10. Finally, above all and through all, a sympathetic
attitude toward the people, which involves some knowledge of
the countries and conditions from which they came, and what
"America" has meant to them.[57]
Her salary is paid from the city or from district special school
funds.
The law authorizing the use of home teachers was enacted largely
through the efforts of the State Commission of Immigration and
Housing, and was from the first intended to be used for the benefit of
foreign-born families. The first experiments were financed by the
Commission of Immigration and Housing and by private organizations,
such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Council of
Jewish Women, and the Young Women's Christian Association. According
to the latest report[58] there are twenty official home teachers at
work in eight cities of the state. The Commission says of the purpose
of this plan:
The interpretation of the need in California departs from
that conceived elsewhere. There have been so-called home
teachers in a dozen cities, of several Eastern states, for a
number of years, but their purpose is to do follow-up work
for absent, irregular, subnormal, or incorrigible children,
and they are more properly visiting teachers. The home
teacher, as we conceive her purpose, seeks not primarily the
special child--though that will often open the door to her
and afford her a quick opportunity for friendly help--but
_the home_ as such, and especially the mother who makes it.
This discrimination as to aim and purpose cannot be too much
emphasized, or too consistently maintained, for the care of
abnormal children, important as it is, can by no means take
the place of the endeavor to Americanize the _families_ of
the community.[59]