reports a greater percentage of illiteracy among native whites of
native parentage than among native whites of foreign parentage.
The proportion of children from five to fourteen years attending
school is greater among those of foreign parentage and foreign
birth than among native Americans of two or more generations.
For the entire population over ten years of age, the following
table gives the percentage of illiteracy:
Foreign Foreign
Native or Mixed born Native
Parentage Parentage Whites Negro[A]
United States as a whole....... 3-7 1.1 12.7 30.4
The North...................... 1.4 0.9 12.7 10.5
The South...................... 7.7 4.3 18.8 33.3
The West....................... 1.7 0.8 9.5 7.0
For the children of school age from ten to fourteen, the following
table shows the percentage of illiteracy:
United States as a whole....... 2.2 0.6 3.5 18.9
New England ................ 2.2 0.6 3.5 18.9
South Atlantic................. 5.0 0.8 5.3 18.9
East South Central............. 5.8 0.9 11.4 20.7
West South Central............. 4.1 11.2 34.6 22.4
Etc............................ --- ---- ---- ----
[Footnote A: United States Census for 1910].
In some Western states the percentage of illiteracy is as low as
one-tenth of 1 per cent.
* * * * *
An examination of schools in fifty-two cities representing with
fairness the entire United States, shows that the majority of
children who enter complete only the fifth grade; of one thousand
children of school age, only one hundred and twenty graduate from
the grammar school and six from the high school. [Footnote: Henry
C. Vedder--The Gospel of Jesus and the Problems of Democracy.]
It is axiomatic that if children are to be spared by law the strain
of enforced labor upon immature bodies and minds, and to be properly
conserved because they are the most precious of the nation's resources,
they must be prepared by suitable training for the life work that lies
ahead--"making a living being an indispensable foundation for making a
life."
Through special circumstances certain parts of our country have
been slow in developing the free school so as to make possible even
a most elementary education for their children. This is notably true
of sections in the South. From the early days when the University of
Virginia entered upon its honored service to higher education, the
schools and colleges of the South have been influential, but through
the force of peculiar economic condition these have ministered to the
privileged classes, while the great masses of Negro and white children
in the isolated regions were given few opportunities for even the most
elementary schooling.
The devastation of war left an impoverished South, and as free schools
depend upon the generosity of the individual states, many, though
desirous, were utterly unable to make suitable school provision for
their children.
Sections in the North thus neglected may also be found, as some of
the islands on the coast of Maine and other more or less isolated
regions of New England, New York, and other states will testify.
There have been great gaps where the government has failed to
make adequate educational provision among the Indian tribes. The
Spanish-speaking people are also exceptional in their educational
needs. Though the government has done much, yet Cuba and Porto
Rico are among the places where conditions make necessary special
educational effort.
The vast number of non-English-speaking adult foreigners calls for
unusual educational provisions.
As the church sent out the school in the early days to become one
of its greatest contributors to our national life, so ever since,
the church has earnestly sought to supply the neglected with that
knowledge which is power.
It is increasingly the aim of the schools founded and maintained by
Home Missions to lead to self-realization and self-help, to bring the
Christ motive to the inner life, and efficiency and effectiveness to
the mastery of outward circumstances through the training of minds
and hands.
Among the early Home Mission schools, were those opened to give
guidance and direction to the millions of Negroes in their baffling
struggle upward from bondage to all that freedom means of ability
toward self-direction and development.
"At Kent Home for Negro girls at Greensboro, North Carolina, the
schedule of the day's activities shows the scope of such schools.
* * * * *
"The day's work begins early, breakfast being at 6:30. Busy hands
have the house in perfect order, and advance preparations made for
dinner by the time the chapel bell rings at 8:30.
"All the work of the Home is done by the girls under the supervision
and with the practical assistance of teachers. They are marked and
graded in this as in their school work. They are also making creditable
progress in general cooking, plain sewing and dressmaking.
"The students in the college range in age from sixteen to sixty
years. One of the latter took eleven years to graduate, keeping
two girls in school and a large family at home at the same time.
"The taste for reading must needs be cultivated in most of the
girls who enter our Homes. The gift of $100 from a former 'Kent
girl' and her husband, provides the nucleus of a library made up
of such books as girls need and enjoy; better still, it is reaching
more than our girls. Neither college nor village has library
opportunities for colored people, and so the supply at Kent Home
was made available to those outside." [Footnote: Woman's Missionary
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.]
* * * * *
"It was a Negro girl from Boylan Home, Jacksonville, Florida, who
went back to her cabin home to find no floor but the earth, and nothing
to sit on but home-made stools. But she had the equipment for producing
better things, and was soon conducting quite a dressmaking business for
the neighborhood.
"A frequent sign of progress is the request of a girl to buy a broom
to take home to her mother. Neither mother nor girl had known in the
past anything better than a bundle of twigs wherewith to sweep the
rough wooden or earth floor of the cabin."
* * * * *
Spelman Seminary at Atlanta, Georgia, founded (1881) and
maintained by the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society,
has carried forward a varied and far-reaching service to Negroes.
One student referring to her own experience says--"I thought I was
going to Spelman to learn books, but I soon found that sewing, washing
and ironing, sweeping and dusting, cooking and all sorts of work are
included in getting an education here.
"While carrying on high school work I completed the three years'
course in cooking. Plain sewing had been thoroughly mastered.
Basketry, practical gardening and agriculture were a part of the
grade work. Now while I am completing the course in Normal training
I am taking bench work, more advanced agriculture and care and raising
of poultry. This knowledge will be needed as I seek to better the home
conditions of the pupils in the country schools under my care.
"I have also some knowledge of nursing gained at MacVicar Hospital,
which is connected with Spelman and which gives full nurse training
courses to some eighteen or twenty students each year."
One of the most telling features of Spelman's community service is
the sending out of a county supervisor of public schools to introduce
industrial training and better methods of school work.
During the last year of Normal work each student-teacher is sent
out to visit the county schools with the supervisor whom Spelman
employs for the rural work in Fulton County.
There are eight rural and seven suburban Negro schools in the
county. The school buildings range from an old house or a one-room
building, with almost nothing to work with, up to a good school
building fairly equipped.
The following is told by one of the Normal students of her work in
the country schools:
"Mothers' clubs were formed and fathers were interested so far as
possible in order to secure the sympathy and co-operation of the
parents in introducing industrial work.
"The tools were crude. In many instances jack-knives, stones and
glass were used if hammers, planes and saws could not be obtained.
"Sewing was taught to both boys and girls. At first the boys
objected, but such remarks as 'Can't she see us is boys?' failed
of results, and soon the boys became thoroughly interested in
making good sized boys' handkerchiefs from flour sacks. Baskets
were made from pine needles, reed, willow, and rushes, and mats
from corn shucks.
"Early in the term the untidy, neglectful school yards were converted
into gardens, farmers supplying the seed, and when no mule could be
procured for ploughing, four boys were harnessed to draw the plough,
while another guided it.
"Parent-teachers' clubs were organized and many mothers came for
instruction."
The fact that the last census reports thirty-three per cent of the
Southern Negro population above ten years as illiterate, shows a
vast need here of additional educational effort of the kind that
Missions are bringing--the all-round training that gives ability
to earn a living, combined with the moral and spiritual qualities
which alone can produce worthy citizenship.
* * * * *
In Porto Rico and the island possessions of the United States,
Mission schools have rendered the greatest possible service.
There were almost no schools for the plain people on the islands
under Spanish rule. Our government, when it assumed control,
addressed itself vigorously to the task of providing schools as
well as giving the islands wholesome physical conditions, but
there was great need of supplemental Mission schools, especially
for the younger children.
In addition to the lack of sufficient public schools, there are
reasons involved in the former religious control of the islands
which make the Mission school most essential in bringing to the
citizens of to-morrow quickening ideals and constructive training.
"Mercedes, Juanita, Pachita, Juan, Felipe--here they are, all out
at play, just like American school children at recess, only that it
is too hot for hard running games. Where is the schoolhouse? Why,
under that cocoanut tree. Yes, that little shack, thatched with palm
leaves. See the American flag floating atop it! That tells the story.
If the breeze that waves it could speak to you as it does to some
older people, it would say, 'In all this beautiful island outside
the city of San Juan, there was but one schoolhouse when it came into
the possession of the United States. Spain had kept the men and women
in ignorance for more than four hundred, years. Every bright fold of
Old Glory means new life, new joy, new hope to the boys and girls of
Porto Rico, for now they have a chance.'"
* * * * *
The concentration of Orientals on the Pacific coast has laid a heavy
responsibility upon Home Missions to interpret to them the message
of Christ and the meaning of true citizenship in the Republic.
A number of the larger denominations have responded effectively to
this call, and their schools and missions extend from the Golden Gate
north to Seattle and south to San Diego.
Homes for girls, with kindergarten and primary schools, and evening
classes for young men are most important and telling features in
this service.
The story of one girl in the Home maintained in San Francisco by
the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Church is typical of the far-reaching character of all missionary
service to Orientals.
* * * * *
Miss Caroline Lee, a remarkable student, was graduated from the State
Normal School of California. She is at present (January, 1915) attending
the Training School of the Young Women's Christian Association in New
York City, preparing to fill an important position in China under the
National Board of the Association.
Her child life was filled with tragedy and hardship. Her earliest
memories are of a river boat in China and of being sold and brought
to San Francisco, and sold again.
Here, suffering from the result of a serious fall, she was found
by a missionary and taken to the Mission Home, where she spent five
months in the hospital.
In the helpful atmosphere of the Home, she developed a remarkably
bright mind and a sweet Christian spirit.
Having completed her school course, she became an efficient worker
among her own people, reaching heathen as well as Christian homes
through the children in her kindergarten classes, who were devotedly
attached to her.
The qualities of her character and service brought her an opening
to a position of great importance in Christian work in China. As
she returns to China, she becomes another of the many links in the
far reaches of Home Missions by which it influences the ends of
the earth.
* * * * *
Home Missions probably faces no greater challenge than is presented
to its faith and accomplishment by Mormonism.
Through constant recruits of hardy, industrious, but uneducated
immigrants, the growth of Mormonism is rapid and of immense political
significance.
The Mormon church, with its great foresight, has established strong
colonies in many states. In at least eight the influence of the
church in civic affairs is paramount.
Because of the fundamental principle of religious tolerance in this
country, and the insidious methods of Mormonism, it is most difficult
for Christianity successfully to combat this menace. It is acknowledged
by those whose experience in Utah and other Mormon states gives them
authority, that Christian education of the Mormon young people is the
surest and best method of bringing enlightenment, independence of
thought, and release from church dominance.
Mormons realize the value of early instruction in religion. Forty
thousand children are under regular instruction in Mormon religion
classes held in the public schools at least once a week, immediately
following the day-school sessions. The regular school teachers (if
Mormons) instruct these classes.
"I recently made a circuit of two score towns in eastern and southern
Idaho (Mormon territory) in quest of students. It was a strenuous
piece of work and required traveling by rail, on horseback and foot.
"Perhaps the most fruitful work of the summer consisted in personal,
intimate talks with the younger professional and business men. They
do most certainly betray dissatisfaction with the old order. A few
are diligently working to liberalize their church against the inertia
of the membership and the alert opposition of the crafty leaders. One
of these _leaders_ I recently heard openly disparaging education as
'not quick with the Spirit,' and deploring the tendency to question
the authority and validity of the priesthood. By far the larger number
of younger dissatisfied men are leaving religion out of their accounts,
living for personal gain, and when pressed, avowing hostility to all
religion.
"The need of cultural advantages is most apparent throughout rural
Utah. The work, therefore, of our academies not only fills a great
need educationally, but responds effectively to the appeal for good
home environment. Christian education is the leaven that Utah needs.
"The graduating classes of the New Jersey Academy for the past three
years have all become Christian girls and members of the little
Presbyterian church.
"I am confident that a new era is dawning--an era marked by intellectual
development and religious awakening, an era of questioning, an era of
intelligence. This cannot fail to be effective in breaking up the
crust of dogmatism and superstition which has retarded the independent
religious thinking of these people for many years." [Footnote: Rev.
Mr. Wittenberger--Presbyterian.]
Probably nowhere in our country is there greater eagerness for
"book learning" than among the mountain people of the South. The
passionately desired schooling in the mountains is often secured
only at the expense of great hardship. Booker Washington has said
that the measure of attainment is not the result accomplished, but
the obstacles overcome in attaining it.
There is much illiteracy among the older people, but through the
Mission schools and the improved educational system of the states,
comparatively few children now are lacking the opportunity of some
elementary education. The training received in the district school
is often very meager and the term of a few months' work much too
short.
Through the many months when the schools are closed, the young people
are thrown upon their own resources. They are without stimulating and
helpful outside interests, and deterioration is the inevitable result.
It is interesting to note that in September, 1914, the Kentucky state
legislature appointed a Commission on Illiteracy. The Commission has
launched an educational campaign with the watch-word "Illiteracy
eliminated in 1920."
A number of Southern states have recently made earnest efforts to
reduce the percentage of illiteracy within their borders.
The story of what was accomplished in a campaign for the elimination
of illiteracy in Rowan County, one of the most backward mountain
counties in Kentucky, is both picturesque and instructive.
During the fall months of 1911, 1912, 1913, under the enthusiastic
leadership of the County Superintendent and a corps of fifty
volunteer and unpaid teachers, practically every man, woman and
child in the county was taught to read and write. A special
feature of this campaign was the holding of moonlight schools,
making possible the attendance of the older people.
Almost all of the fifty teachers who gave this splendid service
were graduates of a Mission School, the Morehead Normal School,
which is under the administration of the Christian Women's Board
of Missions.
Helpful and commendable as such methods are, they cannot supply
the place of a Mission School giving regular educational and
industrial training. These are qualified to bring to peculiarly
backward communities some grasp of the larger, fuller life, and
equipment for living it.
* * * * *
"The Mission teacher was making her way along the mountain trail
toward a log house. As she drew near, a woman, scarcely more than
a child, came to the door, looking eagerly up the creek. A tiny
two-year-old boy tried in vain to pass her that he might play in
the shallow water of the creek.
"A wailing cry reached the teacher's ears as the mother turned
into the room and in a moment was again standing in the doorway,
this time holding in her arms a smaller bit of humanity.
"As the teacher reached the house she paused, for a man was riding
down the creek. At sight of him the face of the mountain woman in
the doorway assumed a stolid, almost hard, look, as if life had
already brought to her all the misery and trouble it could, and
there was nothing now but indifference.
"The man rode to the door saying, 'Hullo, Ocie.'
"'Howdy, Alf,' was the reply.
"He swung round sidewise on the horse and remarked:
"'They had a fight up to Lef' Fork las' night. Boys been a drinkin'.
Jim, he's dead. Andy's not hurt much. They hev taken him to the
Cou't House.'
"That was all. The child-woman's expression scarcely changed. The
man sat his horse quietly, then with the words, 'Yo pa'll be down
some time this mawnin' afte' ye,' he turned and rode up the creek.
"The teacher crossed the foot log, lifted the fretting child into
her arms and drew the mother after her into the house. The room was
without light, excepting from the open door; the bare, rough-hewn
floor and table were spotless. One chair, a bench and an old chest
of drawers was the only furniture besides the large bed with its
neat, homespun blue counterpane. The hearth of the huge fireplace
was swept clean, and although the middle of May, a good fire was
burning. The teacher, sitting on the bench behind the table, let
the little boy play with her watch, her purse, her rings, until
in a wealth of happiness and satisfaction, he fell asleep in her
arms. The girl-wife shifted the sleeping babe in her arms, raised
her head, and with all the pathos of a hurt and ignorant child
spoke her heart to the woman whom she knew would understand.
"'I've fearn this thing for a long time. Las' winter befo' the
baby come, I used to set befo' the fire all night long, dreadin',
dreadin'--I didn't know what--this, I guess. We've been married
nigh onto fou' years now, though I ain't but seventeen; Andy he's
comin' nineteen. It's agen the law to marry that young, but pa he
hed a big family and Andy, he was a mighty nice young man, so we
fixed it all right.
"'We never hed no preachin' fo' more'n three year befo' yo' all
come, exceptin' when Mis' Lawson's baby died and when Ben and Lizy
was married, ole Brother Bonat come over an' preached a couple o'
nights. Fo' more'n year now Andy an' Jim ha' been hangin' roun'
Eskin's store, an' you've never know'd 'em exceptin' as the rough
men they are. When yo' all come I tho't maybe yo' could get 'em
back, but it was too late. Now Jim, he's dead, and Andy--cou'se he
never'd tetched Jim if he'd been hisself.'
"The soft, hopeless drawl stopped, and again there was silence.
Soon the sleeping children roused, the dog barked, and three men
came to the doorway--the father and brothers. Without greeting,
the old man said: 'Yo'd better come home, Ocie. Jim, he's dead,
an' Andy'll hev to go to Moundsville, I reckon.' (Moundsville
meant the state penitentiary.) The teacher helped to dismantle the
poor little home and saw the few household belongings loaded on
the ox sled.
"The silence which she knew was more acceptable sympathy to the
tearless child-woman than words would have been, was only broken
when they were standing on the steps above the creek. Then the
words were interrupted by the child-mother.
"'It's too late to help this now, but ef yo' all will just see
that there's a school here where my children can learn what their
pa an' me an' Jim didn't know, an' will keep the meetin's agoin'
at the schoolhouse so they'll know how to be good, I'll be mighty
glad. These here little fellers named Jim an' Andy, too, yo' know,
an' I want 'em to hev more of a chanct than we've hed. They's lots
of us up here thet hed in us a great big feelin' of wantin' to be
somethin' and to do some-thin' that we didn't know what nor how,
'n' I guess we get reckless sometimes thinkin' it's no use.'"
[Footnote: Alma C. Moore--Christian Women's Board of Missions.]
* * * * *
The detailed and comprehensive report of the Commissioner of
Indian Affairs, issued in January, 1915, emphasized the desirability
of the attendance of Indian children at near-by public schools, to
obviate the dreaded separation from parents which is entailed when
they must be sent by the government to distant Indian boarding schools.
The report mentions the gratifying increase last year in the number
of Indian children in attendance at the neighborhood public schools.
Some tribes are still peculiarly neglected educationally. The
Navajos are a conspicuous example.
Twenty-four thousand Indian children remain without schools.
The religious motive enters deeply into the psychology of the
Indian, and no greater stimulus toward better living can be given
them than Christianity affords. Therefore the Mission School is
especially adopted to bring the Indians into helpful and constructive
relationships as individuals and citizens.
Of great significance in the uplift of the Indians is the recent
opening of several schools for training young Christian Indians
for leadership in Christian work among their own people.
* * * * *
"The transition which is now going on from the old days of hunting
and fishing to the new period of commercial development throughout
all Southeastern Alaska must have a profound effect upon the future
of this people.
"More pupils applied for admission to the Sheldon Jackson School at
Sitka this year than could possibly be accommodated. The industrial
departments of this institution have received careful attention.
The general claim of all this work is to give full practical and
theoretical training, with a view to preparing the girls for the
task of home-making and the boys as wage earners." [Footnote:
Woman's Board of Home Missions, Presbyterian Church in U.S.A.]
This aim holds true also for the schools of all Protestant
Missions in the far North.