The phrasing o'f this subject hints at an actual condition, not at mere theory; for we are facing a universal complaint, more serious in nature than any before laid at the door of the common schools. The colleges, of course, blame the secondary schools; the secondary schools in turn point to the grades; the grade teacher, already round-shouldered with the burdens heaped upon her, points to the home, to the street, or to the playground, and wearily asks: "How can I overcome in a few short hours

more »

... he tremendous momentum toward faulty speech acquired before pupils reach my hands ?" Widely different sets of causes have co-operated to induce the prevailing lamentable failure in English instruction which has recently driven college after college to rule that entrance examinations shall hereafter be required in the very elements of English. These causes of failure are either (I) external to, the school itself, and in nature more or less permanent; or (2) due to causes within the school system, and not in nature permanent. The first great cause is external to the schools, and is found in the heterogeneous character of our swarming emigrant population. In public-school buildings Armenian and Russian children touch elbows with Italians and Bohemians; while Germans, Scandinavians, and Poles are equally in evidence. This mixed foreign population forces upon the schools a wholly new problem, so far as language and literature are concerned, which problem is, however, scarcely yet recognized. In fact, there is a general purblind indifference to, this most significant feature of the twentieth-century American schoolroom. However, the teaching of English to, foreigners during the first two school years 254