Maple Avenue Evening High School - Progress Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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struggles with productiong organization nullifies initiativeg racial group contends with adjacent racial jealousiesg everybody is fighting somebody about something. And the only peaceable remedy Call the professional re- formers to the contrary notwithstandingj is conference. There has been no Way devised on earth among men whereby struggling humanity may settle its differences, save only two-exhaustion by war and adjustment by conference. Of war we certainly have had enoughg it remains for us to devise practical ways of talking things over. Nationally speaking this can not be done so long as the attempts to reconcile the diversified groups are based on mutual scorn and contemptg reconciliation must be derived rather from an intelligent comprehension. This need not attain to the strength of friendly understandingg a mere intellectual compilation of the issues at stake and the opposing points of view will suffice as an initial step. A problem clearly stated is half solved. No adequate degree of such neighborly comprehension, however, can exist between American groups and immigrants in periods of storm and stress like the present for reasons easily apparent. Compelled by cir- cumstances over which they have no control, the newly-arrived strangers tend to agglomerate into colonies. Alien groups are necessarily adjacent to American institutions but not of them. For a very fundamental reason this occurs. Any human creature appears to disadvantage in an unfamiliar environment. The cow-boy sel- dom functions Cexcept in the motion picturesb as a model of correct and conventional procedure in the drawing roomg the genius of finance is a shining bit of human ineptitude when removed from his desk and placed on the back of a bucking broncho. The immigrant, by the same token, often appears dumb or stupid in the face of unaccustomed surroundings. As a matter of fact he is something infinitely more pathetic and serious -an intelligent human creature caught in the net of alien experiences which he does not comprehend and about which he may not ask and concerning which his neighbors are prevented by one great obstacle from offering any explanationg and that obstacle is the one thing that must be cleared away no matter what else may or may not be contributed to the general task of democratization. Indeed it is the factor that deter- mines most largely the thoroughness of democratization. There is small hope of sufficient social interpretation between groups until those groups possess a common medium of expression. , . .To furnish this one first .thing the nation has made no unified, comprehensive attempt. Indeed, we have been so remiss that we have Page Sixty-eight 7

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Qur Common Language X By MISS 'RUBY BAUGHMAN Editor's Noteg' Miss Baughman was formerly Supervisor of Immigrant Education and Elementary Evening Schools in this city. When this school was first organized it came under the head of Elementary Even- ing Schools and as such of course, came under the notice and jurisdiction of Miss Baughman who showed a very helpful interest and was untiring in her efforts to help get the school going successfuly. ' Miss Baughman is now Supervisor of a similar department in the Uni- versity of Minnesota. The following article was written by Miss Baughman some cons1derable,t1me ago but it is so good and so pertinent that we decided to reproduce it here. One country, one language, one flag -these three, andthe chiefest of theseris a common language because upon' it depends the perpetuation of a government in common with a single banner. Upon a unified medium of expression depends the national' consultation upon thingsof vital and immediate importance to us all. W ' . i . ' i ' The Civil War is often spoken of as the one great attack on the unity of our nation. o Yet the federal government has been in fargreater peril at other periods of its existence. When the early migrations of settlers moved so far into the Western Wilds that they found themselves out of communication with the national centers of trade on the Atlantic seabord they became, by token of their isolation, numerous potential independent governments and only one thing prevented their development into such nations, namely, the mechanical perfection of transportation. The rail- road, the telegraph and the telephone actually eliminated the distance by making men able to talk things over at long range. This process of talk- ing things overeis the essence of democratic procedure. T But these 'intercommunicating networks of steel rails and copper wire brought about a social isolation that works as surely as geographical distance. The population of the nation has huddled into great cities. Here people live in a physical proximity far too closeg yet they are Widely separated in social relations. Violent group antagonisms result. Pro- ducer struggles with consumerg labor fights with employer, distribution Page - Sixty-seven

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not only neglected the education in a common language so essential in a democracy, but we have also permitted the immigrant to form his ideas of our national life by contact with its worst phases. Trickery, chicanery, poverty, dirt, vice, governmental inadequacy, industrial instability, treachery to our government--all these he finds expressed only too Well. So seldom does he meet the organized forces in society that are struggling to right these conditions that he often arrives at the conclusion that those activities do not exist. The only avenue by which they may travel to him and through which he may arrive at them is the language of the country. That he must learn. ' ' , This process by which adults acquire a second language is educa- tional. The nature ,of the process thus determines the social agency that must undertake the task. There is only one such agency in a democracy- the .public school. If it is now inadequate to the task, then it must be rendered adequate. ' And even the most casual observer of the signs of the times can perceive that the public school must be about that business quickly. ' f Sewing Class ' 4 Y ' Page Sixty-nine ,.1h.z:.r' '