New Homes for Old Part 16

3. Good health.

4. Ability to speak the language of the largest group in the district.

5. Complete loyalty to the princ.i.p.al of the school.

6. Tact and patience for a delicate task.

7. Ingenuity in adapting all circ.u.mstances to the main purpose.

8. An incapacity for discouragement.

9. Comprehension of the reasons and objects of the work.

10. Finally, above all and through all, a sympathetic att.i.tude toward the people, which involves some knowledge of the countries and conditions from which they came, and what "America" has meant to them.[57]

Her salary is paid from the city or from district special school funds.

The law authorizing the use of home teachers was enacted largely through the efforts of the State Commission of Immigration and Housing, and was from the first intended to be used for the benefit of foreign-born families. The first experiments were financed by the Commission of Immigration and Housing and by private organizations, such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Council of Jewish Women, and the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation. According to the latest report[58] there are twenty official home teachers at work in eight cities of the state. The Commission says of the purpose of this plan:

The interpretation of the need in California departs from that conceived elsewhere. There have been so-called home teachers in a dozen cities, of several Eastern states, for a number of years, but their purpose is to do follow-up work for absent, irregular, subnormal, or incorrigible children, and they are more properly visiting teachers. The home teacher, as we conceive her purpose, seeks not primarily the special child--though that will often open the door to her and afford her a quick opportunity for friendly help--but _the home_ as such, and especially the mother who makes it.

This discrimination as to aim and purpose cannot be too much emphasized, or too consistently maintained, for the care of abnormal children, important as it is, can by no means take the place of the endeavor to Americanize the _families_ of the community.[59]

SETTLEMENT CLa.s.sES

The social settlements are in many cases situated in congested city districts, and they have always dealt very directly with the family groups in their neighborhood. Settlements have, in fact, probably more than any other social agency, tried to become acquainted with the Old-World background of their neighbors in order to establish friendly relationships. The settlement ideal has included the preservation of the dignity and self-esteem of the immigrant, while attempting to modify his habits when necessary and giving him some preparation for citizenship.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LITHUANIAN MOTHERS HAVE COME TO A SETTLEMENT CLa.s.s]

Cla.s.ses in English and Civics, mothers' clubs, and housekeeping cla.s.ses have been part of the contribution of the settlement to the adjustment of family life. Seventeen settlements in Chicago, for example, have conducted during the last year 36 clubs and cla.s.ses of this kind for non-English-speaking women. Among these there are 9 English cla.s.ses, 8 sewing cla.s.ses, 10 cooking cla.s.ses, and 9 mothers'

clubs, with varied programs.

These cla.s.ses have been conducted with a flexibility that is often lacking in the public-school cla.s.ses. They are usually held in the daytime at the hour most convenient for the group concerned, and by combining social features with instruction the interest of the women is maintained longer than would otherwise be possible.

Sometimes the cla.s.ses are conducted in a foreign language, but they are generally taught in English, occasionally with the a.s.sistance of an interpreter. The cla.s.ses are usually small, so that considerable personal attention is possible. The season during which it seems possible to hold such cla.s.ses lasts from September or October until June, and it seems necessary to expend considerable effort each year in order to reorganize them.

Trained domestic-science teachers are used for most of the cooking and sewing cla.s.ses. The English teachers and mothers' club leaders are, however, usually residents in the settlement or other volunteers with little training or experience in teaching adults. They often find it quite difficult to hold the group together. Very valuable work is done, however, especially in the cooking cla.s.ses. Many such cla.s.ses were organized to teach conservation cooking; for instance, in an Italian cla.s.s, the women were taught the use of subst.i.tutes for wheat that could be used in macaroni; in another the cooking teacher took Italian recipes and tried to reproduce their flavors with American products which are cheaper and more available than the Italian articles.

What is gained in flexibility may, of course, be counterbalanced by a loss of unity. The settlement teaching lacks, on the whole, a unity and organization that the public school should be better able to provide.

CO-OPERATION OF AGENCIES

Sometimes co-operation among several agencies may be advantageous in meeting the various difficulties presented by the task of teaching adult foreign-born women. Such co-operation was developed between the Immigrants' Protective League of Chicago, the public schools, the Chicago Woman's Club and the Women's Division of the Illinois Council of Defense.

The Board of Education of Chicago, in 1917, pa.s.sed a resolution to the effect that whenever twenty or more adults desired instruction in any subject which would increase their value in citizenship, the school would be opened and a trained teacher provided. The Immigrants'

Protective League then undertook to organize groups who would take advantage of this opportunity and to keep the groups interested after they had been organized.

The Chicago Woman's Club and the Council of National Defense undertook to supply kindergarten teachers to care for the children whose mothers were in the cla.s.s, and the Visiting Nurse a.s.sociation supplied nurses to examine the children, to advise mothers with reference to their care, and to make home visits when the condition of the children rendered this necessary.

The League visitors made very definite efforts to organize campaigns for acquainting the housewives of various neighborhoods with the opportunity thus provided, and for persuading the women to "come out."

The services of the foreign-born visitors have been particularly valuable in the work of organization. These visitors certainly put forth valiant efforts in behalf of the plan. The Lithuanian and Italian visitors, for example, made in three instances 40, 96, and 125 calls before a cla.s.s was organized, and even then less than twenty enrolled for each cla.s.s. They have found it necessary to make visits in the homes of women whom they hoped to draw out, and have also used posters, printed invitations, and advertis.e.m.e.nts in foreign-language newspapers. Nor have their efforts ceased when the cla.s.s was organized. Often misunderstandings occur, the attendance begins to dwindle, and great efforts must be made to discover the cause and to bring back the members.

The cla.s.ses organized in this way have usually been small, composed of housewives of a single national group. Considerable individual attention is given the members of the cla.s.s, and the foreign-speaking visitors attend the cla.s.ses so that they may interpret when necessary.

The plan has been carried out, of course, on an extremely restricted stage. The efforts have been limited almost entirely to English and cooking cla.s.ses, and instruction in other phases of household management has been quite incidental.

The teachers supplied by the Board of Education have not, of course, always possessed social experience and training. The cla.s.ses are sometimes short lived. In the case of a Lithuanian cooking cla.s.s, to which the teacher came too late to give the lesson, or too weary to give the lesson, it was necessary to reorganize the group. Where the teachers change, the group will dwindle, and the efforts of the visitor will have been substantially wasted.

The subject matter is often poorly adapted to the needs and desires of the foreign housewife. A new domestic-science teacher, for instance, gave to a group of Lithuanian women seven consecutive lessons on pies, cakes, and cookies, in spite of the organizer's request for lessons on "plain cooking." At times, as has been pointed out, the teacher is wholly ignorant as to the habits and tastes of the immigrant. There is, sometimes, an ill-advised attempt to subst.i.tute American dishes for foreign dishes instead of modifying or supplementing the well-established and perfectly sound dietetic practices of the foreign-born group.

The Lithuanian visitor of the Immigrants' Protective League, in speaking of the difficulties she had encountered in keeping together the cla.s.ses she organized for the public school, says she has often been able to get together a group of women who want lessons in English and in cooking. The plan has been to give cooking lessons in English.

The women have come, perhaps, three or four times. The first lesson would teach the making of biscuits; perhaps the second dumplings; the third sweet rolls. The teacher would be very busy with her cooking and talk very little. Then the women would not come back. They did not want to learn to make biscuits, about which they cared nothing; they were busy women and were aware that they were not getting what they wanted or needed.

INTERNATIONAL INSt.i.tUTES

Another specialized agency for work with the foreign-born groups is the International Inst.i.tute of the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation. This a.s.sociation has attempted in a short period of time to develop over a wide area this form of service, so that between the spring of 1913 and March, 1919, there had been established 31 of these organizations, most of them in industrial centers in different parts of the United States. In general, their work, as outlined in the After-War Program of the a.s.sociation, includes (1) a foreign-language information office, (2) home visiting for newly arrived women and girls, (3) case work in connection with legal difficulties, sickness, and emergencies, and (4) work with groups, including organized cla.s.ses and informal gatherings. The last are to be especially designed for women and girls unable or unwilling to attend night schools, and there is to be a persistent urging upon the public school of the importance of socialized methods in work for women.

The use of foreign-language visitors is considered to be one of the most important features of these undertakings. Although few of the inst.i.tutes have been able to secure enough workers to reach all the language groups in the community, provision can usually be made for the most numerous groups. Among the 18 replies to questionnaires sent to these inst.i.tutes only 4 show less than 3 languages spoken by visitors, 10 have as many as 4 or more, and 4 have 8 or 9 languages.

These 18 inst.i.tutes employ 76 foreign-language visitors. Forty-six of these are themselves foreign born. These visitors represent a great variety in training and experience, but the inst.i.tute secretaries think that on the whole they are more valuable than native-born visitors would be even if these native-born visitors were more highly trained. The training of these particular visitors, while varied and often apparently inadequate, is on the whole surprisingly good.

Fifteen of the 46 have had some college training; 3 have had kindergarten training, and 4 nurses' training. Eight have had previous case-work experience; 4 have lived in settlements. Eight have taken training courses given by the a.s.sociation, varying from a few weeks to several months at the national headquarters. A number have had religious training of one kind or another, 2 in a school for deaconesses, 12 as prospective missionaries, and 1 in a theological seminary.

The 18 International Inst.i.tutes report the establishment of 134 clubs or cla.s.ses in which married women are members, having an enrollment of 894 foreign-born married women. The subject most generally taught is English. Among 134 clubs and cla.s.ses, 101 are organized exclusively for the teaching of English, and 7 others combine English with cooking or sewing.

Some attempt is made to teach housekeeping in cla.s.ses. Ten of these are organized for cooking or sewing, 7 for English and cooking or sewing, and there are 13 mothers' clubs with subjects of such general interest as health, the care of children, and home nursing. In addition to the organized clubs and cla.s.ses, most of the inst.i.tutes have given lectures in foreign languages to larger groups of women subjects such as "Women and the War," "Liberty Bonds," "Thrift," "Food Conservation," "Personal and Social Hygiene," "The Buying of Materials," and "What the English Language Can Do for You."

Most cla.s.ses are composed of a single national group, but cla.s.ses are reported in which there are Polish and Ruthenian, Slovak and Polish, Greek and Lithuanian, Armenian and French, and Portuguese, Magyar and Slovak, and "mixed" nationalities. English is used in practically all cla.s.ses which are primarily for the teaching of English. Fourteen of the inst.i.tutes, however, have foreign-speaking workers to interpret whenever the women do not understand the teacher. In answer to the question as to the success of the inst.i.tute in connecting married women with cla.s.ses in public evening schools, three reply that they have had no success because the public schools do not use foreign-speaking workers and the women cannot understand the teachers who speak only English.

The inst.i.tutes conduct vigorous campaigns to acquaint the mothers with their work, using posters, printed invitations, announcements at schools, notices in foreign papers, and particularly home visits by foreign-speaking workers.

With regard to home visiting it appears that there has not yet been time to work out a program for the teaching of improved standards of housekeeping, personal hygiene, and proper diet. The inst.i.tutes, however, lend their foreign-speaking visitors as interpreters to other agencies organized for particular phases of work in the home, such as Visiting Nurse a.s.sociations, Infant Welfare societies, Anti-Tuberculosis societies, and Charity Organization societies.

A very real effort is often made to reconcile foreign-born mothers and Americanized daughters. Those responsible for some of the inst.i.tutes realize very keenly the significance of the problem, and impress upon the children they meet their great interest in the Old-World background of the parents, their appreciation of the mother's being able to speak another language besides English, their pleasure in old-country dances, costumes, and songs. They try in every way possible to maintain the respect of the daughter for her foreign-born mother. In home visits they try also to explain to the mother the freedom granted to American girls, the purpose of the clubs for girls, and the need for learning English themselves to lessen their dependence upon the children.

TRAINING FOR SERVICE

It is obvious that the efficiency of the work of these various organizations can rise no higher than the level of efficiency and training of the workers available for such service. It is, therefore, most important that the materials necessary for the rendering of these services be made available at the earliest possible moment. Such materials include compilations of data with reference to the different groups, courses of study developed so as to meet the needs and educational possibilities of the women, devices such as pictures, slides, charts, films, for getting and holding attention of persons unused to study, often weary and overstrained and lacking confidence in their own power to learn.

It is also clear from the experiences of these various agencies that, while giving this instruction is essentially an educational problem, it is for the time so intimately connected with the whole question of understanding the needs of the housewife in the different foreign-born groups, of developing a method of approach and of organization, and of trying out methods of instruction as well as experimenting with different bodies of material, that for some time to come experimentation and research should be fostered at many points.

There should, for example, be acc.u.mulated a much larger body of knowledge than is now available with reference to the agencies existing among the foreign-born groups in the various communities from whom co-operation could be expected; there should be a much more exact body of fact as to the needs of the various groups of women; at the earliest possible moment the material available with reference to these household problems, child care, hygiene and sanitation, distribution of family income, should be put into form available for use by the home teacher, the cla.s.s teacher, the extension workers, and the woman's club organization. In the Appendix are some menus of four immigrant groups, which ill.u.s.trate the kind of material which would be useful.

By stipends and scholarships promising younger members from among the foreign-born groups should be encouraged to qualify as home teachers and as cla.s.sroom and extension instructors in these fields. This would often mean giving opportunity for further general education as preliminary to the professional training, for many young persons admirably adapted to the work come from families too poor to afford the necessary time at school. Scholarships providing for an adequate preparation available to members of the larger groups in any community, would give a very great incentive to interest in the problem and to further understanding of its importance on the part of the whole group.

In addition to scholarships enabling young persons to take courses of considerable length, there might be stipends enabling older women of judgment and experience to qualify for certain forms of service by shorter courses. Those who can speak enough English could take advantage of certain short courses already offered by the schools of social work. Others who do not speak English could be enabled to learn enough English and at the same time to learn to carry on certain forms of service under direction.