Mary Eliza McDowell

“ One often hears of children refusing to answer in the language of the family. Everything seems to be done to develop and educate the children, for getting that this cannot be done for the child independently of the family or the community. The school, the church, the social settlement all emphasize the child's importance. The parents are ignored, left behind and the breach between the new and the old in the family is not spanned as yet by any of the agencies in the community. ”

“ It is more dangerous not to supply this great need of the hungry hearts of the homesick old country parents who are losing their grip on their children. The too early developed young Americans must gain reverence for their parents, and for authority in the home or we shall have an increase of lawlessness. Open the schools for the foreign parents who, with their children, may learn what true freedom is and what American hospitality is. ”

“ The American citizen in the making is left to become a rather pert, important self-deceived young person because he has been isolated in his education. How shall this breach be bridged? What is done will be experimental, but something must be done for the situation is serious and often tragic. The public school lectures given in the foreign tongues to adults are suggestive, and lead one to ask why not enlarge the usefulness of the schoolhouse to meet the need of foreign families. ”

“ What the new patriotic societies are doing for Americans, we can do for the foreigners: recall the best of their past, recognize their heroes and start an impulse of admiration for all that is noble in the old and the new. ”

“ It is said that the criminals of the cities come from the ranks of the children of the immigrants, not from the immigrants themselves. Those who live near these transplanted people tell us of the struggle in the family life between the standards of the old country father and mother and those of the children who have learned the language and caught the spirit of the new country, and have become the important factor in the family life. ”

“ Let the parents and children together have a special life in the schoolhouse, bring them together in social relation with English-speaking teachers and friends, let them sing together the national songs of America and of the old lands. ”