ITALIAN WOMEN UNORGANIZED
This does not apply to the Italian community. While benefit societies among the Italians are very numerous, there has until recently been little movement toward a national organization similar to those among the Poles and Lithuanians. The deep division in dialect, custom, and feeling between people from different sections of Italy accounts for the number of societies as well as for the lack of affiliation among them. Three of the largest societies in Chicago, in which membership is largely Sicilian, are now affiliated, but no effort has been discovered to make use of the organization as a basis for domestic educational enterprise.
Women are admitted to many of the societies on the same terms as men, but rarely attend meetings. There are many small self-assessment societies for women alone, but they have no social or educational feature; members seldom meet, and dues are often sent in by children.
The idea of using their own organizations as a means of carrying on educational work among women is a novel one in the Italian community, but it is being recognized as a possible method of attacking the great need for education in maternal and infant welfare, in the care of small children, and in sanitary housekeeping.
The Italian physicians, for example, realize that the women need instruction, and the Italian Medical Association, in May, 1919, planned a series of lectures for mothers, in Italian, on these subjects, but found that there were great difficulties in reaching the mothers with such material. It is therefore very important that every device be tried for reaching the more intelligent women, who with the helpful neighborliness that exists in all the neighborhoods would share with their less-informed sisters the benefits of their aroused interests.
GROWTH OF NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
It is clear, then, that highly organized societies established primarily for mutual insurance often undertake educational and social projects which tend to overshadow their original purpose as the economic position of the members of the national group becomes more stable. Leaders who are inaugurating national educational movements in the less well-established groups are consciously using the benefit feature because of its universal appeal, and employing the general methods and machinery of the fraternal insurance organization.
Modification of the official machinery is the inevitable result of the change in purpose. We find, for instance, that the local lodge, originally only a meeting for the payment of dues, becomes a center for discussion of problems of concern to the local community or to the national group, and often the field in which the educational program planned by the national society is carried out.
The official organ, designed to carry official communication and news, tends to subordinate this function to the educational and cultural features. To a certain extent it becomes a national educational journal. It is to be noted that with the separation of men's and women's lodges and the growth of the influence of women in the national policy of the society, the section of the official organ devoted to the interests of women is extended. The very real problem of the immigrant woman in adjusting herself and the family life to the new conditions here, is given greater consideration.
As these organizations have been so efficiently developed, and as the leaders in the different groups hope for a united group where before there has been a separate and segregated one, it seemed worth while to consult the representatives of the different groups in some detail with reference to the method of using educational material dealing with family adjustment. The subject of child care seemed the most obviously pertinent and interesting, and a section of the United States Children's Bureau Study on the Pre-School Child was submitted for their consideration with the question as to its adaptation to the needs of the various groups.