Part 19 (1/2)

In Chicago some of the older immigrant groups have made provisions for their recreational needs by building national halls, auditoriums, and theaters; and in groups representing later immigration, funds are being raised for the same purpose. In many instances it is admitted that the public recreation centers in the immediate vicinity of the settlement afford adequate s.p.a.ce and facilities for the requirements of the group. The reasons given for failure to take advantage of such opportunities or for duplicating such splendid community resources are varied. When a.n.a.lyzed, they are on the whole indicative of shortcomings in park management, which might be overcome if park supervision could be made a real community function.

In a Polish district, for instance, the people in the vicinity of one of the most completely equipped parks in the city have come to regard it with suspicion as the source of a type of Americanization propaganda too suggestive of the Prussians they have sought to escape.

In a Lithuanian district, officers of societies which make use of clubrooms in the recreation centers say they prefer the rooms to any they can rent in the vicinity, but they often feel in the way and that their use of the building entails more work than attendants are willing to give. The Lithuanians, too, speak of feeling out of place in the parks. There has been little evidence that in any section of the city people of foreign birth feel that as community centers these parks are in a sense their own.

The social settlement, which shares with public recreation centers the functions of providing for the social life and recreation of immigrant communities, is confronted by many of the same problems, often rendered the more difficult from the fact that it is usually regarded as even more alien to the life of the group than the park, and its purposes are less understood. Members of Polish, Lithuanian, Italian, and Ukrainian groups, who have expressed their own appreciation of the aims of the social settlement, and the highest personal regard for settlement residents whom they have known, believe that the ”American”

settlement can never reach the ma.s.ses of people most in need of the type of service it offers. Repression under autocratic government in Europe and exploitation in America have made them suspicious, and they are apt to avoid whatever they cannot understand.

It is believed that these types of service, undertaken with a more thorough knowledge of the point of view of the immigrant and with the indors.e.m.e.nt and co-operation of recognized leaders of the groups to be served, would much more nearly meet the needs of the people least able to adjust themselves to the new situations.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] See Abbott, _The Immigrant and the Community_, chap. i; _Report of the Ma.s.sachusetts Immigration Commission_, 1914; _Reports of the Immigrants' Protective League of Chicago_.

[54] As is contemplated in the Act creating the New York Bureau of Immigration and Industry. See Birdseye, c.u.mmin's and Gilbert's _Consolidated Laws of New York Supplement, 1913_, vol. ii, p. 1589, sec. 153; and _Laws of 1915_, chap. 674, sec. 7, vol. iii, p. 2271.

[55] See Frank V. Thompson, _Schooling of the Immigrant_.

[56] _Statutes of California, 1915_, chap. x.x.xvii. The home teacher should not be confused with the visiting teacher; a device in social case work.

[57] _A Manual for Home Teachers_ (published by the State Commission of Immigration and Housing), 1919, p. 13.

[58] _Ibid._, p. 19.

[59] _A Manual for Home Teachers_, 1919, p. 8.

[60] See also Report of the Children's Bureau on ”Children's Year” and ”Back to School Drive.”

[61] 38 U. S. Statutes at Large, p. 372 (May 8, 1914).

[62] The so-called ”Land Grant” colleges (1862). 12 U. S. Statutes at Large, p. 503.

[63] 39 Statutes at Large, p. 929.

[64] See Report of the Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education for 1910 (Cd. 4986). See also Education (Provision of Meals Act, 1906), L. R. 6, Ed. 7, chap. lvii, widened in 1914 to include holidays as well as school days, and enlarging the discretion of the authorities as to the purpose. See also L. R. 7, Ed. 7, chap. xliii, an Act to make provision for the better administration by the central and local authorities ... of the enactments relating to education.

[65] Reports of Commissioners of Education, 1914-16, pp. 29-31.

[66] _Annual Report of the Board of Education_, 1917, pp. 12-13.

[67] _Annual Report of the Board of Education_, 1917, pp. 10-12.

[68] Acts of 1919, chap. 295.

[69] Mr. John J. Mahoney, see _Americanization Letter, No. 1_, September 11, 1919, Department of University Extension, Ma.s.sachusetts Board of Education.

[70] See _First Annual Report of the Ma.s.sachusetts Bureau of Immigration_, p. 38.

[71] _Memorandum on Subsidiary Health and Kindred Services for Women_, prepared by Miss A. M. Anderson, C. B. E., p. 5.