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reports that the salaries of night-school teachers range from 75 cents in one town of over 10,000 to $2.50 an evening. Out of 66 towns reporting, 25 stated the salary to be between $1.50 and $2 per evening. In St. Louis the evening-school instructors receive $2.75 per night. There instruction is given three nights per week. This would pay an evening-school teacher only $8.25 per week, and throughout a term of 75 nights only the sum of $206.25. It is customary for day-school teachers throughout the country to teach in the evening schools as a means of increasing their income. Taking advantage of this attitude, school boards make a nominal allowance for night instruction, and the result has been to secure an inferior grade of teachers for the evening school.

CLASSIFICATION OF PUPILS.

Immigrants in the English classes are generally classified on three different bases: First, on the basis of ability to speak the English language; second, on the basis of nationality; third, on the basis of previous education in the native country.

Relative ability to speak English is the starting point of all grouping. If the pupil speaks no English, he can be put at once into the beginners' class. If he speaks some English fairly well, he can be tried out in an intermediary class. If he speaks considerable English with fair fluency, and has had some instruction in this language, ho belongs in an advanced class. In the larger cities attention to this basis of classification is quite marked. As regrouping becomes necessary after the beginning of the term, this test is most frequently applied. In the smaller cities, this principle is very infrequently acted upon; pupils of all degrees of ability to speak English are thrown together, usually with disastrous consequences to classes and teachers. Teachers find difficulty in adapting to advanced pupils subject matter suitable to the beginner, and the interest of both classes is eventually lost.

In cities with a small number of foreigners attending night schools, classification on the basis of nationality is more frequent.

In no portion of the United States, except along the western coast, is racial and national prejudice serious; and classification on the basis of nationality is for utilitarian purposes chiefly. In the western part of the country, however, particularly in California, Oregon, and Washington, where there is a distinct racial prejudice against the oriental, orientals in both day and night schools are segregated to a considerable extent. In Seattle, the Japanese are grouped together if they themselves desire such an arrangement. In San Francisco one class was conducted last year in what was called the Russian school, made up exclusively of Russians. Another class was made up entirely of French and Italian students, and a few classes almost entirely of

orientals. In Merced County, Cal., there is a Scandinavian high school in a settlement chiefly Scandinavian. In Buffalo, N. Y., there are Polish evening classes for the section of East Buffalo populated by Polos. There are also classes containing Italians only. In Rochester one or two classes are made up exclusively of Poles in a school located near the Polish section, and at least two schools have classes of Italians exclusively. The same practice, for the sake of convenience in teaching, is followed in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Classification on the basis of previous education has never been followed consistently in any school. The reason for this is obvious: Most teachers do not speak the native language of the pupil, and are accordingly unable to ascertain the previous education of the prospective student. The failure to ascertain the previous education of a pupil leads to many unfortunate situations in the schoolroom. It is common to find adults who are highly educated in their native language grouped with pupils who have had no training whatsoever in any language. Teachers are obliged to spend a great deal of time in making explanations to the illiterate and uneducated students, while the more educated pupils sit in idleness. It is of course unreasonable to expect that where there is but one class in a school any classification on this basis or any other can be made; but in those schools in the larger cities where a great number of foreigners attend and where a great many nationalities and degrees of education are represented there is no reason why classification on the basis of previous education should not be practicable.

STANDARDIZING ATTENDANCE.

There are many conditions affecting regularity of attendance upon night schools by adult immigrants. An inquiry among immigrants shows that the following causes discourage attendance: (1) Distance from the school. This is particularly true of laborers who are housed in labor shanties along highways, railways, etc., usually remote from a school building. (2) Fatigue from employment. This is probably the most common excuse given for not attending evening classes. The men are employed at heavy manual labor during the day, and as their minds are untrained it is a matter of considerable difficulty for them to devote the necessary energy to an evening school. (3) Ridicule. Many persons, especially adults well along in years, are unwilling to attend evening schools for fear of ridicule by friends or their own children. Adult female immigrants are particularly susceptible to the ridicule of their children. (4) Hours of employment. Some men labor excessively long hours and are not in condition to attend evening school, while still others work in night shifts, and therefore find it impossible to attend because their labor begins at

about the same hour the evening classes commence. (5) Inability to understand the teacher. The fact that teachers do not speak the native language of the pupils operates, in the beginning at least, to keep many students away. (6) Methods of instruction. Methods of instruction are criticized by foreign-born students as inefficient. The students lose interest after the first week or two because rules of grammar, phonics, and monotonous exercises are forced upon them. They tend to become discouraged and eventually to drop out. (7) Inappropriate subject matter. Like the antiquated methods of instruction, subject matter unsuited to the foreign mind and temperament also discourages pupils and causes them to leave the evening classes. Adult immigrants are not concerned with the ideas and experiences that interest children. Consequently lessons that do not appeal to their daily experience and deal with their environment, business and trade relationships, domestic life, etc., wholly fail to grip them.

DEPOSITS TO SECURE REGULAR ATTENDANCE.

To overcome these causes of nonattendance, many school authorities require a deposit to guarantee attendance, refunding the money at the end of the term if attendance has come up to certain standard. So far 17 cities have reported that they require deposits. Philadelphia collects 50 cents from elementary students and $1 from evening and trade high-school students. These amounts are refunded upon attendance two-thirds of the term. St. Louis requires a fee of $1 of all classes for a term of 20 weeks. Boston requires 50 cents of elementary students, excluding minors coming within the compulsory education law. Kansas City requires $1 for all applicants over 20 years of age; Seattle $2 for all students; Newark $10 of elementary students who are nonresidents of the district and $25 of evening high-school students who are nonresidents. Other cities, like Detroit, require a deposit to cover breakage of material. Milwaukee requires a fee of 5 cents a week for pupils in cooking classes. Hudson, N. Y., requires a fee of $1, which is refunded upon an attendance of 100 per cent. Rochester and New York City charge no fee whatever. In Massachusetts $1 may be charged pupils other than compulsoryattendance students. This is a general law applying to the whole State and to all classes of cities.

ADVERTISING SCHOOL FACILITIES.

Publicity is an important factor in acquainting foreigners with our public evening schools, but the right kind of publicity is seldom used. Some school authorities confine themselves entirely to a brief notice of evening classes in newspapers published in English. Only a limited number of foreigners are reached in this way. On the other hand, some schools avail themselves of the newspapers printed in

foreign languages circulating among the people whom it is desired to reach. The editors and managers of these papers cooperate with the schools, and are always willing to insert items, from time to time, regarding school advantages, particularly with reference to English and civics.

Another common method of publicity is through circulars and posters. Frequently these are published in the English language, and although circulated in the foreign section, are not understood or widely read by the foreign-speaking people. Other school boards publish such circulars and posters in foreign languages, as, for example, in the cities of Rochester and Buffalo, N. Y., where they are distributed through the Polish and Italian sections. As a result an increasing number of students are secured from year to year and the facilities of the night schools are more accurately understood by the foreign population.

One medium of publicity is rarely ever utilized-foreigners' organizations. These, like the foreign-language newspapers, are nearly always glad to cooperate with the school authorities. It is usually possible to have announcements made at the weekly meetings of these organizations. In such a manner more definite and direct cooperation is secured between the schools and the foreigners themselves, and a much larger number of adults become interested in education.

To ascertain the general practice in the State of New York, a questionnaire was sent to the 31 cities conducting evening schools. In reply, 19 reported that they availed themselves of publicity; 11 posted notices in the English language in factories; 8 in factories, in the foreign tongue; 9 placed notices in English on school buildings, while 5 posted them in the foreign language; 18 served notice on the foreign population through English newspapers, and 9 through foreignlanguage papers; 13 sent notice through the children in the day schools; 10 cooperated with foreign churches and 13 with foreign societies. The cities of Schenectady and Mount Vernon reported that they used all the types of publicity described. Jersey City experiments with illustrated lectures in the foreign tongue to announce the classes and to attract students. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh utilize the American press and sometimes cooperate with foreign societies; they also publish circulars in the foreign tongue. Chicago uses these methods of publicity, but most of the western cities do not advertise their evening school facilities to any extent beyond newspaper notices, the matter of publicity not having been given any considerable thought. Even New York City occasionally has failed to make any appropriation for publicity, in which event principals and teachers have taken funds out of their own pockets to send out postal cards and notices to prospective students.

There is no legitimate reason why the usefulness of the evening schools and classes should not be extended by publicity. With the exception of Massachusetts, school authorities can not fall back upon the compulsory-education law to bring immigrants to school. The larger the number of students, the lower, of course, is the proportionate per capita cost for instruction.

IV. CONTENT OF ENGLISH INSTRUCTION.

The content of English instruction for foreigners is worthy of serious criticism. School authorities in general persist in adhering to the use of textbooks wholly unsuited to foreign-speaking students. Even in the same city textbooks differ in the various schools. Some schools use texts for adults that are in use by children in day classes; in others there are textbooks specially designed for foreign students and evening-school use. In still other schools no textbooks are used, the teachers having found the available textbooks unsuited to their students, or the school board having failed to furnish the type of text requested.

So far as could be ascertained, only one or two textbooks are in use adapted specially to a particular nationality. Ordinarily the same text is used for Poles and Italians, notwithstanding the wide diversity in racial and national traits. Again, few texts are adapted to the experience of immigrants in this country. The subject matter chosen is usually wholly unsuited to the age, training, and attitude of the women and men taught. Thus one textbook devotes the first 15 or 20 lessons to expressions familiar among children, and pictures meant to appeal only to a child's mind. Further, the course in English for foreigners usually fails to give sufficient emphasis to the conversational side-the side the foreigner really needs. The foreigner learning English is little interested in such sentences as: "I have two ears. I hear with my two ears. I hear the sweet music with my ears." On the other hand, he is interested in practical conversation. like the following, found in one book:

Where do you work? I am working at the steel plant. Where is the steel plant? It is on Mill Street. How many days a week do you work? I work six days a week. Where do these men work? They work in the steel plant. Where do they live? They are living on Elk Street.

Finally, an unfortunate feature of the texts in use is the utter lack of any rational grouping of subjects or principle of arrangement. For example, in one popular textbook Lesson 1 deals with the following: "Number lesson," "New words," "Reading and action lesson for two pupils," "At the hardware store," and "Spelling lessons." Lesson 49 deals with "The cities of the United States." Lesson 50 has a conversation about iron ore. Lesson 51 has a reading lesson

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