B. CONTACTS IN CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The public schools furnish one of the most important points of contact between the white and Negro races, because of the actual number of contacts in the daily school life of thousands of Negro and white children, and also because the reactions of young children should indicate whether or not there is instinctive race prejudice.
The Chicago Board of Education makes no distinction between Negro and white children. There are no separate schools for Negroes. None of the records of any teacher or principal shows which children are Negroes and which white. The board does not know how many Negro children there are in any school or in the city at large, nor how many of the teachers are Negroes. It was impossible to obtain from the board, for example, a list of the schools having a large Negro enrolment with which to begin the investigation. An unfortunate but unavoidable incidental effect of the investigation was the focusing of attention of principals and teachers on the Negroes in their schools.
Frequently white teachers in charge of classes with Negro pupils are race conscious and accept the conduct of white children as normal and pay disproportionate attention to the conduct of Negro children as exceptional and distinctive. As a result of the focusing of attention on Negro children, the inquiry, which was intended to get balanced information, developed a disproportionate amount of information concerning their conduct as compared with that of whites. Teachers who considered both races were inclined to believe that Negro children as a group had no special weaknesses that white children as a group did not also exhibit; that some Negro children, like any other children, were good, some were bad, and some indifferent, and that no generalizations about the race could be made from the characteristics or attitude of a few.
It became evident as soon as the investigation started that it was necessary to distinguish between the northern and the southern Negro. The southern Negro is conspicuous the moment one enters the elementary schools. Over-age or retarded children are found in all the lower grades, special classes, and ungraded rooms, and are noticeable all the way to the eighth grade, where seventeen- and nineteen-year-old children are sometimes found. In some schools these children are found in the regular classes; in others there are special rooms for retarded children, and as these groups are often composed almost entirely of Negro children, there is an appearance of segregation which made necessary a study of these retarded children from the South.
The southern child is hampered first of all by lack of educational opportunity in the South. He is usually retarded by two or more years when he enters the northern school because he has never been able to attend school regularly, due to the short term in southern rural schools, distance from school, and inadequacy of teaching force and school equipment. According to a report by the United States Bureau of Education on Negro Education[31] 90 per cent of the Negro children between fifteen and twenty years of age attending school in the South are over-age. Says this report:
The inadequacy of the elementary school system for colored children is indicated both by the comparisons of public appropriations and by the fact that the attendance in both public and private schools is only 58.1 per cent of the children six to fourteen years of age. The average length of the public school term is less than five months in practically all of the states. Most of the school buildings, especially those in the rural districts, are in wretched condition. There is little supervision and little effort to improve the schools or adapt their efforts to the needs of the community. The reports of the state departments of Georgia and Alabama indicate that 70 per cent of the colored teachers have third grade or temporary certificates, representing a preparation less than that usually given in the first eight elementary grades. Investigations made by supervisors of colored schools in other states indicate that the percentage of poorly prepared colored teachers is almost as high in the other southern states.[32]
The inadequacy of Negro teachers' salaries is shown by the per capita expenditure in six southern states for each white and Negro child between six and fourteen years of age. The salary of the teacher, expressed in per capita for each child, ranges from $5.27 to $13.79 for white pupils and from $1.44 to $8.53 for Negro pupils. South Carolina pays its white teachers ten times as much as its Negro teachers. Alabama pays its white teachers about nine times as much. In Kentucky the per capita for white and colored is about the same.[33]
Distribution of school funds by counties indicated a decreasing per capita expenditure for the Negro as the proportion of Negroes in the county increased. A table from the Bulletin shows:[34]
| County Groups, Percentage of Negroes in the Population | White School Population | Negro School Population | Per Capita Expenditure, White | Per Capita Expenditure, Negro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counties under 10 per cent | 974,289 | 45,039 | $7.96 | $7.23 |
| Counties 10 to 25 per cent | 1,008,372 | 215,774 | 9.55 | 5.55 |
| Counties 25 to 50 per cent | 1,132,999 | 709,259 | 11.11 | 3.19 |
| Counties 50 to 75 per cent | 364,990 | 661,329 | 12.53 | 1.77 |
| Counties 75 to 100 per cent | 40,003 | 207,900 | 22.22 | 1.78 |
A southern state superintendent of education is quoted in the report, as follows:
There has never been any serious attempt in this state to offer adequate educational facilities for the colored race. The average length of the term for the state is only four months; practically all of the schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of course, are not equipped with suitable desks, blackboards, and the other essentials of a school; practically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing little or no education and having had no professional training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in the summer schools; the schools are generally overcrowded, some of them having as many as 100 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do more than teach the children to read, write, and figure, and these subjects are learned very imperfectly.[35]
Another difficulty was suggested by the principal of a Chicago school (Webster) where 30 per cent of the children are Negroes, who said: "We base our educational ideas on certain backgrounds. The curriculum in Chicago was planned for children who come from families who are educated. It doesn't take children coming from uneducated families into consideration. That isn't fair either to the white or colored children."
The problem of readjustment to life in a northern city also affects the child's school life, and he is self-conscious and inclined to be either too timid or too self-assertive. A Negro teacher in speaking of the difficulties confronting the southern Negro, as well as the whole Negro group, said:
The southern Negro has pushed the Chicago Negro out of his home, and the Chicago Negro in seeking a new home is opposed by the whites. What is to happen? The whites are prejudiced against the whole Negro group. The Chicago Negro is prejudiced against the southern Negro. Surely it makes a difficult situation for the southern Negro. No wonder he meets a word with a blow. And all this comes into the school more or less.
Another Negro teacher thus analyzes further the adjustment problems which tend to make the Negro newly come from the South unpopular with the Chicago Negro, as well as with the whites:
These families from the South usually come from the country where there are no close neighbors.... Then the family is transplanted to Chicago to an apartment house, and even in with another family. The whole environment is changed and the trouble begins. No sense of property rights, no idea of how to use conveniences, no idea of how to live in the new home, to keep it up, to live with everybody else so near. On top of that, the father does not fit into his work, and therefore cannot support the family; the mother goes out to work, and what is the result? Poorly kept houses and poorly kept children.... A normal home shows itself in the school, and poor home conditions show up still more.
The Negro child born in the North is not found to an unusual extent among the retarded children. He has been able to enter school on time and to attend the full term of nine months; his teachers compare favorably with those in white American and foreign neighborhoods, and his parents as a rule have a better background. Many teachers say that the progress of northern-born Negroes compares very favorably with that of whites.
I. PHYSICAL EQUIPMENT OF SCHOOLS
Since the Board of Education keeps no record of Negro children as such, it could not furnish a list of the schools having a percentage of Negro children. Therefore a list was made up of all the schools in the Negro residential areas, the boundaries of these schools were obtained from the Board of Education, and the percentage of Negroes in each school district was worked out from the 1920 census figures. The schools listed in Table X were found to be situated in districts where the Negro population was 10 per cent or more. The figures at the right show the approximate percentage of Negro children in the school, as given by the principal of the school.
Fuller School is a branch of Felsenthal and has the same principal; it is in a neighborhood where the percentage of Negroes is practically the same as in the neighborhoods around Felsenthal, but there is a very great difference in the percentage of Negro children in the two schools, according to figures given by the principal. It appears from this that the principal, who is a believer in separate schools, places the large majority of the Negro children in Fuller School. Negroes in the vicinity say that Fuller School is run down and neglected, that the staff of teachers is below the average, that the school has no playground of its own but must use the one at Felsenthal, and that all the unmanageable children are sent there from Felsenthal. It is also believed by these Negroes that Fuller is used as a feeder for the other schools in the neighborhoods where there are fewer Negro children.
| School | Percentage of Negroes in District | Percentage of Negro Children in School |
|---|---|---|
| Colman | 81 | 92 |
| Copernicus | 18 | 23 |
| Doolittle | 65 | 85 |
| Douglas | 72 | 93 |
| Drake | 28 | 24 |
| Emerson (branch of Hayes) | 70 | 75 |
| Farren | 69 | 92 |
| Felsenthal | 38 | 20 |
| Forrestville | 20 | 38 |
| Fuller (branch of Felsenthal) | 42 | 90 |
| Haven | 24 | 20 |
| Hayes | 70 | 80 |
| Keith | 89 | 90 |
| McCosh | 13 | 15 |
| Mann (branch of Raymond) | 39 | 25 |
| Moseley | 46 | 70 |
| Oakland | 17 | 26 |
| Raymond | 85 | 93 |
| Sherwood | 20 | 25 |
| Tennyson | 14 | 28 |
| Webster | 50 | 30 |
| Willard | 15 | 13 |
The points in regard to physical equipment stressed by a district superintendent in the area containing the largest number of schools attended mainly by Negroes were: date of erection, an assembly hall located on the main floor, gymnasium, and, in the congested districts, bathroom and lunchroom. Table XI shows such facts concerning these schools.
MOSELEY SCHOOL
Located at Twenty-fourth Street and Wabash Avenue, 70 per cent Negro attendance.
It will be noted that only five of these schools, or 23 per cent, were built since 1900, and four of these five are in sections where the Negro population is less than 25 per cent. The ten schools serving the largest percentage of Negroes were built, one in 1856, one in 1867, seven between 1880 and 1889, and one between 1890 and 1899. Of the 235 white schools 133, or 56 per cent, were built after 1899.
| School | Date of Erection | Location of Assembly Hall | Separate Gymnasium | Bathroom | Lunchroom |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colman | 1887 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| Copernicus | 1907 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Doolittle | 1885 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Douglas | 1889 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Drake | 1900 | None | None | None | None |
| Emerson | 1884 | None | None | None | None |
| Farren | 1898 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Felsenthal | 1901 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Forrestville | 1896 | First floor | Yes | None | None |
| Fuller | 1890 | None | None | None | None |
| Haven | 1885 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Hayes | 1867 | Fourth floor | Combined | Yes | Yes |
| Keith | 1883 | None | None | Yes | Yes |
| McCosh | 1895 | None | None | None | None |
| Mann | 1890 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Moseley | 1856 | None | None | Yes | None |
| Oakland | 1903 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Raymond | 1886 | Third floor | Combined | Yes | None |
| Sherwood | 1892 | Third floor | Combined | None | None |
| Tennyson | 1895 | First floor | Combined | None | None |
| Webster | 1883 | None | None | None | None |
| Willard | 1915 | Basement | Yes | None | None |
Assembly halls and gymnasiums were totally lacking in seven of the twenty-two schools, and in the remaining fifteen the assembly hall was on the third or fourth floor, where, according to the district superintendent, it cannot have maximum use for community purposes. A really useful assembly hall, he stated, should be on the ground floor, opening directly on the school yard, and capable of being shut off entirely from the rest of the building so that it could be lighted and heated separately for evening gatherings. Only three of these fifteen schools had separate gymnasiums. In the others the gymnasium was combined with the assembly hall. There was little in the way of apparatus; what there was consisted mainly of hand apparatus, including clubs, dumbbells and basket-balls, that could be used in the assembly hall or the corridors. The district superintendent emphasized the need for gymnasiums in Negro residential areas because the children were weak physically and needed special exercises.
Playground space for schools attended largely by Negroes compares favorably with that for schools attended largely by whites, though Douglas School (92 per cent Negro), with 1,513 pupils, has only one playground 96×125 feet. Most schools have two playgrounds, one for boys and one for girls. The only other school having such limited play space as Douglas is a foreign school, Von Humboldt, where there are 2,500 pupils and the playground is 50×100 feet. Like Douglas, this is a double school with inadequate space for the children inside the school and outside. Sometimes there is a public playground near by which relieves the congestion on the school playground except in the case of Keith School (90 per cent Negro), the principal of which emphasized the need for a playground near her school.
In a group of twenty-four schools, six of which are attended mainly by Negroes, six mainly by white Americans, and twelve mainly by children of immigrants, it was found that there was no unusual crowding of classrooms in those attended mainly by Negroes except in the case of Douglas School. Conditions were practically the same in the three groups of schools.
Indications of overcrowding are the average number of seats in a classroom, the average number of pupils per teacher, and the double-school or shift system. There is little variation among the three groups of schools in the number of seats in the classroom and the number of pupils to each teacher, except that the school having the largest number of pupils to each teacher (57) is Colman, 92 per cent Negro. Although there are no double schools in the group attended mainly by white Americans, one of the six schools attended mainly by Negroes and five of the schools attended mainly by children of immigrants are double schools. Under this system, which is a makeshift in a neighborhood where another school is needed to take care of the children, the children go to school in two shifts, one shift an hour later than the other, and leave correspondingly later in the afternoon. Under this arrangement more children are at the school during the major part of the day than can be seated in the classroom and the full school curriculum can be carried on only under pressure, as one group of children must always be hurried on before the next group appears.
II. SCHOOL CONTACT PROBLEMS
Information as to problems of contact in the schools was gathered from conferences to which the principals of high and elementary schools were invited, and by personal visits to the schools. Thirteen elementary schools were visited, seven of which had an enrolment of less than 50 per cent Negro, and six of which had an enrolment of more than 50 per cent Negro. The schools with the smaller percentage were: Drake (30),[37] Felsenthal (20), Forrestville (38), Haven (20), Oakland (26), Webster (30), and Kenwood (a very small number of Negroes). The schools having a majority Negro were Colman (92), Doolittle (85), Douglas (93), Farren (92), Keith (90), and Moseley (70).
The high schools visited were Englewood, Hyde Park, and Wendell Phillips. In Englewood and Hyde Park the percentage of Negroes was very small, while in Wendell Phillips the Negro children were about 56 per cent of the enrolment.
The opinions of principals and teachers about Negro children are a cross-section of public opinion on the race question with all its contradictions and irritations. It must therefore be borne in mind in reading this section on school contacts that whether Negro children are reported good or bad, bright or dull, quarrelsome or amiable, whether antagonism and voluntary grouping or their lack are reported, there is an inevitable tendency for the teacher to see the facts in the light of any prejudice or general views she may have on race relations.
It was thought, for example, that for the purposes of this discussion the schools could be put in two general groups: those with less than 50 per cent Negroes and those with more than 50 per cent Negroes. But it was immediately apparent that no generalizations could be made on the basis of the percentage of Negro children in the schools, because sometimes two principals of schools having the same proportion of Negro pupils reported widely different experience with reference to friction; and in some cases principals of schools with a small percentage of Negroes reported friction, while other principals of schools with a larger percentage reported harmonious relations. The most important factor determining the attitude of the teachers in a school was invariably the attitude of the principal. Though there were many cases where individual teachers held views entirely different from those of the principal, yet the attitude of the principal was usually reflected in the expressed opinion of the teachers and in the atmosphere of the school.
But there is no explanation for total disagreement between two teachers in the same school as to whether or not there is race friction in the school except difference in points of view on the race problem. This factor is to be taken into consideration in weighing the testimony of teachers regarding school contacts of the races.
The attitude of some of the principals and teachers was revealed in their fear that their schools, with 20 per cent or 30 per cent Negro children, would be regarded as largely Negro schools. The principal of a school with 30 per cent Negro children considered it an insult to be asked to have his school take part in a song festival with schools largely attended by Negroes. A teacher in a school 26 per cent Negro was much incensed because the Board of Education had sent Negroes to the school to talk to the children on cleaning up the neighborhood. She said that the white children did not seem to mind and listened interestedly; it was the teachers who considered it an outrage that Negroes should come to "tell a community seven-eighths white to clean up."
Since the elementary schools and high schools present rather different problems, due to the greater number of social activities in the latter, it was decided to consider the two groups separately.
1. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
The contacts in the elementary schools fall naturally under three heads: classroom contacts, building and playground contacts, and social contacts.
Classroom contacts.—There was much less variety of opinion in regard to classroom contacts than the other two. Most teachers agreed that there was little friction so far as school work was concerned, even when it meant sitting next to one another or in the same seats. Most kindergarten teachers found the most natural relationship existing between the young Negro and white children. "Neither colored nor whites have any feeling in our kindergarten," said one principal in a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster); "they don't understand the difference between colored and white children." In visiting one school the investigator noticed that the white children who objected to holding hands with the Negro children in the kindergarten and first and second grades were the better-dressed children who undoubtedly reflected the economic class and race consciousness of their parents. The Armour Mission near the school had excluded Negroes from its kindergarten, thereby fostering this spirit among the whites. A teacher in Doolittle (85 per cent) told of a little white girl in another school who cried because she was afraid the color from the Negro children's hands would rub off on hers; in her present school she has known no such instances in the kindergarten. This conduct is paralleled in instances in which Negro children who have never had any contact with white children in the South are afraid of them when they first come North.
Most of the teachers in the higher grades reported that there were no signs of race prejudice in the room. A teacher at Oakland (26 per cent) said that white girls sometimes asked to be moved to another seat when near a very dirty Negro child, but that this often happened when the dirty child was white. This teacher said it was the white mothers from the South, not the children, who wanted their children to be kept away from the Negroes. "The white children don't seem to mind the colored," she said. "I have had three or four mothers come in and ask that their children be kept away from the colored, but they were women from the South and felt race prejudice strongly. But they are the only ones who have complained."
A teacher in a school 90 per cent Negro said that when doubling up in the seats was necessary whites and Negroes frequently chose each other. A teacher at Moseley (70 per cent), when the investigator was present, called upon a white girl to act as hostess to a Negro girl who had just come from the South, and the request was met with pride and pleasure by the white girl. On the same occasion a white boy was asked to help a Negro boy with his arithmetic, and the two doubled up and worked together quite naturally.
"Race makes no difference," declared the principal of a school 92 per cent Negro (Colman). "The other day I had them all digging in the garden, and when they were all ready to go in I kept out one colored boy to help me plant seeds. We could use another boy, so I told Henry to choose anyone out of two rooms and he returned with an Italian. The color makes no difference."
A few instances of jealousy are cited. In one of them resentment ran high because when a loving cup was presented in McKinley (70 per cent) for the best composition, it was awarded by a neutral outside jury to a white girl. The principal of this 70 per cent Negro school, in addition to finding the Negro children jealous, considered their parents insolent and resentful. On the investigator's first visit she said that military discipline was the only kind for children, and that absolute segregation was necessary. At the next interview she said she preferred her school to any other; that there was never any disciplinary difficulty, and that white children who had moved from the district were paying car fare to finish their course at her school.
Discipline.—There was considerable variety of opinion among the teachers as to whether Negro children presented any special problems of discipline. The principal of a school 20 per cent Negro (Felsenthal), for example, said that discipline was more difficult in this school than in the branch where 90 per cent were Negroes (Fuller). This principal is an advocate of separate schools. She was contradicted by a teacher in her school who said she had never used different discipline for the Negroes. In schools where the principals were sympathetic and the interracial spirit good the teachers reported that Negro children were much like other children and could be disciplined in the same way. One or two teachers reported that Negro children could not be scolded but must be "jollied along" and the work presented as play. This is interesting in view of the frequent complaint of the children from the South that the teachers in Chicago played with them all the time and did not teach them anything.
Attitude toward Negro teachers.—Few Negro teachers were found in the schools investigated.
At Doolittle (85 per cent) there were thirty-three teachers, of whom two were Negroes. There was also a Negro cadet. At Raymond (93 per cent) there were six Negro teachers and a Negro cadet in a staff of forty. At Keith (90 per cent) there were six Negro teachers in a staff of twelve. Two of these principals said that their Negro teachers compared favorably with their white teachers and that some of them were excellent. Asked whether there was much antagonism if a Negro teacher was assigned where all the children were white, the principal of a 93 per cent school (Raymond) said there had been one or two such cases. "They are most successful in the foreign districts on the West Side. The European people do not seem to resent the presence of a colored teacher."
Another principal said that this was especially true where the foreign element was Jewish. A Negro teacher in a West Side school, largely Italian, is considered one of the ablest teachers in the school and proved herself highly competent during the war, when she assisted with the work of the draft board in the district.
One or two principals said that they would not have Negro teachers in their schools because the white teachers "could not be intimate with colored teachers," or because Negro teachers were "cocky," or because "the Defender preaches propaganda for colored teachers to seek positions in white schools." Sometimes an effort was made to explain the principal's objection to Negro teachers by saying that Negro children had no respect for Negro teachers. One principal whose white teachers were rather below the accepted standard said that the one colored teacher who had been there was obliged to leave because of the children's protest against her. A Negro teacher in a 20 per cent school (Haven) was valued highly by the principal, who advised with her as to what measures could be taken to prevent the appearance of race feeling. This teacher formerly taught in a school where there were no Negro children and had experienced no difficulty in either type of school. "The children just seem to forget I am colored," she said.
In Farren School (92 per cent) a teacher of a special room for children recently arrived from the South expressed the belief that these children "have a distinct and decided fear of the white teacher and it's up to the teacher to change this fear into respect." They were very timid at first, she said, due to the new environment and the contact with so many more people, especially white. This timidity lasted for about a year and then these children became more like Chicago children.
Building and playground contacts.—At six out of the thirteen elementary schools some friction about the buildings and on the playgrounds was reported, and none at the other seven schools. On further analysis it appeared that the friction reported was general at only two of the six schools. At the other four the instances cited seemed either to involve a few troublesome individuals or to be quarrels among Negro children rather than between Negroes and whites. The two schools reporting general antagonism between Negro and white children had about 30 per cent Negro children. The principals of these schools said that the white children were dominated by the Negroes and did not dare stand up for their rights. The testimony of the principal of one of these schools showed a disposition to regard many acts as characteristically racial. For example, she needed no further evidence that a Negro boy had cut up a white boy's cap than the fact that it was cut with a safety-razor blade. Although both white and Negro boys commonly carry safety-razor blades to sharpen their pencils, she thought of razors only in connection with Negroes. She also believed that "Negro children of kindergarten age are unusually cruel," and that "Negroes need a curriculum especially adapted to their emotional natures." Again she said that a Negro boy who asked to be put back from the third to the first grade, because the third-grade work was too hard for him, was typical of Negro children, who "shut down on their intellectual processes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age." In view of the numbers of Negro children in the higher grades who are advancing normally, this is obviously an unwarranted generalization.
FARREN SCHOOL
Located at Forty-eighth Street and Wabash Avenue, 92 per cent Negro attendance.
There were some signs of friction at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) when a school largely Italian was combined with it, but the situation was handled tactfully by the principal and there had been no trouble. At a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle), where the white element was Jewish, all the teachers reported that there was no antagonism between the races.
Voluntary grouping.—The only school where the investigator noticed Negro and white children playing in separate groups was Webster (30 per cent), whose principal reported antagonism between Negroes and whites. At the other schools natural mingling was reported by some teachers or observed by the investigator. At a school 26 per cent Negro (Oakland) three teachers said that Negro and white children did not mingle on the playgrounds, while another teacher said they all played together regardless of color. The principal and twelve teachers at a school 85 per cent Negro (Doolittle) agreed, with the exception of one teacher who was a southerner, that there was never anything but the most natural mingling in the classrooms, about the building and on the playground. At a school 30 per cent Negro (Drake), the principal of which stated that the relations between the races were not harmonious, the investigator observed a free and natural grouping of Negroes and whites of all ages on the playground. The principal explained that this was "a forced rather than a natural grouping because of lack of apparatus for all." The white children at a school 20 per cent Negro (Haven) were Italians, Jews, and Greeks, and all the races played so naturally together that passersby frequently stopped to watch them.
Social contacts.—There are few social organizations and gatherings in the elementary schools. The principal of a school 93 per cent Negro (Raymond) said that there were clubs through all the grammar grades and that the friendliness between the two races was marked, but added:
We have not more than fifty or sixty white children in this particular building. One white child was elected vice-president, the first white child elected in eight years. It shows the friendly relationship when a white child could be elected to office with a large preponderance of colored children. A Jewish boy was elected to a smaller office of clerk. The white children are not foreign. In their meetings the question of color never arises at all.
In a few instances principals had found that graduation presented some difficulties, as white mothers would appear at the school a few days before and request that their children do not march with Negro children. "About the only time I see a white mother is near graduation," said the principal of a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "They always say they wouldn't care for themselves, but a friend might see and they would feel ashamed." "White children prefer not to march with colored at graduation," said a teacher at Oakland School (26 per cent), "and mothers sometimes come to ask that it be so arranged that their girls can march with white girls. They usually say that for themselves they don't mind, but friends might see and wonder why that should be."
A number of the schools have orchestras or occasional musical programs. The investigator heard one orchestra of eleven pieces in Doolittle School (85 per cent), which played remarkably well. All but one of the children were Negroes. A teacher in Webster School (30 per cent), where there was reported to be constant friction between Negro and white children, gave an incident of a Negro boy in the school playing the violin with a white accompanist and being enthusiastically applauded by the children.
The principal of a 92 per cent Negro school (Colman) reported an unpleasant experience when pupils from her school were invited to take part in a musical program at a West Side Park.
A group of sixty went with two white teachers in charge. On the way over a group of foreign women called out insulting remarks to the teachers, but no one paid any attention. After the program the group started marching out of the park and were met at the gate with a shower of stones. The teacher told the children to run for their lives, and they all had to scatter and hide in the bushes in the park or run toward home if they could. A rough set of boys had got together and were waiting for those children, stones all ready to throw. Since that time we have never accepted an invitation to sing outside our own neighborhood. Invitations have come from time to time, but the children all come with excuses. All of them, children and parents throughout the neighborhood, are afraid but you can't get anyone to come out and say it.
Attitude of parents.—Principals and teachers were questioned about their relations with the parents of both Negro and white children—whether they received co-operation from the parents in matters of discipline; what was the attitude of the parents toward Negro teachers; and whether many requests were received from Negro or white parents for transfers to schools where there were fewer Negroes.
In general it may be said that the principals who found Negro parents unco-operative, unambitious, and antagonistic were those who believed in separate schools, found Negro children difficult to discipline, and would have no Negro teachers in their schools. Such principals declared that Negro parents were "10 to 1 in the complaints brought into the office,"[38] and that "they fuss over everything and tell their children not to take anything from a white child." They also cited cases of insolence and threats which appeared to be exceptional rather than typical.
Some teachers said the reason they did not receive any co-operation from Negro mothers was because a large proportion of them were working. Tardiness and absence were due mainly to this cause, according to one principal, though a teacher of a room for retarded children in another school said there was little tardiness and practically no absence in her group. This teacher expressed the conviction, as did many others, that Negro parents were appreciative of school advantages and eager to have their children learn. Principals who came in contact with both Negro and foreign parents found the Negro parents much more interested and ambitious than the foreigners. Even the principal of a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster), who was somewhat prejudiced in her attitude toward Negroes in the school, said she had more Negro than white boys able to go to work whose parents wished them to remain in school.
Negro teachers were apparently acceptable to Negro parents, only one of the principals or teachers interviewed reporting objections by Negro parents. One teacher in a school 30 per cent Negro (Webster) said that Negro parents had their children transferred there from schools with more Negroes, so that they would have white teachers. The district superintendent said he had had some difficulty in placing Negro teachers in Negro schools, which he attributed to the fact that Negro parents felt that Negro teachers had not had the same opportunity for thorough training as white teachers. Some Negro parents, however, had indicated that their attitude was not due to belief that Negro teachers were inadequately trained, but to fear that too general placing of Negro teachers over Negro pupils was a step toward segregation.
The principal of a school 90 per cent Negro (Keith) thought Negro mothers preferred Negro teachers because several had said to her that the "colored teachers understand our children better."
The district superintendent in the area including most of the schools largely attended by Negroes said that few requests for transfers were made during the year, but he believed more were made at the request of Negro than of white parents. A number of these Negro children transferred not to go to a school largely white but to a school 70 per cent Negro, because they said they were afraid to go to the school in their own district which was across Wentworth Avenue. The race feeling between certain groups in this district was very intense, according to the superintendent. It was especially violent between the Negro children and the Italians and between the Jews and the Bohemians. The principal of a school 93 per cent Negro (Raymond) also testified to the spirit of antagonism along Wentworth Avenue:
Wentworth Avenue is the gang line. They seem to feel that trespass on either side of that line is ground for trouble. While they will admit colored members to the school without any trouble for manual training, they have to be escorted over the line, because of trouble, not from members of the school, but groups of boys outside the school. To illustrate: We took a kindergarten group over to the park. One little six-year-old girl was struck in the face by a man. The condition is a tradition. There does not seem to be any malice in it. "He is from the east side," or "Hit him, he is from the West Side," are remarks frequently heard.
Transfers from schools with a predominant Negro membership were reported by one or two principals and teachers in schools with a Negro minority, who said that the Negro mothers objected to having their children in schools "where there are so many common niggers." One of the principals said she had many requests from Negro mothers for transfers from the branch of the school with 90 per cent Negroes to the main school with 20 per cent. The Commission did not find in its inquiry among Negro mothers that such an objection was prevalent, but that most of the transfers requested were due to the reputation of the school for being overcrowded, poorly taught, and generally run down.
2. HIGH SCHOOLS
Classroom and building contacts.—In the high schools the ordinary contacts in classes and about the building become subordinate to the more difficult problems created by the increased number of social activities—athletics, gymnasium exhibitions, clubs, and parties.
The dean of Englewood High School, which has only about 6 per cent Negro children, said that the white and Negro children mingled freely with no sign of trouble or prejudice but thought that if more Negro children came to the school the spirit would change. A teacher in this same school who had formerly been at Wendell Phillips, where the majority are Negro, said that a spirit of friendliness had grown up there between the two races, and race distinction had disappeared.
WENDELL PHILLIPS HIGH SCHOOL
Located at Thirty-ninth Street and Prairie Avenue, 52 per cent Negro attendance.
There was only one Negro teacher in the high schools of Chicago at the time of this investigation, the teacher of manual training at Wendell Phillips. He is a graduate of the University of Illinois and had substituted around Chicago for several years. Although they spoke very highly of him, none of the principals of three high schools with small Negro percentages and in which there were vacancies could use him. The principal of Wendell Phillips, with a large proportion of Negroes, told, however, of a different experience when this teacher was at that school. "In answer to complaints by pupils I told them that this man was a graduate of the University of Illinois, a high-school graduate in the city, and a cultured man. 'Go in there and forget the color, and see if you can get the subject matter.' In the majority of cases it worked."
Racial friction about the buildings and grounds was not reported by any of the high-school principals. "I have not known of a fight between a colored and a white boy in fifteen years," said the principal of Hyde Park.
Two principals said that the Negro children voluntarily grouped themselves at noon, either eating at tables by themselves in the lunchroom or bringing their own lunches and eating in the back part of the assembly hall. The gymnasium instructor at Wendell Phillips said that she had no difficulty in her work if she let the children arrange themselves. The gymnasium instructor at a school with a small proportion of Negroes said that the white girls had objected to going into the swimming-pool with Negro girls, but that she had gone in with the Negro girls, which had helped to remove the prejudice.
Athletic teams.—In the field of athletics there seems to be no feeling between the white and Negro members of a school team, but the Negro members are sometimes roughly handled when the team plays other schools. "The basketball team is half and half," said the principal of Wendell Phillips. He reported some friction in previous years but said that "this year it is not shown at all." "They played a strenuous game with Englewood last week. A colored boy was roughly treated by the other team. Our white boys were ready to fight the whole Englewood team."
The principal of Hyde Park High School also said that there was no feeling in his school against Negro members of athletic teams, and that he did not know of a single instance in which a Negro boy was kept off an athletic team if he was the best for the place.
Two Seniors in a high school mainly white (Tilden) thus described the way they handled the Negro members of a visiting basket-ball team:
On the way over here fellows on the outside bawled them out, but our fellows sure got them on the way home. There were three black fellows on the team and those three got just about laid out. Our team wouldn't play them, so there was a great old row. Then, when they went home some of our boys were waiting for them to come out of the building to give them a chase. The coons were afraid to come out, so policemen had to be called to take them to the car line. The white fellows weren't hurt any, but the coons got some bricks.
Transfers between high schools.—Requests for transfers from Wendell Phillips to Englewood and Hyde Park schools had been made by both white and Negro children, according to the principals of the latter schools. The permits of the Negro children had frequently been revoked after they had been admitted to classes, and the children returned to Wendell Phillips. A teacher at Wendell Phillips pointed out the injustice of transferring a child in the middle of a term. After a child has been admitted to classes he should be permitted to remain through the semester, she believed, for otherwise a full term's work was lost because the courses in the schools were different. "All this transferring is nonsense, anyway," she said. "Children should be made to go to school in the district where they live and that would end the trouble."
This teacher told of an incident at Tilden School when a group of Negro boys registered for entrance:
About sixty colored boys entered Tilden High School either for the regular high-school course or prevocational work and were thrown out by the Tilden boys. They made it so hot for the colored boys that the sixty had to withdraw. Some came back here; others dropped out of school entirely. It's pretty bad when one set of boys can put out another set and nothing is done to punish one and call back the other group.
Two boys at Tilden who took part in this affair gave this version of the incident:
About thirty colored boys registered at Tilden last fall, but we cleaned up on them the first couple of days and they never showed up again. We didn't give them any peace in the locker room, basement, at noon hours, or between classes—told them to keep out of our way or we'd see they got out. The fellows who were in school before we didn't tackle—they know where they belong. There's one colored fellow in our class everybody likes. He's a smart nice fellow to talk to, and he doesn't stick around when you don't want him. He didn't say anything when we made the new coons step around, but I guess he didn't like it very well.
It was this same group of boys who objected to playing a visiting basketball team with three Negroes on it and "just about laid them out."
Social activities in high schools.—In high schools, with their older pupils, there is an increased race consciousness, and in the purely social activities such as clubs and dances, which are part of high-school life, there is none of the general mingling often found in semi-social activities such as singing and literary societies. Although Negro pupils do not share in the purely social activities, they do not organize such activities among themselves.
"The colored never come to social affairs," said the dean of one school. "They are so much in the minority here that they leave all organizations to the whites." The principal of this school told of having seen two colored girls at a class party who danced together for a while and left. "It is the only time I've seen the two races at the same social gathering."
The dean of Englewood said: "We have colored children in singing clubs, in the orchestra, in literary societies, in class organizations, and on athletic teams. Always when there is a class party there will be five or six colored children. They will always dance together, but they are present and welcomed by the white. Between dances it is not uncommon to see white and colored talking."
An incident showing lack of feeling against individuals of special achievement was given by the principal of this last school:
Several years ago we organized a voluntary orchestra which met after school. The director accepted all applications, among them a number of colored boys. The white boys balked; it should be white membership or they would leave. As it was near the end of the year the orchestra was dissolved. The next year I suggested to the teacher that he fill the orchestra places by a general tryout, so understood, but really with the policy of excluding the colored. This was done and a white orchestra organized. Shortly, the father of H. F., a colored boy who had been excluded, protested in my office, saying that his boy had been excluded because of race prejudice and that he was going to carry his protest to the Board of Education, for he knew his boy played better than any boy in school. I admitted that it was a choice in the school of white orchestra or no orchestra, but that if his boy was the fine musician he said he was I would gladly see what could be done. Soon after that H. appeared on a school program and played with remarkable skill and technique. He was applauded enthusiastically and recalled three times. Straightway the orchestra members asked him to play with them. He became unusually popular throughout the school. His standing was the highest and he was awarded a scholarship of $100 allowed by the Board of Education for the best student. He was also chosen to represent the school on the Northwestern University scholarship, and in his Freshman year he won another scholarship for the next year. The death of his parents made it necessary for him to leave college to support his brothers and sisters. At this time he was stricken with infantile paralysis. The interest on Liberty bonds taken out by the high school is paid in to H., and when the colored people gave a benefit for him the pupils sold 500 tickets. He is improving and teaching violin to thirty pupils at present. His sister is in the school now on a scholarship and is doing remarkably well also.
At Wendell Phillips the situation was quite different, for there were no school or class social affairs which were general. There were invitational affairs to which the Negroes were not invited. All the clubs in the school were white, Negroes being excluded. The principal said he would not insist on mixed clubs until he saw the parents of the children mixing socially. The glee club was an especially difficult problem because of its semi-public as well as social character. The Negro children maintained that a glee club composed entirely of whites was not representative of a school in which the majority were Negroes. The Negroes had not responded to the suggestion of the principal that they form a glee club of their own, and as the white children would not be in a glee club with Negro children, there was constant friction over this club.
Other principals expressed the conviction that the racial problem of school social affairs could not be solved until the prejudice and antagonism of adults had disappeared. One principal said he had had to call off an arrangement for a class affair because the hotel would not accommodate the Negroes. Another principal thought that the schools would not wait to follow the lead of the parents in forgetting the race prejudice but would themselves be the greatest factor in destroying it.
Relations with parents.—In most cases the high schools were receiving splendid support from Negro parents in matters of discipline. "I have never had a case where the parent did not back up the teacher in the treatment given to a colored child," said one principal, speaking of cases where children had got into difficulty when they complained that the teacher had "picked on them" because they were Negroes. The parents always made the child withdraw the statement and admit that the trouble was not due to color at all.
3. TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOLS
Reports were received from three technical high schools, Lane, Tilden, and Lucy H. Flower. Lane and Tilden had few Negro students, while in Lucy H. Flower the Negroes were about 20 per cent. The principals of Lane and Tilden said they were not conscious of any racial difference in their pupils, that no special methods of instruction were necessary for the Negro children, that there were no quarrels with a racial background in the schools, and no voluntary or compulsory groupings of white and Negro. The principal of Lucy H. Flower found racial differences between the Negroes and whites which she believed created special problems of education and discipline. The children got along together very well in school, and whatever quarrels there were, the principal thought were due to personal dislikes rather than to race prejudice. The colored girls grouped themselves voluntarily at noon and at dismissal time, and the white girls did the same.
III. RETARDATION
1. RETARDATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
With the assistance of the Board of Education a selection was made of three groups of schools to be studied for comparative retardation. The group comprised six schools having the largest percentage of Negro children, six attended mainly by whites in neighborhoods where the family income might be comparable, and twelve attended mainly by children of immigrants. Table XII gives the number and percentage of accelerated, normal, and retarded children for each school, for each group, and for the whole group of twenty-four schools.
This table shows the much greater amount of retardation among schools attended by Negroes than in schools attended by white Americans or by children of immigrants. The percentage for the group attended by Negroes is 74, while for the different schools in the group it varies from 67 to 81. For the two groups of schools attended by white Americans the percentage of retardation is the same, 49, though there is greater variation among these schools than among the schools attended by Negroes. In the group attended by children of immigrants, for instance, only 32 per cent are retarded in the Jungman (Bohemian) School, while 71 per cent are retarded in the Holden (Polish) School. A similar discrepancy appears in the group attended by white Americans, where the figure is 40 per cent for the Armstrong School and 62 per cent for the Byford School.
| School | Accel. | Percentage | Normal | Percentage | Retarded | Retarded Ungrad.[39] | Percentage | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attended mainly by white Americans: | ||||||||
| Armstrong | 202 | 21 | 365 | 39 | 355 | 19 | 40 | 941 |
| Byford | 118 | 9 | 361 | 29 | 783 | — | 62 | 1,262 |
| Harper | 291 | 17 | 609 | 35 | 829 | — | 48 | 1,729 |
| Howe | 220 | 17 | 421 | 35 | 577 | — | 48 | 1,218 |
| Key | 173 | 25 | 205 | 29 | 314 | — | 46 | 692 |
| Morse | 169 | 14 | 450 | 37 | 581 | — | 49 | 1,200 |
| Total | 1,173 | 17 | 2,411 | 34 | 3,439 | 19 | 49 | 7,042 |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | ||||||||
| Coleman | 54 | 8 | 124 | 17 | 561 | 2 | 75 | 743 |
| Doolittle | 267 | 16 | 261 | 16 | 1,099 | 24 | 68 | 1,651 |
| Douglas | 136 | 9.3 | 197 | 13.7 | 1,126 | — | 77 | 1,463 |
| Keith | 77 | 11 | 93 | 14 | 497 | — | 75 | 667 |
| Moseley | 62 | 7.5 | 95 | 11.5 | 551 | 122 | 81 | 830 |
| Raymond | 112 | 13 | 179 | 20 | 578 | — | 67 | 869 |
| Total | 708 | 11 | 949 | 15 | 4,412 | 148 | 74 | 6,217 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | ||||||||
| Bohemian | ||||||||
| Bryant | 385 | 21 | 735 | 37 | 809 | 15 | 42 | 1,944 |
| Hammond | 161 | 12 | 503 | 34 | 795 | — | 54 | 1,459 |
| Jungman | 375 | 35 | 350 | 33 | 357 | — | 32 | 1,082 |
| Polish | ||||||||
| Chopin | 298 | 17 | 631 | 36 | 818 | 1 | 47 | 1,748 |
| Hibbard | 392 | 29 | 445 | 32 | 535 | — | 39 | 1,372 |
| Holden | 122 | 11 | 208 | 18 | 759 | — | 71 | 1,089 |
| Italian | ||||||||
| Goodrich | 157 | 14 | 240 | 22 | 693 | — | 64 | 1,090 |
| Jackson | 360 | 15 | 731 | 32 | 1,174 | — | 53 | 2,265 |
| Jenner | 176 | 11 | 524 | 33 | 875 | — | 56 | 1,575 |
| Jewish | ||||||||
| Herzel | 609 | 25 | 731 | 30 | 1,085 | — | 45 | 2,425 |
| Lawson | 466 | 16 | 944 | 32 | 1,407 | 20 | 52 | 2,837 |
| Von Humboldt | 528 | 22 | 848 | 34 | 1,072 | — | 44 | 2,448 |
| Totals | 4,029 | 19 | 6,890 | 32 | 10,379 | 36 | 49 | 21,334 |
| Totals for three groups | 5,910 | 17 | 10,250 | 30 | 18,230 | 203 | 53 | 34,593 |
The retardation figures for the group of twenty-four schools studied are close to those for the city at large, 53 per cent retarded in the special group and 51 per cent for the city at large. In the accelerated group the percentage of accelerated Negro children, 11, is smaller than the percentage of accelerated white children, 17, or the percentage of accelerated foreign children, 19. This variation is not so striking as that in the normal group where only 15 per cent of the Negro children appear to make normal progress as compared with 34 per cent of the white children and 32 per cent of the foreign children. From this it would appear that there are factors in the lives of many Negro children which prevent them from making normal progress.
The degree of retardation, as shown in Table XIII is again quite different for the white and Negro groups.
The largest single groups of backward white American and foreign children are retarded less than one year (42 per cent of the white American and 39 per cent of the foreign group), and the numbers decrease rapidly as the degree of retardation increases. In the case of the Negroes 19 per cent are retarded less than one year. The decrease as the degree of retardation increases is slower than in the white groups, and many more children are retarded two, three, four, five years and more. In the white American group only one child out of 3,439 retarded children is retarded five and one-half to six years, while there are forty-one in the corresponding Negro group out of a total of 4,412. One white child is retarded six and one-half to seven years, while seventeen Negro children are retarded this amount; twelve foreign children out of 10,379 retarded children are retarded six to ten years, and thirty-seven Negro children are found in these groups.
Though the main reasons for the high degree of retardation among Negro children are set forth in the next section under "Causes of Retardation," a partial explanation is to be found in the fact that Negro parents are frequently more interested in keeping their over-age children in school than white parents, especially foreign parents, whose anxiety to have their children leave school as soon as they are old enough to get work-permits is well known.
Causes of retardation.—It is generally understood of course that comparisons of Negro with white children are hardly fair, since Negro children have not had the same opportunities as whites to make normal progress.
A study was made of the reasons why children were retarded in the groups of schools attended mainly by Negroes, by white Americans, and by children of immigrants. Records were obtained at the schools for 1,469 Negro children and 1,560 white children who were listed according to the Board of Education's classification for retarded children.
Table XIV shows clearly that the predominating cause of retardation among Negroes is late entrance, which, according to the board's classification, means that they did not enter school until more than six years of age. This is generally explained by the fact that the family came from the South, where there was no school near enough for the child to attend, or the school was overcrowded, or the family was uneducated and indifferent. In some cases the parents have come North, leaving the child with grandparents who made no effort to see that it went to school.
| YEARS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCHOOL | ½ to 1 | 1 to 1½ | 1½ to 2 | 2 to 2½ | 2½ to 3 | 3 to 3½ | 3½ to 4 |
| Attended mainly by white Americans: | |||||||
| Armstrong | 143 | 84 | 62 | 31 | 15 | 13 | 3 |
| Byford | 317 | 175 | 105 | 64 | 54 | 20 | 11 |
| Harper | 364 | 234 | 106 | 67 | 28 | 12 | 6 |
| Howe | 275 | 128 | 93 | 57 | 9 | 9 | 2 |
| Key | 141 | 106 | 33 | 19 | 20 | 2 | 2 |
| Morse | 229 | 160 | 81 | 56 | 27 | 14 | 8 |
| Total | 1,470 | 887 | 480 | 294 | 143 | 70 | 32 |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | |||||||
| Colman | 109 | 114 | 109 | 66 | 50 | 46 | 27 |
| Doolittle | 229 | 175 | 146 | 152 | 117 | 86 | 69 |
| Douglas | 190 | 198 | 191 | 142 | 126 | 83 | 71 |
| Keith | 94 | 66 | 71 | 78 | 54 | 34 | 30 |
| Moseley | 95 | 104 | 96 | 54 | 59 | 31 | 34 |
| Raymond | 135 | 115 | 111 | 69 | 50 | 39 | 27 |
| Total | 852 | 772 | 724 | 561 | 456 | 319 | 258 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | |||||||
| Bohemian: | |||||||
| Bryant | 369 | 224 | 107 | 51 | 36 | 15 | 3 |
| Hammond | 306 | 225 | 114 | 69 | 47 | 13 | 10 |
| Jungman | 173 | 87 | 49 | 27 | 12 | 6 | 2 |
| Polish: | |||||||
| Chopin | 323 | 216 | 125 | 57 | 43 | 23 | 16 |
| Hibbard | 252 | 158 | 68 | 28 | 18 | 5 | 4 |
| Holden | 216 | 190 | 112 | 91 | 60 | 36 | 18 |
| Italian: | |||||||
| Goodrich | 236 | 185 | 104 | 68 | 42 | 28 | 10 |
| Jackson | 369 | 284 | 202 | 141 | 84 | 53 | 16 |
| Jenner | 281 | 253 | 135 | 86 | 42 | 32 | 20 |
| Jewish: | |||||||
| Herzel | 521 | 294 | 124 | 71 | 38 | 19 | 9 |
| Lawson | 574 | 370 | 233 | 109 | 65 | 24 | 19 |
| Von Humboldt | 498 | 145 | 145 | 76 | 37 | 17 | 6 |
| Totals | 4,118 | 2,710 | 1,518 | 874 | 524 | 271 | 133 |
| Totals for three groups | 6,440 | 2,249 | 2,722 | 1,729 | 1,123 | 660 | 423 |
| YEARS | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCHOOL | 4 to 4½ | 4½ to 5 | 5 to 5½ | 5½ to 6 | 6 to 6½ | 6½ to 7 |
| Attended mainly by white Americans: | ||||||
| Armstrong | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Byford | 32 | 2 | 2 | ... | ... | 1 |
| Harper | 4 | 3 | 1 | ... | 1 | ... |
| Howe | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Key | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Morse | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ... | ... |
| Total | 40 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | ||||||
| Colman | 18 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 2 | ... |
| Doolittle | 44 | 37 | 16 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
| Douglas | 45 | 26 | 21 | 14 | 10 | 7 |
| Keith | 32 | 17 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Moseley | 26 | 20 | 15 | 7 | 4 | 2 |
| Raymond | 12 | 10 | 6 | 2 | ... | 1 |
| Total | 177 | 117 | 74 | 41 | 24 | 17 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | ||||||
| Bohemian: | ||||||
| Bryant | 1 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Hammond | 8 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Jungman | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Polish: | ||||||
| Chopin | 9 | 2 | 1 | 2 | ... | ... |
| Hibbard | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Holden | 13 | 9 | 8 | 4 | 2 | ... |
| Italian: | ||||||
| Goodrich | 9 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | ... |
| Jackson | 13 | 4 | 4 | 2 | ... | 1 |
| Jenner | 10 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| Jewish: | ||||||
| Herzel | 4 | 4 | ... | 1 | ... | ... |
| Lawson | 7 | 4 | 2 | ... | ... | ... |
| Von Humboldt | 6 | 2 | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Totals | 81 | 36 | 25 | 17 | 6 | 3 |
| Totals for three groups | 298 | 167 | 103 | 59 | 31 | 21 |
| YEARS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCHOOL | 7 to 7½ | 7½ to 8 | 8 to 8½ | 8½ to 9 | 9 to 9½ | 9½ to 10 | 10 to 10½ |
| Attended mainly by white Americans: | |||||||
| Armstrong | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Byford | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Harper | 1 | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Howe | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Key | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Morse | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Total | 1 | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | |||||||
| Colman | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Doolittle | ... | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | ... |
| Douglas | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 2 |
| Keith | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Moseley | 3 | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Raymond | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Total | 3 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | |||||||
| Bohemian: | |||||||
| Bryant | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Hammond | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Jungman | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Polish: | |||||||
| Chopin | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Hibbard | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Holden | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 |
| Italian: | |||||||
| Goodrich | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Jackson | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Jenner | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... |
| Jewish: | |||||||
| Herzel | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Lawson | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Von Humboldt | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Totals | 1 | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | 1 |
| Totals for three groups | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| SCHOOLS | TOTAL | LATE ENTERING | FOREIGN | PHYSICAL DEFECT | ILL HEALTH | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | ||||||||||
| Colman, 92 per cent Negro attendance | 29 | 1 | 20 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... |
| Doolittle, 85 per cent | 603 | 6 | 190 | ... | ... | 6 | 3 | ... | 68 | ... |
| Drake, 24 per cent | 72 | 58 | 41 | 11 | ... | 3 | ... | ... | 4 | 15 |
| Farren, 92 per cent | 171 | 7 | 49 | ... | ... | ... | 1 | 1 | 34 | 1 |
| Felsenthal, 20 per cent | 173 | 69 | 58 | 13 | 3 | 2 | ... | ... | 6 | 12 |
| Forrestville, 38 per cent | 93 | 5 | 34 | 2 | ... | ... | 2 | ... | 4 | ... |
| Haven, 20 per cent | 71 | 59 | 56 | 9 | ... | 6 | ... | ... | 2 | 9 |
| McCosh, 15 per cent | 18 | 31 | 7 | 4 | ... | 2 | ... | 1 | 5 | 8 |
| Oakland, 26 per cent | 50 | 44 | 18 | 6 | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 4 | 5 |
| Raymond, 93 per cent | 133 | 6 | 64 | 2 | ... | 2 | 1 | ... | 7 | 1 |
| Webster, 30 per cent | 52 | 31 | 27 | 7 | ... | 1 | 1 | ... | 5 | 9 |
| Attended mainly by White Americans: | ||||||||||
| Fiske | 2 | 88 | ... | 3 | ... | 16 | ... | 2 | ... | 1 |
| Rowland | ... | 101 | ... | 13 | ... | 7 | ... | 2 | ... | 17 |
| Kenwood | ... | 25 | ... | 1 | ... | 5 | ... | ... | ... | 4 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | ||||||||||
| Farragut | ... | 107 | ... | 12 | ... | 10 | ... | 2 | ... | 11 |
| Goodrich | ... | 92 | ... | ... | ... | 28 | ... | 3 | ... | 8 |
| Jackson | ... | 255 | ... | 32 | ... | 48 | ... | 12 | ... | 38 |
| Jungman | ... | 21 | ... | 11 | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Kosciuszke | ... | 144 | ... | 23 | ... | 17 | ... | 4 | ... | 9 |
| Lawson | 1 | 155 | ... | 7 | ... | 15 | ... | 1 | ... | 19 |
| McCormick | ... | 21 | ... | ... | ... | 2 | ... | 1 | ... | 7 |
| Seward | ... | 131 | ... | 19 | ... | 29 | ... | 2 | ... | 14 |
| Smyth | ... | 57 | ... | 3 | ... | 14 | ... | 1 | ... | 9 |
| Swing | ... | 46 | ... | 9 | ... | 2 | ... | 1 | ... | 7 |
| Totals by races | 1,469 | 1,560 | 564 | 187 | 3 | 217 | 9 | 33 | 140 | 204 |
| Totals of both races | 3,029 | 751 | 220 | 42 | 344 | |||||
| SCHOOLS | FAMILY DIFFICULTIES | DEFECTIVE VISION | DEFECTIVE HEARING | VARIANT MENTALITY | BACKWARD | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | ||||||||||
| Colman, 92 per cent Negro attendance | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 4 | ... |
| Doolittle, 85 per cent | 141 | ... | 7 | ... | ... | ... | 35 | ... | 73 | ... |
| Drake, 24 per cent | ... | 3 | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | 7 | 7 | 12 |
| Farren, 92 per cent | 21 | ... | 3 | ... | 1 | ... | 12 | 2 | 18 | ... |
| Felsenthal, 20 per cent | 56 | 15 | ... | 2 | 1 | ... | 7 | 1 | 33 | 10 |
| Forrestville, 38 per cent | 10 | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | 4 | ... | 30 | ... |
| Haven, 20 per cent | ... | ... | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | 3 | 7 | 19 |
| McCosh, 15 per cent | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | 1 |
| Oakland, 26 per cent | ... | 6 | 1 | 2 | ... | 2 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 5 |
| Raymond, 93 per cent | 18 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 11 | ... |
| Webster, 30 per cent | 6 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | 4 | 2 |
| Attended mainly by White Americans: | ||||||||||
| Fiske | ... | 34 | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 | 21 |
| Rowland | ... | 3 | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | 9 | ... | 28 |
| Kenwood | ... | 4 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 2 | ... | 5 |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | ||||||||||
| Farragut | ... | 6 | ... | 3 | ... | ... | ... | 5 | ... | 23 |
| Goodrich | ... | 7 | ... | 3 | ... | ... | ... | 2 | ... | 23 |
| Jackson | ... | 38 | ... | 8 | ... | 1 | ... | 3 | ... | 45 |
| Jungman | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Kosciuszke | ... | 18 | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | 12 | ... | 4 |
| Lawson | 1 | 20 | ... | 2 | ... | 1 | ... | 25 | ... | 39 |
| McCormick | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 1 |
| Seward | ... | 10 | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 2 | ... | 13 |
| Smyth | ... | 4 | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 14 |
| Swing | ... | 4 | ... | 2 | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 6 |
| Totals by races | 253 | 175 | 12 | 38 | 2 | 5 | 62 | 81 | 192 | 271 |
| Totals of both races | 428 | 50 | 7 | 143 | 463 | |||||
| SCHOOLS | LOW MENTALITY | FEEBLE-MINDED | IRREGULAR ATTENDANCE | TEMP. IN GRADE | DEMOTED FOR CONDUCT | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | N. | W. | |
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | ||||||||||
| Colman, 92 per cent Negro attendance | ... | ... | 1 | ... | 1 | 1 | ... | ... | 2 | ... |
| Doolittle, 85 per cent | 10 | ... | ... | ... | 68 | ... | 8 | ... | ... | ... |
| Drake, 24 per cent | ... | 1 | ... | ... | 19 | 5 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Farren, 92 per cent | 11 | 2 | ... | ... | 21 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Felsenthal, 20 per cent | 3 | 4 | ... | ... | 13 | 2 | ... | 1 | ... | ... |
| Forrestville, 38 per cent | 1 | ... | 1 | ... | 6 | 3 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Haven, 20 per cent | 2 | 4 | ... | ... | 4 | 5 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| McCosh, 15 per cent | 1 | 6 | ... | ... | 3 | 9 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Oakland, 26 per cent | 4 | 3 | 1 | ... | 12 | 9 | 1 | 2 | ... | ... |
| Raymond, 93 per cent | 6 | ... | 6 | ... | 19 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Webster, 30 per cent | 9 | 6 | ... | ... | 1 | 2 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Attended mainly by White Americans: | ||||||||||
| Fiske | 1 | 2 | ... | 1 | ... | 6 | ... | 1 | ... | ... |
| Rowland | ... | 10 | ... | 1 | ... | 7 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Kenwood | ... | 1 | ... | ... | ... | 3 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | ||||||||||
| Farragut | ... | 32 | ... | ... | ... | 3 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Goodrich | ... | 10 | ... | ... | ... | 8 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Jackson | ... | 8 | ... | ... | ... | 19 | ... | 2 | ... | ... |
| Jungman | ... | ... | ... | ... | ... | 7 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Kosciuszke | ... | 8 | ... | 1 | ... | 39 | ... | 9 | ... | ... |
| Lawson | ... | 19 | ... | 2 | ... | 5 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| McCormick | ... | 8 | ... | ... | ... | 1 | ... | ... | 1 | ... |
| Seward | ... | 11 | ... | 5 | ... | 20 | ... | 5 | ... | ... |
| Smyth | 1 | 5 | ... | ... | ... | 5 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
| Swing | ... | 6 | ... | 1 | ... | 2 | ... | 4 | ... | ... |
| Totals by races | 49 | 146 | 9 | 12 | 167 | 161 | 9 | 24 | 3 | ... |
| Totals of both races | 195 | 21 | 328 | 33 | 3 | |||||
The next most important cause of retardation among the Negroes is family difficulties. The fathers are often kept away from home weeks at a time by their work. A large number of the mothers are working, and the parents' lack of education is frequently the cause of a home life that is below standard, physically and morally.
Among the whites, late entrance, inability to speak the language, ill health, backwardness, and low mentality are the main causes of retardation. While it is often maintained that the Negro is the mental inferior of the white, these figures do not bear out that contention. Also the retardation figures do not show the home life of the Negroes to be productive of as much ill health as is the case with the whites.
Approximately the same number of Negro and white children were retarded because of irregular attendance.
In addition there were forty-two Negro children and 155 white children who were classified under two, three, or four different causes for retardation. Children who were late entering also had some physical difficulty, or children who were retarded because of family difficulties were also of poor mental endowment. In some cases such double classification represented a realization by the teacher that retardation is a complicated and delicate thing which cannot be explained by one hard-and-fast reason. Others, finding it difficult to decide whether children were backward, of low mentality, or feeble-minded, classified them under all three causes. In two instances Negroes were found to be retarded because they were late entering and "foreign"—that is, they were handicapped by an "initial lack of the English language."
Intensive study of 116 retarded Negro children.—The presence of retarded Negro children in the Chicago public schools within recent years has been regarded by many teachers and principals as a problem of Negro education. Some assume that this retardation is due to an inherent incapacity for normal grade work. Inquiries of the Commission early disclosed the fact that although the retardation rate of Negro children was higher than that of white, the great majority of the retarded Negroes were from southern states, and that Negro children born in the North had, as a rule, no higher rate of retardation than the whites. In the belief that the causes of retardation among Negro children could be found in the same factors of social background and environment which operates to retard white children, an intensive study was made of 116 Negro children taken at random from among all the retarded Negro children in several schools to learn what elements in their former life and present home environment might explain their retardation.
Out of the 116 children 101 had been in school before coming to Chicago. Of these eighty-six had lived in the South and attended southern schools. Since this group was chosen at random, the large proportion from the South tends to bear out the statements of school principals and teachers that Negro children from the South constitute the bulk of retarded children. Previous school records were obtained for eighty-four of these eighty-six southern children, and in sixty-four cases the children were retarded when they came to Chicago. Many of them were retarded two and three years, and some three, four, five, and even six years. Forty-seven of the sixty-four were retarded more than one year. In a number of cases children who were in the normal grade for their age in the South were put back one or two grades when they entered Chicago schools because they were not equipped to do the work of this grade in the North.
The states from which these children came are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Twenty-three of the eighty-six children who had lived in the South were from Mississippi—the largest group from any one state—and of these three were up with their normal grade, eleven were retarded three or four years, one was retarded six years, and one who was in the normal grade in the South was demoted two years. One reason for the poor record of these Mississippi children is undoubtedly to be found in that state's inadequate compulsory-education law which provides a school term of eighty days in districts which do not reject the law. Eight of the Mississippi children lived on plantations which were so far from school that regular attendance was impossible.
Information gathered concerning the parents of these 116 retarded children showed that in eighty-six cases the father was living with his family. In six cases the father was dead, in one case he was insane, in fifteen cases he had separated from or deserted the mother, and in eight cases there was no report on the father.
The mother was found to be living with her family in 112 cases. In two cases the mother was dead, and in two cases she had deserted father and child.
All of the eighty-six fathers who lived at home were working, though one was reported as working irregularly, and two as having deserted their wives occasionally for periods of several weeks. In two of the cases where the father had separated from the mother he was reported as contributing to the support of the child.
In forty out of the eighty-six cases where the father was living at home and working, the mother was also working, and in the fifteen separation cases where the mother was supporting the child, she was working. The fact that a total of fifty-five out of 112 mothers, or 49 per cent, were working is undoubtedly a large factor in the retardation of the children. The statement was frequently made by teachers that 40 or 50 per cent of the Negro mothers worked, and that the child was therefore neglected, and the teacher could get no co-operation from the mother, as she was never free to come to school to talk over matters affecting the child.
Some teachers felt that many mothers worked where there was no economic necessity, as the father was earning enough to support the family. It should be noted in this connection that at the time this material was gathered there were more opportunities for work than there were men to fill them. Under ordinary conditions there would doubtless be a certain amount of unemployment in these Negro families which would cause more mothers to work from economic necessity. Many of the families investigated, where both parents were working, were reported as getting on very well, though there were some cases of real poverty. In a number of instances the families could not seem to make ends meet on a good income because they were ignorant and did not know how to spend their money, or because they had not been able to adjust themselves to city life.
Of the eighty-six fathers who were working, few were in skilled occupations which would command a substantial wage. Most of the mothers were engaged in work that took them away from home. A few did sewing, hairdressing, and laundry work in their homes, but the large majority went out to work. Work carried on in the home frequently has as bad an effect on the child's school attendance as the mother's absence, for the child is sometimes kept at home to help and often finds the work more interesting than school.
The following occupations of mothers of retarded children were noted:
| Day work | 22 |
| Stock Yards | 12 |
| Hairdresser | 4 |
| Laundry | 4 |
| Maid | 4 |
| Barrel factory | 3 |
| Seamstress | 3 |
| Domestic service | 2 |
| Box factory | 1 |
| Car cleaner | 1 |
| Cleaning (hospital) | 1 |
| Dishwasher | 1 |
| Elevator | 1 |
| Foundry | 1 |
| Housekeeper | 1 |
| Lamp-shade factory | 1 |
| Waist factory | 1 |
Education of parents.—Of the eighty-six fathers, thirty-one were illiterate, and forty-eight had gone to elementary school but had completed only the second, fourth, or sixth grade. Five of the fathers had gone to high school, and two were college graduates.
The figures are slightly better for the mothers. Out of 112, twenty-one were totally illiterate, seventy-six had gone to elementary school, ten had been in high school or college, and five were not reported on. Eighty-eight per cent of the mothers, therefore, and 91 per cent of the fathers had less than a high-school education. Though there were many illiterate or poorly educated parents who were eager for their children to have advantages which they never had themselves, others, as in any illiterate group, no matter what the color, failed to appreciate the importance of school.
Home discipline.—A number of teachers reported that they were unable to discipline the children in school because they were undisciplined at home. In seventy-three of the 116 homes there was found to be discipline, in twenty-two a lack of discipline, and twenty were not reported on. Discipline seemed to be the responsibility of the mother in the large majority of cases, and many of the twenty-two undisciplined children were boys who were beyond the control of the mother. In every case but four where there was no discipline the mother was working, so that the child did not receive much care during the daytime and the mother was too tired to bother about discipline at night. Lack of discipline can also be traced to the fact that the child has not always lived with the parents but with relatives who have been lax in the matter of discipline.
Home care.—The physical condition of the home, the preparation and substance of the meals, may be expected to affect a child's health and therefore his attendance at school. The homes of eighty-four children were reported to be clean and twenty-five not clean, while seven were not reported on. In twenty-one cases out of the twenty-five reported not clean, the mother was working. In forty-seven cases out of the eighty-four reported clean the mother was working. In many of the forty-seven cases there was an aunt or grandmother who took care of the house.
In many homes the ignorance of the parents was obviously responsible for failure to provide the kind of food adapted to the needs of the children. A great deal of fresh meat, usually pork and bacon, potatoes, rice, and coffee were the staples, while green vegetable, fruits, cereals, and milk were noticeably lacking. Also, when the mother is away all day the food is hastily prepared, which usually means that it is fried. The girl who gets home from school before her mother has finished her day's work usually starts the dinner, or brings something from the delicatessen. Many children are given twenty-five cents with which to buy lunch, and in three extreme cases the children were given money to buy all their meals, with no supervision over what they ate.
Difficulty of adjustment.—When all the causes contributing to retardation were taken into consideration in the histories of the 116 retarded children studied, it was still obvious that the greatest stumbling-block to normal progress was previous residence in the South. The retardation of children from the South is explained in a variety of ways.
Some of the children from the South did not get along well because they had not been able to adjust themselves to city life. They had been accustomed to the freedom and outdoor life of the farm and did not like the confined life of the city. They felt timid and shy in the midst of so many people, as they did not come much in contact with people when they lived on southern farms four or five miles from the nearest town. Most of these children had never gone to school for more than a few months at a time, either because the school term was short or they lived too far from the school to attend regularly. Consequently some of them found the nine months' term irksome.
Demotion.—A number of children were found to be over-aged for their grades because they had been demoted one or two years when they came to Chicago. Some of these had gone to school regularly in the South and were of normal age for their grades, but the school term was so short that it was impossible for them to complete the same amount of work in the same number of years as children in northern schools. Children who were in the fifth or fourth grade in the South had been put back to the third or second grade on entering Chicago schools. This sometimes discouraged them so much that they dropped out of school on reaching fourteen, the age limit of the compulsory-education law.
Inadequate schools.—Overcrowded and poorly taught schools also are responsible for the retardation of southern Negro children. One girl attended a school which was in session only three months a year and where there were 100 to 125 children under one teacher. Consequently this girl was retarded four years. A boy who, when he came to Chicago, was fifteen years old and six years behind his grade had always lived in small country towns in the South. In one of these his teacher was the iceman. "He didn't come to school until he was through totin' ice around," said the boy. "Then if anyone wanted ice they comed after him. He wasn't learning me anything so I quit." This boy was found to be ambitious and was attending school regularly in Chicago in spite of the fact that he was conspicuously over-age for his grade.
Other causes of retardation.—Some over-age children are extremely sensitive about their size and are irregular at school on this account. A fifteen-year-old boy who was 5 feet 8 inches tall was in the fifth grade. He refused to go to school because he was larger than anyone in his class. At one time he was so ashamed of being seen in the room with smaller children that he would go out of the classroom every time a girl passed the door.
As in many white families where the importance of regular school attendance is not fully understood, work at home or work after school hours is sometimes permitted to interfere materially with school attendance. Older children are kept at home to look after young children while the parents are away at work and sometimes when the mother is home. A fourteen-year-old girl who was three years retarded had always been kept out of school to do housework. The five younger children were all in the normal grades for their ages but the fourteen-year-old girl had been out of school so much she had lost interest. Other children were working after school hours selling papers and delivering packages and wanted to leave school as soon as possible so that they could work all the time.
The attitude of the teacher seemed in a few instances to be responsible for the child's lack of interest. In one case the teacher threw a paper at a boy instead of handing it to him, and the boy had refused to recite to her ever since. He went to school but recited to his mother at home. Another boy had been kept back in school by a misunderstanding between his mother and the principal. The principal took the boy home with her to do some work around her house and kept him until nine o'clock. The mother became so worried she had the police out looking for him. When she found out the cause of his lateness coming home, she went to the school and threatened the principal. The principal afterward refused either to promote the boy or transfer him to another school.
Recreation.—A study of the favorite forms of recreation among 116 children, aside from the few who reported that they had no time to play, showed the movies to be in the lead. Children economized on lunch, buying potato salad and pickles, in order to have enough left from their lunch money to go to the movies. One boy who worked outside of school hours made $3 to $5 a week and spent most of it on the movies; he went three or four times a day if he had the money. A few children played truant in order to go to the movies.
| Movies | 85 |
| Baseball | 32 |
| Reading | 31 |
| Marbles | 29 |
| Skating | 20 |
| Jumping rope | 11 |
| Music | 6 |
| Jacks | 6 |
| Vaudeville | 5 |
| Running games | 4 |
| Singing games | 4 |
| Sewing | 3 |
| Basket-ball | 2 |
| Target practice | 1 |
| Pool | 1 |
| Mechanical toys | 1 |
| Drawing | 1 |
| Dolls | 1 |
| Bicycle | 1 |
| Typewriting | 1 |
| Swinging | 1 |
| Rolling hoop | 1 |
| Card games, checkers, etc. | 1 |
| Total | 248 |
Most of these children had two and even three forms of recreation, and the second was usually some form of outdoor recreation—baseball, marbles, or jumping rope. Most of the younger ones went to the playgrounds, except those who had housework to do or the few who did not care to associate with other children.
A reference to the section on "Recreation" will show that Negro children are limited in their recreational activities by lack of recreation centers where they are welcome. There are playgrounds for the younger children in the areas of Negro residence, but no recreation centers with their varied indoor facilities for the older children.
2. OPINIONS ON SCHOLARSHIP OF NEGRO CHILDREN
Progress of the southern Negro.—The retarded Negro child, usually from the South, who is conspicuous in the elementary schools, has been referred to in the section on "Retardation in Elementary Schools." In some schools such children are put in the regular grades, where they receive no special attention and can progress only one year at a time, though most teachers agree that retardation is due to lack of educational opportunity rather than to inability to learn. In other schools there are special rooms for these children where they are advanced through several grades as rapidly as possible.
Doolittle School (85 per cent) had six first-grade rooms for such children. In one of these rooms there were about twenty-five children from twelve to seventeen years of age doing all the lower-grade work up to the sixth. The teacher said that many of these children who were unable to read or write when they came from the South showed remarkable progress in a few months, and in less than a year were able to do fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade work.
"One big girl of thirteen, when she arrived from the South," this teacher said, "pretended to read with her book upside down, but in a little more than a year she was doing sixth-grade work. One twelve-year-old boy from the South, unable to read the primer or write his name, after about nine months of applied work just ate up everything I gave him and during the following year read sixty library books."
A thirteen-year-old girl, just five days in the school, had come from Alabama, where she had never attended school. "There wasn't room for me," she explained. She read for the investigator on the tenth page of the primer, haltingly but with understanding. The teacher was confident that she could put her through several grades next year. She said further:
These children who have been deprived in the South of their rights educationally are very eager. At first they are timid, but they learn very quickly. They're as smart as whips if they'd just get down to business. Without question this is the kind of attention all the colored children from the South need when they enter school in the North. The plan has been successful and should be adopted throughout the school system. One appreciates by comparison the injustice of putting the fifteen-year-old newcomer from the South into second grade, requiring of him only second-grade work over the nine months' period.
Another school, 92 per cent Negro (Farren), has a special room for children from the South. "Our dull children are almost without exception those from the South who have never been to school," said the teacher. "Those children should not be classed as dull, either, for they learn remarkably fast and often catch up to grade."
A teacher of the ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville) said:
Practically all of the colored children are from the South, where they have not been in school. Once they get started they learn very rapidly and often catch up to the proper grade if they are not too old when they start school. The older children in this room have good power of concentration and consequently learn much in a short time. Take, for example, a boy twelve years old who came here not two months ago from the South. When he came he had no idea how to write his name. A few days ago he wrote for me a fourth-grade eight-line memory passage with but three mistakes in spelling. Now I call that remarkable. I have taught in this school all my teaching years, and they have been many, and have never seen any child equal this, either white or black.
Capacity for advanced work.—Teachers in the seventh and eighth grades usually found Negro children equal to the work, though in some cases they felt that these children had been pushed out of the lower grade because of crowded conditions before they were ready for the more advanced work. An eighth-grade teacher gave the following statement:
When children get this far they have a good foundation and do their work very well. One of my colored girls is the brightest child in school—arithmetic is hard for her but she works at it. One of my colored boys is seventeen years old. He came here from the South last fall to live with an uncle and to get to a better school. His father wants him to be a doctor and thought he wasn't getting along as well in the South as he would in the North. When the boy came to me he said he had been going to a college[40] in the South. I took him into the eighth grade but saw he didn't have the fundamentals. On close questioning he told me he had been in the seventh grade in that college. Now he is doing excellent work for me. He has much broader interests than the other children. He reads, reads, reads, all the time and is well informed.
Other teachers believed that there was nothing to keep the Negro children from making equal progress with the white, given similar opportunities. "The progress of the colored children in Drake school (30 per cent) cannot be compared with that of the white," said an upper-grade teacher, "because the colored are all from the South and have had the poorest opportunities. But comparing a Negro child and a white child who have had the same advantages in school and equal opportunities for observation and example in the home, the Negro makes the same progress."
"I say that under the same conditions a Negro child will do as well every time as a white," said the teacher of an ungraded room in a school 38 per cent Negro (Forrestville). "Many do as well as the white and live in very poor neglected homes. I think every person who is not prejudiced must admit that the colored do fully as well in school as the white."
An upper-grade teacher in the Felsenthal School (20 per cent) held a similar point of view: "The colored are making wonderful strides. They advance just as rapidly as the white, given equal opportunities. But their background is so slight and so short in years that one cannot fairly compare them. The southern colored child must be studied individually to get his point of view in the school or he gets nowhere in his work."
High-school work.—The principal of Wendell Phillips High School prepared tables showing the numbers of white and Negro children dropping out at the end of each school year. They show that the largest number of Negro children dropped out during the first year, and the largest number of white children during the first and second years, the number of drop-outs being the same for both years. Some children repeat the work so that all of them do not leave school.
One or two teachers in other schools stated concerning Negro children that a "very limited number go beyond the first year." "They cannot grasp the subject," said an English teacher; "they do not understand as the white child does. They lack the mentality."
In the same school the Latin teacher held quite the opposite opinion. "The colored children are in every way equal to the white children. They are just as well equipped mentally and make similar progress. My best student at present is a colored girl. Her choice of English and her vocabulary and construction are far ahead of that of any white student."
Several teachers and principals testified to the brilliancy of individual Negro students who not infrequently had the highest standing in the school. The principal of an elementary school (Crerar) who had formerly had experience in a school largely Negro felt that the junior high school would meet the needs of the Negro children to a large degree:
More of them than the immigrant enter high school but do not stay to finish. I suppose the parents insist upon some high-school training, but it is necessary for the child to go to work before he finishes. Another reason for the dropping out might be the teachers' lack of interest in the child. In the high school you don't find the teachers taking a keen interest in every individual child as you do in the grades, and just what colored children need is a keen interest in them. They do better work.
Academic v. other courses.—A preference of Negro children for academic work was reported by principals and teachers at two high schools. This may be due in part to the fact, testified to by many teachers, that Negro children excel in languages and music and find mathematics and sciences difficult. The usual implication was, however, that Negro children took academic work because they thought it gave them better social standing. A principal who said that "Negroes want to know nothing about industrial training" and that "the girls don't care for sewing and cooking," said on another occasion that the majority of children in auto-mechanics, printing, and household arts were Negroes. He also reported more Negro than white children in the normal course preparing themselves to be teachers, though this was the first year that this had been the case.
Comparative scholarship in elementary schools.—Negro children are reported to be slower than the Jews, less responsive than the Bohemians, and more ambitious than the Italians. A manual-training and domestic-arts teacher thought Negroes did as good work as the Jews, Bohemians, and white Americans whom he taught. A Latin teacher said that the Negroes were studious and ambitious, and that in every way she preferred them to the Jews.
Several teachers thought the Negroes were slow and lacked logic and "sticking qualities." An upper-grade teacher explained the slowness as partly due to the fact that they had been pushed out of the crowded lower grades before they were ready for more advanced work. A physics teacher who was convinced that Negro children had no ambition said it was his policy to promote a Negro child if the child had made the effort, because he appreciated that the child had come "to the limit of his mental ability."
The principal who said that Negroes had no "sticking qualities" gave a single instance of a boy who wanted to become a mechanical engineer but gave up the course after five months, because he said he did not care enough about the course to work at it for several years. In endeavoring to prove that Negro children are not successful in completing high-school work, this principal emphasized the fact that in the 3-B class 20 per cent of the Negroes dropped out as compared with 6 per cent of the whites. In actual numbers three Negroes and two whites dropped out. He did not mention that in the 2-A class 12 per cent of the whites (sixteen children) as compared with 3 per cent of the Negroes (three children) dropped out. In the 4-B grade 21 per cent of the whites (three children) and none of the Negroes dropped out. The fact that 21 per cent of the whites dropped out was explained by the principal to be due to the fact that the white children wished to graduate from a high school wholly white. However, only three children were involved.
Attendance and failures.—Table XVI shows the record for attendance and failures in three groups of schools attended mainly by Negroes, by children of immigrants and by white Americans. It will be noticed that the best attendance records are found in Douglas and Farren schools, both mainly attended by Negroes. The other schools, attended mainly by Negroes, compare favorably with those attended by whites.
The smallest percentage of failures is at Colman (92 per cent), while the next to the largest percentage is also at a school attended mainly by Negroes (Raymond, 93 per cent). This may be explained to a certain extent by the fact that there is a higher economic class of Negroes in the neighborhood of the Colman School. In the other schools the percentage of failures compares very favorably with that of whites.
| School | Enrolment | Average Attendance | Percentage of Attendance | Number of Failures | Percentage of Failures |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attended mainly by Negroes: | |||||
| Colman, 92 per cent | 964 | 709 | 73 | 13 | 1.8 |
| Doolittle, 85 per cent | 1,784 | 1,282 | 72 | 77 | 6.0 |
| Douglas, 93 per cent | 1,443 | 1,341 | 93 | — | —- |
| Farren, 92 per cent | 986 | 924 | 93 | 83 | 8.9 |
| Forrestville, 38 per cent | 1,493 | 1,085 | 73 | 130 | 12.0 |
| Haven, 20 per cent | 1,165 | 700 | 60 | 24 | 3.4 |
| McCosh, 15 per cent | 1,280 | 1,017 | 79 | — | —- |
| Moseley, 70 per cent | 923 | 605 | 66 | 81 | 13.3 |
| Raymond, 93 per cent | 1,532 | 1,299 | 85 | 200 | 15.4 |
| Webster, 30 per cent | 805 | 654 | 81 | — | —- |
| Attended mainly by children of immigrants: | |||||
| Farragut | 1,729 | 1,502 | 86 | 107 | 7.0 |
| Goodrich | 1,305 | 1,039 | 78 | 121 | 11.6 |
| Kosciusko | 1,134 | 775 | 68 | 33 | 4.2 |
| Lawson | 3,069 | 2,545 | 83 | 292 | 11.5 |
| McCormick | 1,432 | 1,266 | 88 | 204 | 16.1 |
| Seward | 1,058 | 708 | 67 | 43 | 5.9 |
| Smyth | 1,106 | 860 | 77 | 69 | 8.0 |
| Swing | 810 | 629 | 77 | 99 | 15.8 |
| Attended mainly by white Americans: | |||||
| Fiske | 1,535 | 1,272 | 83 | 45 | 3.5 |
| Howland | 2,161 | 1,809 | 84 | 100 | 5.0 |