In regard to the situation in South Dakota, the Federal Bureau of Education reports (Bulletin, No. 31, 1918) that,
some counties, Hutchinson, for example, are largely peopled by German stock. A large portion of the school population attend German Catholic and German Lutheran parochial schools in which German has been used largely as a medium of instruction. (Recently stopped by order of the State Council of Defense.) In this county, and in Hanson County, the German-Russian Mennonites still live the quaint community life brought with them from Russia. German, not English, is the language of the villages, although in most of the schools English is the medium of instruction.
CALIFORNIA
The California Commissioner of Public Education stated to the writer that the state authorities have no right to interfere in any way with the private and parochial schools and that he is not legally able to collect any information in regard to these schools.
Even the leaders of the Russian sectarian peasant colonies maintain some sort of a private school of their own. The San Francisco colony has classes for children two evenings a week, in which they are taught reading and writing in the Russian language. In Los Angeles the colony leaders explained that their children learn the Russian language in their homes, where Russian is spoken exclusively, and that they learn Russian reading and writing in their Russian private evening schools, one hour each evening. The peasants themselves teach them. The parents have to pay certain small sums to the teachers.
The leaders expressed a keen desire that the city should provide them with a Russian school, for they would like to have their children able to read, speak, and write the Russian language. If they should not be able to settle in America on the land they would be compelled to return to Russia. The leaders of the Russian colony at Glendale, Arizona, said that they are attempting to teach Russian to their children in the evenings and other spare time, but owing to lack of time and proper teachers they have not made much progress.
HEBREW SCHOOL IN NEW JERSEY
The local manager of the Hirsch fund in Woodbine, New Jersey, a Jewish colony, stated that there is in the colony a Hebrew school supported by individuals and to a certain degree by the Hirsch fund. It is a Hebrew school connected with activities of the synagogue, maintained for religious purposes. It corresponds to the parochial school of Christian churches. About sixty pupils attend this school.
OPINIONS ON BOTH SIDES
It goes without saying that during war-time excitement, with its heightened suspicion, the statements made by the defenders of the foreign-language schools and their opponents do not always correspond to the reality. It has been the writers impression that the defenders were inclined to diminish the negative influence of these schools, while their opponents in a number of cases saw these schools darker than they really were.