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The teachers at frequent intervals should repeat also, for the purpose of a correct model of tone. Commands should be given and children obey the command. This takes some time before all understand what is wanted. The teacher should perform the act with the child at first, and in fact many times. After a command is obeyed, several children should be called upon to tell what they did. What did he do? Have the children repeat the act and ask what he is doing, thus getting the various forms of the verb.

Phonics. From the very first day there must be phonic work and plenty of exercise in ear training. The phonic work is by far the most important work in the C class. Much time must be spent on the phonograms which do not occur in the mother tongue of the pupils.

Seat work.-Seat work must be prepared and used to supplement the oral work according to the varying abilities of the C pupils.

No matter what degree of advancement has been made in their own tongue, all that has thus far been attempted is necessary for all in the oral work.

Seat work may consist of matching colors, laying sticks, piecing out words from cut-up material, putting in the blank space the proper word-is or are, selecting from their cut-up work all the words belonging to the same family and arranging them in columns or piles. Pages from magazines may be distributed and the children told to underline all the words they know.

Children should not be taken out of a C class as soon as they know a few words of English. In the long run, they do better by remaining with the same teacher until they are well equipped with the numberless little things that the teacher of a regular class can not take time for.

Arithmetic receives little attention in a C class until the last six weeks of the term, and then the children are all eagerness about it, and do so much better than if they have to struggle along with it before they have English enough at their command to understand what the teacher wants or words enough to tell what they want to say themselves. Counting, however, is used from the beginning. Civics and local geography are taught with great advantage in the C class. The children are always much interested. The teacher of a C class must be very resourceful to make the work a success.

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District Superintendent, New York City Public Schools.

There are three types of problems to be met with in the education of the immigrant child-the purely educational, the civic, and the moral.

Many of the children seem to be lawless, but it is not because they are really lawless, but because they do not know what the law is. Also, many of these children are seemingly ungoverned; they are excitable, nervous, and very tenacious of what they consider their rights; but if placed in the class of a good disciplinarian, the children in the C classes are the easiest children in the school.

When large numbers of immigrant children are placed in the same school, they should be segregated if possible, the Jewish children being placed in one C class, and the Italian in another, for they differ radically. The Jewish child is more ambitious than the Italian child for learning. The teacher can get more assistance from the parents of the Jewish child than from the parents of the Italian child. The Jewish children show results in a very short time, but with the Italian children it takes longer.

The second type of problem, the civic, seems very well developed, but we know as teachers that it is not always so. We need the active cooperation, first of all, of the other civic departments; secondly, of the business people of the city; and thirdly, of the general public. What is the use of teaching these children about city ordinances if these children see them violated day after day without any punishment? The only way in which we can train the immigrant child to a realization of what he owes to the city is to make him feel that these laws passed for the good of the city must be obeyed, and that if not obeyed, sooner or later there must come a punishment. The third type is the moral type. We must put before the children whenever possible that the greatest thing we are doing for them is not in teaching them English or in teaching them how to make a livelihood, but in teaching them to respect their fathers and their mothers, and to have the right kind of reverence for home. We must continually bring this before the immigrant child. The board of education aims to do it by three methods: First, by the evening public school; second, by the parents' meetings; and third, by the public lectures. I find that the parents' meetings are probably the most valuable means. We have in our district the Parents' League, which has spread all over the city. During the past two years I have spoken to 22 meetings of Italian parents in English, and I have always been surprised to find how closely the Italians will follow a person who speaks in English, and how seemingly they will understand what he is saying when he is speaking to them of their duties to their children and of their children's duties to them. At these parents' meetings we should always have some speakers who can speak in the language of the parents, and these people should present to them always in the strongest language the highest type of civic duty to the city.

RECREATION FOR THE IMMIGRANT.

EDWARD W. STITT,

District Superintendent, New York City Public Schools.

An ideal community can come only from individual improvement. When therefore it happens that the community is a metropolis containing a population of over five millions, the efforts toward social progress and regeneration to a better civic life become a great problem. It is further complicated when we remember that last year immigrants arrived in our city from 98 different countries and that within the boundaries of our five boroughs 66 languages are spoken. Why is play a necessity?

First in importance are the evil or dangerous influences of the. street. By these I do not mean only the physical dangers, but also the great danger to the morals of our children and young people caused by low vaudeville theaters, supersensational moving-picture shows, and the degrading tendencies of many public dance halls.

A second important question is, Where shall the play be carried on? In reply I must urge that a larger use of our school buildings be permitted. At nights parents and adults should have club privileges. The playgrounds used during the day are equipped as gymnasiums at night, and thousands of working people who are too tired to attend evening school are finding wholesome advantages in attending the recreation centers now open in 56 school buildings. Quiet game and library rooms are provided, and chess, checkers, dominos, authors, and other such games prove very attractive. Once a week classes in social dancing are held, and the young men and women who have no opportunity at home for social enjoyment are being reclaimed from the commercial dance hall. Mayor Gaynor recently wrote:

All young people want to dance, and, mark my words, they will dance. Therefore it becomes the duty of every city to see that its young people dance in the right places. The gymnasiums of the public-school buildings are safe places. It is to be regretted that, owing to the failure of the board of estimate to appropriate sufficient funds, the board of education has been unable to open additional buildings as recreation centers.

Our public-school buildings are usually located in the most congested parts of our city and in the various centers of the population, and therefore easily reached. It is absurd to have the vast amount of property included under the care of the board of education only used for five hours of the usual school day. The following are some reasons which may be advanced for publicschool playgrounds:

1. To keep the children and young people from the dangers of city streets.

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2. To prevent habits of idleness from being formed by children and young people.

3. To furnish an opportunity for physical development for those deprived of the advantages of fresh air and outdoor life of the country.

4. To teach city children to play organized games instead of the rough and rowdyish play of the street.

5. To relieve parents from worrying as to the safety of their children while the former are out working.

6. To encourage the reading of good books and magazines and the playing of quiet games tending toward improvement.

7. To create an opportunity for the development of the comradeship which arises from match games, teams, and club life.

8. To furnish a place in which the morals of the young people may be properly safeguarded, as bad language and evil companions are forbidden.

9. To make the children learn to play fairly, and thus instill habits of honor and honesty.

10. Finally, to bring real happiness to many children who, because of the lack of proper home advantages, are deprived of the pleasures which are the natural right and heritage of children.

When liberty-loving immigrants approach our beautiful harbor their eyes are gladdened by the beautiful Bartholdi statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World." If, however, that liberty is to be a fact and not a dream, it must be founded on a pedestal of a sound, complete, and up-to-date education. Ambitious plans may well be proposed for the education of the New England community, where a large proportion of the school population comes from an ancestry well educated, refined, and chivalric, endowed with the patriotic memories of Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill. Compare such an endowment of historic and scholastic ability with the poor material to be found in many of our cosmopolitan New York schools. In one of our buildings on the lower east side, for instance, there are representatives of over 20 different nationalities, and, in fact, only 7 per cent of American parentage. Half of the children are Italian; other nations, represented in smaller ratio, being Russia, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Roumania, Austria, Greece, Egypt, Norway, Poland, and China. In such schools, coming as the pupils often do from homes of destitution and not having been baptized with the republican spirit of New England, can we expect great results? There is a vast difference between the descendant of the Mayflower and the denizen of Mulberry Street; between the boy brought up in the luxury of Back Bay, Boston, and the one brought up in the shadow of the Bowery.

There is then a most imperative demand that, if we would preserve the destiny of our Republic, we must aim at the progressive and complete education of the immigrant masses of our crowded city. Hampered by the problem of cosmopolitan communities and overcrowded schoolrooms, we must insist that liberal appropriations must always support our school system, and then, with wise leadership and progressive pedagogy to direct our forces, we shall have every hope for the future, and whether our alien boys shall develop into men who serve or those who lead, they should be fitted by their school and recreation center experience to become faithful citizens who love our public-school system, who shall honor our flag, and who shall ever rejoice in the permanency of American institutions.

UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT.

ROBBINS GILMAN,

Head Worker, University Settlement, New York City.

We must recognize distinctly and keep ever in mind the necessary difference between public-school teacher and social worker. They are not interchangeable terms, for a good teacher is not necessarily qualified for social work, or vice versa. The good teacher must, for instance, be a disciplinarian if she is to be able to teach in the average elementary school. To be a disciplinarian you must be able to rule, and that generally means a certain amount of sternness. This is necessary and proper, and I mean in no way to speak disparagingly of the discipline that is not only required, but actually maintained, in our public schools. After a child has been under this admirable discipline from 9 to 12 and from 1 to 3, it naturally requires relaxation, not only because of psychic fatigue, if you will, but because from the pedagogic standpoint its educational diet needs changing, and self-expression through free play and close companionship with some one for whom the child has a feeling of personal friendship seem naturally to be the next course on the menu. The settlement offers this course, and the normal child not only relishes it and assimilates it well, but thrives and prospers on it.

In school there is compulsion as to attendance; in the settlement there is free choice. The child unconsciously recognizes that no one need go to a settlement while every child must go to school.

At school, in the classroom, order must prevail, and therefore individuality and natural emotional expression must be subordinated, except within the most general unspecialized limits, to group behavior. At the settlement the reverse is true; only the most general

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