oner 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 schools.

"It is admitted that those who begin German in the high school, after
the second year, can keep up with and do as good work in the same
classes as those who have had eight years of German in the primary and
grammar grades and two years in the high schools."

The form of argument that once was valid for including German in the
elementary course of study may now be valid for Polish, Hungarian,
Bohemian and Italian, for the children of the first generation of
these nationalities. Properly done, it is a means of preventing
the children's drifting from the parental moorings. After the first
generation, it would not be needed.

It is impossible, in the limited space at our disposal, to discuss
comprehensively so complicated a topic as foreign languages in the
high school. One group of educators sturdily defends the traditional
classical course, with its great emphasis on Greek and Latin, while
another group as urgently insists that if any foreign languages
are taught, they must be the modern ones. These opposing schools of
thought are profoundly sincere in their conflicting beliefs. Each
side is absolutely certain that it is right and is unalterably of the
opinion that there is no other side of the question to be even so
much as considered. Anything that agrees with its own side is based
on reason; anything opposed is but ignorant prejudice. Under the
circumstances the disinterested outsider may well suspect that where
there is so much sincerity and conviction, there must be much truth on
both sides. And undoubtedly this is the case.

Latin is a living language in our country in that it provi