old and even the oldest people ought to know English. In his desire to deceive, or in his child-like simplicity, he failed to see that many of the people in that colony had come there in mature years, that many had been in this country but a few years, and that it did not follow that because the colony was seventy years old all its people had been there during all that time. It is not easy for a mature person to learn a new language, especially when no facilities are offered for instruction in it. Imagine even the average college graduate who had acquired some knowledge of French or German or Spanish in the later years of his life, trying to follow an elaborate argument or making an effort to feel enthusiasm through the medium of one of these languages. And that is what some Americans expect of the immigrant.
4. It is a mistake to bar the learning of other languages on intellectual grounds, as well as on the ground of usefulness to our own country. We shall be in contact with the world in business and in other common interests, and we need men an women who can use other languages than our own. But we also need knowledge of these languages for general intellectual purposes. The writer, an American by birth and training early gained a knowledge of the language of his fathers (Czech), and it has been to him a source of infinite pleasure and satisfaction. It has opened a new field for intellectual effort; it has given access to sources of intellectual inspiration and information which would have been closed entirely; it furnished means of information concerning the dangers of German autocracy of Europe which could not have been received otherwise; and it did not in the least weaken or under mine his spirt of American patriotism. On the contrary, by bringing to his knowledge the record of the struggles of his own forefathers for the very blessings which we enjoy in our country, it made him appreciate better and understand more fully the intense idealism which is, or should be, the heart and soul of real Americanism.
We must understand that America offers something better than the mere opportunity to gain wealth and high position. Both of these have been freely secured by some men under the worst governments which the world has known. We must place before our youths higher ideals than those of the stomach and the pocket-book. For the purpose of fully developing and maintaining our finest ideals of political freedom we need all the knowledge which can come to us from government-ridden Europe, as well as from other parts of the world, and we should welcome the bearers of that knowledge, if they are willing to use it to help us, from whatsoever land they may come to us.
The danger to us does not lie in the teaching of languages. Must we restrict our intellectual horizon and remain in ignorance of much that would be useful to us, in order that we might remain good Americans? Ignorance and Americanism surely cannot be synomymous or related terms. The teaching of no language is harmful in itself. Even the teaching of German would have done no harm; it was the dissemination of Germanism which caused the trouble.
We not only have a right, but it is our duty to protest against the development of any “ism” which is contrary to our ideals of government. But that does not mean that we must shut ourselves from all the world like the stupid ostrich. We should master more languages, we should learn more concerning other countries, we should welcome the finer ideals of all the nations of the earth, but we should make use of all this for our own purposes, for strengthening the foundations of our institutions, and for the enrichment of our own ideals. And in all these efforts we will receive the heartty help of all the grateful foreigners who come to us, if we but use judgment and “interpret Americanism by our kindness, our courage ,our generosity, our fairness”, and do not permit ourselves to be influenced by those whose interests are not unselfish.
Chas. J. Vopička, American minister to Roumania, who received a few weeks ago the highest Roumanian decoration for his services during the war, has returned to his home in Chicago on a leave of absence.
At the graduation exercises of the Cleveland School of Art the first place among the five best pupils was awarded to a young Czech painter, Joseph Jicha, whose oil paintings gained him much praise. He received the Mary Bradford fellowship. Among other graduates was also Miss Helen Srp of Bedford, O., who devotes her talent to landscape painting and etchings.
