These children of immigrant parents enter the class immediately on
landing. The average stay is three months, when they go out into the
regular grades for which they are fitted, according to the previous
education they have had in their own countries. One teacher says:
“They absorb just like little sponges. They are so eager to learn.”
]
Because of the work done by this visitor and the effective way in which
the inspector of ungraded classes has incorporated her work into the
general plan for these classes; and also on account of the
recommendation made by the State Charities Aid Association that more
knowledge should be secured by the schools of the atypical children
there, the New York Board of Education has decided to install two such
visitors in the Department of Ungraded Classes. This is the first time,
so far as I know, that an appropriation has been made by a school system
for such a purpose. It is a step towards fulfilling this newer ideal of
education of which New York city may well be proud.
It is impossible to measure the good that would result if this service
were widened to include the other classes for backward children I have
mentioned, particularly the working paper classes. At the Board of
Health the other day a pretty Italian girl of fifteen was examined for
her working paper. Her writing of the simplest English sentence was so
poor that her paper was refused, and she was told she must stay in
school until she was sixteen. The girl and her father came in despair to
appeal to the head of the department. It was not a case of poverty; the
father had work, and so had older brothers and sisters. On the girl’s
side it was discontent and restlessness—“I do not want to go to school
any more; they scold me all the time.” She had been in a special working
paper class and had undoubtedly been dull and unambitious. The father
had a more serious story. His English was halting, they talked only
Italian at home, he told me, which accounted somewhat for the girl’s
curious mistakes. But the mother was dead, the older sister working, and
there was no one at home to look after the girl in her hours after
school. The father’s distressed face showed clearly his perplexity as to
the chaperonage of his daughter according to the Italian ideas. It was
not safe or proper that she should be at home alone or wandering about
the streets; she was better off at work. Whether the father’s statement
was true or not, without much question the girl will never go regularly
to school again, if she goes at all—in spite of attendance officers and
all—and for another year she cannot go legally to work. It is not hard
to guess the sequel, and the remedy is equally easy to see. How long
will it take us to learn that when we take something from young people
which they must not have, we must at the same moment supply its place
with something desirable but safe. Social service directly connected
with the school would solve the future of the pretty little Italian and
of many others in the same evil case. They want not only the careful
schooling that will correct the lack which prevents them from going to
work, but, more than that, the home visiting which shall explain the
need for this further training and arouse interest in the connection
between school and work.
The best example of volunteer social service in connection with the
public schools is that which for several years has been carried on by
various outside agencies interested in linking more closely the school
and the home, but always limited to work with the regular grades.
The Home and School League of Philadelphia has done valuable work in
arousing interest in this direction, and now a number of such visitors
are at work in the city supported by various private organizations. They
are doing the same sort of work as that done by the visitors in New York
and Boston, although from the reports it would seem that both in
Philadelphia and Boston special attention is given by them to vocational
guidance. A particularly valuable piece of work has been done by the
home visitor appointed by the Armstrong Association to work among the
colored pupils of Philadelphia; the Friend’s Preventive Association, the
Juvenile Protective Association, and the Children’s Aid Societies, also
support visitors. These are being used to an increasing degree by the
Bureau of Compulsory Education of Philadelphia in carrying on the
preventive work connected with that bureau.
In Boston there are now five full-time and seven or eight part time
school visitors. Each visitor is engaged by some private organization,
such as the Women’s Educational Association, the Home and School
Association, a group of settlements, or by some individual. She is
attached to a special school or district and does all her work there.
This is the arrangement in all three cities. The work has been
supervised by a committee of the Women’s Educational Association, and
this committee represents settlements and other social agencies. Work of
this sort, but on a smaller scale, is being done both in Worcester,
Mass., and in Rochester, N. Y., the visiting teachers working under the
Public Education Association of New York have been increasingly
effective in their efforts to solve for the often overburdened teacher
problems connected with individual children.
Efforts have been made from time to time by the supervising force to
instruct teachers to visit the homes of the children in their classrooms
and ascertain the conditions under which they were living, but with the
present large size of classes in most public schools this has been found
to be quite impracticable. Besides this, to overcome the difficulties in
the way of a child’s education much visiting of an expert sort and many
efforts for outside co-operation are often necessary, for which the
teachers could not possibly find time. Separate visitors are therefore
needed. There are so many illustrations of the sort of work they do,
that it is hard to select one that is more telling than the rest.
From the report of a Boston visitor we learn of Angelina Conti, who was
constantly tardy, frequently absent, and never alert or quick in her
recitations. “She seems to lack ambition,” says the report, “and must be
dropped into a lower grade unless something can be done to brace her
up.” The visitor is sent to the home. She finds that Angelina is the
oldest of nine children and that the family lives in three rooms. The
burden of the family seems to rest on Angelina, who must wash the
clothes every afternoon when she comes from school, and go for the
baby’s milk before school in the morning. Angelina is a perfectly
compliant, patient little soul. She has a headache most of the time, but
expects to do all that her mother asks of her. She hopes that the
teacher won’t “degrade” her.
The visitor urges Mrs. Conti to send a younger child for milk in the
morning so that Angelina can come promptly to school. The headaches are
reported to the school nurse, who sends Angelina to the hospital for
much needed treatment. The whole situation is explained to the teacher,
who gladly promises to send Angelina home promptly in the afternoon so
that she may have time for her housework. There is a much better
understanding between Angelina and her teacher, her health improves, she
comes more regularly and keeps her class. Thus is the first step in
preventing dependency taken.
An interesting part of the work of these social service workers has been
to bring to bear on the lives of these “difficult children” all the
agencies which might be of assistance. This same Boston visitor states
in her report that “this new work of visiting the homes of the school
children is one of continual co-operation with principals, teachers,
truant officers, janitors and the children themselves, also with
hospitals, dispensaries, employment agencies, the Associated Charities,
or whatever the emergency may demand.” Too often this sort of effort is
scattered and ineffective because of the lack of connection between
agencies. With a visitor working from the school as a starting point and
not from any private organization, the connection is quickly made and
the influence of each helping agency is strengthened by the added
influence of every other. This has proved to be just as true in the case
of medical social service, particularly that of public hospitals and
institutions, and one might almost prophesy that some day the relief
work of philanthropic agencies will come only in response to calls from
the social service departments of church, hospital, public institution
and school, and that a great clearing house for these agencies, public
and private, will be the best way of organizing charity.
Be that as it may, social service is as surely needed in connection with
training people’s minds as it is with saving their souls and curing
their bodies. It is easier to train our vines to grow straight and sure
and to cling to the lattices we choose for them, if at the same time the
soil is watered and enriched that the roots may be strong, and all
things harmful to the plant’s health are carefully kept from it. “As the
twig is bent the tree’s inclined,” but the twig must be strong and
healthy as well as straight, if the tree is to do its part in forming
the forests our country must have if it would be prosperous. Surely
anything that will make more effective the mental training and
development of our country’s future citizens is as fully justified.