The hope lies in the children, and the schools are their great
blessing and outlet, even if as Mrs. Betts says, many of them of certain
classes do not think so. Mr. Hunter says:
[Sidenote: What Kind of Americans?]
"They are to become Americans, and through them, more than through any
other agency, their own parents are being led into a knowledge of
American ways and customs. All the statistics available prove that vice
and crime are far more common among the children of immigrants than
among the children of native parentage, and this is due no less to the
yardless tenement and street playground than to widespread poverty. In a
mass of cases the father and mother both work in that feverish, restless
way of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To overcome poverty they
must neglect their children. Turned out of the small tenement into the
street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and
almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make
his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything
American is good and right. There comes a time when the parents cannot
guide him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he looks upon their
advice as of no value.
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