Reflection Chapter 4
212 The American School
102. Horace Mann Bond, The Education of the Negro in the American Social Order (New York: Octagon Books, 1966), p. 153.
103. Anderson, Education of Blacks, pp. 22-23. 104. Ibid., p. 23. 105. Ibid., p. 149. 106. Aida Negron De Montilla, Americanization in Puerto Rico and the Public-School
System, 1900-1930 (Rio Piedras: Editorial Edil, 1971), pp. 6-79. 107. Ibid., p. 163. 108. Ivan Musicant, The Banana Wars: A History of the United States Military Intervention
in Latin America from the Spanish-American War to the Invasion of Panama (New York: Macmillan, 1990), p. 2.
109. De Montilla, Americanization in Puerto Rico, p. 62. 110. Ibid., pp. xi-xii. 111. Ibid., p. 37. 112. Ibid., pp. 35-36. 113. Ibid., p. 36. 114. Ibid., p. 51. 115. Ibid., pp. 47-48. 116. Ibid., p. 49. 1 17. Ibid., p. 48. 118. Ibid., p. 58. 119. Ibid., pp. 63-64. 120. Ibid., p. 71. 121. Ibid., pp. 105-106. 122. Ibid., pp. 121-123.
Growth of the Welfare Function of Schools: School Showers, Kindergarten, Playgrounds, Home Economics, Social Centers, and Cultural Conflict
In the late nineteenth century, immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, together with industrialization, and expanded urban areas created a host of social problems, especially in cities. Crowded ghettos, inadequate urban services, and a population primarily use to rural living contributed to unsanitary living conditions and the spread of disease. Added to these conditions was a belief held by many Americans that a sense of community was being lost with the growth of urban America and that this loss would cause the urban population to suffer alienation, a breakdown in traditional forms of social control, and, as a consequence, increased crime and poverty. Fear also arose that the new immigrants would destroy tradi- tional American values and create a strong following for radical economic and political ideas. As the social functions of education increased, there was greater resistance to racial segregation.
The school was considered a logical institution to prevent these problems by providing social services, teaching new behaviors, and creating a community cen- ter. Nurses, health facilities, and showers were added to schools in order to con- trol the spread of disease, and special instructional programs were introduced to educate children about sanitary conditions. Americanization programs were offered as a means of assimilating children of immigrants into American life and prevent- ing the spread of radical ideologies. School cafeterias were opened to provide children with healthy food and to Americanize the diets of immigrants. Home economics blossomed as a field of studies in order to free women from the drudg- ery of household tasks, Americanize immigrant households, and apply scientific methods to household management. Playgrounds were attached to schools to pro- vide after-school activities for children—activities that, it was hoped, would reduce juvenile delinquency. To curb the sense of alienation caused by urban
213
214 The American School
living, auditoriums and special facilities for adults were provided by schools to serve as centers for community activities.
All these educational changes expanded the social functions of the school. Of course, ending poverty and crime had been a traditional goal of the school since the early nineteenth century, but common school reformers at that time had seen those goals being achieved through instruction in the classroom. The changes in the late nineteenth century made the school more than a center of instruction by turning it into a major social agency.
John Dewey, the great educational philosopher of the period, explained the new social functions of the school to educators who gathered in 1902 for the annual convention of the National Education Association. He told school people from around the country that education must provide a “means for bringing peo- ple and their ideas and beliefs together, in such ways as will lessen friction and instability, and introduce deeper sympathy and wider understanding.” Using the schools as social centers, he argued, would morally uplift the quality of urban living by replacing brothels, saloons, and dance halls as centers of recreation. More important, he considered the school to be a potential clearinghouse of ideas that would interpret to the new urban industrial worker the meaning of his or her place in the modern world. Through an exchange of ideas and the establishment of relationships with a variety of people, an understanding of others and the bonds of an interdependent society would develop. The school as social center, Dewey told his audience, “must interpret to [the worker] the intellectual and social mean- ing of the work in which he is engaged: that is, must reveal its relations to the life and work of the world.” For Dewey, therefore, the new role of the school was to serve as an agency providing social services and a community center that would solve the problem of alienation in an urban industrial society.
IMMIGRATION FROM SOUTHERN AND EASTERN EUROPE
Until the late 1880s, immigration from Europe was primarily from England, Ireland, and Germany. The Irish and German immigration brought with it more Catholics who sometimes were in conflict with the Protestant majority. Between the late 1880s and 1930s immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe increased the Catholic population and brought with it larger numbers of Greek and Russian Orthodox, and Jews. In addition, the number of spoken languages increased. By 1930 laws restricted the flow of immigrants. The slowdown in immigration continued until the 1960s when new laws ushered in the most recent period of large-scale immigration.
As indicated in Table 8.1, immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe steadily increased from the 1890s to 1930. The statistics for 1910 give some indica- tion of which countries contributed the largest number of immigrants. In 1910, according to Table 8.1, the Austro-Hungarian empire (after 1920 it was divided into Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Yugoslavia) provided the largest number of immigrants (258,737), with Italy being second (215,537) and Russia third (186,792). The numbers for 1930 dramatically show the effect of immigration laws with the
CHAPTER 8: Growth of the Welfare Function of Schools 215
TABLE 8.1. Number of Immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe by Country and Selected Dates:1880 to 1930
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930
Italy
Spain, Portugal, and Greece
Poland
Russia/ USSR
Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey in Europe
Hungary, Austria, Czechoslovakia (since 1920), Yugoslavia (since 1920)
12,354 52,003 100,135
1,631 3,960 8,360
2,177 11,073 Between 1899 and 1919 included with Austria/ Hungary
5,014 35,598 90,787
35 723 6,852
17,267 56,199 114,847
215,537
37,740
Between 1899 and 1919 included with Austria/ Hungary
186,792
25,287
258,737
95,145 6,203
48,009 4,647
95,089 in 9,231 1921
1,751 2,772
3,913 2,159
5,666 9,184
Source: Compiled from statistics provided in Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part I (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975), pp. 105-106.
numbers for Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Yugoslavia declining to 9,184, Italian immigration declining to 6,203, and Russian immigration to 2,772.
While there was a small number of immigrants from Asia between the 1880s and 1930s, as indicated in Table 8.2, the numbers from this area did not signifi- cantly increase until after the 1960s. Also, the number of immigrants, as indicated in Table 8.3, from the Caribbean and Central and South America remained low between the 1880s and 1930s but increased after the 1960s. The majority of immigrants from other parts of the Americas were from Canada and Mexico. As indicated in Table 8.3, there were few immigrants during this time period from Central and South America; for instance, only 3,044 in 1910. There was a steady stream of immigrants from the Caribbean islands with, as indicated in Table 8.3, 11,240 in 1910 and 13,800 in 1920.
Therefore, public school Americanization programs between the 1880s and 1930s primarily focused on Southern and Eastern European immigrants. After the upsurge of immigrants resulting from changes in immigration laws in the 1960s, public school programs related to immigration and language began to focus on immigrants from Asia and Central and South America.
