FOREIGN LANGUAGES
German has long been taught in the elementary schools. Until less than 10 years
ago it was taught in all grades beginning with the first. More recently it has been
confined to the four upper grades. Beginning with the present year, it is taught
only in the seventh and eighth grades. The situation is so well presented in the
report of the Educational Commission of 1906 that further discussion here is
unnecessary. They summarize their discussion of the teaching of German in the
elementary schools as follows:
"Such teaching originated in a nationalistic feeling and demand on the part of
German immigrants, and not in any educational or pedagogical necessity.
"It aimed to induce the children of Germans to attend the public schools, where
they would learn English and be sooner Americanized.
"For 15 years [now 25 years] past, German immigration has almost ceased, and
other European nationalities, as the Bohemians, Poles, and Italians, have taken
their place numerically.
"The children of the earlier German immigrants are already
Americanized and use the English language freely, and those later
born, of the second and third generations, no longer need to be taught
German in the schools beginning at six years of age.
"It is demonstrated by experience and by abundant testimony that children
neither from German nor from English-speaking families really learn much
German in the primary and grammar grades, that is, from six to 13 years of age.
"Hence the Commission recommends that the teaching of German in these
grades be discontinued and that the German language be taught only in the high