the Arts. A degree of Bachelor of Science is given for the satisfactory completion of the four-year course and a Master of Arts degree may be obtained by a fifth year of post-graduate study.

The University of Minnesota believes that highly specialized workers are necessary for Americanization activities. Complex and difficult problems must be met by the worker among immigrant peoples, growing out of racial characteristics which have their origin far back of recent or modern political and economic systems and have a deeper significance and greater tenacity than those systems. It is for this reason that they include in their curriculum a course of anthropology. This course is specially planned to meet the needs of workers in the Americanization field.

California has a unique method of meeting the emergency shortage of trained Americanization workers. That state has an itinerant normal school for training teachers of the foreignborn, which may prove to be only temporary after other agencies have taken up the work permanently. It is composed of a group of speakers, each a specialist on the subject which he covers, who go about from city to city in very much the same way as the Chautauqua groups cover the rural districts in the East.

In Delaware, when an Americanization campaign was launched in 1919, an emergency institute was established to train teachers quickly, providing for 26 lectures. The enrollment was 168, mostly public school teachers. The Board of Education

See reference to Boston University in addendum, part 2.

announced that it would give preference for Americanization positions to those holding certificates indicating that they had completed this course. It covered four main subjects: (1) General knowledge of the field and need for Americanization work; (2) study of racial backgrounds and conditions among foreignborn groups in America; (3) how to organize Americanization work; and (4) methods of teaching English and civics and of preparing candidates for naturalization.

Akron, Ohio, has a program of teacher training which is comparatively advanced, but which covers only European backgrounds, methods of teaching English, etc., with no instruction to meet the influence of radical propaganda upon their future students. Nor do the teacher requirements call for anything beyond moral character, even the academic requirements being only high school training or its equivalent. There is a special four-weeks' institute each fall for Americanization teachers and weekly training meetings throughout the year. Also a monthly

teacher's meeting is held where matters of common interest are discussed. Every two weeks meetings are held dealing with specific methods for teaching English to foreigners, and these are in charge of the General Supervisor of Instruction. The supervisor pays each Americanization teacher a classroom visit once every two weeks, observing the good points which may be used by other teachers, as well as offering suggestions.

State superintendents of education, college presidents, and principals of normal schools have made many valuable sugges tions for the training of teachers, and they have also disclosed in many instances a lack of knowledge and consideration of the problems to be met. Some of their suggestions follow:

That each curriculum for teacher training should include actual observation and visits to successful school classes conducted for the foreign born, selecting the best in the community.

That all training courses include a survey of conditions in the old country, why the immigrant leaves to come here, what his causes of discontent are here and what he needs by way of training to fit him into the complex life of America.

That the prospective Americanization worker be taught the difference in backgrounds of the various groups of foreigners, so that he may be able to reconcile them not only to

America but also to reconcile the groups who have brought over the old country prejudices.

That in studying racial backgrounds special attention should be given to industrial conditions in the old countrywhat the leading occupations in the old country are and how that affects their choosing an occupation here.

These views are the expression of a comparatively small group of educators who have given the subject of immigration and education serious thought. But the committee found that a surprisingly large number admitted that they had given the matter no thought at all. The president of one of the best known universities in the country suggested that the teaching of adult immigrants should be in experienced (!) hands and that the teacher should have a complete high school education! We cite this instance to show the need for bringing to all in the educational field a realization of the seriousness of the matter of training and selection of teachers for the foreign-born and for enlisting the support of all educators in raising the standards and the compensation for such work. From Nevada came the recommendation that the very best teachers should be reserved for training the foreign-born instead of the least desirable, as is sometimes the case in present practice. One college president is of the opinion that in selecting teachers for the foreign-born character should be 90 per cent of the consideration. Whether the importance of character can be computed mathematically is a question, but this Committee recommends that character be given first consideration. Failing to satisfy the character requirement, which includes also loyalty to the institutions of the State and Nation, no teacher should be considered for employment of any sort, least of all in the instruction of the foreign-born, no matter what his other qualifications may be. At the present time in the State of New York the only thing that insures good character in a teacher is that the state normal schools require a certificate of good character from each student upon matriculation, but all of our teachers do not come from the state normal schools, and often in the cases of those who do the guarantee is obviously inadequate.

Another argument for the careful scrutiny of the soundness of teachers is that times have changed in the methods of teaching many subjects, especially English; whereas English was formerly taught with the use of old classics, nowadays in New York City

and most of the other large centers, current events are made the subject of discussion, oral and written. The teacher is looked upon as the final judge in any discussion that arises, and hence his point of view exerts tremendous influence. It has come to the attention of the Committee that in the public schools of New York City certain teachers of English have employed current radical and liberal magazines as the guide for the discussion of current events in English classes; that discussion of complex economic problems is permitted in these classes by teachers who, through lack of training, are utterly incompetent to guide or to direct such discussions along legitimate channels. It is obvious that the qualification to teach English does not fit the teacher to determine economic questions and the discussion and determination of such questions in English classes must frequently result in fixing in the pupil's mind ideas which are entirely erroneous and destructive of the purpose of public school education.

Superintendent Ettinger of the public schools has given the matter of teacher qualifications serious consideration, for he realizes that the "proper kind of teacher means the proper kind of Americanization". The following extract from the testimony of Mr. Ettinger voices the views of this committee:

"We have at the entrance to the educational system of New York City a Board of Examiners and to this Board of Examiners is entrusted the function of giving us teachers. All of the candidates for licenses must pass through the hands of this Board of Examiners. Of course we demand evidence of citizenship. Candidates must also take the pledge of loyalty. That is about all we can do in that respect, excepting that I think the Board of Examiners could devise probably more stringent tests in order to find out whether the applicant is 100 percent American. We could have a test as to opinions, as to convictions. I know that it looks inquisitorial and open to criticism, but, after all, the teacher is the answer to this question of citizenship training throughout this entire country. A teacher who believes in that type of socialism which calls for revolution. -which calls for the destruction of existing government in order to impose something which is nebulous in his own mind, upon the ruins, is not the type of teacher to have in our schools. It does not make any difference whether he

is teaching arithmetic or something else, that teacher cannot sincerely teach what we require the teacher to teach in the way of obedience to government, respect for institutions, respect for the flag, and all the other patriotic observances. We have had teachers- but very few I am proud to say-among the 23,000 in New York City who thought that it did not make any difference what they said or did in the afternoon or evening on the public platform or what they wrote in the public press, provided they did not do anything overt in the classroom between 9 and 3 o'clock. Now we have stopped that, I hope, and have established the fact that a teacher is always a teacher and that everything that teacher gives utterance to after 3 o'clock is a reflex action on that classroom just as much as if he stood in front of his class."

The educational authorities of the City of New York stand together in the view that the teacher should be considered an employee in case he proves unsatisfactory. In some cases it has been necessary to discharge teachers because the views they were impressing upon their pupils were subversive of our ideals. The teacher now has the right to counsel and the right of formal procedure under the laws of evidence. He is brought before the Board of Education and in the case of an adverse decision he may appeal to the State Commissioner. Such teachers as were brought before the Board of Education had every protection of the law and some five were dismissed and their dismissals sustained by the Commissioner of Education. The educational law of the State of New York provides that such teachers shall have a hearing, and the word "hearing" has been construed by local authorities as one requiring all the laws of evidence. The New York City authorities believe that the provision which requires the observance of all the technical rules of evidence should not be required. The teacher is not being tried for a crime, he is simply having a hearing as to his fitness to represent the State of New York in the classroom. With this latter view the Committee is in accord.

After a careful review and analysis of the present mode of selecting teachers, both as to their personal qualifications and their academic attainments in this and other states, this Committee is led to the conclusion that greater emphasis must be placed first upon the character of the prospective teacher and second upon his loyalty to the institutions of both state and

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