EDUCATIONAL REVIEW VOLUME XIX 1921 377 C28 Published Monthly Except July and August THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION PRESS DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, D. C Educational Review JANUARY, 1921 CATHOLIC EDUCATION, THE BASIS OF TRUE The tide of immigration, pouring into our country for many decades in ever increasing volume, was interrupted briefly during the years of the European War, but is now resumed in increased volume which is limited only by the carrying capacity of the ships that pass between European ports and our own. This tide of immigration presents many unsolved problems. We need much more labor than has been available during the past few years unless we are to drop back into an elementary condition in which we export our raw materials and import our necessary manufactures. On the other hand, an abundant supply of labor is likely to reduce the wages of the working man and to lower his standard of living. The adjustment of these opposing factors must be undertaken by the national government. But this is not the only problem nor indeed the chief problem which the situation presents. Our experience of the past few years has taught all who are willing to learn that we have failed in large measure to deal with many vital issues that are involved. As a result we hear on every side the demand for the Americanization of the foreigner and the public is looking to the school to take its part in this work. It will be convenient to consider Americanization of the foreigner as two distinct tasks: The Americanization of the adult foreigner and the Americanization of the foreign child, born here or abroad. The latter task has always been assigned to the school and we are now attempting to enlarge 'Read before the Pennsylvania Catholic Education Association, Pittsburgh, December, 1920. the function of the school so as to include the former. Evidently the school may render assistance in Americanizing the adult but it will be necessary to draw upon other social forces to cooperate in the work and the school will be able to lend effective help in proportion as it has learned to deal effectively with its own peculiar problem, namely, the Americanization of the foreign child. The state public school and the Catholic public school have both endeavored, each in its own way, to Americanize the children of the foreigner who has come to dwell in our midst. In fact it is the boast of many an advocate of the state school system that our state school is a melting pot in which the foreigner is transformed into an American citizen. Obviously the state school has functioned as a melting pot for these children, a melting pot in which national customs and national traits of all sorts were lost, but it takes more than a melting pot to make a citizen and the destruction or removal with undue haste of national traits and national customs from the foreign-born child leaves him so weak and debilitated that it will be difficult to build him up into a worthy citizen. Overzeal in this direction has not produced commendable results. It will be admitted readily that it would have been difficult for the state school to avoid these results, desired or otherwise. When the children of a dozen different nationalities meet in the same school we are likely to find Paddy laughing at Dutchy, both of them ridiculing Polack and all three jeering at Frenchy, with the result that all of the children loose reverence and respect for their own parents and for family traditions which for countless generations have served to inspire and support the moral and patriotic nature of the child, and when this destruction has taken place it will be scarcely possible to give the child reverence for America or for American institutions and customs. Moreover, these children are likely to represent various religions, and the result is similar in this respect. The Methodist jeers at the Baptist, and both of them show little respect for the Lutheran or the Episcopalian. The Catholic mistrusts the Protestant and the Protestant returns the distrust to which is often added hatred or contempt. The result is too often a disgust for all religion and for all churches, and the child grows into a man or a woman who feels it to be the right thing to disown all religious affiliations and to be so broad minded as to believe that one religion is as good as another. This process has, in fact, emptied our Protestant churches. The policy has continued from the days of Horace Mann;-the result, a nation that has lost its religion. In a rapidly increasing population denominational churches are obliged to resort to all manner of social attractions in order to secure an attendance. The Catholic Church has consistently adopted another policy. She built her own school system so that her children might grow up in reverence for the Church and for its teachings and in obedience to its laws, but she also dealt with the problem of the foreign child in a manner consistent with her policy. As far as her means would allow she organized congregations and parochial schools for the Catholics of each nation who were pouring into our country. Thus you will find in the cities in which this tide of immigration settled Catholic schools known as Polish schools, French schools, German schools, etc. In these schools the children's reverence for their own parents and for the traditions of their native country is preserved and they grow up in this country gradually imbibing its spirit and adopting its customs in a spirit of reverence and love and they come to forget all too soon the traditions and customs of the land of their forefathers. In two or three generations these children are found to be more thoroughly American than the Americans themselves. Obviously we should endeavor to form a clear concept of just what it is that goes to the formation of an American citizen before we can adopt intelligent means for the achievement of our aims, and we may be permitted to begin with enumerating a few things that, in spite of ill-considered statements to the contrary, do not enter into the making of an American citizen. It is not necessary, for instance, that an American citizen should know only one language and that he should be familiar with the history of no other country than the United States. An added language is always an added asset of no mean value. When the committee of nine appointed to draw up a suitable curriculum for the public high schools of the United States made their report it recom |