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 THE FOREIGN CHILD AND 
 THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 
 
 BY 
 
 LESLIE HAYFORD 
 
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 Field Secretary, North American Civic League for Immigrants 
 
 Part of an address delivered in Boston, November 11, 1910 
 
 NORTH AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE FOR IMMIGRANTS 
 
 173 State Street 
 
 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
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The Foreign Child and the Public School 
 
 The problem of the foreign child in the public school is the 
 result of a revolution in industry during the past two or three 
 generations. Cities have grown rapidly, wave on wave of immi- 
 grants has flooded into the country, filling factory and tenement 
 house and crowding out the play spaces of the city, so that the 
 foreign quarters have become the most congested and neglected. 
 Manufacture — on an enormous scale — has brought the immigrant 
 man and woman and child. Rapid industrial expansion is almost 
 wholly responsible for the problem of the immigrant child in the 
 school. For in the readjustment of society to the changed condi- 
 tions of life — to factory labor, to crowded quarters of the city, to 
 the loss of home life through the economic necessity of both 
 parents to become wage-earners, to the replacement of yards and 
 open spaces by factories and tenement houses, to the substitution 
 of the street for the natural playground — in the readjustment of 
 society to these new conditions the child has been forgotten and 
 his needs neglected. 
 
 Now it is the immigrant who most inhabits the crowded sec- 
 tions of the city which have resulted from this industrial change. 
 And it is the immigrant child who has suffered most from this 
 neglect of childhood's needs. The American child has been less 
 affected. In the main, he does not live away from light and air 
 and play space ; he is not given over to the street for the larger part 
 of his childhood's life and training; he is not universally obliged 
 to go to work as soon as he can get working papers; economic 
 necessity does not relentlessly drag him out of school and cheat him 
 out of his chance in life. 
 
Just what is that chance in life which should belong to every 
 child? It- bare outlines are indicated by the law of the state 
 which requires that every child shall be in school until he has 
 reached a certain age. That law aims, I take it, to provide every 
 child with the advantages of a "common school" education. 
 There could have been but one reason for enacting such a law: 
 it must have been deemed necessary for the safety of the state that 
 each child should have this minimum of schooling. Yet by no 
 possibility can the immigrant child entering school at twelve or 
 eleven or ten years of age, ill-equipped and ignorant of English, 
 complete the common school course. Some part of the schooling 
 which the state would have him obtain must be foregone — he 
 hasn't time to avail himself of the full opportunity; he must earn 
 a living. So he passes out into the world of work, pitifully un- 
 educated and ill-equipped. 
 
 If it is a matter of principle for the state to expect every child 
 to receive a certain amount of instruction, some provision must 
 be made whereby the immigrant child can get his share. It is not 
 a matter which concerns the child alone, although it concerns 
 him most. It is of grave import to the city and the state. These 
 children in our schools are our future citizens. Into their hands 
 will be placed the government of city, state and nation. What 
 kind of school opportunity is theirs now, will very largely deter- 
 mine what kind of citizens they become. As a matter of self- 
 protection the state must see to it that compulsory education is not 
 unavailing. Whatever will make the immigrant child a more 
 efficient worker, a more cheerful liver, a more thoughtful neighbor, 
 and a more active citizen — whatever, in short, will make him 
 more economically and socially efficient — will tend to strengthen 
 the state and elevate humanity. To give the immigrant child a 
 sijuare deal is not charity; it is statesmanship. 
 
 The immigrant child is much more dependent than the native 
 child upon influences outside his home for his real training. In 
 the growth of industry the home life of the factory worker has 
 been withered and dwarfed. The child must get his training for 
 life either from the school or from the street. To put the print 
 
 
 
of the school on his character is a task big enough for the most 
 phenomenal teacher that ever entered a schoolroom. There are 
 so many things beyond mere scholastic training that the child 
 needs with a crying need. He needs right ideals, a true concep- 
 tion of life and its values, kindliness toward his fellows, sanity 
 of thought and honesty of action, a love of life and a friendliness 
 toward life. He needs things that will help him to get on in the 
 world and things that will make him a good citizen and neighbor. 
 
 Perhaps more than any other child, the immigrant child 
 needs to have right ideals given him in school. For his ideals 
 are going to have no inconsiderable influence on the attitude of 
 his parents toward America. If he goes to the public school, 
 what he brings home with him will be looked upon as the thought 
 of that superior being, his teacher. To prevent the wrong ideals 
 that the child may receive from the street, which is too largely his 
 real field of life, from becoming the dominant ones, is a task of 
 immeasurable difficulty. So much that is false, that is a distorted 
 conception of life, is taught the child by the street that the utmost 
 endeavor will be none too much to give him in school a right 
 conception of life and its values. So much of neglect and harsh- 
 ness, of the cold relentlessness of life, is the lot of the immigrant 
 child that the school must make special effort to inspire him with 
 friendliness toward life and kindliness toward his fellows — to 
 make him socially efficient. In that, the attitude of the teacher 
 is the vital factor. 
 
 Besides this moulding of character, the immigrant child 
 needs help in becoming economically efficient. His brief period 
 in school should make him better able to earn a livelihood — 
 should help him to get and to hold that job which necessity re- 
 quires him to seek. In considering the problem we must not 
 forget that the immigrant child is required by economic necessity 
 to go to work — to earn money — at an early age. He finds that he 
 cannot even wait to finish the common school course. If he must 
 leave thus early, a substitute for the traditional eight or nine 
 grades should be provided for him. And that substitute should 
 be of economic value to him. 
 
Hut while this vocational training is essential in order that 
 the foreign child may become an efficient worker, it is not more 
 important than his training in character. That is the greatest 
 good he can ever get from school. In that training the teacher 
 becomes > maker of Americans. She can implant what is best in 
 American ideals in the immigrant child's untutored mind and 
 heart. Compared with this, the mere teaching of English is un- 
 important. The child might pick up English on the street; the 
 forming of character cannot be trusted to "the street, the gutter 
 and the garbage box." 
 
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