In 1912 there were in the New York elementary schools 388,000 girls, every one of whom should have seen in her school building a model of a home; now she never sees a window washed or a floor swept. A few at the end of the course have a little cooking, but 344,500 had not even cooking last year. In the model home in every school our girls should work; then, like the artist, when their day for original work comes they have a standard, a model, an ideal.

What would I suggest as training for domestic-science teachers? To get into the heat of the battle. It is not fair to the immigrant child that she should be used as a lesson for the inexperienced, but there are ways to study without exploiting the child. Have these model homes and let our student pupils work there under or with an experienced teacher. Do not have these model flats necessarily in close proximity to a college. Let the pupils go where they are—in the heart of the immigrant population. These girls may not be wise enough at first to go to the foreigner's home and suggest improvements, but surely they know what an American home should be. Let them make a model and then invite the foreigner to enter. To work at the problem, not in a scientific school only, but on the battlefield-that is the kind of training our teachers need, and each of the schools in a foreign section is an opening, and every model flat in New York is an opening.

II. IMMIGRANTS IN LABOR CAMPS AND ISOLATED COMMUNITIES.

I. By JOSEPH MAYPER,

New York State Bureau of Industries and Immigration.

The problem for discussion is one that the average layman is not familiar with. The residents of the State and the residents of the country have but little interest in the labor-camp problem, because it is far removed from their daily lives. We know that the immigrant arrives at Ellis Island, is admitted to the United States, and goes to some crowded city. What becomes of him from the moment he lands in the city is something that we have never systematically followed up to any great extent until about two and a half years ago, when the New York State Bureau of Industries and Immigration was created as a component part of the department of labor. One of the functions of this bureau was to investigate the living and social conditions existing in our labor camps. We had a very small staff, but we soon found the existence of degrading conditions. We can perhaps divide the general discussions of labor camps

into three parts: First, the general living conditions of the immigrant in the camp; second, the educational facilities, if any, that are provided for him; and third, the power to exploit him that is given to the padrone or contractor in charge of the camp. The bureau of industries and immigration, as a State organization, has devoted most of its attention to the first of these.

I am glad to state that a bill is now before the governor which it is hoped will, to a great extent, create sanitary conditions in our camps. This bill is the one introduced by the special public health commission. As a result of the bureau investigators' testimony before this commission, they incorporated in their bill this provision: The State is to be divided into 20 districts, with a sanitary supervisor in direct charge of each, acting under the orders of the public health council. One of his specific duties is to inspect all labor camps and isolated communities within his district, and enforce the sanitary code adopted by the council for the regulation of such camps. I am glad to state also that we have been instrumental in recommending to the public health commission a series of minimum sanitary requirements for these camps which will probably be adopted when that department is reorganized. Hereafter, when we inspect a camp we shall no longer have to ask the padrone, Will you please put a garbage can in front of this place? The matter will be reported immediately to the State health department, and it will be a simple matter to compel the padrone to provide sanitary living conditions.

The second phase of the immigrant problem in the labor camp relates to education. Perhaps some of you are familiar with the law which has just been enacted, authorizing the creation of temporary schools in labor camps where the construction of public works is going on. The State department of education will cooperate with us, and we shall cooperate with them, in creating temporary schools for adults in English, civics, and citizenship. These schools will undoubtedly be established wherever a large number of foreigners are congregated.

The third problem is that of the padrone. We have not been able to solve this, but we are hopeful that the time will soon come when his pernicious activities will be properly regulated. The creation of public free employment agencies would tend to do away with the padrone. The padrone at present obtains his laborers in the large cities and brings them to these isolated communities under misleading promises. He tells them that they will be paid a certain amount per day, that their living quarters will be of the best, and that the sanitary provisions of the camp are excellent. Once the laborer is in the camp he is entirely at the mercy of the padrone. He has no funds and can not leave; so that no matter what conditions he finds, he can do nothing to change or remedy them. He

must remain. Wages are paid every two weeks, or once a month, which keeps him at the camp for at least a month, or even longer. We have advocated the creation of free employment agencies, but there has been a great deal of opposition. However, this proposed legislation is now under discussion and is bound to come within the next few years.

II. By JANE E. ROBBINS,

Society for Italian Immigrants.

My subject takes us first to the mountains of Abruzzi, near Chieti, where we find a strong young man used to patient digging; he may or may not know his alphabet, but he is sturdy, intelligent, cheerful, kind, and used to practicing great economy. He has probably four or five brothers. The family is very poor; there is no work for him at home, and he comes to America to work for a few years before going into the army. There are many like him; in a remote mountain town of Scanno, 17 miles from a railroad, I was not able to find, when I was there two years ago, a single school boy who was not planning to come over here. "Where is that woman going," I casually asked a 10-year-old Italian boy, as I saw a handsome woman passing us in Scanno. "She is going down to the lake to talk to God about her son," was the answer; "all the women go down to the church by the lake to talk to God about their sons in America."

The first attempt to organize a night school in a contract-labor camp was made by Miss Sarah W. Moore, in Aspinwall, Pa., where many young men from the Abruzzi and from Calabria were at work. Miss Moore had been eager for several years to start an evening school in a labor camp, and she went to Aspinwall at the instance of Mr. De Luca, a member of a firm engaged upon the construction of a filtration plant. The contractors gave Miss Moore the use of a shanty in which she opened, on Monday, September 5, 1905, an experimental evening school for day laborers. The men began to register their names the first night, and within two days 40 men had come into the school. Miss Moore wrote to me, as chairman of the camp school committee for the society for Italian immigrants, a glowing account of the beauty of the country around the camp, the kindness of the volunteer teachers who had come from all the different churches in Aspinwall, and of the great eagerness of the men to learn English.

In spite of feebleness and even an actual illness, Miss Moore clung to the evening school, encouraged the teachers, inspired the townspeople to enthusiastic activity and trained her kind-hearted boys to reverence for their teachers. After she left the school, two young

women teachers came from another town, and went into that desolate camp and continued their work.

Miss Moore was instrumental in having a bill passed by the Pennsylvania Legislature permitting the use of schools for the education of adults whenever there was a demand for night schools.

Mr. De Luca was much interested in one of the Aspinwall water boys. The father of the boy, years before, had stood in the path of an express train too paralyzed to move, and Mr. De Luca had pulled him off the track. Those who know something of the gratitude natural to Italians can imagine the devotion to Mr. De Luca which this man had taught to his son. The boy came every night to school, soon mastered both reading and writing, and was given a responsible position on the works. Mr. De Luca said to me that the school had proved itself worth while in the education of this one boy.

From the neighbors' point of view, the school was of great value. The president of the chamber of commerce in Pittsburgh had his summer home in the vicinity, and after the camp was established he had closed his place because of his fear of the large number of Italian laborers. After the school opened, however, he felt that he could bring his family to Aspinwall. His daughters even helped to arrange a patriotic festa for the school, and Miss Moore was allowed the use of the beautiful grounds. I have a picture of her teaching a group of youngsters to sketch the trees. These boys are kept away from the vicious and demoralizing influences which in many camps prevent young laborers from becoming valuable additions to American life.

I have described somewhat at length the camp at Aspinwall for two reasons: First, because I wish to pay this tribute, which is all too slight, to the memory of Miss Sarah Moore, who, notwithstanding age and feebleness, did this wonderful pioneer work in spite of apparently insurmountable difficulties, and second, because this was the first work of the kind in the United States.

When the work at Aspinwall was over, Miss Moore, after experimental classes in three other localities, turned her attention to the Catskill water supply. Commissioner Chadwick, chairman of the board of water supply, has always been deeply interested in education and was able to grasp at once the importance of Miss Moore's ideas.

The contractors at Browns Station had carefully provided for the housing and sanitation of a large camp which was to last for about 10 years. The Italians and negroes in large numbers were established in boarding houses, and the fact that the law compels an eighthour day on such contracts gave them much leisure time. The contractors provided a four-room school building, to be used by the negro children and foreign-born children in the day and by the men at night.

In the spring of 1908 Miss Moore opened a school, and it has been in session 12 months of the year, five nights of the week. The school has varied in attendance from 30 or 40 to 70 or 80.

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Miss Moore found that there were very few schoolbooks suitable for night school use, and collected material for a primer called English-Italian Language Book." No publisher could imagine that such a book would ever be in demand, so that it was necessary for a friend to pay a publisher in order to induce him to bring out this primer. The book now pays a royalty to the Society for Italian Immigrants, and it has been followed by similar books published by the other schoolbook concerns. Miss Moore collected her material for this book when sitting beside the dam and listening to the orders given by the foreman to the men.

In the school there are generally two or three classes, one for the more advanced men and one for beginners. They are taught English speech, reading, writing, and something of arithmetic and geography. The boys who were in day school four years ago and are now over 14 come to evening school, and the paymaster encourages their attendance by requiring a report each pay day as to whether or not they have been to night school.

One man about 30 years old who reads English very well indeed told me that he is not able to read or write one word of Italian. Many of the men who come here without knowing the alphabet have very good minds, but have lived in communities where the schools have not yet been thoroughly organized.

As an attempt has been made to keep the school from seeming dull to the men after their heavy day's labor, picture postal cards are used in a radiopticon to show something of America. In a camp school which I organized last summer I found that a phonograph with Italian records was helpful, and I used singing as much as possible. We had at least one Italian song every night, and the men learned to sing Old Black Joe, My Old Kentucky Home, and America before they could either speak or write English.

In visiting the camp school at Valhalla, near White Plains, conducted by the North American Civic League for Immigrants, I found that the teachers, felt that the school could be of great value in preventing the formation of the drinking habit. These young laborers would never become drunkards in Italy. The school at Valhalla uses the individual teaching as far as possible, and the men learn rapidly. Those of you who have studied languages know how much one gains by being near the teacher. They have a Saturday night dance for the young people, and the school is opened on Sunday from 10 a. m. to 10 p. m. for quiet games and for any form of simple recreation. In the early days at Browns Station one of the stonemasons wrote 16563°-13- -3