The adult immigrant settlers need American education, the women more than the men. This fact was clearly impressed upon the writer during his field investigation. The women do not penetrate the American world; they live in the Old World, their children live in the New, and the men in a mixed world. No matter how brokenly or how fluently their husbands speak English, with but few exceptions the wives either speak it not at all or attempt a few syllables of the strange language with a hesitation and shyness which soon cause them to fall silent and retire in favor of their children or husbands. Their social visits, their contact with women and men other than their family, are confined to members of their own nationality. They live in a cage, in which they suffer, but to which they cling because it is all of life that they know.

IMPORTANCE OF REACHING WOMEN

To reach them, to bring them out into the world in which their families live, is a difficult task. It must be undertaken and accomplished, first, for the purely humane reason of lightening their lot and making them individually more happy in the New World; second, for the sake of preventing the disruption of families, the corner stone of the present social order; third, for the sake of creating and sustaining good citizenship. Whether immigrant women vote or not, they are an inevitable influence in the political life of the country. They must be helped to keep pace as nearly as possible with their children, who are increasingly under the influence of the American environment, especially the public schools. Not only that, but education of the mothers means a more effectual development of the children, for the mother is the greatest educator of the nation. The first question is how to reach them.

It is easy to say that the native women should go to them, establish friendly social relations, and in this way influence them. The writer observed in the field that such attempts have been made in earnest, but without much result. The first difficulty is the lack of a common language. Next is the difference in the levels of intellectual development. One might question what common grounds for social intercourse there would be between an American farmer's wife with either grammar-school or high-school education and some European peasant's wife, illiterate, impossibly shy, and downtrodden. Still, there is a way out. In almost every immigrant rural colony one may find a more intelligent immigrant woman, either a mother of a family who has been long in this country or an elder daughter who has received a public-school education, speaks English satisfactorily, and who, at the same time, speaks the immigrants' language and knows the families in the colony more or less thoroughly. Such women should be approached first, should be brought into intimate contact with the native families, and should be induced to take a course of training and become organizers or teachers of the adult immigrant women in the colony. They will be able to effect an organization which might be called the "Women's Club" or "Mother's Club." Instead of creating an entirely new body, such organizations as exist can and should be utilized; there may be clubs, some co-operative association or a benefit society. There may be no organization and one may have to be initiated. In that case it is desirable that the more developed immigrant women be appointed to the directorate of the new organization.

THE HOME TEACHER

It would seem advisable for our high schools, normal schools, and colleges specifically to train their immigrant girl students to become home teachers in the colonies of their respective nationalities. Such home teachers, qualified and trained for their work, should receive an adequate, living salary. Their duty would be to visit the immigrant homes, talk with the mothers, tell them how to rear their children, how to care for the health of the family, how to prepare meals of American food and in American ways, how to can and preserve, and how to work in the home garden. They should organize recreation facilities, reading circles, amateur theatricals, choruses, etc. The home teacher should organize the women into afternoon classes for learning English and should induce them to visit the evening classes with the men. She also would be the intermediary for the establishment of friendly and social relations between the immigrant families of different nationalities and the native American families. She should be attached to the teaching staff of the local public school.

Such home teachers have been employed in California under the direction of the Home Teacher Act passed in 1915. The conditions of employment, the duties and qualifications of the home teachers are outlined by the Act as follows: [50]

The provisions of the law at present limit its application to congested neighborhoods.

In regard to afternoon classes for the women, one of the home teachers, Mrs. Amanda Mathews Chase, writes as follows: [51]

The school system of Los Angeles has, under this law, employed an educated Jewish woman from Russia for work in the colony of the Russian sectarian peasants. The impression of the writer when he visited the colony was that she was doing splendid work in helping the peasant women. The writer's belief is that if she had been of the Russian nationality she would have accomplished still better results, as the writer observed some antisemitic feeling among the peasants in connection with her. One peasant woman told the writer that this home teacher was a good protector for them, but did not recognize that she was their educator. As the colony is large, the home teacher really could not do much educational work other than to supervise the attendance of the children at school and to help disentangle family difficulties. It would be advisable to train and employ home teachers who are of the same nationality as the people of the colony in which they work.

ORGANIZATION OF IMMIGRANT WOMEN

Immigrant women's organizations have been already started here and there on the initiative, and by the efforts of the immigrant women themselves. For instance, Finnish women in Calumet, Michigan, have organized an "Americanization Club" for Finnish women, with the intention of extending the movement into other Finnish colonies in America. The program of the meetings consists of learning American songs, of addresses on America, its history, civics, women's social work, child welfare. The club activities hope to combat disloyalty, which the club members believe to exist among a number of the immigrants of certain nationalities. The main aim of the club, as its leaders state, is to assist in the Americanization of the Finnish women in America—to eliminate the hyphen, to make the Finnish-American women Americans.

The Council of Jewish Women in Newark, New Jersey, has established an Americanization center for the Jewish women, mothers and grown-up Jewish girls; while this center is in the city it illustrates the principle involved. The activities of the "center" consist of an afternoon English class for mothers, in order that they may "overtake their children on the long road of learning," and of an English class in the evening for Jewish girls who work in the factories. The chairman of the council states that they have found a way to make the learning of English really interesting to the foreign-born woman, that until now the woman who wanted to keep up with her children in English had had to go to the evening school, where she found a mixture of men and women of all races and all ages. She soon fell behind the younger and smarter pupils, and lost her interest. In these English classes of the "center" the women are practically all of the same age, the same race, and have the same interests.

These attempts at Americanization by the immigrant women themselves, under the stress of the tragedies caused by the estrangement of their children through the American schooling, point the way to the remedy above outlined. Help the immigrant mothers to keep pace with their children. This is even more important, the writer believes, than work with the immigrant fathers.

THE PUBLIC EVENING SCHOOL

When the writer visited an immigrant rural colony and found there a large number of old-time immigrants still unnaturalized, there were two explanations given. There was, first, the red tape in the naturalization proceedings; and second, ignorance of English and of American geography, history, and form of government. There had been no opportunity to learn all these things, although the colonists had wanted to. Only in a few cases did their own neglect seem to be a cause for their not being naturalized.

The following field notes of the writer, taken at random, illustrate the situation in regard to the knowledge of English and the naturalization of the settlers in the immigrant colonies.

Italian colony, Canastota, New York. Writer's observations:

A large number of the men spoke very little English. The women did not speak English at all. All the children spoke English.