WHERE GARMENTS and AMERICANS are MADE STORY OF SICKER SYSTEM OF FACTORY EDUCATION FOR AMERICANIZATION OF FOREIGNERS, CONDUCTED IN CO-OPERA- TION WITH THE NEW YORK BOARD OF EDUCATION. A Challenge to Hyphenatism S 03 GIFT OF Where Garments and Americans are Made Published in Response to a Growing Demand for Information on the Sub- ject from Educators, Manufacturers, Social Workers, Clergymen, and Publicists. Where Garments and Americans are Made Story of Sicher System of Factory Education for Americanization of Foreigners, Con- ducted in Co-operation with New York Board of Education A Challenge to Hyphenatism BY JESSIE HOWELL MAcCARTHY (Formerly Teacher at Pratt Institute and Hebrew Technical School for Girlg, New York City) NEW YORK WRITERS' PUBLISHING CO. LONDON AGENTS ARTHUR F. BIRD 22 BEDFORD ST., STRAND COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY JESSIE HOWELL MACCARTHY TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE CHAPTER I i Fore-pages Summary of the Idea; Sicher Factory and Board of Education Americanizing Foreigners Who Are Paid While Learning; National Extension of System Proposed. CHAPTER II 7 The Immigrant, a Potential American; Immigration a National Necessity; Injustice of Native Born Hostility; Immigrants Built Great Railroads and Tamed the Savage; Mayflower and First Families of Virginia Stock, Descendants of Immigrants; British, Italian, Slavic and Jewish Elements in American Life; Ellis Island the Ladle of the Melting Pot; Immigrants Come Here to Escape Exploitation, Military Service, Despotism, Religious and Political Persecution; Illiteracy a National Menace; Edu- cation Its Cure. CHAPTER III 14 A School in a Factory Corner; Illiterate Immigrant Typified in Marja, Imaginary Peasant Girl; Her Study Course Embraces, Correspondence Business Intercourse, Social Intercourse, Post-office Regulations, Geography, Writing, Reading, Spelling, and Language. Civics Origin of Legal Holidays, Lives of Statesmen, History, Good Citizenship, Merits of Our System of Govern- ment; Other Systems of Government, Patriotism. Hygiene Personal Cleanliness, Physical Culture, First Aid to the Injured, Foods Their Nutritive Value. Mathematics in Its Personal Application As a Money Medium of Exchange; Personal Expense Accounts; Work Re- ports; Table of Weights and Measures, and Four Fundamental Operations Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, and Di- vision. Evolution of an Undergarment Geography, Physical and Political; Shipping; Manufacture; Economic; Bleaching, Spin- ning; Cotton Plant and History. [ml 3597*8 Table of Contents CHAPTER PAGE Practical Information Local Laws; Health and Safety; Routes of City Travel; The Alphabet as a Guide to Common Things Consulting the Dictionary, Directory, Telephone Book, Want Advertisements, and the Like, Where Alphabet- ical Arrangement Is Used. How to Use Methods of Communication Letter Writing, the Telephone and Telegraph. CHAPTER IV 26 First Graduating Class of Forty Girls Made Literate by Three- quarters of an Hour's Daily Instruction for Thirty- five Weeks; Studied While Working; Educators and Social Workers, Such as Dr. William H. Maxwell, Professor John H. Finley, P. P. Claxton, Arthur D. Dean, Mrs. Anne Hedges Talbot, Mary Antin, Lizzie E. Rector, Anne Morgan, See Girls Get Certifi- cates of Literacy. CHAPTER V 34 The Service Department; Mrs. Claribel Gedge Hill, Social Ser- vice Expert in Charge; Recreation Hall; Hospital; Circulating Library; Lectures; Dances; Musical Entertainments; Hygiene and Improved Living Conditions; Dressmaking Class; Factory Lunch Room; Cleanliness and Orderliness in Distinction from Waste and Slovenliness; Care of the Girl's Health. CHAPTER VI 42 The School as it is To-day; New and Improved Plan of Study Carried on by Miss Ray J. Heirbroner. CHAPTER VII 53 Is It Worth While? Mr. Sicher Proves That It Is; Literacy Improves Efficiency and Earning Power and Employer Gets Back Cost in Service; Figures Showing Expense of School for One Season. EPILOGUE 56 Vision of the Day When a Wider Humanity and Co-operation of All National and Social Forces Will Take the Place of Hatred, Exploitation and War. [iv] WHERE GARMENTS AND AMERICANS ARE MADE CHAPTER I FORE-PAGESSUMMARY OF THE IDEA Invective and abuse will not drive the hy- phen out of our national life. That can only be done through a process of education, when it can be demonstrated that a man with two countries belongs to none, and that here we have the highest ideals and the finest country in the world. LEWIS H. POUNDS, President of Brooklyn Borough, New York City, in address to Public School teachers, Sept. 14, 1916. IT is my purpose in this little book to tell the story of an interesting experiment, absolutely unique in the annals of education the transforming of illit- erate foreigners into literate, intelligent, alert, self- respecting, efficient Americans. Long before the demagogic politician learned the magic that lay hid- II 'here Garments ond Americans Are Made den in the catch cry, "Hyphenated American/' and began to use it as a sort of campaign fanfare, Mr. Dudley D. Sicher, of D. E. Sicher & Co., No. 49 West 2 ist Street, Manhattan Borough, New York City, the largest manufacturers of muslin under- wear in the world, had undertaken, with the co- operation of the New York City Board of Educa- tion, the task of turning illiterate foreigners into literate Americans by teaching them in the factory while engaged at their work. "We aim," Mr. Sicher explains, "to hasten as- similation necessary to national unity; to promote industrial betterment by reducing the friction caused by failure to comprehend directions, and to decrease the waste and loss that always mark the presence of the illiterate worker." In its beginning the factory school was humble, just as the beginnings of the educational ideas of Pestalozzi, Froebel and Montessori were humble, but the day will come when this little school will be the Mecca, the holy place of a movement that is certain to spread as employers of labor catch glimpses of the dawn of the better day. It is backed by the faith and money of Mr. Sicher, the solid support of the Board of Education, and the active [2] NEW GROUP OF FACTORY STUDENTS FROM WAR ZONE Fore-Pages Summary of the Idea and enthusiastic cooperation of Mr. P. P. Claxton, United States Commissioner of Education; Pro- fessor John H. Finley, and his associates, Mr. Arthur D. Dean and Mrs. Anne Hedges Talbot of the New York State Board of Education; Mr. Wil- liam H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools, New York City; Miss Lizzie E. Rector, Dr. Julius Sachs, Mary Antin, author of 'The Promised Land"; Pro- fessor Jeremiah W. Jenks of New York University School of Commerce, and hosts of others. The experiment, now in its third year, has dem- onstrated that in thirty-five weeks the illiterate girl, foreign born and trained, can be transformed into a literate American woman with a good mental equipment and social knowledge essential for the battle of life. This school, in its conception and the potentialities that lay back of it, is an original, epochal idea worked out into definite, concrete form, and is in no sense a continuation school or part time factory school as some educators and writers with imperfect knowledge of its methods have mis- takenly believed. It is a school where girls are taught in actual working time by a teacher from the New York Public Schools, and is perhaps the Where Garments and Americans Are Made only Factory school in the world where pupils are paid while learning. With three-quarters of an hour's training daily while the work of the factory goes on uninterrupt- edly, each pupil receives practical instruction in the speaking and writing of the English language, the composing of personal and business letters, the fun- damentals of arithmetic, history and civic govern- ment, good citizenship, local ordinances, hygiene and sanitation, the industrial evolution of the prod- uct they handle from the cotton fields to the ma- chines they operate, and the mysteries of commu- nication so puzzling to the foreigner the use of the telephone and city directory, the sending of telegrams and letters, and the finding of one's way in the city streets. No frills, no text-books, all emi- nently practical knowledge so presented that it is never forgotten. And all throughout the working day in the fac- tory and in the school a Social Service expert is ever present to mother the girls, counsel them, and when injured to give them first aid in the little factory hospital. The girl's health and social side Mr. Sicher considers quite as important as her men- tal training. [4] Fore-Pages Summary of the Idea Mention has been made of some of the noted edu- cators and social workers that have been watching the progress made by this school since its incep- tion three years ago. It has recently attracted the attention of the National Americanization Commit- tee with offices at No. 18 West Thirty-fourth Street, New York City, and this Committee is now actively encouraging the work of the school. The represen- tative, solid character of this Committee may be seen by a glance at the names appended : Officers and Executive Committee : Frank Trum- bull, Chairman; Percy R. Pyne, 2nd, ist Vice- Chairman; Mrs. Edward T. Stotesbury, 2nd Vice- Chairman; William Sproule, 3rd Vice-Chairman ; Wm. Fellowes Morgan, Treasurer; Mrs. Vincent Astor, Frances A. Kellor, Peter Roberts, Mrs. Cor- nelius Vanderbilt, Felix M. Warburg. Leading members of the Committee are: Mary Antin, Robert Bacon, Edward Osgood Brown, Nicholas Murray Butler, P. P. Claxton, Richard T. Crane, Henry P. Davison, Coleman Du Pont, Thomas A. Edison, Howard Elliott, John H. Fahey, Maurice Fels, John H. Finley, David R. Francis, Elbert H. Gary, James, Cardinal Gibbons, Clarence N. Goodwin, Benjamin F. Harris, Myron T. Her- isl Where Garments and Americans Are Made rick, John Grier Hibben, Henry L. Higginson, Fred- eric C. Howe, Charles H. Ingersoll, Dr. Abraham Jacobi, Chancellor L. Jenks, Judge Manuel Levine, Clarence H. Mackay, C. H. Markham, Alfred E. Marling, Charles E. Mason, Wyndham Meredith, George von L. Meyer, John Mitchell, A. J. Mon- tague, John H. Moore, Joseph C. Pelletier, Samuel Rea, Julius Rosenwald, M. J. Sanders, Jacob H. Schiff, Bishop Thomas Shahan, Melville E. Stone, Mrs, William C. Story, William H. Truesdale, Rod- man Wanamaker, S. Davies Warfield, Charles B. Warren, Benjamin Ide Wheeler, General Leonard Wood. * As I write I learn that Mr. Sicher is already formulating plans to call a National Congress of manufacturers, educators, publicists and statesmen to consider this whole question of the illiterate worker and the Americanization of the foreigner through the cooperation of the factories, schools and government. While waiting for the eugenic millennium he believes in improving the raw, hu- man material he finds at hand. That his faith is justified will be shown in the chapters that follow. [6] CHAPTER II THE IMMIGRANT A POTENTIAL AMERICAN In a letter written by State Commissioner of Education John H. Finley to President J. War- rant Castleman of the Rochester Board of Edu- cation, Dr. Finley said that but two important movements for the education of the foreigner had attracted his attention in the State during the past year, one being the work done by Mr. Charles E. Finch in the Rochester schools and the other that of the D. E. Sicher Co. of New York City. Rochester (N. Y.) Evening Times. There is a menace to any country in the pres- ence of a large number of illiterates. Last year in New York City the Board of Edu- cation conducted a regular class in a private factory (D. E. Sicher Co.). This is cited merely as an instance of the flexibility possible to public school systems. Only such effort on the part of the department of education sup- ported by a governmental policy can work out for the immigrant an educational system which will make him socially and industrially compe- [7] Where Garments and Americans Are Made tent in American life. Albany (N. Y.) Jour- nal, Dec. i, 1914. THE European peasant, oppressed by his govern- ment and exploited by great landowners and privi- leged classes, looks longingly, yearningly, toward the land of the setting sun. When his ship enters the Narrows of New York Bay, the first sight that bursts upon his vision is the Statue of Liberty, and he lands at Ellis Island, not a ward of the nation, but a potential American. Mere naturalization pa- pers will not effect his metamorphosis into a real American. This can only be effected through edu- cation and America's leading educators are unani- mous in the opinion that the Sicher system is the best yet devised. Superficial folk with narrow-gauge brains speak of the menace of immigration as though it were a new agency to work evil upon the native born, but it is as old as the eternal hills and is charac- teristic of all climes and all ages. Immigration is no longer haphazard as in earlier days of the Re- public, but is now restricted and selective. When the native American objects to immigrants on the ground that they huddle together amid squalid, un- [8] The Immigrant A Potential American sanitary surroundings in crowded sections of the cities, lowering standards of living as well as of wages, he should remember that his own kindred own these rookeries of the slums and are the em- ployers of the ignorant foreigners. There is in- deed need of the "uplift" among the unscrupulous rich. This tendency of the native born to despise the foreigner worked hardship upon the Irish in the early days, just as to-day it works hardship upon the Italian, the Jew and the Slav. The native Amer- ican is too often forgetful of the fact that he, too, is the son of an immigrant. In the days before the ocean steamships and the trans-continental rail- roads, when man battled with nature for the con- quest of a continent and romance was in the land, it was the immigrant who bore the brunt of the fighting with wild beast and fiercer savage. Our first immigrants came almost wholly from the British Islands, especially from Ireland, fur- nishing America with those super-laborers, the red- blooded, steel-muscled navvies (now displaced by Italians) who built the Hoosac Tunnel and the great railroads that are spread net-like throughout the continent. [9] Where Garments and Americans Are Made After 1848 the collapse of the Revolutionary movement in Europe started the vast German im- migration that has stopped only with the present European war. Toward the close of the nineteenth century northern European immigration declined, and south- ern Europe, notably Italy, began sending her sons and daughters to these shores. So, too, the Slavic stock of Austria-Hungary, and the oppressed Jews of Russia and Poland, began to flow into the great Melting Pot whose ladle is Ellis Island. The reasons that induce these people to flock thither are the desire to better economic conditions that make it impossible to maintain decent living standards in the home lands; to escape compulsory military duty, governmental despotism, ever increas- ing tax burdens, religious and political persecutions. It was this last reason that sent the Pilgrims across the Atlantic in the Mayflower and that brought to America thousands of Huguenots after the Rev- ocation of the Edict of Nantes. Native Americans must reconcile themselves to the fact that immigration is a permanent, fixed re- ality. The world has no longer place for the her- mit nation with an ever-ingrowing civilization such [10] The Immigrant A Potential American as characterized old China. Ellis Island is as fixed an institution as the government at Washington. The native can find consolation, however, in the knowledge that since 1882 the United States has been growing every year more strict, so that now diseased persons, criminals, defectives and paupers are not knowingly poured into the Melting Pot. Contract labor laws passed since 1885 make it im- possible for unscrupulous employers to bring over hordes of immigrants whose cheap labor supplants native American workmen, and the doors have been closed completely to the yellow races. It is with the later immigration sent here by non- English speaking races, alien not only in speech but in manner of life from ourselves, that the Sicher System of Factory Education deals specifically, for this immigration is, to an alarming extent, illiterate and ignorant of decent, sanitary living conditions. Dr. and Mrs. Winthrop Talbot have rendered services of great value in connection with the fac- tory school, which Mr. Sicher gratefully acknowl- edges. Dr. Talbot is America's leading authority on the subject of illiteracy and is also one of the editors of the New York Medical Journal. Mrs. Talbot is a Ph.D. (Columbia University) and a Where Garments and Americans Are Made recognized authority throughout the United States on the subject of vocational training for girls. Dr. Talbot asserts that, since 1908, the United States has received 4,406,413 illiterate immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe, all ignorant of English, and more than 1,300,000 unable to read and write in any language. In New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1910 there were 873,812 illiterates, of whom 767,587 were either aliens or the children of aliens. How this illiteracy reacts unfavorably upon labor Dr. Talbot points out in the following ob- servations born of long thinking and the study of statistics: "There is a close connection between illiteracy and the sweat shop. Not only in cities, but also in country towns and villages, it is possi- ble for an ambitious and conscienceless man with a little capital to hire space in a tenement or loft building and exploit the labor of ignorant immi- grants, thus demoralizing the trade and working great harm to the people whose immediate need for wages he has met. He thus competes unfairly with the established firms whose success depend on good management, and not on the exploitation of cheap labor. As the enlightened employer pays [12] The Immigrant A Potential American attention more and more closely to the study of waste and cost, the importance of the human me- chanics of production, in distinction to machines and materials, is made clear to him. He perceives more clearly the economic disadvantages which result from ignorance, disease, stupidity and lack of dexterity among his workers, and against these evils he directs his energies." Night schools can reach but a small portion of these illiterates, Mr. Sicher is convinced, because of the lack of initiative and ambition on the part of the foreigner, and the greater lure of the saloon, the dance hall, the moving picture house, and the street corner which often becomes to him what the market place was to the ancient Greek, with the difference that the Athenian heard notable discus- sions of public matters from great men, and learned great truths from the lips of philosophers, whereas the illiterate foreigner often imbibes unwholesome ideas from reckless soap-box orators. For hyphenatism and illiteracy there is only one cure the factory school in cooperation with the public school system. [13] CHAPTER III A SCHOOL IN A FACTORY CORNER THE STORY OF MARJA I wish you would write me a brief but com- plete statement of the work done in the Sicher factory school last winter. With your permis- sion I wish to put the substance of it in a mul- tigraphed letter to send to school superintend- ents, high school principals and others through- out the country. I am very much interested in your work. You have, I believe, hit upon the most practical method yet for teaching these older immigrant boys and girls. P. P. CLAX- TON, Commissioner United States Bureau of Education, to Miss LIZZIE E. RECTOR. I had to travel all night in order to reach my desk this morning, but I do not regret the jour- ney with all its discomforts since I have the memory of such an uncommon and stirring ex- perience as your experiment has made possible. I hope that what you have done is but a prophecy of a greater achievement in this field. PROFESSOR JOHN H. FINLEY to MR. SICHER. [14] / School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja I want to send you a line of congratulation on the sociological work you are carrying out at your shop. I have been following it up with great interest, and some of those who have co- operated with you, like Miss Anne C. Hedges (now Mrs. Talbot), are people I am particu- larly interested in. Your work makes so strong an appeal to me because you do not urge the philanthropic side, but are convinced that it will eventually redound to the benefit of the employer through the increased intelligence that you are endeavoring to propagate. DR. JULIUS SACHS to MR. SICKER. LET us typify our illiterate immigrant in the per- son of Marja, an imaginary peasant girl who has been in America but a short time when we make her acquaintance as she stands beside a power ma- chine in the muslin underwear factory of the D. E. Sicher Co. Perplexed melancholy is depicted in her dark expressive face, and determination deter- mination to make good in this rushing, enigmatical America which they call free and of whose citizenry she has elected to become a part. The forewoman to whom she has been assigned by Mr. Jacob Salsberg, the superintendent, smiles as she tries to initiate Marja into the mysteries Where Garments and Americans Are Made of the power machine. The language of a smile is the same in all countries and the tense expression leaves Marja's features at this note of sympathy, and she follows closely each movement of her in- structor. She longs to understand what she is say- ing, and means to do so, for already she is in at- tendance at the factory school for three-quarters of an hour daily. In her own country Marja had learned to read and write, but this new language is so different and so difficult. As the bell rings she stops her ma- chine and walks eagerly to the little school in a corner of the fifth floor. A part of the Recreation Hall has been partitioned off to screen the pupils from the inquisitive eyes of other factory workers or casual visitors. The whir of machines is heard faintly through the partition, and Marja hears the sounds of factory work going on around her. It all reminds her that her pay goes on while she is studying. This little classroom. is very simple and practical in its appointments. Window boxes filled w r ith growing plants add a softening note of color, and flags of all nations wave as peacefully together as if they had never represented hostile armies facing A School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja each other in a life and death struggle. There are maps on the wall and charts showing that other immigrant girls have labored successfully in the school as Marja is doing now. These charts bear witness that they have accom- plished seemingly impossible feats, and Marja feels very much encouraged. She is still further heart- ened when she sees the sweet face of President Woodrow Wilson's daughter Jessie smiling at her from its place on the wall. Marja knows that the President's daughter wishes her to become a good American, for she was one of the delegation of factory girls that accompanied Mrs. Claribel Gedge Hill, the Service Worker at the Sicher factory, to Washington to present Miss Wilson with a lace petticoat for her trousseau, just before her mar- riage. Marja feels a sense of pride and elation when she remembers that she had worked upon that petticoat. Marja studies all the more eagerly, as she is un- der no compulsion to attend the school. She does it of her own free will and her progress is rapid be- cause her presence is a voluntary act. The school was started October 14, 1913, and has had from the beginning the cooperation of the New York Where Garments and Americans Are Made Board of Education. Mr. Sicher had the benefit of advice and suggestions from such practical edu- cators and vocational experts as Miss Lizzie E. Rec- tor, principal of Public School No. 4, in Rivington Street, the heart of a great foreign population in New York, and Mrs. Anne Hedges Talbot, now of the New York State Board of Education and ac- tively associated with Professor Finley and Mr. Dean. When Miss Florence Myers took her place before Marja as teacher, the little peasant girl felt sure that she would learn. Miss Rector had selected Miss Myers from her own staff of teachers and she had chosen wisely. Miss Myers was more than teacher to the class that included Russians, Hungarians, Poles, Italians, Austrians and Germans. She was vitally interested from the start and lay awake at night contriving ways and means to make literate Americans out of her polyglot pupils. Many of them had never been to school even in their own country and it was necessary to arouse their in- terest in things of everyday life. Marja and the other girls learn English in the natural way in which a language is acquired by the growing child, in expressing its needs. There [18] A School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja are no text-books to frighten the pupils with sug- gestion of things cryptic and occult. They are not called upon to memorize such gems as this which are characteristic of books that profess to teach languages: "Did the Syrian with the red leather shoes and golden heels speak to the Lithuanian with the red hair and silken robe?" Miss Myers, among other things, showed Marja a picture of a woman combing her hair and ex- plained it to her over and over until the girl un- derstood. A few weeks later, when Marja had learned to speak, read and write English a little, she surprised Miss Myers with this essay on the picture : "She wishes to comb her hair. She takes the comb in her hand. She combs her hair. She takes the brush in her hand. She brushes her hair. She combs and brushes her hair every morning. She washes her hair with soap and water." Thus Marja has learned personal hygiene and English at one fell stroke. I might cite hundreds of like illus- trations of Marja's progress from a green peasant girl to an intelligent American young woman. Many responsibilities are on Marja's shoulders and she has come to America to make money. What more simple method could an instructor employ to Where Garments and Americans Are Made teach arithmetic than to use the currency of the Republic? Silver coins and greenbacks were Miss Myers' only text-books. The various denomina- tions were set before Marja and the other pupils and they were taught to make change. Thus they acquired in an easy manner a knowledge of addi- J:ion, subtraction, multiplication and division, in- culcated along with a familiarity with the money that they must use daily. Arithmetical knowledge leads to the subject of personal accounts which Marja is taught to keep, and when weights and measures are introduced she is interested because of her economic necessities. She soon learns thrift and in its train follows its natural handmaiden, orderliness. With Marja the dull, monotonous grind of work- ing a certain number of hours a week for a fixed wage is gradually changing into a thirst for knowl- edge and she sings at her work, the whir of the machine acting as an accompaniment. Quick, alert movements tell of increasing mental power. As she runs up the long seams of the muslin undergarment she recites to herself the history of its evolution that she has learned in the little factory school. She allows herself to be carried in fancy to the cotton [20] A School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja fields of Dixie and she sees the negroes picking the white fluff under the scorching sun. She watches the operation of preparing the commodity for use and the labor of packing it into bales. She folfows it north by steamship and rail, thus receiving a lesson in geography, and when it is brought to the mills and the spinning and weaving commence, Marja is intensely interested, for she knows that soon many huge bolts of it will be received at the factory where she is employed to be cut into gar- ments on which later she and the other five or six hundred girls around her will work. Marja's awakening mentality carries her interest to the mechanism of the power machine that she operates and she studies it closely, for she now re- alizes that a machine is useless without intelligent human direction. She is no longer like the woman who put raw meat into her fireless cooker with- out either hot water or hot disks and complained that it did not cook. Marja could tell that benighted person that successful operation is due entirely to human initiative. Since coming to America Marja has written many letters to her friends in the old country, but here she is making new friends to whom it will be [21] Where Garments and Americans Are Made necessary to write in English. She learns in the factory school to express her ideas in good English, to spell correctly, and to group words properly in sentences. This leads by natural gradation to the composing of personal and business letters. Post- office regulations and methods she learns by actual experience. When she has mailed her letter she is advised to trace its journey on the map or globe and another lesson in geography is acquired, never to be forgotten. She traces imaginary letters to different points in America and to the furthermost parts of the earth. It is essential in her study of means of commu- nication that she know how to get about the city in which she lives. Practice soon makes the tele- phone book and directory open books to her and through these she is initiated into the mysteries of the wonderful system of alphabetical arrangement which will make it easy for her later to use the dictionary. A city map is given her and with slight instruction she is able to find her way about and to recognize the important public buildings and points of interest. There is a telephone in the class- room and Marja is taught its use. Actual telegraph blanks are used so that she may learn how to send [22] A School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja messages by wire and cable to all parts of the world. The eye, you will note, is trained as well as the ear by this method of reaching and awakening the illiterate mind. With her increased intelligence comes increased efficiency and Marja sees the contents of her en- velope growing as the pay days come and go. This is a keen incentive and she feels that the more she knows of her adopted country and its ways, the more will be her earning capacity. The word Civics is not included in Marja's vocabulary, but when she finds the neighborhood in which she lives improv- ing and speaks of it to her teacher, a full explana- tion is given her which involves a knowledge of history, and in the Sicher school this means par- ticularly United States history. Marja had .heard vaguely in her own country of Washington and Lincoln. Now she learns all about them and about the other statesmen who have built up this wonderful country that is rapidly becoming hers also. She learns of the origin and meaning of legal holidays, of our plan of government, so different from her own. She learns the true mean- ing of patriotism and this leads to a comprehension of the ideal of true citizenship. [23] Where Garments and Americans Are Made Many practical things are taught in Marja's lit- tle factory school, things for which she has daily use, and although she has not heard of John Wesley and may never hear of him, she soon indorses his principle that "Cleanliness is next to godliness/' Hygiene is taught, and personal cleanliness how to keep her work and home surroundings neat and tidy. Physical culture is a part of the course of study and serves to offset false habits of life and to im- prove the health. The drudgery of work and the long periods at the machine seem less arduous after ten minutes devoted to gymnastic exercises which include proper breathing, etc. Marja is interested in the first aid to the in- jured demonstration, as on several occasions it was necessary for her to come to the relief of an injured comrade. The nutritive value of foods and dietetics are explained and Marja prepares her simple meals and does her buying with intelligence. Step by step, and all in an eminently practical way, she gains knowledge of important ordinances, health and tenement house laws, traffic regulations, the fire drill, and safety first principles. She comes A School in a Factory Corner Story of Marja to see that law is not tyranny and that license is not liberty, and when she goes a-gypsying to the public parks on her holidays she will not be among those that leave the remains of lunch or old news- papers to litter up the public's breathing places. All this develops in her ideas of order, discipline, self- esteem and the courtesy that is always mindful of the rights of others. [25] CHAPTER IV FIRST GRADUATING CLASS The factory school isn't an experiment any longer, but a success. MARGUERITE MOOERS MARSHALL. If it (the Sicher School system) could only be extended, it would reach thousands of men and women who, coming to America in the full expectation of learning English, find the work too hard, hours of leisure too short, and so- cial surroundings wholly unfavorable. New York Evening Post. Forty immigrant lassies with one year's teaching, forty-five minutes a day, have bloomed out into intelligent, educated and cul- tivated young women. And it has all been done with the aid of the Board of Education right in the shop where they work splendid exam- ple of altruism in modern business. ZOE BECKLEY in New York Evening Mail First Graduating Class It is odd indeed that with all our schools, churches, philanthropies, sociologists, econo- mists, reformers, charitable societies and municipal or legislative investigators and ex- aminers, we have not provided this kind of instruction long ago. But it is better late than never. New York Evening World. This reduction of humanitarianism to a golden rule will be closely watched by the en- tire business world. The experiment may not only result in an industrial renaissance, but an elevating influence will be carried into immi- grant families, generally ignorant of civic re- sponsibility, eugenics and right living. Lima (Ohio) News. IT was a proud moment for Marja when, on the night of June 4, 1914, she took her place with forty other girls on the platform built by the factory boys in the center of the Recreation Hall of the Sicher factory, as one of the first graduates of this destined-to-be-historic factory school. Her associate graduates were all between the ages of eighteen and twenty- three years and but eight months before this test-of -efficiency night not one of them could express herself in English. [27] Where Garments and Americans Are Made Each girl had made her own filmy white gown for this occasion and the fresh daintiness of each was but another tribute to the efficacy of increased mentality. Under the direction of the Board of Education and amongst such educators and social workers as Dr. J. H. Finley, of the New York State Board of Education ; William H. Maxwell, city Superintend- ent of the New York Public Schools; Dr. Winthrop Talbot, Mrs. Anne Hedges Talbot, Miss Lizzie E. Rector, Miss Anne Morgan, Marja and her asso- ciates felt encouraged, especially when they found that these men and women were able to understand them in their newly acquired English. District Superintendent Henry E. Jenkins of New York's public school system presided and the girls felt exultation within them as he spoke of the day when this unique factory school system would spread throughout the country, everywhere slaying the dragon of illiteracy. As the exercises opened Marja and the girls sa- luted the Stars and Stripes the flag of their adop- tion, and in chorus sang "America" with a fervency that proved that it was now their anthem as much as it was the anthem of any who traced their de- First Graduating Class scent to the Mayflower stock or a first family of Virginia immigrants of an earlier day. In the newly acquired English and with delight- ful intonation little Rebecca Meyer, Austrian born, delivered the greeting. 'This education," she said in her pretty way, "has given us a better and broader view of life and of our surroundings. We see what a power education is and how many opportunities it offers for our advancement in life. We find pleas- ure in our work now, for we have a better under- standing of our machines and materials. We hope to show you to-night in how many ways we have benefited by this instruction. If we make mistakes, please overlook them. Remember how hard it must have been for us to grasp all these new things, how short a time we have had to learn them." Minnie Spinrad, Pauline Deutsch, Ethel Brown, Mollie Tobowitz, Mary Wilpan, and Rose Clemens read essays on the evolution of an undergarment; Antoinette Flore went through the test of showing how to make out a work day report, and golden- haired Josie Yarashevitz told how to go about the getting of a position. Writing of it afterward the New York Evening Post said : "How their hands did shake as they held [29] Where Garments and Americans Are Made the paper. Perhaps yours would have shaken too, if you had been telling of the evolution of an under- garment, in Polish or Russian, having studied the language for a few weeks." The hot June night in the hall, crowded with in- terested spectators from all over the city, made a trying ordeal of the work in physical training, but the class unflinchingly went through the schedule of deep breathing, forward bending, running in place, and various other exercises that are of infinite bene- fit to girls who spend long hours sitting at machines. Mr. Dudley D. Sicher, founder of the School and the man behind the idea, spoke briefly, but hope- fully of the day when the factory school would be a nation-wide institution. "In order to extend this work of reducing il- literacy among the half million adults, mostly immi- grants in the City of New York, the active coopera- tion," he declared, "of school authorities, employees, labor unions, industrial authorities and the public is needed. It is the present belief of the firm that the workers who have been thus trained have gained from twenty to seventy per cent, in efficiency." Marja glowed. She had become one of the [30] First Graduating Class literate and efficient, and in her happiness she forgot the trials and vexations of her first lessons. In an editorial review, the next day, of this fea- ture of the graduation, the New York Evening World said: "What the Sicher School for Immi- grants has done for these girls, through brief, daily instruction on the premises where they work, must at least stir the public to a realization of the wonder- ful possibilities that lie in the factory school." Dr. Maxwell was emphatic in his endorsement of the system and the good it was destined to do. He told a story of a girl, foreign born, and ignorant of English, who had lost an arm while working at a machine. Marja listened eagerly and nodded assent when Dr. Maxwell declared that the accident could not have happened had the girl received training such as is given in the Sicher school. "The accident could have been prevented," Dr. Maxwell said, "if the employer had taught her first the common tongue of communication. I pledged myself then to leave no stone unturned to develop our school system and branch it out among our for- eign born workers. This graduation class is the first result, and it is creditable to all concerned. When will the conscience of New Yorkers awake and make Where Garments and Americans Are Made them unloose the purse-strings of the Board of Esti- mate and Apportionment to establish trade schools that should be the next step in industrial education ?" Dr. Finley, who had put aside every other engage- ment so that he could be present to see Marja and her friends receive their certificates of literacy, called forth much enthusiasm by his whole-hearted, sincere indorsement of the system. "New York," said Dr. Finley, "is the only State in the Union that has not decreased its illiteracy in the last ten years." Then, while Marja and the girls led the applause, he added this prophecy born of what he had seen that evening : "In the next decade New York will show a literacy percentage as big as even that of Massachusetts." Mary Antin, author of "The Promised Land," perhaps more than any one else, interested Marja, for Mary Antin, like herself, had come here an im- migrant girl, with little in her trunk save a Pan- dora box with its precious freight of hope. Marja had this in mind, when, her voice broken with emotion, Mary Antin said : "Oh, girls, you must understand it. You are not just Minnie and Mary and Mollie and Rose. You are witnesses, each one of you. As you go out, show how much you [32] First Graduating Class have grown by such things that were done here. You prove that it is worth while. Everywhere you go you are witnesses that America is sincere. We, the people of this country, mean to live up to all these things for which our flag stands." Marja could hardly keep her seat when Mary Antin, her face alight with the fire that burned within her, turned to the girls and said : "Talk about being shut up in factory walls ! Fac- tory walls could not keep your share of opportunity from you. It came to you. Your teachers came to you at your work and brought you that which is your own, and as you take it, as you use it, so will the world come to believe gradually more and more in those things for which we stand as a people. Your opportunity is endless. See how it found you, even inside of your workshop! You have better chances than some who are free outside and do not know how to use their freedom. . . . You will help this country solve her problems." "But what of Marja?" I hear the reader say. "Did she not speak?" She smiles out at you from the faces of all of them, for Marja is a composite girl, a little of each. [33] CHAPTER V THE SERVICE DEPARTMENT Cooperation Means Success. Motto of the Sicker Employees. ONE day while Marja was looking at a picture of an Egyptian pyramid, Miss Myers told her the story of its building how one hundred thousand slaves worked for twenty years under the urge of the lash, so that an old Pharaoh might have an imposing tomb to rest in when his fitful life was ended. Marja wonders what the old Egyptian tyrant would think of modern labor conditions were he to enter the Recreation Hall of the Sicher factory during the noon hour and see the employees, some dancing to music by the piano or victrola, others playing games or looking over fashion or other magazines laid out on a long table, and still others lounging in com- fortable chairs in utter relaxation. On special days he would see employees listening to instructive lec- tures or enjoying a musical entertainment. [34] The Service Department No doubt Pharaoh would hold up his idle hands in deprecation of "these degenerate days," but Marja would pull his ancient beard in true Amer- ican fashion and exclaim, "You old fossil, do not dare to compare your anaemic, spiritless workers with these free, happy young Americans who could aspire to anything, even the throne of Egypt were it worth while." When Mr. Sicher looked about him for an expert to take charge of his Service Department, he found the ideal person in Mrs. Claribel Gedge Hill of Cleveland, O. Mrs. Hill is a registered nurse, and at the time of the Dayton flood was among the first to be sent by the Red Cross Society to the relief of the sufferers. In rubber boots and coat she worked day and night in a dimly lighted public building where the victims had flocked for safety. She brought to Mr. Sicher's Service Department the zeal and tirelessness perhaps born of the exactions of trained nursing and a career in sociological work. The broad democracy of her mind made her the very person for this service in a factory where so many nationalities are employed. With Mr. Sicher and Mr. Salsberg, Mrs. Hill faced and solved each problem that presented itself in establishing for the [35] Where Garments and Americans Are Made first time a Service Department in a muslin under- wear factory in New York City. Space on the fifth floor was allotted for a large Recreation Hall, and this was furnished with plenty of comfortable chairs, a piano, a victrola, with many dance and popular song records, and long tables containing magazines and books. An emer- gency hospital was built in one corner of the Recrea- tion Hall with bed and medicine cabinets, and also a small private office where Mrs. Hill has many talks of a confidential nature with employees in distress. Mr. Sicher is ever ready to put his hand in his pocket to relieve the sufferings of his employees. At his expense many girls, run down in health, have been sent for weeks and even months to health re- sorts until they were cured and could resume work. In the little hospital Mrs. Hill assured me that she often treats, in a single day, the minor ills of twenty employees. In Mrs. Hill's tiny private office is also a free cir- culating library, a branch of the New York Public Library, maintained for the convenience of the em- ployees. Also in cooperation with the New York Public Library a series of talks has been given in [36] The Service Department the Recreation Hall by the head of the Story Telling Department. The Service Department had been in existence a little more than three years when the European War broke out and Mrs. Hill received a call from the Red Cross Society to be in readiness. With the obedience of a good soldier she packed her trunk, but Mr. Sicher proved to her that her place was with the immigrant girls who were in the transition, formative stage, from green, illiterate foreigners, to Americans, unhampered by a hyphen. After Marja had been in attendance at the factory school for several months she was able to spell out the notices on the bulletin boards placed throughout the factory. She knew on just what day there would be in the Recreation Hall one of the series of lectures on health and sanitation given in coopera- tion with the New York Board of Health; on what day would fall the weekly Song Review; on what day there would be music to feed her hungry soul. Marja could not yet afford to go to the opera, but she soon made friends with one of the girls who would read aloud and explain to her the librettos of the operas which could be borrowed from Mrs. Hill from time to time. [37] Where Garments and Americans Are Made Marja is much amused when she tries to learn the American dances one noon each week, but she is full of youthful energy and with her expanding mentality yearns to learn everything. She reads the books and magazines, and her artistic side finds pleasure in the pictures. In the fashion magazines she selects simple dresses, which she makes herself in the dress-making class which is held one evening a week under the direction of a competent teacher. The charge of fifty cents for five lessons is made for this, but with pencil and paper Marja can now figure out how much she can save on her clothes by this method. She finds, too, that she can buy ma- terial at wholesale prices at the factory, which is a saving on many of her garments. This is the only night work that Marja does, and it is on but one night in the week. Of course Marja attends the evening entertain- ments that are held in the Recreation Hall during the winter. At these she meets most of the girls who are in other departments and on other floors than the one on which she works. She also meets the young men and the sweethearts from the outside, who are invited to come. Marja dances and joins in most of the sports and goes home refreshed and [38] The Service Department happy that she can take even a small part in the pleasures of these people who are fast becoming her people. There are noon hours when the Recreation Hall is not being used for lectures or special entertain- ments, and it is then that Marja might have desig- nated the noise as "Bedlam let loose," had she known what that phrase means. Some of the girls are dancing to the music of the victrola, others play the piano and still others are singing snatches of song. Marja often employs this leisure time in punching the bag or using the dumbbells or wands placed in the Recreation Hall for the use of the em- ployees. In the gymnasium class held once a week, she also learns something of folk dancing. There was one memorable day when Marja re- ceived a small box containing a $2.50 gold piece for making a suggestion that was an economical saving for the factory, and was told that any employee who dropped a practical suggestion into the Suggestion Box, which was adopted, would receive a like coin. Under Mrs. Hill's direction a Vacation Fund Sta- tion is maintained, and each week Marja puts a small sum away that she may have one glorious week in the summer among the green fields and [39] Where Garments and Americans Are Made country lanes, where rustic bridges span rocky- bedded brooks, and where birds and other woodsy creatures vociferously proclaim their freedom just as she desires to voice her appreciation of her own freedom in free America. Sicher factory employees work but fifty hours a week whereas the State law allows fifty-four hours. These four extra hours Marja uses advantageously. She subscribes twenty-five cents a year for the monthly house organ, "Threads and Thoughts." In this little factory newspaper she gleans many an idea about the doings of others in the factory mar- riages of the girls, births and deaths. She reads poetry and short articles written by employees, stories, health articles and useful information. Fre- quently the whole month goes by before Marja reaches the last page, but she persists, for she knows that this is but another link in the chain of her learning. Marja has obtained much valuable information from the talks on health, hygiene and the nutritive value of foods, and all this knowledge stands her in good stead as she patronizes the factory lunch coun- ter where she can get a substantial meal at cost price. She no longer gulps her food. Horace [40] The Service Department Fletcher has become more than a name to her. Marja came to Mrs. Hill one morning with a se- vere cold which she had taken from sitting all day with wet feet, and was pleasantly surprised to hear that a pair of dry stockings could have been pur- chased of Mrs. Hill for ten cents, and that if re- turned laundered, a rebate would be made of five cents. She also finds that on rainy nights she can rent an umbrella for five cents from a full stock kept on hand in Mrs. Hill's office. COOPERATION MEANS SUCCESS. In time Marja comes to know that this motto of the Sicher em- ployees means that this is a business home where each person employed is responsible for cleanliness and orderliness. She comes to see the foolishness of unnecessary noise, the defacing of walls, and waste of materials. Her efficiency increases in pro- portion to the understanding developing within her that she is only one of six hundred persons in one building, and that privileges that cannot be granted to every one should not be asked for by individuals. She has shed the hyphen. Her birth land has be- come a memory of miseries that are past; America, a living reality where all may woo OPPORTUNITY. CHAPTER VI THE SCHOOL AS IT IS TO-DAY I have learned to love America, my new country. In return for all that I am getting I like to become a citizen. A woman can become a citizen just the same as a man. A good citi- zen means that I must live right, be a good member of my family and keep the laws of the country. After the war I am sending for my little son. I am glad I can teach him the things I have learned so he will grow up to be just as proud of America as I am. HELEN BLUMEN- THAL, factory worker, after few months' in- struction in English at Sicker School. Kindly keep in touch with me from time to time and keep me informed of any new devel- opments. Can your Company not participate in the nation-wide campaign to be carried on by this Division for the purpose of increasing the attendance of aliens upon night schools and the facilities for their instruction therein ? H. H. WHEATON, Specialist in Immigrant Edu- cation, Bureau of Education, Department of [42] The School as It Is To-day Interior, Washington, D. C., to Miss RAY J. HEILBRONER, Teacher at Sicker School. Our Committee is very much interested in the classes for immigrant girls which you have charge of at the D. E. Sicher Co. In accord- ance with our conference of Tuesday of this week will you please be sure to send us a copy of the report of the work being done this year when you complete the preparation of it ? Have you a report of the educational activities of last year? We were glad to be of service in supplying you with literature, teaching material and suggestions for your graduation exercises. R. E. COLE, for National Americanization Committee, to Miss RAY J. HEILBRONER, May 5, THE Sicher Factory School is in no sense static. Beginning as an experiment in October, 1913, it soon passed beyond the experimental stage and, in practical results, has proved its worth as an original educational idea. To-day the school has developed far beyond its old curriculum, and new ideas are being constantly introduced by Miss Ray J. Heilbroner, the successor of the first teacher, Miss Florence Myers, now the [43] Where Garments and Americans Are Made wife of Mr. Joseph Feinberg. Miss Myers and Miss Heilbroner both taught in Miss Rector's school in Rivington Street, and the work in the factory school is under the direct supervision of this able educator. Miss Rector is always ready to discuss with the teacher ideas, methods of teaching, and important problems that arise in this intensely interesting work. Miss Heilbroner, the present teacher, is young, full of enthusiasm and thoroughly equipped for her task. The results she obtains are all the more effec- tive and enduring because of the profound interest and intelligent sympathy she has all along shown toward the immigrant, and the problems that face the Marjas within our gates. On October 14, 1916, the third anniversary of the founding of the little factory school, I called upon Miss Heilbroner and listened to her lucid ex- planations to her pupils of things of every-day life, which, to the fastidious young lady "finishing" her education at a "Seminary" might be contemptuously ignored as homely, but which constitute the funda- mentals of real living. Two of the girls with whom I talked, "Charlotte" and "Regina," had been pupils in 1915, but, during [44] The School as It Is To-day the summer when the school was closed,- had ob- tained positions elsewhere. In September of this year they heard that the school had reopened and they returned to the Sicher factory, because, as they said, they wanted to pursue their studies further and take advantage of the new ideas introduced. Miss Heilbroner calls them her Ph.D.'s. In my talk with these girls they assured me in excellent English that the school had absolutely revolutionized their lives and their outlook on the world. I was struck by the manner in which they pronounced English words, their elocution being superior to the careless, slipshod manner of many natives. One of the other girls in the school proudly told me of the personal advantages that accrued to her from attendance at the Sicher school. "When I graduate from here," she said, "I will be able to earn a great deal more than I do now, because I will have more intelligence to guide me." Another pupil, a married woman, Mrs. Anna Sorger, eagerly asked permission to tell in writing what the school had done for her. A day or two afterward she handed in the following remarkable essay, which I reproduce as she wrote it and with- out corrections: [45] Where Garments and Americans Are Made [ANNA SORGER'S STORY] "As I landed in New York I not able to speak English and by that it was very difficult for me to find a position; so I was compelled to read the ads in german papers only and there was not much to look for but nevertheless I got a job where I earned $5 a week. That Amount was to much to get in starvation but even to little for living; I tried hard enough to find a better job but with no success. "It was said to me that I can learn the English Language with no cost for me so I started to attend the Public School in Brooklyn but I could not give my full attention to the teacher as I was to tired after working the whole day and besides that I could not attend the same regular but I had just enough good will and patience to wait for a better time, and it came, late but sure. I was informed by my Lady friend that the D. E. Sicher & Co. is in need of operators so I went there and applied for. There I had to ask at Mr. Salsbergs Office 'do you need any help? and Mr. Salsberg as kindly as ever asked me where I used to work before and what kind of work I was able to do ; I suppose that my answer was sat- isfactory as Mr. Salsberg said I may start imme- [46] The School as It Is To-day diately; that happened the first Day in November 1915 and surprise after surprise was to come. "There are many nice and pleasant things what you never find in another factory, it is a wrong ex- pression if I say factory because the people they are working there are like a big family and treated by Mr. Sicher just as well, and it would not be said too much if we call him the father of this big family. "The first day I was told to come down in the Recreation Hall which is open for the employees during the noon hour ; and I was called by Mrs. Hill to come in her office where she took my name and address. "There is a Hospital right next to Mrs. Hill Office where all the employees are treated very well. If I needed any help for headache or I did not feel well or accidently I pushed the needle in my finger or any other thing happens I know that I can find help right away by the well trained nurse, because she is really doing her best for all, and she is quit nice to all the girls with no exception. I am also very grateful for that I got a chance to go to the school which is established on the fifth floor in our factory where Miss R. J. Heilbroner from the Board of Education is doing her best to teach us how to [47] Where Garments and Americans Are Made read write and speak English. There I am never to tired because I can go to school or classroom at nine o'clock A. M. already I like it very much because Miss Heilbroner has such a nice and easy way to teach and if any of the girls ask her for anything Miss Heilbroner gives always very kindly answers. One day I saw Mrs. Weir with her little table in the Recreation Hall with many books & went to Miss Heilbroner and asked her how to get a book and Miss Heilbroner as nice and kindly as she is always did show me how to fill the slip for free li- brary books which is in the factory twice a week. Every Tuesday we have a dancing teacher Miss Kahn she is learning us the leading dances and the newest one. "Some day in the week we have lecture by Doctor Leiser. He speaks about sickness how to avoid ac- cident the first aid by accident and how to keep always in health, another day in the week we have singing where Miss Rothstein sings at the piano and we all sing the Refrain. There is sometimes a Sale on underwear in Mr. Salsbergs office where we can get anything we want for much cheaper than in any store. Than we have a lunch counter where we get everything to eat and drink I call them the little [48] The School as It Is To-day delicadessen store with Mrs. Niehaus as the Store- keeper. Sometimes we have a ball and Enterten- ment moving pictures if one of the girls is a Bride and she leaves the Place she gets nice thing from the other girls and before she goes all them around her and singing to her farewell. I am very glad that I was taught at the Companys Classroom how to read English as I got more than satisfaction. It gives me so much pleasure since I am able to read write and speak English that I can say the World is much nicer for me." "How is this miracle performed?" I asked Miss Heilbroner. "This foreign woman has learned in a few months to write English quite as good as many Americans I know, whose native language it is, and who have been using it exclusively all their lives/' For answer Miss Heilbroner handed me this plan of study which she had prepared for Mr. Wheaton of the National Board of Education, and which embodies most of the new ideas recently introduced into the course : [49] Where Garments and Americans Are Made KEYNOTE AMERICANIZATION NATURALIZATION. Advantages of being a citi- zen;- What it means to be a good citizen; How to become a citizen ; Opportunities offered in America ; "America is another word for Opportunity;" What it means to be "free" in America; Patriotism; "Sa- lute to the Flag;" "The Star-Spangled Banner;" "America." HISTORY. Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Wil- son, Holidays; Inventors Franklin, Morse, Bell, Edison. Civics. National Government : Head Presi- dent; Law-making body Congress; Capital Washington ; State : Head Governor ; Capital Al- bany; City: Head Mayor; Departments of our city government. GEOGRAPHY. United States Appreciation; Lo- cation; Leading industries and products; Popula- tion; Means of communication United States Mail, Post Office Regulations, Telephone, Tele- graph; Means of transportation Boats, Trains. NEW YORK CITY. Boroughs; Emphasis upon Manhattan; Places of interest Museums, Libraries, Parks, Aquarium, etc.; City Flag; Chief Industries; [50] The School as It Is To-day Means of travel Surface cars, Street car trans- fers, Elevated trains, Subways. HEALTH AND SAFETY. Importance of fresh air; Importance of exercise; Importance of proper food; Care of food; Care of the eyes; Care of the teeth; Airing a room; Anti-tuberculosis measures; "First Aid" (correlated, with series of lectures given at the factory under the auspices of the Board of Health) ; How to cross a street safely; Reading and under- standing public signs -"Danger," "Hands Off," "Fire Exit," "Wait Until the Car Stops," etc. ; Pur- pose : To reduce the number of accidents. LIBRARY WORK. Appreciation and uses of public library; Making out application blank; Importance of reading and understanding what is written on a paper before signing name to it; Care of books; Book lists furnished. NEWSPAPER WORK. Reading and understanding a good American newspaper ; Current events. BUSINESS ETHICS. Getting and keeping a posi- tion ; Loyalty to employer. BUSINESS LETTERS. Application for position; Excuses Absence from work; Informing of change of address, etc. Where Garments and Americans Are Made FRIENDLY LETTERS. Letter of thanks; Invita- tion to dinner, etc. LANGUAGE. Based on work in factory; Cotton; Evolution of an undergarment; Reading; In addi- tion to text books, newspapers and pamphlets used ; Also factory paper "Threads and Thoughts;" Writing; Spelling; Applications for money orders; Uses of Alphabet Dictionary, Directory, Adver- tisements; Language work based on entertainments and lectures at the factory; Shopping; Means of travel in City; Street car transfers. ARITHMETIC. Fundamental operations; Tables; United States money; Long measure, etc. (used in work) ; Earning and Saving; Importance of saving (As a result, savings accounts have been opened) ; Bank Accounts; Keeping personal accounts; Keep- ing own work reports. [52] CHAPTER VII IS IT WORTH WHILE? "Is it worth while?" I asked Mr. Sicher. "Why do you go to the expense of all this when you are under no legal compulsion to do so?" "It is worth while," he said, "and most em- phatically so. Putting it, as you seem to do, on the basis of expense only, I will prove to you that even from that standpoint alone it is worth while, al- though that is not personally the sole motive. The doing away with illiteracy by the educational train- ing these girls receive improves their efficiency and earning power. This in turn reacts favorably upon the business. They give back in efficient labor all that it costs to instruct them part of each working day. As they learn more about their work they be- come more interested. In imagination they see the garment grow from the raw product of the cotton field to the finished material of the loom. We do not want cheap, illiterate, irresponsible, unambitious [53] Where Garments and Americans Are Made labor and all progressive manufacturers are coming to see that such labor does not pay." As to the cost of this interesting experiment, which by the way is no longer an experiment in the Sicher factory, let us take the year 1914 as typical. The total cost of the thirty-five weeks of instruction was $1,232. Of this amount the Board of Education paid out for teacher's salary, books, pencils, paper, etc., $560. The D. E. Sicher firm carried the re- mainder of the expense. Of this, $357 went for wages of workers paid while learning, at the rate of seventeen cents an hour; $175 was for floor space; $105 for rent, light and heat, and $35 for janitor service. The cost per girl to the firm averages about $16.80; to the city, $14.80. Not much, is it, when city and employer share the expense? And it is all bread cast upon the wa- ters, coming back to the firm in improved service; to the city, state and nation, in intelligent citizen- ship. Mr. Charles H. Winslow of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics caused a graphic chart to be prepared by Mr. Maruchess, showing the rela- tion between literacy and earning capacity at this factory. The results are all the more valuable be- [54] Is It Worth While? cause the concern, established nearly fifty years ago by Mr. David E. Sicher and now owned and man- aged by his sons, Mr. Dudley D. Sicher and Mr. Samuel A. Sicher, has been practically under the same management and direction all this time and not sujbject to business disturbance due to frequently changed ownership. This chart shows, for example, that for thirty- two weeks preceding the opening of the school the wages of the girls, who later became pupils, aver- aged 19.5 cents an hour, while that of the literate girls was 23.2 cents. After four weeks of instruc- tion the girls taking the school course increased their earning power to 20.9 cents an hour. In sixteen weeks of school attendance the girls had increased their earning capacity to 22.2 cents. It is note- worthy that the girls who did not attend the school not only did not increase their earning power, but in these sixteen weeks showed a slight falling off. These two groups those attending the school and those in non-attendance were of similar age and length of experience. [55] EPILOGUE IN this rapid survey of a new and important edu- cational idea we have carried Marja, the immigrant girl, from King and caste-ridden Europe to Amer- ica, the land of hope and opportunity. We have seen her struggles with an unknown tongue and with ways of life unfamiliar to her. In the end we see her transformed, reborn no longer foreign and il- literate, but educated and self-respecting. Later she will marry and her children, though they may have traditions of another land and another blood, will be Americans in education and ideals of life, gov- ernment and progress. It has been worth while that one man has broken through this barrier and made the road clear for others to follow. All real education has the development of disci- pline as its basis. Poise, self-control and self-esteem are characteristic of the well-ordered mind, and the growth of these in the industrial worker makes for efficient service and better wages. Gradually there is an awakening of social consciousness the aware- [56] Epilogue ness of one's place in society and of the obligations such membership entails upon the individual in re- spect to the group or racial mass, with a constantly developing sense of one's personal responsibility in all human relationships. In conclusion, the higher significance of this work means that we must descend the shaft and share the lives of those that dwell in the lower strata the teeming populations that never see the stars or the green grass, scent the flowers or hear the birds sing the huddled, hopeless foreign folk of the tene- ments. We are living in the Age of Service, and are growing into a conviction that life is not a mat- ter of favored races or small, exclusive social groups, but embraces all humanity and reaches back to God. To those of prophetic soul comes a vision of the day that haunted Tennyson when "The war-drum throbbed no longer and the battle flags were furled, In the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World." THE END [57] 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. r iC'DLU APR 2 6 71 -8PM 9 4 AU6 61987 - AUTO. DISC. AUG251986 INTERUBRARY LOAN SEP 2 9 1386 UNIV. OF CALIF.. BERK. General Library YB 19062 359748 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY