Vol. XXXIV, No. 2 WASHINGTON 



August, 1918 



TEE 



ATBOMAL 

 AGAZH 



BRINGING THE WORLD TO OUR FOREIGN- 

 LANGUAGE SOLDIERS 



How a Military Training Camp is Solving a Seemingly 

 Unsurmountable Problem by Using 

 the Geographic 



By Christina Krysto* 



THIS is a story of adventure. We 

 know that this is so, because when 

 the word adventure came up in 

 class for definition some days ago the 

 mild-eyed Norwegian on the end of the 

 bench said, thoughtfully, in his uncertain 

 English, "Adventure is something new 

 and we like it." 



Teaching English to the foreign sol- 

 diers here in Camp Kearny, California, is 

 new and we like it. We like it even when 

 we have to write our spelling words on 

 planks because there are no blackboards ; 

 we like it even when a major and a cap- 

 tain together come to visit our classes just 

 as we are calling on our dullest pupil ; Ave 

 do not lose faith even when those classes 

 are taken from us in a body and put on 

 dire "K. P.," and we are left, with a 

 beautifully prepared lesson and some- 

 times a whole piece of chalk, pilfered 

 somewhere, to stare at empty benches. 



* Miss Krysto, a member of the staff of the 

 Bureau of Immigrant Education, of the State 

 Commission of Immigration and Housing, of 

 California, was designated by this organiza- 

 tion to assist the United States Government in 

 the education of foreign-language soldiers at 

 Camp Kearny. In the following article she 

 tells how this work was pursued. 



To be sure, we were properly launched 

 in the work. Other camps might boast 

 of a better school organization, of a better 

 teaching force — might easily boast of 

 better equipment. But to Camp Kearny 

 belongs the distinction of having had the 

 shortest, most comprehensive, and — tak- 

 ing into account its aim and purpose — ■ 

 the most successful normal course in the 

 teaching of English to foreigners which 

 has ever been given in any camp or — we 

 think we are safe in asserting it — any- 

 where else in America. 



A six-weeks' COURSE in THREE days 



Camp Kearny detailed its teachers to 

 teach even as it detailed its pupils to 

 learn ; and then, through the efforts of 

 the Commission of Immigration and 

 Housing of California, the only woman 

 who — to quote herself — was "mad 

 enough to try the thing'' came down to 

 camp and, with just three days at her dis- 

 posal, gave her six-weeks' normal course. 



It was an attempt which was destined 

 from the start to fail and which suc- 

 ceeded, as such things sometimes succeed 

 when one is "mad" enough to try them. 



The Superintendent of Immigrant Edu- 



