BEAU
LC
2803
N5
B64
STORAGE
17
MAY 13 1916
A 545488
COLORED
SCHOOL CHILDREN IN
NEW YORK
BL
BY
FRANCES BLASCOER
Special Investigator for the Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Public
Education Association of the City of New York
PUBLISHED BY THE
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
1915



ARTES
1837
VERITAS
LIBRARY
SCIENTIA
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
E PLURIBUS UNUM
TUE BOR
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAME
CIRCUMSPICE
ļ
COLORED
SCHOOL CHILDREN IN
NEW YORK
BY
FRANCES BLASCOER
Special Investigator for the Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Public
Education Association of the City of New York
EDITED BY ELEANOR HOPE JOHNSON
Chairman of the Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Public Education
Association
PUBLISHED BY THE
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
1915
35

FOREWORD
In submitting the appended report on colored school children
in New York city, I wish to thank those directly or indirectly
connected with the investigation or with work among colored
people who have by their co-operation aided in gathering the
material and preparing it for publication.
I wish to express my feeling of special obligation to Dr. William
H. Maxwell, City Superintendent of Schools, for his generous
letter of introduction to school officials, and to the principals and
teachers who have been particularly concerned in this study.
Thanks are due to Miss Kate H. Claghorn of the School of Phil-
anthropy, Dr. Leonard P. Ayres of the Russell Sage Foundation,
and Dr. Ira S. Wile of the Board of Education, for criticism and
suggestions, to Dr. J. C. Fisk of the Committee on the Hygiene
of School Children for examining and treating children in need
of medical care; to the officers of the Committee on Hygiene of
School Children and to the Director of the Public Education
Association, who have given much assistance in constructive
work on the report.
Particular expression of gratitude is due to the colored peo-
ple whose homes I visited and who, almost without exception,
evinced a strong desire to aid in arriving at an understanding of
the problems under consideration.
January 30, 1915
FRANCES BLASCOER
iii
293300
INTRODUCTION.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I
SCOPE AND METHOD OF INVESTIGATION.
PART I.-SURVEY OF GENERAL CONDITIONS.
I. Schools..
II. Social Agencies.
Public Agencies.
General Private Agencies..
Agencies Solely for Colored People
A. National...
B. New York City.
•
Recreations, Private and Public.
PART II.-INTENSIVE STUDY..
I. Neighborhood Conditions.
II. School Children.
•
Elementary School Pupils.
General School Conditions.
·
School Status of Individual Children .
Status of Home Life.
After-school Activities
High School Pupils.
•
Manhattan Trade School Pupils.
III. Occupations
•
•
IV. Family Incomes.
PART III.—Needs and RECOMMENDATIONS.
School Needs..
Social Needs.
Summary.
·
·
►
·
APPENDIX I.—Thirty-eight Cases from the Difficult Children Group
APPENDIX II.-Directory of Social Agencies for Colored People..
V
5
ΙΟ
ΙΟ
22
23
34
4I
4I
•
48
66
70
70
84
85
85
90
•
103
108
•
III
•
114
118
·
126
129
•
130
·
•
140
149
• •
154
172
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
PAGE
I. Distribution of Colored Pupils in the Public Elementary Schools.
II. Age Grade Table of Normal Pupils.
II
91
III. Age Grade Table of Exceptional Pupils..
92
IV. Number of Retarded Children by Grade and Period of Retarda-
tion-Normal Group...
94
D
V. Number of Retarded Children by Grade and Period of Retarda-
tion-Exceptional Group.
94
VI. Period Required by Retarded Pupils to Reach Grades..
VII. Marks for Work and Conduct...
VIII. Children Living with Parents or Other Persons.
96
99
•
104
IX. Working Mothers....
106
X. Frequency of Different Forms of Home Work.
XI. After-School Recreation. .
•
109
•
109
XII. Class Average and Estimated Mentality of 15 High School Boys. 112
XIII. Employment Records of 15 Colored Girls in Manhattan Trade
School...
115
XIV. Women's Occupations.
123
XV. Men's Occupations.
124
XVI. Family Incomes.
127
XVII. Comparative Family Incomes.
127
vii
INTRODUCTION
In the year 1911 one of the large public schools of New York
city had occasion to report to the school authorities a number of
cases of colored children who appeared to be in need of special
attention outside as well as in the school. Their classroom
difficulties, in the opinions of their teachers, resulted almost
entirely from the unsanitary, immoral or wholly neglected con-
ditions in which they were living. Several of these cases were
looked up by visitors working from different agencies, and what
seemed to be a large percentage of immorality and weakened
mentality was found.
At the same time persons interested in the welfare of the
colored race, particularly in the children living in crowded city
communities, were asking the question, what philanthropic
activity would be of most help to these growing children in se-
curing for them a more hopeful future than the present condition
of their parents would seem to promise them. Finally, the Public
Education Association was asked, through its Committee on the
Hygiene of School Children, to conduct an investigation into the
living conditions of colored children whose school progress had
been retarded for various reasons, and so help in solving these
puzzling questions. This Committee has always believed that
answers to many problems regarding child-help could be found
by making a study from the school as a starting-point, and that
agencies for betterment, if focused upon the school life, would
make a very natural and constructive connection from that point
with the outside life of the child. The Committee gladly took
up the work, therefore, and planned to make a study not only of
groups of children from the several schools located in neighbor-
hoods thickly settled with colored people, but also of the various
welfare agencies which would naturally deal with the different
problems as they should be presented in the histories of these
children. It was planned that the investigation should consist
not only of a collection of facts regarding these children, their
homes, and the best methods of bringing about improved condi-
tions for them, but also of following up the cases of children re-
2
I
2
ported as "difficult," and doing any immediate thing which
should make for their present as well as their future welfare.
An investigator was appointed who could at the same time do
the practical work and so accomplish a three-fold object: secure
an immediate betterment of conditions for the children investi-
gated; throw light on individual schoolroom problems for the
teachers whose work was being made vastly more difficult by
these bad conditions; and secure facts on which could be based
definite plans for future improvement. The report is submitted
with every wish that it may furnish useful suggestions both to
public and private agencies as to how best to deal with the un-
toward conditions often surrounding this large section of New
York's future citizens. The Committee wishes to express most
heartily its appreciation of the co-operation given both by public
school officials and by those private agencies that have dealt
promptly and efficiently with the cases concerning which their
help was asked.
Because the Public Education Association believes that many
facts of real constructive value can best be gained by studying
the lives of school children in the light of their school records it
further believes that "following-up" the school histories of such
children into their homes and into the streets is one of the most
important pieces of work that can be undertaken; that it must
be carried on with tact, persistence and thoroughness, and de-
mands in its performance ability and good judgment. If the
report seems to criticize various agencies because of what appears
to us to be a failure to realize the need or plan sufficiently for the
accomplishment of this important piece of work, it is not because
we do not appreciate the difficulties in the way but because we
feel the point cannot be overemphasized. In Appendix I are
given instances of cases where such follow-up work has not been.
done with completeness. The reasons why it has not been done
may have been very good; we have considered only the fact and
its results.
Where information was secured or criticism expressed concern-
ing organizations which could be of interest to them only in-
dividually, such material has been sent separately to these or-
ganizations. Many recommendations have been made regarding
separate activities. These have been included in the report
when possible, and an effort has been made to group them in the
chapter called "Needs and Recommendations."
3
At the beginning of the investigation an effort was made to
keep closely to the narrowed subject of the home, community
and school needs of colored children, as represented by the groups
studied, and to avoid the larger subject of racial questions and
difficulties. It was soon found, however, that this was impossible.
Individual problems were often inextricably involved in the
"Negro problem," and one of the clearest points brought out was
the great variety and uncertainty in public opinion and the in-
fluence that fact has on individual needs.
One difficulty in dealing with this question seems to be
that the tendency has been to study it in sections. Those people
who have held most sympathetic relations with colored people as
individuals are often hardest upon them as a race. Those
leaders who work with enthusiasm in support of equal justice
and opportunity for the colored race appear to these less deter-
mined upholders of racial equality to overlook the immediate
application of this equality and so to refuse to consider the human
elements of the problem. The result is an instability in the pub-
lic attitude which makes it difficult to predict what form public
opinion will take next. Meanwhile individuals of the colored
race are achieving much, and whole communities of colored
people are rising rapidly in education, refinement and ability.
We are constantly learning, through the interpretation by sym-
pathetic students of various races of immigrants, the several ways
in which these aliens may contribute to our national life; and
each discovery, especially in the different fields of art, is hailed
with joy by constructive patriots. Surely it is time for the Negro
to be considered in the light of a national asset and his loyalty,
patience, sympathetic kindliness and artistic instinct be counted
on as real contributions to our national welfare. In this mind,
let us discuss the present and future of colored children.*
The report seems to show that with these children, perhaps
more than with those of any other race group, their faults are the
defects of their virtues. In cultivating the latter, one is at the
same moment and by the same means correcting the former.
All children are made self-conscious, sullen and finally irrespon-
sible by constantly holding them up to an impossible standard.
It is so with the child members, whether or not of mature years,
* The Music School Settlement is making a definite effort in the direction of
developing the artistic ability of the colored race and for that reason alone, if
for no other, its work is of the utmost importance.
4
of this child race. To find what standard is possible it is neces-
sary to study many individuals, those who have achieved and
those who have not, as well as the racial history of this section of
the world's family. More than this, the necessities of their lives
here must be studied. The United States is not an ideal nation.
We cannot plan for any race relations with an ideal community.
These children will in the nature of things meet many difficulties,
as will children of the nations coming to us from beyond the seas.
Justice for all is not yet the positive, unqualified thing we wish
it were and hope it is going to be. New York schools seem to
have met more nearly this ideal justice as it concerns the treat-
ment of races, than have the industries or the organized amuse-
ments or, possibly, the private charities. We must encourage
the schools to continue and to perfect the plan upon which they
have been working. Constant pressure must be put on other
forces for betterment that they may look upon all who desire
to use them with an equal eye.
The report gives few, perhaps no, recommendations that
would not apply to the children of other races. Where the
application is more true in regard to colored children it seems.
to be largely because of this lack of equal justice in the cases
of their parents. Race weakness appears but this could easily
be balanced by the same or similar weakness in other races.
Given an education carefully adapted to his needs and a fair
chance for employment, the normal child of any race will suc-
ceed, unless the burden of wrong home conditions lies too heavily
upon him. Any philanthropic effort for the encouragement or
improvement of these children, to be successful, must take into
account their peculiar virtues-affection, loyalty, home loving
spirit-not their defects. It is this conclusion of the report which
applies to colored children more than to the children of any other
race, and should make them easier rather than harder to help in
their climb upwards. Our country has a very real debt to pay
and it can be paid only by helping these children to find for them-
selves the place in our nation which shall contribute most to their
own and its best development.
ELEANOR HOPE JOHNSON,
Chairman Committee on Hygiene of School Children.
JANUARY, 1915.
COLORED SCHOOL CHILDREN IN
NEW YORK
SCOPE AND METHOD OF INVESTIGATION
Various appeals from the public schools and other agencies.
for help in solving special problems in cases of delinquent colored
children led the Public Education Association to decide to in-
vestigate the extent of such problems, find if possible the sources
of the difficulties and recommend ways of solution. The hope
has been that, on the basis of the findings, recommendations.
for preventive and constructive work among colored people might
be made to public and private agencies so that the future of the
children might promise more that is good than exists in the pres-
ent life of their parents.
The cases which indicated the necessity for this inquiry ap-
peared on a first analysis to show that they were made up of the
usual juvenile delinquencies-truancy, sex immorality, stealing,
etc. encountered by all who work with children, and made
familiar to the investigator during five years of social work on the
lower East Side among Jewish, Italian and Irish children. Atten-
tion had also recently been called to like misdemeanors among
pupils of public schools in the Bronx, as well as among the colored
children of the upper West Side.
This investigation of colored school children, therefore, has
concerned itself not alone with the histories of these children, but
has endeavored to learn as well whether the same forces are at
work with colored children as with those of other groups in
causing the difficulties complained of, and whether the same pre-
ventive and remedial measures are available and practicable
to meet their needs.
5
-
6
The time allotted to making the investigation and writing the
report was one year-from December, 1912, to December, 1913.
In order to understand the work of the agencies already en-
gaged in social, civic and material betterment among the col-
ored people, it was decided to make a preliminary survey of the
field and interviews were obtained with principals and teachers
of schools, agents of organizations, heads of settlements and
other activities and pastors of churches and missions. The
results of this study are given in the section entitled "Survey of
General Conditions" and in Appendix II.
It was also decided to obtain from a detailed study of 500
elementary school children facts which should show as fully as
possible the way their time was spent both in and outside the
school, the nature of their homes and the connection which seemed
to exist between bad or good home conditions and school life.
The study was to concern itself with as many family conditions
-over-crowding, broken homes, economic status, etc.—as the
one investigator in the limited time allowed her might find
possible.
At the end of a full school year a report was to be presented
covering the information obtained in this study, not only con-
cerning the children but also the various social agencies which
are or which might be employed in their betterment.
Dr. William H. Maxwell, Superintendent of Schools, provided
a letter of introduction to the principals of the schools which
facilitated access to school records and authorized principals and
teachers to assist in the work of the investigation.
For the purpose of comparing individuals and conditions af-
fecting them and to furnish a check on the results found, it was
planned to study a group of normal school children in the gram-
mar grades of certain selected schools and to contrast with them
the children who were referred to the investigator by principals
and teachers as troublesome, or for other reasons. The latter
group did not, however, include all the troublesome colored chil-
dren dealt with through the public schools during the period
covered by the investigation. The National League on Urban
Conditions Among Negroes had appointed two school visitors
before this investigation was undertaken, and the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children had, through the Children's
Court, placed on probation or committed for improper guardian-
ship and for juvenile delinquencies, other colored children.
7
Close co-operation was maintained with these agencies through-
out the investigation. The card for recording the information
secured in the course of the investigation was made by Mr.
Earle Clark, statistician of the Russell Sage Foundation, from an
outline that had been formulated as a basis for the investigation
and report.
First consideration was given to those elementary school
children specially referred to the investigator by principals or
teachers. The details involved in many of the cases, as well as
the short time in which the children were available for inter-
viewing, made it possible to include only 441 elementary school
pupils in the investigation instead of the 500 originally contem-
plated. It was early felt, however, that a study of the colored
boys and girls attending high and trade schools might help to
clarify tendencies and vocational problems, and a group of 15
high school boys and 37 high school girls and 38 Manhattan
Trade School girls were included, bringing the total number of
children studied up to 531.
Of the 441 elementary school children making up the body of
the investigation, 53 were specially reported by principals and
teachers. The remaining 388 were boys and girls in the Chil-
dren's Aid Society School for colored children, and in Public
Schools 28, 69, 89, 100, 119, and 141, three being uptown and
three downtown schools, covering the colored districts between
34th and 42nd Streets, on San Juan Hill (59th to 65th Streets),
and in Harlem.
The children could be seen only after school and on Saturday
and Sunday, and even then there was no certainty that they
would be found at home. It was necessary to limit the number
of visits devoted to finding any one child to three, and in the
majority of cases that number of calls was needed before finding
any of the family at home.
Much evening time and many Sundays were spent in visiting
homes, when for special reasons it was necessary to consult
parents who were at work during the day, or who were at home
only once a week.
The children were estimated by the teachers' judgment of
their mentality and character in addition to the findings of the
investigator as well as by their class marks. After about twenty-
five had been studied a considerable discrepancy developed
between the two estimates, and the former was more in harmony
8
than the latter with a careful study of the child in his home and
street relations.* In a number of instances, however, both class
marks and teachers' estimates were modified by conditions not
previously known to the teacher; as, for instance, in the cases.
of three girls rated as "lazy and undependable," each of whom
after several visits was found to be suffering acutely from malaria.
One girl was receiving dispensary treatment twice a week for this
ailment; a second was not only suffering from malaria but had
a history of diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid and pneumonia;
while the third had only recently come from the south, her
family having removed to New York because every member had
become infected with malaria while living in a low, swampy dis-
trict.
The estimate of living conditions was based on the following
considerations: first, on whether both parents were living, and
living at home; whether both were intelligent and sober, and
whether the mother remained at home during the day to care
for the children; whether the home was clean and light; and
whether the number of persons in the household were prorated
properly to the number of rooms occupied.
As the investigation progressed, it was found that the out-of-
school development and amusement coincided, almost without
exception, to the quality of home life indicated by the conditions
enumerated above.
Statements concerning earnings and occupations of family
members are based on information received from those members.
In a number of instances, as for example in the case of railway
employees where there is a standard wage for given occupations,
and also in cases of a number of employees of business firms, con-
firmation was secured from employers with no resulting discrep-
ancies.
On visiting the homes the purpose of the investigation was fully
explained and the co-operation of the family sought for the pur-
pose of arriving at a true understanding of conditions and methods
of bettering them. There was a general expression of interest
by parents and much warm appreciation of the fact that the in-
quiry had been undertaken. Concerning family incomes, how-
ever, there was considerable hesitation in giving definite informa-
tion and this matter was not pressed. Only three objections have
been made to the investigation, one of them coming from an
* See Appendix I.
9
immoral woman from whose custody it was sought to remove her
children.
Tenements in all sections of the colored districts were visited
freely, although reasonable caution was exercised about going
after dark into neighborhoods or houses generally regarded as
unsafe. No unpleasantness whatever was encountered.
With regard to school conditions, the investigation did not
contemplate any criticism of existing pedagogical methods; it
is taken for granted that such shortcomings as may exist react on
the colored children as well as on the white ones and that the
school records, therefore, undoubtedly reflect those shortcomings.
It was, however, necessary to have conferences with principals
and teachers on questions of discipline which naturally came up
in connection with the cases reported by them of boys and girls
presenting unusual problems. Suggestions were made, discussed,
and accepted or rejected by the principals, and they appeared to
appreciate the more complete understanding of conditions and
the coöperation established with agencies having a bearing on
them, which the investigation succeeded in bringing about.
With the social agencies, a special effort was made to push as
far as possible any question concerning their methods of dealing
with their problem where colored people were concerned, as this
was the best means that suggested itself of securing a basis for a
sound constructive program.
!
PART I
SURVEY OF GENERAL CONDITIONS
I. SCHOOLS
The law of New York State provides that there shall be no
separation of races in the schools; and in those districts in which
colored pupils have been attending school for years, the prin-
cipals and teachers apparently have no "color problem" in their
minds. The majority of them expressed surprise that there
should be any investigation of colored school children, per se,
and said that, so far as the school is concerned, the colored child
presents the same problems as the white child. Those making
normal progress they designated as "children of good parents.'
On the other hand, in the schools in which the colored popula-
tion is a new factor (and it is those schools that they are attending
in the largest numbers), there is a decided differentiation of the
problem of the colored child in the opinion of the principals and
teachers, and all manner of questions present themselves as
peculiar to colored people, ranging from the effect of street life
on colored school children to the belief that the presence of these
children had lowered standards of scholarship and conduct in the
schools. With one exception, none of these principals or teachers
had taught in the schools in which there were large numbers of
immigrant children, but had been teaching children of the second
or third generation of American born parents of the better grade.
The distribution of colored pupils in the public schools of
Manhattan, as reported by principals to whom a questionnaire
was sent, is given in Table 1, opposite.
ΙΟ
II
TABLE I.-DISTRIBUTION OF COLORED PUPILS IN THE PUBLIC
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS*
Borough of Manhattan, October, 1913
Colored
White

School No.

Boys
Girls Total Boys
Girls
Total
3.
5.
6.
9
•
•
IO.
II.
14.
16.
+
·
2
I
3
551
I,434
1,985
33
15
5
48
2,254
694
2,948
6
24
30
497
968
1,465
•
•
3
53
56
212
782
994
·
•
23
23
1,634
1,634
31
2
31
1,245
1,245
2
1,359
1,270
2,629
•
•
9
9
990
23
1,013
17.
I
15
16
410
1,285
1,695
18.
3
5
8
1,003
288
1,291
24.
81
81
1,181
1,181
26.
•
31
31
465
465
27.
I
I
•
1,053
928
1,981
28.
29.
30.
32.
33
37
39.
•
•
•
.
38
104
142
167
861
1,028
2
I
3
246
239
485
28
+
27
55
1,103
427
1,530
86
50
136
I,139
288
1,427
13
13
835
1,154
1,989
17
17
1,317
172
1,489
20
20
1,453
1,453
41.
·
6
32
38
77
1,017
1,094
•
·
•
•
·
•
43.
46.
47 (deaf).
50.
51.
53.
54
56.
57
58
59.
67.
68.
69.
70.
72
73
74
•
•
·
•
•
•
76.
Model.
36
24
60
1,339
1,091
2,430
26
40
66
1,246
1,179
2,425
I
·
125
117
242
~H
I
I
9
18
3
4
30
5
46
50
Our wvään
84
1.075
1,159
16
1,251
372
1,623
420
1,342
1,762
252
1,197
I,449
1,268
1,268
5
96
756
240
996
•
3
6
9
590
1,574
2,164
29
8
37
412
91
503
78
163
241
366
954
1,320
77
108
185
686
509
1,195
33
20
53
17
17
.
84.
89.
•
90.
5212 N
3
I
I
4
4
37∞ 356
1,127
331
1,458
2,018
2,018
8
607
618
1,225
1,400
656
2,056
264
1,147
1,411
395
565
960
2
23
25
301
959
1,260
923
25
354
1,277
482
82
564
54
79
756
1,831
2,587
* This table does not include P. S. 87 and P. S. 166 (both boys' schools)
whose principals did not co-operate in the investigation.
Other schools omitted in the list reported no colored pupils on their
registers.
Colored children constitute a little over 4% of all the pupils in these
schools.
12
TABLE 1.-DISTRIBUTION OF COLORED PUPILS IN THE PUBLIC
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS-(Continued)
Colored
White
School No.

Boys
Girls
Total
Boys
Girls
Total
93.
8
80
94.
·
•
18
49
86
88
67
87
2,911
1,184
4,095
619
993
1,612
95.
100.
ΙΟΙ
103.
106
107.
117
119
121
•
•
•
•
•
·
141.
151.
159.
165..
169.
170.
171
•
•
•
•
179.
184.
186..
190.
·
·
•
5
3
8
2,036
532
2,568
•
55
298
353
50
157
207
•
2
•
2
+
8
2 31 46
·500
4
897
1,308
2,205
1,325
I,179
2,504
I
I
456
443
899
369
292
66I
14
432
359
791
•
56
718
774
289
1,017
1,306
13
10
23
957
1,106
2,063
·
41
125
166
383
571
954
I
·
4
5
517
979
I,496
+
•
•
26
342
·92
.6
3
459
2,502
2,961
13
1,382
373
1,755
4
85
73
158
2
2
1,348
1,348
ΙΟ
36
2,536
646
3,182
•
103
53
156
1,223
372
2,595
4
I
5
2,223
1,210
3,433
·
5
4
9
1,376
I,294
2,670
•
I
I
178
684
862
Total....
•
2,120
2,702
4,822
55,859
50,334 106,193
Public School 89 on Lenox Avenue, running from 134th to
135th Streets, had the largest registration of colored pupils-1277
out of a total of 1841, the next largest being Public School 119,
a girls' school on 133rd Street near Eighth Avenue, which had
774 colored girls out of a total of 2080 pupils. Public School
100, at 135th Street and Fifth Avenue, had a large proportion of
colored pupils, but was in process of dismemberment during
the year of the investigation because of the growing demand for
space by the Vocational School for Boys, which, with the Wad-
leigh High School Annex (for girls), occupied the same building.
Public School 68, at 112 West 128th Street, with 241 colored
boys and girls, is the only other Harlem school showing any large
number of colored pupils.
In the downtown districts Public School 141, with 166 colored
pupils, Public School 69 with 185, and Public School 28 with 142,
had the largest proportion of colored pupils in the schools re-
13
porting. Public School 166, at 89th Street near Columbus
Avenue, and Public School 87, at 77th Street and Amsterdam
Avenue, both of which have a large number of colored boys, did
not coöperate in the investigation, as noted in Table I.
The smaller proportion of colored pupils in the downtown
schools is partly accounted for by the fact that the Children's
Aid Society conducts a school at 212 West 63rd Street, the Hen-
rietta Industrial School, with a registration of 430 colored pupils
from IA to 4B grades. This school and St. Mark's Parochial
School, at 34 West 134th Street, registering about 150 boys and
girls, are the only distinctively colored schools in the city.
In order to reach, in this survey of general conditions, a fair
estimate of the conditions among school children that were either
modified or caused by the fact that some of these children be-
longed to the colored race, and of the general conditions in the
schools particularly affecting these colored children, the different
principals and teachers in the schools having the largest percent-
age of colored pupils were interviewed. The results of these
interviews are here summarized.
The first question that arose was why two schools purely for
colored children were maintained, even though these are private
or corporate schools, when New York's policy is opposed to segre-
gation in the schools. One principal believed that none of the
public school principals, with possibly one exception, welcomed
colored children. Another said that colored children were
obliged, because of their color, to associate with an inferior class
of white children in the public schools, and that their naturally
good manners were spoiled by this association. Many of the
children had even complained to her that they had been called
"nigger" by both teachers and pupils in the public schools.
For this reason a separate school was presumably welcomed by
them. On the other hand, one of the principals interviewed said
the colored children were noticeably bad-tempered in school,
attacking each other on slight provocation; that they were
intractable; and that the class spirit among these children was
bad. In this school noticeable prejudice was evident on the part
of some of the teachers towards the parents of the colored chil-
dren and a certain feeling against the children themselves. This
subject was taken up later on in the investigation by the dis-
trict superintendent, and the feeling or its manifestation greatly
changed. One head of department spoke of threats made
14
against her by parents of colored girls she had disciplined. As a
partial explanation of this it was discovered that she was accus-
tomed to use sarcasm freely in disciplining her pupils, most of
whom were adolescents. One of the girls became so exasperated
that she threw an ink-stand at the teacher's head. This girl had
an unblemished record of good conduct in another school during
the two years subsequent to the incident above referred to.
The principal of another school, where sarcasm had been freely
used, said that he would be glad of any suggestions that would
help him instil better spirit into the children. Pupil self-govern-
ment was mentioned, but it was felt that for the present it in-
volved too much outside work from a staff of teachers already
taxed to their utmost capacity. No branches of the Public
Schools Athletic League or other social activities had been or-
ganized in this school.
Still another principal said her chief trial was the attitude of
those teachers in her school who, because of their work in the dis-
trict, thought they "knew all about the colored people," in conse-
quence of which she had forbidden any allusion to color by either
teachers or pupils. She said she herself had no trouble what-
ever in her relations with either parents or children.
A third principal said he thought when colored boys and girls
reached the age of about twelve years they became unable to
adjust themselves to their environment, and he attributed this
inability to their consciousness of a difference between themselves
and other children. This principal had received numerous com-
plaints from colored boys that they had been "beaten up" by
white boys on their way to school. In another school the situa-
tion was reversed, white boys complaining that they had been.
assaulted by colored boys. Opinion differed as to whether or not
this street trouble was serious enough to be termed race riots.
The school people were inclined to consider it serious. Social
workers and clergymen, however, thought it merely gang spirit,
one clergyman deprecating the fact that any serious notice was
being taken of it. He said he had found a not-too-strenuous
"Now, boys, be off!" sufficient to disperse any gang fights he
had seen.
No race feeling was reported among the girls. The only ex-
pression having a bearing on their relations came from a down-
town principal who said the white girls were exceedingly fond of
the colored girls, and she wondered if it ought to be encouraged.
15
Her query seemed to be based on her feeling as to the social dif-
ference between the girls.
Reports on conduct varied widely in the schools, some reporting
no trouble at all while others complained of much unruliness.
Several reasons were assigned for the trouble. Bad home in-
fluence or no home influence were among them, the latter when
the parents or guardians were at work and the children were left
alone to roam the streets. Bad tone on the streets, soliciting by
prostitutes, bad language, and a large amount of lounging on
street corners were also thought to be responsible for trouble,
because of their effect on the morals of the children.
Two principals, in the first interviews, reported cases of un-
married mothers, and said the conduct in school of the girls in
question was so exemplary and their regard for these girls had
been so high, they would have trusted them anywhere. Free-
dom from restraint at home was thought to be largely responsible
for this trouble, and the custom of admitting lodgers to the fam-
ilies in which there were young girls was deprecated. The prac-
tice of receiving lodgers was said to be prevalent because of the
high rents charged colored people, usually two or three dollars a
month being added to the rent of each apartment in a house when
it was opened to colored tenants.
Several principals felt the need for a parental school for girls,
and regretted that certain girls who had been guilty of sex im-
morality should be in the schools associating with other children.
These girls had been found writing obscene notes both to boys.
and to other girls, and it was generally felt that they had a bad
influence on the other children both in the schools and out.
Thieving from both teachers and pupils was complained of.
One high school principal said he had formerly believed colored
girls were more inclined to be lightfingered than white girls, but
that he had come to modify this and now thought the proper
generalization to be that all girls seemed less observant of prop-
erty rights than boys because they had a smaller number of
pockets in which to conceal their personal belongings from one
another.
The most interesting opinions, and, in the nature of things, the
most authoritative, concerned the scholarship of colored pupils.
as distinguished from the white.
This scholarship was said to be affected by the following con-
ditions:
16
First: Large numbers of colored children have come to New
York from the South, who, at ten or twelve years of age, either
had never been in school or whose training had been of such in-
ferior quality that it necessitated practically a fresh start in the
lowest grades.
The following letter, received by a colored college president
from a colored teacher of the largest county school in one of the
southern states, illustrates the quality of the teaching these boys
and girls receive. This teacher is paid $14 a month for teaching
over 100 children:
"Prof.-
"
my 12, 19012*
I drop yo this card to let you know that i will
be on that train Munday morning. tell mrs.
the train.
Yours
to meet
Second: Scholarship is greatly affected by the instability of
the school life of the colored children because of the frequent
shifting of occupation and residence of their parents. Colored
men and women who go to Florida, the West Indies, Bermuda,
etc., for hotel service during the tourist season, take their children
out of public school and either take them with them or place
them in a boarding school. The children then return to school
in the spring, or perhaps not until the fall term of the next year.
These seemed to be the two most important factors in bringing
about a low average in the standing of colored pupils.
Third: Another factor bearing on scholarship was the amount
of work performed at home by some of the children. As an illus-
tration, a principal cited the case of a boy who seemed hopelessly
stupid. It was found that as a rule he was obliged to remain
awake until one o'clock in the morning because his grandmother
with whom he lived owned a small restaurant and, as she was
unable to count, it devolved upon this boy to make change until
the restaurant closed.
Fourth: Lack of help with home studies, due to illiteracy or
poor education on the part of the parents, was given as an addi-
tional handicap to good scholarship as contrasted with American-
born white children in the same schools.
It was felt, however, that as a whole the colored children were
making normal progress under normal conditions; that is, in cases
where they had attended schools in New York City regularly,
* Reprinted from "The Crisis."
17
their progress was on a par with the white children in the same
schools.
Next to the great problem of defective scholarship came tru-
ancy, which was causing much trouble in all the schools, the
offenders being both boys and girls of all ages. In Public School
89, the only school in which the figures were available for colored
pupils, 500 offenders had been reported to the attendance officer
during the school year, and between forty and fifty boys were
continuously on probation.
The principal in another school in this district said that be-
cause of the delay in the reports on truants from attendance
officers, much better results had been obtained by either making
inquiry herself at the child's home or having her clerk do so.
In other schools either the clerk or head of department was
following up absences closely and persistently, with excellent
results, but it was generally felt that this method was effective
only in incipient cases and with the younger children. For the
older boys, especially where there was a lack of restraint at home,
it was thought that confinement in an institution or parental
school afforded the only reliable remedy, and this in spite of the
delay in the process of commitment. Often this delay would be
so great that arrest for delinquency was more than likely to ensue
before such commitment could be arranged.
Principals felt that sending notes to parents did little good in
cases of truancy because the parents either did not receive the
notes at all, as the pupils themselves abstracted them from the
mail-boxes, or, if they did receive the notes, nothing was accom-
plished as many of them could not read. Several of the prin-
cipals were accustomed themselves to go out after absentees,
often bringing in from the street three or four at one time; but
no satisfactory solution of the attendance problem had yet been
reached.
In schools where a visiting teacher had been active for a time,
the trouble with attendance was found to be mitigated to a
marked degree. One of the visiting teachers of the Public Edu-
cation Association who had a number of colored pupils in her dis-
trict, said she attributed the tendency to truancy very largely to
the lack of compulsory education laws in the south or to the actual
lack of school accommodations for colored children in many of
the southern states. The children who came here from the south
had not had the school habit inculcated in them, and it was diffi-
3
18
cult to make parents understand that attendance was compulsory
in the New York schools. Once such an understanding had
been effected and she had established friendly relations with the
boys and girls, she had little trouble; but continuous, close-knit
work had been necessary in order to secure results.
The school authorities almost unanimously ascribed the large
amount of truancy among colored boys and girls to the fact that
so many of the colored mothers worked and the children, coming
home to solitary lunches, succumbed to the temptation not to
return to school after lunch; or, in cases where mothers left
home in the early morning before the children were awake,
leaving no one to waken and hurry them off to school, they pre-
ferred on finding that they were late not to go to school at all.
As with all races and kinds of children, a favorite method of
escaping school attendance was said to be the request for a trans-
fer to another city because of removal of the family. This is such
a frequent difficulty that it has been proposed that the National
Bureau of Education shall be asked to formulate a plan of inter-
urban transfer.
Closely connected with the problems within the schools was that
of the future employment of colored boys and girls. In the high
schools and trade schools the case of the colored boy and girl
differed from that of white pupils mainly because of the difficulty
principals and others who were interested found in securing em-
ployment for colored pupils. There was little or no knowledge
of how colored boys and girls who had graduated or left school and
had secured employment for themselves were earning their liv-
ing, but there was a general belief among school principals, social
workers and colored clergymen that the restriction of industrial
opportunities because of their race was sapping the ambition of
the colored boys and girls, and that they were not making the
effort put forth by their parents and grandparents to secure an
education.
The future prospects of the colored children, said most of the
principals, gave them much food for thought and constituted a
serious difficulty in dealing with school problems. For instance,
a principal whose experience had included colored, Italian and
Jewish children, said he did not find any distinguishing mark of
scholarship in any one of these races, but that he could not con-
scientiously give the colored children the same reasons or incen-
tives for doing good work that he could give to the children of
19
other races. He said, for example, that if a white boy did not
achieve accuracy in his arithmetic or neatness in his writing or
ciphering, he could warn that boy of a handicap in the event of
his becoming a clerk or a bookkeeper; whereas he could not hold
out to a colored boy the same prospect of a position either as a
clerk or as a bookkeeper.
The principals of the Vocational School for Boys and the Man-
hattan Trade School also dwelt upon the uncertainty of securing
employment for colored pupils. Twenty-five unsuccessful applica-
tions for work had been made in behalf of a boy who had qualified
as a machine-shop apprentice, and who, to quote the principal,
"was the kind of boy I would want my own son to be."
principal said that this difficulty was due to the unwillingness
of the unions in the skilled trades to admit colored members, to
whom, he said, these unions were to all intents and purposes
"closed corporations."
The
In the Manhattan Trade School, the principal stated that the
dressmaking department afforded the best opportunity for colored
girls so far as placing them was concerned, but that even in this
field she had much trouble. She said that she had found herself
obliged to demand a higher standard of qualification for admis-
sion to the school from the colored girls than she did from the
white girls because of the difficulty she had in persuading employ-
ers to accept them. Besides this, she could not accept more than
a certain percentage of colored pupils because if the number were
to grow into anything like an equal proportion of white and black
pupils, she believed that the white girls would not come to the
school and it would become a school for colored girls only. This
principal said that no effort had been made to learn what ave-
nues of employment there were for colored girls among colored
people.
The problem of vocational guidance was causing much per-
plexity to the high school principals as well. One principal said
his own judgment inclined him to advise dentistry, forestry,
scientific farming or the ministry as offering the most likely field
for colored boys. In the course of this conversation, one of the
boys was met in the hallway of the school and the principal asked
him what he had in mind as an occupation after he left school.
The boy said that his best work had been in mechanical drawing
and he hoped to make use of this ability. He thought he might
be able to secure work in an architect's office and become a
20
draughtsman. The principal, however, was skeptical of his
chance for success in this field.
Almost nothing could be learned about the work being done
by pupils who had graduated or left school, because of the lack
of first-hand knowledge by teachers and principals of the home
conditions of the colored children. The amount of home visiting
by teachers was almost negligible owing to the prevailing belief
that it would not be right or proper for young women to go into
colored homes. Most principals did not encourage home visiting
among their colored pupils and several said they would not
permit it.
Nevertheless, the school nurses reported uniformly courteous
treatment and much appreciation by the colored parents they
visited. Two of these nurses said they had occasionally come
into homes during the day where they found men and women
drinking beer and playing cards together, but that no objection-
able language or actions had come to their notice. As all these
nurses were young women, it was difficult to understand the
distinction existing in the minds of the principals between the
probable safety of nurses and of teachers in paying visits. Any
inquiry for an explanation of this distinction was invariably met
with: "The situation is quite different. The nurses have a good
reason for calling, and their profession protects them." They
also thought that if only one teacher were to meet with disaster,
any probable good to be accomplished by visiting the homes
would be more than offset.
The police officers were of the same opinion, and cautioned
the investigator against going into colored tenements without
leaving a record of her route at the station-house.
It was stated that there was great difficulty in securing the
attendance of colored mothers at mothers' meetings held in the
afternoon, because most of the colored women were employed
during the day. It was suggested that the fact of their being
employed might also account for their failure to respond to notes.
asking them to see the principal or the teacher concerning the
discipline of the children. As a matter of fact, later inquiry
proved that this was really the case, one mother after another
stating that every time she went to the school it cost her from a
quarter to a half-day's pay. The supposed danger in visiting
the homes of colored school children constituted the greatest
objection to meetings for mothers in the evenings, for even if the
21
teachers were willing to give up evenings for that purpose, their
families would not permit them to go at night into neighborhoods
where colored families lived.
For the most part the principals and teachers were glad of an
opportunity to have the homes of the colored children visited
with a view to bringing about a better understanding of condi-
tions by both parents and school authorities, and in only three.
instances was coöperation refused.* When the investigation
opened none of the schools in which there were colored pupils
were equipped with the helpful social activities that have been
inaugurated in other schools. With the exception of branches of
the Public Schools Athletic League (which are too impersonal to
constitute a really social activity), nothing recreational was pro-
vided. During the year, however, walking and swimming clubs
were formed in two schools, and an afternoon playground had
been opened in a third. These activities were for the white as well
as for the colored children.
None of the schools, with the exception of the Henrietta In-
dustrial School, served school luncheons, nor were there in exist-
ence any of the Little Mothers' Leagues conducted by the Board
of Health in a number of public schools. In two schools War-
ing Juvenile Leagues had been started, a colored girl being sec-
retary of one of them. At the general session of the leagues, at
which the secretaries of the various sections read their reports,
the colored girl's report was considered the ablest one read.
One of the patronesses of the leagues raised the question as to
the desirability of membership for colored children, on the score
that one of them might possibly be elected president. This is a
good illustration of the present ambiguous mental state of society
regarding segregation.
The afternoon playground mentioned above was opened in
Public School 89 during the winter of 1912–1913, and has devel-
oped mainly along the lines of a practice ground for the various
church and settlement basket-ball teams. There was little or-
ganized play, the director finding it difficult to interest colored
boys in the games ordinarily popular in these centers. About
150 boys attended the playground each afternoon, running in
and out continually. There was steadily growing interest in
the basket-ball games, however, and the director of the play-
* Vocational School for Boys, Washington Irving High School and Public
School 87.
22
ground felt that if a number of young men could be interested
to give their services at the center, becoming friends with the
boys, individual boys needing attention might thus be reached.
No figures showing the percentage of poor scholarship, attend-
ance, etc., for colored children as a group were available as no
record is kept separately for colored children in any of the schools.
This preliminary inquiry indicated that the needs of colored
pupils in the schools were, roughly:
I. A special arrangement of studies for overage pupils.
2. After-school care for children of working parents.
3. A better understanding between homes and schools brought
about by the visiting teachers, mothers' clubs, etc.
4. School lunches.
5. Prompt and close following up of absences as a preventive
of chronic truancy.
6. A more thorough study of opportunities for employment of
boys and girls.
7. Care by principals that no race feeling is manifested by
teachers or pupils.
These needs and suggestions for meeting them will be dealt
with more fully in the chapter on Needs and Recommendations.
II. SOCIAL AGENCIES
In this preliminary survey of the social agencies of the city,
both public and private, no attempt was made to study the ac-
tivities of the general agencies or gauge the value of their work.
Opinions were sought from members of the staff of each organi-
zation as to the need by colored people for the work done by
the agency in question, and just how much of such work it was
already doing or could do in the future. Any opinion bearing
upon the subject in general was welcomed as throwing light on
the attitude of the organization toward the assistance or improve-
ment of colored children. In the case of those agencies dealing
solely with Negroes, on the other hand, an effort was made to
become acquainted with all the forms of activity they represented
and also the general aim or purpose of each particular agency.
Comment or criticism naturally came to the investigator's mind
as a result of such conferences, and wherever it seemed as if such
comments threw light on the situation they were included. In
describing such a hasty survey over so large a field it is im-
possible to make a succession of orderly statements. An informal
23
array of opinion and comment is the only possible method of
presenting this material. The aim has been to give as vivid a
picture as possible of the variety of sentiment encountered
concerning colored people as well as of the efforts being made
to meet their many and very evident needs.
PUBLIC AGENCIES
In studying the social agencies, the city departments were
visited first. Neither the Tenement House Department nor the
Board of Health had any information or figures dealing especially
with colored school children, except the general impressions of
the school nurses in the latter department. Four of the school
nurses, whose duties took them into the homes of colored people,
said they found the children clean and well fed, as a rule, and
self-reliant to a marked degree; but so far as remedying physical
defects was concerned, the colored parents required much follow-
ing up and were fond of applying remedies recommended by the
corner druggist. No figures concerning general health or specific
defects were available because no separate records were kept for
colored children. All the nurses remarked on the large number
of colored men they found at home during the daytime, and
thought that it indicated a high percentage of unemployment by
the men. They were inclined to think that the colored women
supported the family in many cases, while the men were idle.
In the Police Department, both in Harlem and in the San Juan
Hill district, inspectors and captains said, without mincing their
words, that they considered the colored people worthless, and
that it was "useless to bother with them." So long as they did
not murder each other, the police said, they did not pay any
attention to them but "let them do as they pleased." They
said it was useless to follow up complaints because of the ten-
dency to withdraw charges as soon as an investigation by the
police was undertaken.
Social workers, on the other hand, complained that the police
were neglectful of their duties in colored districts. A number of
reasons for this were advanced. It was said that at police head-
quarters a mistaken feeling of pity for colored people, because of
general prejudice against them, had caused orders to be given
out not to be severe with them. Again it was said that the police
were afraid to go into the colored tenements because several
years ago, during the race riots on San Juan Hill, a policeman
24
had been thrown from the roof of a tenement in that district
and killed.
It was also stated that colored people were so accustomed to
receiving scant justice in court-rooms that they were panic
stricken when confronted with the possibility of contact with the
law. This accounted for their unwillingness to press complaints
against one another.
There was general and bitter complaint by the parents of the
school children against the police. Street fighting, foul language
and all manner of indecencies were said to pass unmolested by
police interference; and in the blocks having a bad reputation
not once was a patrolman found on duty. Three of the mothers
in one block in the San Juan Hill district said they had gone to
the police station to complain of disorder on the streets and in the
houses where they lived, and had been treated by the police as
though they themselves were the offenders.
In the San Juan Hill district the social workers, both white
and colored, are closely organized into the West End Workers'
Association, and they have agitated the matter of police indif-
ference to street disorder until they have succeeded in having the
entire personnel of the patrol force changed. In October, 1913,
the new patrolmen were said to be handling the situation in a
much more satisfactory manner.
In Harlem, however, there was no organized body of social
workers, and while organizations and individuals have been work-
ing zealously, there was very general complaint of petty thieving,
street soliciting and fighting without much help from the police
in checking the trouble.
The father of one of the school children stated that so many
of his friends had been robbed of their personal possessions that
he had formed the habit of placing his "best clothes" in pawn on
Monday morning, leaving them with the pawnbroker until
Saturday night! In another home a wooden club was hanging
behind the door to the hall entrance of the flat, which was said to
be for use in an emergency because the mother was at home alone
most of the time.
Through reports received from the parents of school children it
was finally possible to secure the conviction of a colored man em-
ployed as janitor in a large flat-house who had been having
immoral relations with young colored boys. The woman who
reported this case said she had taken it up with the landlord
25
time after time, without result. The Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children, to which the matter was reported, found
the man in question had already served two sentences for like
offenses, and he is now in the penitentiary with an additional
fifteen years to serve.
Another report received in the course of visiting the parents
concerned a group of young men who were said to be active in en-
ticing young girls into immoral resorts. This matter was re-
ported to the Committee of Fourteen, and, at the time the in-
vestigation closed, the leader of the group had been indicted
through the efforts of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children on the charge of holding a young girl for immoral
purposes. He has since been convicted, and is now in Sing Sing.
A notorious poolroom on 135th Street was also reported to the
Committee of Fourteen, and has been closed.
The results obtained by the West End Workers' Association on
San Juan Hill have demonstrated the value of organized effort,
while the cases cited above indicate that much assistance may be
had in learning about conditions from the parents of school
children.
The Department of Parks and Playgrounds comes directly in
contact with the problem of the colored school child only through
its recreation house and grounds on West 60th Street between
Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. Here the white boys had formerly
protested against the presence of colored boys, the director said,
and until 1911 few colored boys had attended the center. In
that year a boys' club from St. Cyprian's Parish House began
using the grounds of this center and at the time of the investi-
gation a number of colored boys were on the basket-ball, base-
ball, track teams, etc. The director said there had been no actual
trouble lately although the white boys made more or less com-
plaint because of the presence of colored boys.
There are no parks whatever in that section of Harlem in which
colored people live, and no out-of-door playground space for the
colored children of this district except occasional vacant lots in
which itinerant carousels and moving picture shows pitch their
tents during the summer. These resorts were badly supervised
and there was much complaint from parents of disorder and ques-
tionable practices. The police apparently paid little attention
to these places, and judging from verbal reports of what took
place there, the resorts were not by any means desirable places
26
for growing boys and girls to frequent without supervision. An
attempt was made to induce the Board of Estimate and Appor-
tionment to purchase property between 139th and 140th Streets,
running from Lenox to Seventh Avenues, for a public playground,
but the plan did not succeed.
Few of the recreation centers conducted by the Board of Edu-
cation are located in the districts in which colored people live.
The center in the building of the High School of Commerce, on
64th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, and
that in Public School 89, at 134th Street and Lenox Avenue, were
the only evening centers in which any colored boys were found.
No colored girls were in attendance at either of them.
The center in the High School of Commerce is thoroughly
equipped with every possible device for athletic games and exer-
cises, including a swimming pool, shower baths, running track,
arena, and apparatus of all kinds. There was an average attend-
ance of about 250 nightly, and perhaps a dozen colored boys were
present each of the three times visits were made at this center.
The feeling between them and the white boys was evidently friendly
and the director said their most popular runner was a colored boy.
Several years ago this center was the scene of a race riot which
the director said had occurred after a personal encounter between
two boys, one white and one colored, who jostled each other while
watching an exhibition of track running. The white boy was
said to be a $7-a-week messenger of the Interborough Rapid
Transit Company, while the colored boy was a college graduate,
several years the senior of the white boy, a $1500-a-year employee
of the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, and a
member of a club of colored young men who had been meeting in
one of the rooms in the center. These club members had not
"mixed" with the white boys, who were their inferiors in educa-
tion and who resented the fancied exclusiveness of the colored
boys, so that only the shadow of an excuse was necessary to cause
trouble. The director believed that the same trouble would have
happened if a club of white boys had adopted the same attitude
towards the boys who attended the regular activities of the center,
of which clubs do not form a part.
The director also said that an effort had been made by colored
social workers to establish clubs for colored boys at the center,
but he felt that anything of this nature would precipitate trouble.
Any boy who came and made a place for himself as an individual
1
27
and was willing to be accepted on his merits would have no
trouble, but the hard feeling of several years ago was only just
being forgotten, and the director felt that no chance should be.
taken of disturbing the existing friendly relations between the
white and colored boys.
Another official of the Board of Education said he would be
sorry to have clubs exclusively for colored boys started in the
schools, as it might prove the entering wedge that would destroy
the anti-segregation policy of the public schools.
In the center at Public School 89 the situation was different
in that over 90 per cent. of the boys were colored and it did
not seem probable that any difficulty of the nature of that
experienced downtown would arise. This playground was,
however, not well equipped. It was opened in February, 1912,
and aside from basket-ball, had no organized work. A game
room was attempted but was not successful. A singing club
for adults was successful, however, and had assisted in furnishing
the entertainment at several public meetings held in the school
house.
The night schools largely attended by colored people, notice-
ably those in Public School 89 and in Public School 67, 120 West
46th Street, were adding social features in the form of monthly
assemblies at which programs were offered by the pupils of the
schools. These night schools, however, were attended almost
exclusively by adults.
In
The only afternoon public school playground attended by
colored children which was open during the winter was the one
at Public School 89. There were, also, two summer playgrounds
which were visited, both located in Harlem. They were not
satisfactory so far as the colored children were concerned.
one no program was followed and the boys ran in and out in a
disorderly manner; the evil effects of this would of course react
on all the children, both white and colored. In the kindergarten
division, the only one to which girls were admitted, there were,
on the four occasions it was visited, only ten or twelve colored
children and they were standing about listlessly, no attention
being paid to them. In the other playground the situation was
better, so far as the games were concerned. In the free play
and in the kindergarten work, however, no attention whatever
was paid to the colored children by the workers. The director
said it was difficult to interest them, but in the games witnessed
28
they were alert and often successful. Both these playgrounds
contrasted unfavorably with the summer playgrounds at Stillman
House and at the New York Free Kindergarten Association for
Colored Children which were successfully conducted, the children.
remaining all day, leaving the premises only at noon.
In the Department of Charities, in the minds of the authori-
ties no problem regarding colored people seemed to exist. It
was said that no distinctions were made, and no separate records
were kept.
The Children's Court, however, presented one of the most
acute problems encountered during the entire period of the in-
vestigation. At the time the investigation was undertaken,
December 15, 1912, there were no means of caring for delinquent
colored girls under sixteen years of age in institutions. A let-
ter written by Mr. Thomas D. Walsh, Superintendent of the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, to the National
League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, stated that “it
would be futile to take the case of a young colored girl into
the Children's Court, as at this time there is no provision for
their care in any institution
This meant that the
State Training School for delinquent girls under sixteen years of
age, at Hudson, New York, was quarantined because of an epi-
demic of trachoma, and that Catholic and Protestant private
institutions admitted only two or three colored girls each.
""
These girls were therefore being referred informally to the
National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes by the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the League
was attempting to cope with the situation by means of an as
yet unorganized corps of colored Big Sisters, and an endeavor to
coöperate in raising $5000 a year for three years to start a home
for young delinquent colored girls. The necessary result was
that the girls were merely being sent back to their homes, where
it was difficult if not impossible to prevent them from going into
the streets again. In some cases they went back to the school
rooms, although some of them, twelve and fourteen years old,
were mothers.
Judge Franklin C. Hoyt, of the Children's Court, said the
situation was most acute; that it was the more dangerous because
the colored girls themselves were fully alive to it, and the spirit of
bravado among them was rendering it increasingly difficult for
him to do anything with them.
29
In sending the delinquent colored girls back to their homes, the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children departed from
its usual custom of holding juvenile delinquents in its detention
home until there was institutional accommodation for them.
On account of the unorganized state of the "Colored Big
Sisters" referred to above, it was difficult, if not impossible for
the officers of the League to know whether the friendly visitors
whom they had appointed had reached the girls or not. The
head of the Catholic mission work for colored people in New
York City was consulted as to the reason why Catholic institu-
tions were refusing to admit colored girls. He said he had no
knowledge of their refusal to do so and would take up the matter
at once. Soon after this the House of the Good Shepherd ac-
cepted colored girls as inmates, and a new wing to the institution
has since been built to accommodate them.
No definite response was received from similar Protestant
institutions when the question was raised as to their attitude in
this question.
When the quarantine at the State Training School for girls at
Hudson, New York, was lifted, Dr. Hortense V. Bruce, the super-
intendent, was visited and asked for her opinion on the general
situation as it related to delinquent colored girls.
Miss Bruce said she felt the colored girl presented a special
problem which complicated the already sufficiently difficult one
at Hudson, of attempting to reform 365 delinquent girls under
sixteen years of age. She said the colored girls who came to her
differed from the majority of the white girls in the training school
in that they had none of the vicious habits and practices of the
white girls. There was a difference of opinion on this point, how-
ever, among other officers of the Training School. The difference
in color, Miss Bruce said, appealed to the white girls in much the
same way as a difference in sex, and the association of the two
races led to abnormal practices. She said, too, that the colored
girls' sense of humor upset the discipline of the classes they at-
tended and that the house mothers found them more difficult
to train and control than were the white girls. How far the house
mothers were influenced by their objection to colored girls per se
Miss Bruce was unwilling to say; but she acknowledged that she
had great difficulty in finding house mothers for the two cottages
(housing twenty-four girls each) to which colored girls were
30
assigned, and in keeping them contented and happy after she
had found them.
The whole problem of young delinquent colored girls could be
handled much more satisfactorily in a separate institution, Miss
Bruce thought, if such an institution could be officered properly.
She was inclined to favor separate buildings, with a corps of
colored workers, on another portion of the state grounds and
under her own superintendence. She felt that any extensive
enlargement of the Training School would decrease the efficiency
of the work done there; but, on the other hand, felt that the de-
linquent girl was a problem for the state and not for private
philanthropy to deal with.
Miss Bruce said the placing in situations of girls who leave the
Training School was a difficult problem, as the opportunity for
colored girls to secure employment was limited to an unusual
degree at best. She said she would welcome coöperation with
some organized activity in New York to help in dealing with this
problem.
There are no separate cottages for the colored girls at Bedford
Reformatory, but each girl is placed where her merits of conduct
and work entitle her to go according to the discipline of the in-
stitution. Miss Katherine B. Davis, at that time superintendent
of Bedford, felt that nothing would be gained by separating the
girls in cottages, as they slept in separate rooms, and whether one
roof or several covered these rooms made no difference. In
institutions where the girls slept in dormitories she thought a
night guard would solve the problem of any improper conduct.
It had been suggested to the Bedford Board of Managers at
one time that the colored girls should be segregated because it
was a social misdemeanor for white girls to associate with them
in normal society and therefore this association should not be
permitted in a reformatory. The Board of Managers had not,
however, seen its way to comply with this request because they
felt such a procedure would interfere with the dispensing of equal
justice to everyone in the reformatory.
It was also stated that the colored girls were the best proba-
tioners and that it was far easier to secure employment for them
because of their willingness to enter domestic service, where they
were able to accumulate substantially more savings than were
the white girls who went into shops and factories. Although
many of the probationers lapsed into sex errors from time to
31
time, the colored girl was apparently far less liable than the white
girl to adopt prostitution as a means of livelihood.
Miss Davis was asked for her opinion as to the advisability of
increasing the number of private institutions for delinquent
boys and girls. She said she was unqualifiedly opposed to
private institutions and thought that every effort should be
bent on forcing the state to provide adequately for delinquents.
She said the new detention house, now nearing completion in
New York City, ought to put an end to the necessity for turning
back into the schools or onto the streets those boys and girls who
had been convicted of misdemeanors and for whom there was
no accommodation in state institutions; and that philanthropic
agencies would perform an infinitely greater service by providing
means for training boys and girls to earn a livelihood than by
attempting to continue what was in her opinion a duty that
should be delegated to the state.
In discussing the general character of the colored girl offender,
the Judge of the Children's Court said that he, too, found her a
different type from the white girl; that while she seemed to fall
into sex errors more readily than did the white girl, yet such a
lapse did not make her vicious nor did it cause a breakdown of her
whole nature, as it was apt to do with girls of other races.
ascribed this largely to the fact that the colored girls' families
did not discard them, and that almost without exception the
colored girls cared for and supported their illegitimate children,
as a matter of course.
He
In the fall of 1913 the situation as it concerned the delinquent
colored girl was much relieved by the opening of the House of
the Good Shepherd to colored girls; and after September, 1913,
there was no necessity of sending any girl requiring institutional
care to her home because of lack of accommodation in an institu-
tion. The situation as it exists today* presents the difficulty of
caring for Protestant colored girls in a Catholic institution; if the
Protestant institutions were to follow the example of the House of
the Good Shepherd and admit colored girls, and if additional ac-
commodations were secured for them at the Hudson Training
School, the situation would be more adequately met.
The Secretary of the New York Probation Society, when con-
sulted concerning the rehabilitation of delinquent colored girls,
said that the colored people seem always to have shown the char-
August, 1914.
*
32
ity toward young offenders and the sense of responsibility of un-
married mothers for their children that our newest conception of
morality is teaching white people. When colored girls were
cast off by their families, however, or when they had no families,
they went to pieces more completely than did the white girls
with whom the society had had experience, for not content with
becoming prostitutes they were the most dangerous "badgers
she had known.
The Superintendent of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children said he had not much hope of rehabilitating
colored girls of the type his society took into custody. He said
they had no conception of morals and were so untruthful that he
found it difficult to secure adequate testimony on which to con-
vict men accused of harming them, even when he had corroborat-
ing testimony. He thought more work should be done to raise
the morals of the race.
There was apparently little trouble in placing delinquent col-
ored boys, as the House of Refuge on Randall's Island could
always be depended upon in any ordinary circumstances.
Petty thieving appeared to be the most frequent charge against
the boys; but grand larceny and more serious misdemeanors were
said to be increasing, especially in the Harlem district.
It was not possible to secure the percentages of kinds of offenses
for which either boys or girls were sent to institutions, as the
records for colored cases were not kept separately.
Neither the Children's Court nor the Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Children had a colored probation officer or investi-
gator on its staff. The Children's Court, however, makes a
definite effort to have equal time and attention given to colored
and white children, and the Superintendent of the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children said he was ready to consider
employing a colored investigator. He received much valuable
assistance, he said, from the National League on Urban Condi-
tions Among Negroes in investigating his cases of colored children.
The work of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters is so intimately
connected with the delinquent child who comes before the Chil-
dren's Court that although they are private philanthropic bodies,
they have a semi-official standing in the Court. Certain of the
milder forms of delinquency and of improper guardianship are
assigned to them for the peculiar service rendered by their re-
spective organizations: i. e., attempting to influence the lives of
33
these boys and girls by means of a friendship with persons of
presumably strong character who possess the qualifications fitting
them for this work of voluntary social service.
Aside from the consultation in court and referring the children.
to agencies who in turn attempt to secure friendly visitors for
them, neither the Big Brothers nor the Big Sisters parent organi-
zations extend their work to the colored people. The National
League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes is striving to or-
ganize Big Brothers and Big Sisters among the colored people;
but these colored workers are not admitted to membership in the
parent organizations, no reports of their work go to the parent
bodies, and nothing is known in the central offices of the results
obtained.
One of the volunteer Big Sisters in the Children's Court com-
plained that the colored women were not responding with any
degree of enthusiasm to the appeal for help that had been made
by the Big Sisters in behalf of the colored girls who were appear-
ing before the Children's Court. When the question was raised
as to admitting colored women to membership in the parent or-
ganization, since if they were intelligent enough and had suffi-
ciently high standards to be Big Sisters it was a bit difficult to
understand why they should be barred from such membership,
the reply by a member of the Board of Managers of the Big
Sisters society was that this was impossible because it seemed to
imply a sort of equality which it was unwise to foster.
Inability to become a member of the parent organization bars
a colored Big Brother or Big Sister from the very real benefit of
attending the meetings and hearing reports and discussions and
being in touch at first hand with the work done by others with a
wider experience than they themselves may have. Whether this
deprivation may be offset in some way is a question to be
answered. Consciousness of this difference undoubtedly affects
the enthusiasm, as its results limit the efficiency of the colored
worker.
Little that was pertinent to colored children could be learned
at the hospitals and dispensaries. Beyond a tendency to rickets,
which the colored children were said to share with the Italians,
they appeared to present no special problem. At the Harlem
Hospital it was said that young colored girls coming for treatment
for venereal diseases had been found by the visiting nurse to
have given assumed names and addresses, and their cases could
4
34
therefore neither be registered with the Board of Health nor could
their parents be consulted.
In the libraries it was said that there was an increasing after-
school attendance by colored children. The librarians have.
taken much interest, apparently, in the home life of the children
and gave substantially the same information as the schools con-
cerning conditions. In the Carnegie Library on West 135th
Street, the reading room was used by a number of colored men
who worked at night and who, the librarian said, had no other
place in which to spend their leisure time unless they went to
moving picture shows, pool rooms or political clubs. There was
no club house for colored men in this part of the city, but the
colored branch of the Young Men's Christian Association was
soon to move up from West 53rd Street and this need would
then be met.
GENERAL PRIVATE AGENCIES
Aside from the work of the city departments and of the quasi-
public institutions-hospitals, libraries, etc.—the situation as it
concerns the social agencies of the city and their relation to the
colored population is a complicated one. Private philanthropic
agencies dealing with special problems, i. e., the relief agencies,
Children's Aid Society, Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children, etc., differentiate their work for colored people to a
greater or less degree; and in some instances, as, for example, in
the case of the Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the fresh-air homes of
the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, etc.,
colored people are omitted altogether from the activities of the
parent bodies although these coöperate to some extent with
colored agencies dealing with the same problem.
This differentiation, which might not in itself be objectionable,
creates a difficult situation because the large agencies soliciting
funds for dealing with a given problem do not contribute from
those funds to the agencies dealing exclusively with the colored
portion of the problem. These are, therefore, almost without
exception, handicapped in their efforts by lack of funds and of
trained workers. Colored workers have no opportunity to secure
practical experience with agencies whose methods are accepted
as standard and it has therefore devolved upon volunteer boards
of directors of activities for colored people to train their own
workers. It would be obviously unfair, under such conditions,
35
to apply the same standards to work performed or to the results
obtained.
There is a difference of opinion as to whether white or colored
workers can best carry on the work of social education among the
colored people. While naturally sympathy and understanding
for the unfortunate of their race are more likely to be found among
the colored workers, it is urged that academic training afforded
by universities and schools of philanthropy has thus far been the
only kind available for colored workers. They have had no
opportunity for day-by-day training under expert scrutiny and
criticism, thus gaining an experience upon which alone sound
judgment in dealing with individual problems may be based.
The majority of colored workers have been trained as teachers
and their work, as a rule, bears the stamp of the classroom.
Only a few have a sufficiently wide vision to overcome this. In
consequence, the child attending settlement clubs and classes.
with colored leaders merely transfers himself from one class-
room atmosphere to another and his need for social development
is not met.
The director of the Russell Sage Foundation's Department of
Surveys and Exhibits stated as his impression from surveys in
southern cities that it was difficult to secure good results from
activities for colored people carried on by colored workers be-
cause so many were not properly equipped educationally and not
trained by standard methods. If colored workers could be found
who possessed the qualifications demanded by recognized stand-
ards, he felt that their employment should by all means follow;
if not, then white workers should be employed.
If social work for colored people must be differentiated by social
agencies, the question arises whether it may not be both just and
expedient for such agencies to create their own departments for
this work and train their workers, whether white or colored, by the
same methods.
The failure of the majority of the large agencies to apply their
program to white and colored alike, leading as it has to the crea-
tion of separate agencies for colored people, has made difficult
the application of what have come to be regarded as the best
methods of dealing with the problems of school children. This
is especially true of the work of the visiting teacher, perhaps the
most vital force at present available for dealing with those prob-
lems. The value of the visiting teacher depends so entirely on
36
the training, judgment, personality and the right mixture of tact
and authority of the worker that here, perhaps more than any-
where else, is required standardization of method, continuity and
concentration of effort, and the intelligent criticism made possible
by assembling all the workers in this field under the auspices of
one organization whose work has been stamped as successful.
Because of the separation of the social agencies for colored people
from the corresponding general agencies there has been created a
situation which renders it difficult for those organizations that
are prepared to apply their programs to both white and colored
people to proceed without conflicting in some degree with the
colored workers; and throughout the study, as well as in making
recommendations, this situation had to be kept constantly in
mind.
Illustrations of follow-up work on the part of various social
agencies to which cases reported from the schools were referred
show that unless the parents themselves were capable of coping
with the situation, either nothing at all was accomplished or the
child was committed to institutional care. It was not possible
to give to each of the special cases the amount of attention it re-
quired, the kind of attention given to this type of child by the
visiting teacher, and those cases referred to settlements, Boy
Scouts, etc., while placed in touch with the programs of the va-
rious organizations, were either not watched with sufficient care
or were in the first place not given the proper sort of treatment
their especial difficulty required. Examples of such cases are
found in Appendix I.
On the other hand, in spite of the fact that some of the most
difficult children referred by the principals had been for years
members of the clubs and classes in the various social centers, the
workers in these clubs not only were unaware of any trouble in
school but had not discovered that the child had any special
need, whether spiritual or material.
A worker in one of the centers spoke of the difficulty she was
having with a boy whose mother worked every day and had asked
her to care for him after school. The boy often failed to make his
appearance and the worker in question said she had never been
able to win him over so that she felt she could rely on him. In
discussing the case it transpired that the boy had threatened
on several occasions to commit suicide. When asked if she had
ever secured his school record or had him examined for feeble-
37
mindedness or insanity, she said it had never occurred to her to
do either.
Many of the general private agencies were interviewed and
information sought as to the application of their work to colored
children. One of the Secretaries of the State Charities Aid Asso-
ciation said their work touched colored children only in the child-
placing department and that they did not care to go very deeply
into the matter of placing colored children. They placed them
when necessary, but were not making the work a part of their
program. She said they had difficulty in finding desirable homes.
This matter was taken up later with the secretary in charge of
the work with girls for the National League on Urban Conditions
Among Negroes who said that few of the white agencies knew
the better class of colored people. Co-operation was suggested
with the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes
with a view to finding through them a better grade of home for
the State Charities Aid Association's colored children. The
suggestion was favorably received and the Association's child-
placing agent got in touch with the League and found desirable
boarding places for children through them, but no homes into
which the children were taken without pay.
The Probation Society reported that it was overwhelmed with
work; the Secretary felt that the problem of the colored girl was
a distinct one and should be taken care of by those interested in
it. When asked if an arrangement would not be possible whereby
the Probation Society might employ a worker for colored cases,
such a worker, however, to be responsible to the Secretary so that
the whole probation problem would be in the hands of one organ-
ization, she said that such an arrangement would undoubtedly
be the more logical one, but at present the burden on the Society
was so great that it would not be possible to undertake further
work.
The Director of the Prison Association said his Association
had its hands so full of work that they had no opportunity even to
think of the problems of the colored people, which he said he
realized required special consideration because of the variety of
community sentiment concerning Negroes.
Neither the Woman's Municipal League nor the Women's
Health Protective Association admitted colored members, and
neither organization had thus far concerned itself with districts
in which colored people lived.
38
The Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, with
the largest equipment for carrying on fresh-air work of perhaps
any organization in the world, limited its work with colored people
to two day parties for colored mothers and babies to Sea Breeze.
Those of its relief cases requiring a change of air were sent to a
small summer camp maintained by one of the day nurseries for
colored children. Some one interested in the investigation visited
this place and found it quite primitive and devoid of all the edu-
cational features of the Association's institutions. All the guests,
however, appeared to be enjoying themselves and were in good
health.
The Tribune Fresh Air Fund was sending its colored bene-
ficiaries to a farm maintained by a colored ex-clergyman on
Long Island. Colored social workers said the management of
this farm was not up to the standard demanded and obtained
elsewhere by the Colored Fresh Air Committee, this Committee
being made up of representative social workers, white as well as
colored.
This state of affairs concerning the fresh-air work of the large
agencies led to an inquiry of the Bureau of Advice and Informa-
tion of the Charity Organization Society, for a report on the en-
tire fresh-air situation as it had to do with colored children.
They wrote as follows:
"JULY, 1913.
Fresh-air work for colored children in New York is very in-
adequately co-ordinated and so little data is accessible that a
special investigation would be necessary as a basis for proper or-
ganization. Such an investigation was attempted in 1910, when
a Central Bureau of Colored Fresh-Air Agencies was established
for the purpose of unifying the various activities in this field.
This investigation, however, was not successful, lack of money
making it impossible to secure expert agents, and the Bureau
was discontinued (April, 1911). Its task was handed over to
the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. This
Committee had agreed to take over the work on condition that
the agencies would co-operate by sending records and using the
committee as a clearing house; but this the majority of the
agencies failed to do.
"Partly to encourage co-operation, the Committee started a
boys' camp, to which all agencies were given the opportunity
to send boys for a period of two weeks. The camp was a suc-
cessful venture and has been continued.
"In the summer of 1912, experiencing the same difficulty in
securing records and proper co-operation, the National League on
39
Urban Conditions Among Negroes proposed that what it re-
garded as the strongest agency doing fresh-air work for colored
children should take over the work entirely, federating with the
League if it wished. In this case the League would turn over its
camp and equipment, helping further in every way to put the
whole service on an efficient basis. The agency chosen, how-
ever, felt that it could not undertake that responsibility, and
the League on Urban Conditions may be driven to taking over
the whole work itself.
In the event of the League's assuming the responsibility for
the fresh-air work among colored children, its budget would need
to be extended to cover the salary of an office clerk and two field
workers during the summer season. The fresh-air work of the
League for the summer of 1912 consisted in placing 591 mothers
and babies in fresh-air homes. One hundred and forty-two boys
were accommodated for vacations of two weeks at the boys'
camp at Verona, New Jersey. This camp is equipped with
tents and the sanitary conditions are said to be good. The camp
can receive forty boys at a time.
"After the National League on Urban Conditions Among
Negroes, the Negro Fresh Air Committee is the leading agency.
The chairman of this committee is Rev. William N. Hubbell of
St. David's Church in the Bronx. Its leading spirit is Miss
Helena Titus Emerson, of the Free Kindergarten Association for
Colored Children, 202 West 63rd Street, who has been active in
every effort to better conditions in this field. During the summer
of 1912 this committee sent 281 families and 833 individuals to
the Sea Breeze day excursions of the Association for Improving
the Condition of the Poor; 105 persons (including boys, girls
and adults) to St. David's Home, the summer home maintained
by the City Missions Association at White Plains, New York;
59 boys to the camp of the National League on Urban Conditions.
Among Negroes at Verona, New Jersey, the fares being paid by
the Tribune Fresh Air Fund, board paid by the Negro Fresh Air
Committee. Nineteen boys and girls with three nurses were
sent to Hawthorne, New York.
"One hundred and sixty children were obliged to remain at
home because of lack of funds, accommodations, etc., and 85
mothers and babies were prevented from going to St. David's
for the same reason.
"In addition to maintaining this fresh-air work, the committee
is making an effort to raise funds for a fresh-air and convalescent
home for colored people to be open the year round. There is
evidently need for such an institution, as none exists at present."
Valuable fresh-air work has also been done by the New York
Colored Mission.
The relief agencies-the Charity Organization Society and the
Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor-said their
40
problem of family rehabilitation was complicated in cases of
colored people mainly by two conditions: the frequency with
which colored men deserted their families, and the neglect of
their children by working mothers or other relatives in whose
care they were living. Both organizations felt that commit-
ments for improper guardianship and for neglect should be more
actively pressed. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children stated, however, that there would be need for at least
two more institutions than are at present in existence, if they
were to press all the cases of children who should rightfully be
committed for improper guardianship or for neglect.
Attendance officers of the schools, in their turn, criticized the
relief agencies and said they personally secured much more.
prompt and effective help from corner saloons when food and
clothing were needed for the families they visited.
Social workers among the colored people stated that the re-
lief agencies were inclined to hold the Negroes to impossible
standards, in view of their history and training; and that relief
was given much more effectively by the small churches for colored
people, where a printed notice to the effect that "Sister-
was in need," brought donations of bread, flour, etc., to meet the
emergency.
Workers in Stillman House, a branch of the Henry Street
Settlement, on West 60th Street, devoted to work with colored
people, have been much impressed with the self-respecting char-
acter of the colored people, as evidenced by the lack of any ten-
dency on their part to beg.
Miss Helena Titus Emerson, a pioneer white worker among
colored people, in charge of the social activities of the New York
Free Kindergarten Association for Colored Children, also said
that once actual need was past, rehabilitation was almost auto-
matic among colored people. Miss Emerson said poverty came
most often because of the lack of opportunity to work. The
married women or widows with children to support, going out to
work by the day as laundresses or house cleaners in white fam-
ilies, were out of work during the summer months when their
employers were out of town, and much hardship resulted.
There was little coöperation between the large relief agencies
and the societies, organizations, lodges, etc., whose name is
legion, giving relief and sick benefits to colored people. On
San Juan Hill the colored social workers were on the district com-
4I
mittee of the Charity Organization Society, but in Harlem there
had been no coöperation between colored and white workers,
except in individual cases, until the winter of 1913, when a
number of colored workers were called together to form a class
in the study of giving relief under the direction of the Charity
Organization Society's agent in that district. It was planned
first to have a separate advisory committee for the colored people
in Harlem, and the Charity Organization Society's agent was
given the names of a number of the representative social workers,
clergymen, etc., in that district; later, instead of an advisory
committee, these workers were formed into a class.
AGENCIES SOLELY FOR COLORED PEOPLE
A. National
Since the Lincoln Centennial-at which time a number of the
closest students of the colored problem stated, in an appeal sent
to the publicists of the country, "that some ten millions of de-
scendants of former slaves were losing ground almost daily be-
cause everywhere they were prevented from securing any but
menial work to do; were driven out of anything like desirable
living quarters in all large cities; and were in addition subjected
to every manner of abuse with no means of redress; "—the growth
of social effort by the colored people themselves, as well as by
white people in their behalf, has been rapid. Two significant
movements having headquarters in New York have been or-
ganized, both of national scope and both dealing exclusively with
problems of the colored race. The first to enter the field, The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
concerns itself with the civil status of Negroes and seeks to al-
leviate the handicap its members believe race discrimination im-
poses alike on those Negroes who have made themselves efficient
and on the most undeveloped members of the race. Concerning
its purpose, W. E. B. DuBois, director of publicity and research
for the Association, says:
"The National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People is working to make practical in New York City and in the
nation, a democracy which will not hesitate on the color line;
and we believe the discrimination which is called the Negro
problem is at the bottom of many economic and social troubles
which affect not only the colored people, but all Americans. So
far as New York City is concerned, the race prejudice against
42
colored people takes especially the form of industrial exclusion,
difficulty in finding decent homes, and lack of facility for amuse-
ments. These specific difficulties may be ameliorated by various
movements; but as long as any large group of people is so de-
spised by their fellows that they can be treated with public con-
tempt, the result will be discrimination of various kinds and lack
of opportunity. It is against this fundamental problem of race
prejudice that the Association is working.
The Association for the Advancement of Colored People has
on its Executive Board representatives of both the white and
black races, and numbers among its members Moorfield Storey
of Boston, who is the national president; Dr. Joel E. Spingarn,
Oswald Garrison Villard, Treasurer, W. E. B. DuBois, William
English Walling, Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Lillian D.
Wald, and a number of colored clergymen and social workers.
In New York it is confining its efforts to cases of civil discrimi-
nation, and has successfully defended the rights of colored people
to occupy seats in any part of a theatre, to be served in restau-
rants, etc. It is opposed to any form of segregation, believing
that separation of the races invariably leads to discrimination.
against the colored people, giving them inferior schools where
separate schools are maintained, inferior cars and accommoda-
tions where the so-called "Jim Crow" laws exist, and so through
every phase of life.
The Advancement Association has withdrawn from the purely
social field in New York City, which it has left to the National
League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes. As its name
implies, this organization concerns itself with the problems of
Negroes which arise through the conditions of their lives in cities.
The Board of Directors and membership of the League are made
up of both white and colored, in the belief "that the different
problems engendered by the close contact of the two races in
cities, must have, if they are to be solved, the careful study and
sympathetic handling of intelligent and liberal-minded persons
of both races." (Statement by directors.)
The League is the outgrowth of three previously existing organ-
izations which found themselves in frequent coöperation. By
way of experiment, they came together in 1911 in a loose federa-
tion, and then formed in 1912 a closer union under the present.
name.
The New York program of the League includes a housing bu-
43
reau to aid in the enforcement of the tenement house law; an
employment bureau, not only for securing work for colored peo-
ple, but also to make a study of the trend of occupations avail-
able for them; the organization of Big Brothers and Big Sisters;
travellers' aid service; a fresh-air camp for boys; and the organ-
ization of agencies to provide probationary and institutional care
for delinquent girls and women. In addition to these features the
League has promoted conferences among colored social workers,
organizations among employed colored men (such as public
porters, janitors, etc.), and has striven to aid in the establishment
and standardization of social activities in the existing social.
centers.
Part of the work of the League, as one of the Directors states
it, "is to teach the Negro how to use the general agencies for
civic betterment rightly, whether public or private. Another
part is to induce those agencies not to neglect the Negro, but to
realize that, altho Negroes comprise but a small percentage of
our total population, they are furnishing a very large proportion
of some classes of our civic problems. We initiate no work which
is being adequately done by other organizations."
The work of the League is directed by George Edmund Haynes,
who has his Ph. D. degree in Sociology from Columbia University
and is now Professor of Social Science at Fisk University; and
by Eugene Kinckle Jones, who was graduated from Virginia
Union University and holds his Master's degree from Cornell.
The men who help in the various bureaus have been college
students or graduates at Columbia University. Two fellowships
have been established by the League. These fellows assist in the
work of the various bureaus, and each bureau is supervised by
the best people who could be secured as the result of careful search
and trial.
Mr. Jones, the associate director, felt that the most acute
problems of colored children in New York City were those created
by the lack of public recreational facilities; and later on by the
restriction in the means of earning their livelihood. He felt
that everywhere in the established public playgrounds colored
children were discriminated against, while, on the other hand,
their homes offered no facilities for recreation. The League was
making every effort, Mr. Jones said, to encourage the formation of
boys' and girls' clubs where healthy amusement might be avail-
able for them. The League had also contemplated undertaking
44
work in vocational guidance for school boys and girls and was
about to make an inquiry into occupations already available
for them.
The associate director considered also that the bachelor apart-
ments maintained in flats on the west side and in Harlem, which
sometimes masqueraded under the name of social clubs and to
which girls were brought under various pretenses, constituted a
serious menace to the girls who attended the dances and “so-
cials" given in them.
The League has been greatly handicapped by lack of money
and the small number of experienced workers from which it can.
draw. In any criticism of its work these facts must be constantly
kept in mind.
The point at which the work of the League touched the in-
vestigation most closely was in its school visiting and its work
with delinquent boys and girls, and a connection was at once es-
tablished with these departments which was maintained through-
out the investigation. The housing and employment bureaus of
the League were also resorted to in a number of instances. Co-
operation was sought in various cases of difficult school children
reported by school principals. To give instances of cases referred
by the investigator to the visitors from the Urban League:
L. Q., a boy, 7 years of age, was reported for irregular attend-
ance. His attendance record was 69%. L. was an exception-
ally attractive, likeable child. He was found to be living with
his mother's brother and his wife, in a well furnished, comfort-
able home. It was said that the boy's father was in an insane
asylum in the British West Indies and that his mother was living
a dissolute life, abandoning the child every few months. The
relatives with whom he was living were devoted to the boy and
wished to have legal custody of him. Since this seemed to be an
instance in which continuous supervision would be desirable the
case was referred to the Urban League, first to secure the moth-
er's consent to the boy's adoption, and secondly for preventive
care and following up of the future life of the boy. After six
weeks, although their worker had gone several times to the ad-
dress given, she had not found the mother, nor did she know where
the boy was, his relatives with whom he lived having moved.
The boy was found in school, his address was learned and also
the fact that his mother had been severely burned and was in a
hospital, and the case was again referred to the Urban League,
but after two months no action had been taken and the boy was
being passed from one relative to another. The mother was then
seen and she pleaded to be allowed to retain custody of the
45
boy, promising to provide for him any permanent home with rel-
atives that might be approved of.
In the case of S. and M. R., girls, 9 and 10 years old, serious
consequences ensued. These two children were reported not
only for irregular attendance, but the record of M. showed mal-
nutrition. Their mother had been deserted prior to the birth of
a child which was then two months old, and the Charity Organiza-
tion Society had aided her until her baby was a month old. She
then went to live in a boarding house maintained by a small
colored mission, where she was visited. She and the two girls
scrubbed, cleaned and cooked, and paid in addition $2.00 a week
out of the $2.50 Mrs. R. was able to earn washing dishes at night,
when she felt she could best leave her baby. The two girls were
ragged and unkempt in spite of the fact that the mission house
in which they lived maintained sewing classes for children and
the woman in charge showed me a number of garments they had
made for children. The case was reported to the Urban League,
which in turn reported it to an organization of colored women
whose president was a member of the Executive Board of the
Urban League, and whose club work consisted chiefly in giving
relief.
The R. family was visited and the children were given clothing,
and employment for the mother was secured.
A month later the family was found by the investigator living
in a basement, the girls being kept out of school alternately to
care for the baby. A place at the Hope Day Nursery was se-
cured for the baby and the family was again referred to the
League. Some weeks later the investigator met the eldest child
on Lenox Avenue and asked after the family. She said that the
baby was dead, her sister was in St. Joseph's Hospital with tu-
berculosis, and that she and her mother were still living in the
basement. She said that no one from any agency was visiting
them. The Urban League's visitor stated that the mother had
failed to take advantage of the place secured in the Nursery,
that she considered the woman to be slovenly and neglectful
of her children, and the case was apparently dropped there.
Another case was that of F. and W. M., two boys 11 and 9
years old respectively. The elder boy had been reported to the
Urban League's school visitor at the time this investigation com-
menced and was later reported to the investigator for the Public
Education Association, as no action had apparently been taken.
These boys were living on the top floor of a tenement building
in the custody of an aunt and a grandmother, both of whom went
out to work every day. Their father, a cook in a downtown
restaurant, lived elsewhere and although he paid for the boys'
maintenance, visited them only once a month.
About two months before the investigation closed the eldest
boy was referred as a rapidly retrogressing case. The worker to
whom the boys had previously been referred knew nothing of the
46
case but said he would take the boys in hand. He then included
W. in a group of boys he was "Big Brothering" and thought W.
showed marked improvement after several weeks. In the mean-
time W. was tested by the Public Education Association field
worker, who found him very backward. His brother F., a
pathetic little ragged figure with a hoarse cough and dark circles.
under his eyes, gave no one any trouble and consequently was not
even "Big Brothered," but left entirely to his own devices. W.,
however, steadily improved and seemed to be a credit to his
Big Brother," whose work won the principal's comme ndation.
These were three out of eighteen cases referred to the Urban
League. Satisfactory coöperation was not secured in most of
them and the follow-up work was seldom thorough.*
Efforts to secure work for individuals through the League's
employment bureau were unfortunately not successful, and
both the Manhattan Trade School and individual employers
said they had not secured results, either in the form of employ-
ment or employees, from this bureau.
Coöperation with the housing bureau proved very helpful.
Janitor service improved in at least three of the houses reported
on the score of poor heat and dilatory collection of garbage, and
the bureau reported two houses repaired in which stairs had been
found in a dangerous condition. This was brought about by
efforts of the League with the landlord, instead of by being re-
ported to the Tenement House Department.
As one of the Directors of the League stated, "the housing
bureau is not designed merely to aid in enforcing the tenement
house law. It exists for the purpose of studying housing condi-
tions, rents, etc., in Harlem, of teaching the colored people their
rights and duties as tenants, and of endeavoring to increase the
feeling of responsibility of the landlords and agents to their ten-
ants in the matters of sanitation, repairs, respectability of ten-
ants, etc., and also of raising the standard of janitor service."
The League has also rendered a most valuable service to the
colored community through its promotion of discussions in the
churches on city problems: housing reforms, clean streets, etc.
* It is probable that the lack of satisfactory work and coöperation in the
visits to the cases of difficult school children came about first through a mis-
understanding as to the reasons for reporting these cases and then through the
fact that the League's visitors were either overworked or untrained. The
more such visiting is done the more apparent become two facts-that the full
time of a visitor is required and that she must be fitted by training and by ex-
perience for her difficult and delicate task.-Editor.
47
Many leaders among their own people are unalterably op-
posed to anything that approaches in any particular to a policy
of segregation and believe that the best possibility for the de-
velopment of the Negro race lies in broadening the colored man's
contact with white civilization. Many white people believe
this. The policy of the League on Urban Conditions seems to
be for creating separate agencies for colored people and for em-
ploying colored social workers even where their training is not
equal to that of available white workers. In that way
In that way it appears
to the investigator to be encouraging a separation of the efforts
for betterment, both personal and civic, of white and colored.
people, and so failing to stand for the best possible development
of the work for colored people in New York City.
The Board of Directors of the League, though composed of
persons holding varying opinions on the final status of the Negro,
is unanimous in feeling that the Negro needs intelligent help in
adjusting himself to city conditions of life and of work. It is
at one "in the effort to make of the League an organization to
which he will feel free to turn for counsel and encouragement in
attacking his own problems. It is a part of the plan that he
should recognize in the workers people of his own race who have
had to face similar problems of unjust discrimination in many di-
rections-who understand his psychology and his needs as, in
the last analysis, only the very exceptional and perhaps no white
person can."
The League states that it "aims to co-operate with all and
does co-operate with nearly all organizations doing Negro work.
Advice is freely offered when asked and the use of
the office staff when possible, as for example to the Music School
Settlement for which we sent out notices of its first public con-
cert in 1912, to the Negro Fresh Air Committee, which files its
statistical records in our office, and to the A. I. C. P. in the matter
of its day excursions for Negroes, which latter having been dis-
continued were finally reëstablished at our instance."
The League naturally has not the support of all the Negroes in
New York, but the directors state that as the work and its mean-
ing and spirit are more fully understood, they feel they will rap-
idly get "the support and sympathy and cordial coöperation of
the Negroes, the organizations for Negroes and the general phil-
anthropic agencies, public and private, of the city."
48
B. New York City
The agencies solely for colored people in New York city have
been grouped under the districts in which the schools studied
were located. Activities in districts other than these were not
visited.
The first district considered, that on San Juan Hill, was more
carefully organized than either of the others. The tendency
among activities for the betterment of colored people in this dis-
trict was toward working out a program that would take care of
both the economic and cultural development of the neighbor-
hood families. The directory of the various centers in this as
well as other colored neighborhoods appended to this report
shows in the San Juan Hill neighborhood a Children's Aid So-
ciety School; two institutional mission churches; a day nursery;
two kindergartens; Stillman House, a settlement to which seven
visiting nurses are attached; and a clergyman of the Moravian
Church who lives in the model tenements and holds services in
the Children's Aid Society School building, all within a radius.
of three blocks.
One of the most important pieces of work in the San Juan Hill
district, from the standpoint of numbers reached, is that done
by the Children's Aid Society through its Henrietta Industrial
School at 224 West 63rd Street. This school had on its register
465 pupils, with an average daily attendance of 409. It par-
alleled the work of the public schools through grades IA to 4B,
and in addition conducted classes after school in cobblery, car-
pentry, sewing, cooking, millinery and chair-caning. Social
work and classes were also conducted there in the evening, the
families of the children were visited by the teachers, all of whom
were white women, and material aid was given where need was
met. The school plant was adequate, the need very great and
the workers earnest in their desire to do all in their power for
the colored people.
There was a new principal at the school who was only just be-
coming acquainted with the neighborhood and the colored people,
her work having been among the Jewish children on the lower
East Side. She said the strongest characteristic of the colored
children she had thus far discovered was their tendency to be
guided by likes and dislikes for their teachers; that while it was
possible to lead them to almost any extent, it was impossible to
drive them.
49
Next to the Henrietta Industrial School of the Children's Aid
Society, the most important plant in the San Juan Hill district
is St. Cyprian's Parish House and Chapel, the former occupying
three brownstone houses at 177-181 West 63rd Street. The
work is in charge of the Rev. Joseph Johnson and Mrs. Johnson,
with the assistance of a deaconness of the Episcopal church by
whose mission St. Cyprian's work is supported.
The social activities of St. Cyprian's Parish House are distinct
from those connected with the chapel, and included two features
that seemed especially practical. One of these was a class in
sewing for women and young girls the members of which were
paid from five to fifteen cents an hour for their time while being
taught. The garments made—plain, serviceable, comfortable
underwear and children's clothing-were sold in the neighborhood
at moderate prices and the proceeds of these sales supported the
classes. The other activity was the maintenance of a model
flat, furnished simply and in excellent taste, which was open
every day in the week, Thursdays being devoted especially to
housemaids who would otherwise have had no place to go on
their afternoon off, and who had the privilege of writing letters,
preparing supper, and dancing if anyone happened to be present
who played the piano.
In the basement of the houses were a milk station and a laundry,
the former open during the morning until noon. St. Cyprian's
did not belong to the association of milk stations and was not
employing the newest methods in vogue in the affiliated stations.
The milk was prepared for the mothers purchasing it, instead of
having the nurse in charge instruct and thereby educate the
mother. It was felt that possibly the babies were given a better
chance by using the older method, besides which, more money
than St. Cyprian's could raise was necessary in order to join the
association of milk stations.
A laundry was also installed in the basement with a large back
yard, three houses deep, in which to hang the clothes. Mrs.
Johnson said their laundry work came from patrons of St.
Cyprian's parish who paid well to have their work done by hand
and dried in the open air. In a neighborhood where there was
such a dearth of playgrounds it seemed a pity to waste that back
yard on drying clothes, but as the laundry furnished employ-
ment to a number of women at $1.00, $1.50 and $2.00 a day, and
the profit from the work paid for cleaning and clerical help used.
5
50
in the parish house, the profit amounting to about $250 per year,
such a use of the premises seemed unavoidable. The laundry
was closed during the summer because all their patrons were out
of the city at that time. They were hoping to secure funds with
which to install modern appliances, as the laundry was quite
primitive.
There was an employment bureau connected with the parish
house, supplying mainly West Indian domestic help. It was
stated that this work was carried on in quite an informal manner
and no figures were available regarding the number of applicants
or placements. There were also dressmaking, embroidery and
cooking classes in charge of the wife of the pastor, a woman of
tact and education with a most helpful attitude toward her work
and the people she is working among.
St. Cyprian's Chapel has a good, completely equipped gym-
nasium, but it was being used by a comparatively small number
of boys. Mr. Johnson said that he would welcome any boy,
whether belonging to the parish or not; but the other social
workers in the neighborhood said they had not found it possible
to place their club boys there as a fee was demanded which the
boys were unable to pay. The instructor furnished the year
before by the Mission Society had just been withdrawn because
of lack of response from the boys of the neighborhood.
Perhaps more than with any other race the life of the colored
population centers around the church, and any movement for
social betterment is far more apt to secure a hearing and consid-
eration from the pulpit than in any other way. Settlement ac-
tivities, whether or not they are connected with churches, kinder-
gartens or day nurseries, make slow progress. It has been sug-
gested that the democratic organization of social life among the
colored people has contributed to this condition.
The Union Baptist Church, at 210 W. 63rd Street, is also an
institutional church. Rev. George H. Sims, the pastor of this
church, is an active force among the colored people of the district.
There, as elsewhere, it was not possible to secure figures of attend-
ance in social activities connected with the church, but it was
stated that about 400 children attended the Sunday School regu-
larly.
Rev. Victor G. Flynn, the white pastor of the Moravian church
holding its services in the Children's Aid Society school building,
is a keen student of the problems of the colored people. He said
that the longer he lived among them the more firmly he was con-
51
vinced that their cause was injured every time anything was
done for them as colored people.
The Lincoln Day Nursery occupied the upper floor and the
roof of the building at 202 West 63rd Street. There were accom-
modations for 79 children, but the average attendance was said
to be from 25 to 35. The children two years old and younger
were given a very simple luncheon and bread and milk at half-
past nine in the morning and again at five in the afternoon. The
older children had a more substantial luncheon, otherwise the
food was the same. In other day nurseries cereal is usually
given for breakfast and always milk for luncheon, as was not the
case here.
The fee charged by the Lincoln Day Nursery was 10 cents per
day for each child, or where there were three children in the fam-
ily a charge of 25 cents for the three was made.
The usual fee in day nurseries for white children is said to be
5 cents a day for each child.
The nursery was well equipped and well cared for and the
children were well kept, clean and most of them appeared well
and happy. The Superintendent said that although they had
75 families on their register, the capacity of the nursery was very
seldom taxed, as she did not take on new applicants and the
mothers already registered worked on different days and so did
not use the nursery at the same time.
She also said that the colored people of the neighborhood were
for the most part self-respecting and hard-working but oc-
casional lapses were found. She thought that it was significant
that out of the 75 families on their list, they knew of only three
in which there were illegitimate children. The day nursery did
not refuse to take these illegitimate children when the mother's
offense was a first one.
There was a Mothers' Club connected with the nursery, meet-
ing once a month, and during the summer months the superin-
tendent had charge of a summer home at Mt. Kisco, conducted
under the auspices of the nursery.
The small number of families availing themselves of the day
nursery privileges as contrasted with the accommodations pro-
vided, gave rise, naturally, to inquiries into the reason for this
state of affairs, especially as one family after another was found
later in which children were kept from school to care for their
brothers and sisters below school age.
52
The difficulty, so far as could be learned from the very cursory
inquiry made, was about equally divided between the hardship
of paying the fee in families that were or should be receiving aid
from relief-giving bodies, and personal feeling between mothers
or older sisters and the maids at the nursery.
The New York Free Kindergarten and Clubs for Colored Chil-
dren occupied the two lower floors of the building of the Lincoln
Day Nursery, at 202 West 63rd Street. A branch of the music
school settlement for colored people had been established in the
Kindergarten building; also an amusement club for young
women. Outings, circus parties, etc., were enjoyed by each
club. The most cordial coöperation existed between this or-
ganization and the public schools in the vicinity. This coöpera-
tion consisted in inviting the colored children of the schools to
participate in certain activities at the center, and in taking up
neighborhood problems with the principals and teachers. No
individual problems were, however, made the subject of coöpera-
tion; and even in this center-perhaps the most intelligently
managed one among all the agencies for colored people—a num-
ber of children were found who had presented problems at their
schools, and who, neither before nor after they were reported to
the center, were given special consideration. One serious mis-
understanding arose in school in the case of a girl belonging to
one of the clubs in this center. The club was to have an outing,
and this child, whose mother was not living, asked her father's
permission to go to the park with her "teacher," as club leaders
are commonly called by the children. Her father, an unusually
careful parent, called at the school, learned there was to be no
outing, and with the teacher accused the child of telling a false-
hood. The girl had rather below the normal facility for ex-
pressing herself and could not explain satisfactorily. The matter
was reported by the head of the department as an instance of
flagrant untruthfulness. Later, in talking with the girl, the
usual question was asked, if she belonged to any club. She eag-
erly said she did-to all of the clubs of the Free Kindergarten Asso-
ciation-and then the fact appeared that it was the "teacher" of
this Club with whom she had asked permission to go to the out-
ing, so the matter was cleared up with both teacher and father.
How many small tragedies of this nature it is possible to avert—
misunderstandings that may well affect a child's life-only the
visiting teacher knows.
53
Miss Emerson, who had been in charge of the work of the Free
Kindergarten since its inception, said she felt very strongly that
an effort should be made to correlate the program of social ac-
tivities in San Juan Hill with a view to having industrial train-
ing made the special feature of certain centers say the Hen-
rietta Industrial School and St. Cyprian's Parish House, while
Stillman House and the Free Kindergarten Association, although
not abandoning all their industrial work, might devote their pro-
grams to recreational and cultural activities.
Stillman House,* the colored branch of the Henry Street
Settlement, reached an average of 500 persons each week in
its social activities, 245 of these being depositors in the Penny
Provident Fund.
Miss Wald stated that in her opinion the best work in connec-
tion with the house had been done, first, by the district nurses,
and then by the men's and women's clubs. A class in mani-
curing and shampooing, taught by a thoroughly trained teacher,
was well attended and diplomas were given to four of the twelve
members, the other eight members forfeiting their diplomas be-
cause of irregular attendance.
During the summer of 1912 a successful playground out of doors
was conducted by Stillman House with an average weekly attend-
ance of about 475. The worker in charge was furnished by the
City Department of Parks and Playgrounds and the children
(who came in two groups, one from 9:30 to 12 o'clock A. M.,
and the second, from 2 to 5 o'clock P. M.) were required to re-
main until the close of the session. This ruling eliminated one
of the most objectionable features of the school recreation centers,
where the children were continually running in and out making
program work almost impossible.
Probably about 1,500 persons were reached jointly by the
social activities of the three centers, Stillman House, St. Cy-
prian's and the Free Kindergarten Association. There was said
to be a colored population of 10,000 in the San Juan Hill district,
and the school registers showed roughly about 1,200 children.
It would therefore seem that a large percentage should have been
represented in the clubs and other activities of these social
agencies. The most careful inquiry failed, however, to indicate
that such was the case; from the study of school children's amuse-
ments it appeared to be a very small one indeed. All the social
See Appendix II.
54
agencies in the neighborhood seemed to be coöperating with the
Henrietta Industrial School, but such coöperation apparently
did not exist in the case of public schools in a district whose prob-
lems were many and varied.
Aside from the San Juan Hill district, activities for the better-
ment of colored people were studied in two other districts.
The first was that embraced in the territory of the Chelsea
Neighborhood Association, extending from 34th to 42nd Street,
and from Seventh Avenue to the North River. In this district
are located Public Schools 28 and 32, each with a large proportion
of colored children, but the only agencies for betterment were
the Abyssinia Baptist Church, and two small missions, in neither
of which were found any social activities for children. In this
district, and especially in the immediate neighborhood of Pub-
lic School 28, were some of the most vicious resorts for colored
people as well as the greatest poverty.
The Colored Mission on West 30th Street is outside the dis-
trict studied. It is doing an important work, and, among other
activities, has a day nursery and classes in sewing and cobbling.
In Harlem, the second of these districts, between West 130th
and 145th Streets, and Fifth and Eighth Avenues, new activities
are added almost daily.
Two institutional churches-St. Philip's, Episcopal, and
Salem Baptist—the Catholic Mission Church of St. Mark the
Evangelist, and a chapel or mission literally on every block, pro-
vide for the social as well as the spiritual needs of their congre-
gations, and indeed every colored church is in this respect more
or less institutional. In no other place can as representative and
intelligent an audience be obtained among the colored people as
in their churches; and the church societies of men, women and
children are identifying themselves with the most advanced
methods of social progress. Discussions on the housing prob-
lem, promoted by the National League on Urban Conditions
Among Negroes, were held in turn in all the large churches dur-
ing the winter of 1912-13, and drew large and enthusiastic gather-
ings. Boy Scouts and Camp Fire Girls were being organized,
the latter under the auspices of the Young Women's Christian
Association. In a neighborhood house at 64 West 134th Street,
devoted to mission work of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,
one of the finest women's meetings ever attended by the investi-
gator was held in February, 1913. Miss Laura Garrett delivered
55
a series of lectures on sex hygiene before the women's club, and
on this particular evening the discussion by the women of the
club showed intelligence and spiritual insight of a high order.
Interspersed with these sociological and ethical discussions
were evenings devoted to every manner of activity, from "Old
Maids' Conventions" to lectures by presidents of schools for
colored people in the south, delivered for the purpose of securing
financial aid for their work.
The societies connected with the Catholic mission churches of
St. Benedict the Moor, on West 53rd Street, and St. Mark the
Evangelist, on West 138th Street, gave artistically and financially
successful performances of "Pinafore" during the spring and
winter of 1913; and everywhere one finds, night after night, that
the colored churches are free from the reproach of being useless
from Sunday night to Sunday morning. If the various amounts.
contributed incessantly in five and ten cent pieces-even in
pennies at these meetings could be summed up, the resulting
amount would undoubtedly be a most astonishing one.
One or two of the colored clergymen felt that the young people
were breaking away from the church-that the temptations of
dance halls and moving picture shows were proving more potent
than their traditional Christian Endeavor Societies, Baptist
Unions and St. Agnes Guilds of the Methodist, Baptist and
Episcopal churches respectively; but the attendance at the meet-
ings of these societies was large, and the interest of the young
people seemed to be vital. The young men and young women
as individuals devoted themselves to the work of the church,
teaching in the Sunday Schools, assisting in church entertain-
ments, etc., but as yet they have not made themselves felt as
organizations. There is much fine material in these various bodies
and it should not be difficult to stimulate them to helpfulness in
larger social questions.
Opinions as to moral conditions in this section seemed to differ.
One clergyman felt that the situation was very grave. He said
that secret immoral resorts frequented by young boys and girls
were in existence; and the neglect of parents to keep closely in
touch with their children's amusements and companions was the
cause of much trouble. On the other hand, another clergyman
said he believed that the young people were doing very well in-
deed; and still another that he wondered they behaved as well
as they did, so little encouragement was offered them.
56
St. Philip's Episcopal Church, not a mission, at 215 West
133rd Street, the rear of the church fronting on 134th Street, is
said to be the richest colored congregation in the United States.
The church is housed in a handsome brick structure designed by
colored architects and built on institutional lines. Its pastor,
Rev. Hutchins C. Bishop, is identified with most of the work
being done for colored people in New York. He is a member of
the executive board of both the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and the League on Urban Con-
ditions Among Negroes. St. Philip's Church has participated in
all the discussions promoted by the League, and the congrega-
tion has supplied a number of Big Brothers who have taken a
keen interest in the problems of school children. As a rule, how-
ever, these men are busy through long hours of work, and with
every good intention can give only a limited amount of time to
"Big Brothering" the neglected little ones they befriend.
In addition to the Sunday School and the church guilds of
men and women at St. Philip's, there were senior and junior
clubs, three for boys with a membership of about 80, and two for
girls with a membership of 41, the lowest age for admission being
12 years for boys and 14 years for girls. There was also a gym-
nasium open six nights a week, the boys paying fifteen cents a
month and the girls five cents a month. There was also a Boy
Scout organization with a membership of 75.
Mr. I. W. Daniel, the assistant to the pastor of the church,
and his wife were in charge of the social activities for the boys and
girls. All these activities took place in the evening and the
question was asked as to the advisability of afternoon activities,
as well as the necessity of providing for the care in the afternoon
of the younger children.
The pastor stated that this could not be done without an in-
creased force as both Mr. and Mrs. Daniel were overtaxed. Be-
sides this, it was always difficult to secure the attendance of girls
and boys at afternoon clubs because of the many home duties, er-
rands, etc., that devolved upon them. It appeared also that
attendance in all the clubs was irregular and unreliable.
St. Philip's Church maintained an Old People's Home, and gave
relief in form of monetary aid to meet insurance payments, rents,
etc., the investigations being made by the pastor and his assistant.
The Dorcas Society, composed of women members of the church,
gave relief in the form of clothing, and on the recommendation
57
of their committee, consisting of four members, funds in the
pastor's custody were also disbursed. Mrs. Daniel said that re-
lief was not limited to parish members. The church did not
coöperate with the Charity Organization Society, nor did it
register its cases with the Social Service Exchange. The state-
ment was made that the investigations were very thorough and
that there could be no overlapping in their cases.
St. Philip's was equipped with a billiard and smoking room,
used by the men of St. Andrew's Brotherhood, and had half a
dozen meeting rooms of different sizes in addition to offices, the
gymnasium and a chapel extending through to West 134th
Street. The congregation numbered about 1000, made up for
the most part of working men and women, with a sprinkling of
members of the professional class.
Mr. Daniel said St. Philip's principal need was $500 to equip
their gymnasium, for which they had only a basket-ball outfit;
also a piano for the gymnasium. A fund to purchase a piano had
been started by contributions from the boys' and girls' clubs.
The boys had practice for basket-ball in the recreation center at
P. S. 89, and their track game practice at McCombs Dam. Mr.
Daniel said, however, that the boys' clubs were not affiliated with
the Athletic League. They had been members in years past, but
their dues had not been paid and the membership had lapsed.
The girls' clubs, whose members range from 14 to 18 years old,
were engaged in embroidery and drawnwork. They were also
inaugurating the practice of giving entertainments for the in-
mates of the Old Ladies' Home. All the members of the clubs
were school girls, excepting two who were dressmakers' assistants
and who had graduated from the Washington Irving High School's
dressmaking department.
The girls had a basket-ball club coached by a member of the
boys' club. Their leader, Mrs. Daniel, said these girls were
very domestic and helpful in their own homes, and that their
clubs constituted the only amusement they had outside of their
home circle. Mrs. Daniel herself is a graduate of Normal Col-
lege and taught in the New York Public Schools before her mar-
riage. She felt that the problem of street behavior was a serious
one in the Harlem colored district, and said that she was most
anxious about her own boys, who were approaching adolescence.
Later in the winter, when taking part in the discussion of one of
Miss Garrett's lectures on sex hygiene, she aroused much en-
58
thusiasm among the women present on the question of parents'
duties to their boys in placing before them the problems involved
in the relations of men and women.
Men and women of the type of these leaders in the social ac-
tivities of St. Philip's could not fail to leave an impression on the
lives of the young people associated with them. They were dig-
nified and definite and left one feeling that if only a corps of vol-
unteer workers were available for their needs they could de-
velop a young people's social center which would be of great value
in the community. Here, as elsewhere, however, it appeared that
colored men and women of ability were so fully occupied with
gainful employment and usually received so much smaller pay
than did white workers of the same caliber that they could not
afford to give their services without compensation. In each social
center visited this same statement was made, and until the group
of high school boys and girls was studied, the statement could not
be contradicted. Among these boys and girls, however, was
found the best sort of material for training as volunteer workers,
and not only the material but also the spirit and wish to help.
Salem M. E. Church, also an institutional church, is located at
104 W. 133rd Street. The Rev. W. E. Cullen, pastor of the
church, stated that the congregation was composed of about 700
men and women from laboring and professional classes, and that
350 children on an average attended the Sunday School. There
were two boys' clubs, one junior and one senior, aggregating 75
to 80 members. The boys' clubs used the gymnasium in the
church building on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings,
seniors and juniors mixing on those nights. On other evenings.
the clubs met in their club rooms for parliamentary instruction,
ethical discussions, games, etc. The work of the girls' clubs
was not yet developed, but they met informally once or twice a
week.
Mr. Cullen was deeply interested in the boys and girls of the
neighborhood and appeared to be a vital influence with them.
He was consulted a number of times concerning boys who pre-
sented social problems, and aided materially in securing evidence
that helped place in jail at least two members of a gang of young
men that had been a bad influence among the young girls of their
neighborhoods.
According to his statements the streets east of Lenox Avenue
were infested with gangs of young boys who were under the in-
59
fluence of older and hardened wrongdoers. He had reached the
ring leaders of several of the gangs and had successfully held
them in his boys' clubs.
He also spoke of the harm that had been done by loose women
of the neighborhood, both colored and white, who enticed the
more attractive colored boys into living lives of idleness sup-
ported by the earnings of these women. These boys, known in
the neighborhood as "pimps," had adopted a uniform style of
dress, consisting of a loose backed coat (they were also called
"loose backs"), tight fitting trousers and tan shoes. They were
an institution peculiar to the colored district, and at the time the
investigation began could be found in twos and threes on almost
every street corner. Mr. Cullen was informed by the investi-
gator of the work being done by the Committee of Fourteen and
placed in touch with Mr. Whitin, the general secretary. Since
that time, as stated elsewhere, a number of immoral resorts in
the neighborhood were closed, half a dozen notorious characters
were jailed, and the "pimps" are no longer noticeable on the
streets. They may be there, but they do not flaunt their pro-
fession by means of a uniform.
Mr. Whitin, of the Committee of Fourteen, said they would be
glad to coöperate at all times in dealing with any phase of com-
mercialized vice. Practically every case referred to them was
sooner or later acted upon, either directly by them or by the So-
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children when boys and
girls under sixteen were involved, as in the case of a former
notorious "club" on West 30th Street. This was being used as
a garage at the time of the investigation, but with the indecent
mural decorations of the resort still untouched. A caretaker's
family with three small children lived on the top floor, and within
a week after the place was reported to the Committee of Four-
teen, who in turn referred it to the Children's Society, the walls
were repainted. Other cases learned of from the parents of
school children and reported to these agencies have already been
mentioned; still others are described in the statistical portion of
the report and in Appendix I.
The Catholic Church is represented in the Harlem district by
the chapel of St. Mark the Evangelist at 61 West 138th Street,
in charge of Father Plunkitt; and by St. Mark's School at 50
West 134th Street. The chapel had between 500 and 600 families
60
in its membership and the children from these families attended
the Sunday School.
The social work with boys and girls was only just in process of
development at St. Mark's chapel, but Father Plunkitt and the
Brothers attached to the chapel were intimately acquainted with
the families of both their colored and white parishioners, who
were about equally divided as to race.
Among the activities there was a basket-ball court for boys,
but no coach was provided for them. This court was used during
the winter by the boys attending P. S. 100, who were too young
to join the regularly organized basket-ball teams connected with
their own congregations.
Father Plunkitt did not regard seriously the race disputes of the
neighborhood and said that when he found two gangs engaged
in an encounter he could scatter the boys with scarcely more
than a word. The "White Rat" gang, composed of white boys
in the vicinity of 138th Street and Fifth Avenue, and a gang of
colored boys at the Lenox Avenue end of the block he found
equally troublesome. Father Plunkitt thought that the police
might be of more service in dealing with the situation if they
merely scattered the boys whenever they were found congre-
gated together, without paying too serious attention to their dis-
putes. This seemed to him the right attitude.
The colored people of this parish, according to Father Plunkitt,
were sober and industrious, with not nearly so high a percentage
of shiftlessness and general troublesomeness as the corresponding
element in the white population; and the attitude of some of the
white people of the neighborhood, who objected to people infi-
nitely their superiors merely because they were black was, he
said, difficult to meet with patience.
In the Holy Name Society, the representative society of the
Roman Catholic Church, Father Plunkitt said an effort had been
made to maintain a mixed membership, but the colored people
seemed to prefer to have their own society and to manage it
themselves.
St. Mark's School was attended by about 125 boys and girls and
supported by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. The work
of these sisters is with colored people and Indians, and in this
Miss Katherine Drexel,-Mother Drexel, as she is known in the
order has been the moving spirit. The school is in charge of
.
61
Mother Paul, and in the fall of 1914 moved into its own build-
ing on 138th Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues.
Mother Paul has a remarkable personality: vigorous, sweet,
attractive and definite, and capable of exerting much firmness in
enforcing discipline. She stated that wayward girls or boys
were not retained among their pupils as they had found by ex-
perience that no improvement they were able to effect counter-
acted the bad influence exerted on the other children.
There were no formal social activities connected with the school,
the Sisters in charge of the classes concerning themselves with
problems affecting the morals, manners and lives in general of
the families of their pupils.
Mother Paul said she had found that irregular attendance was
apt to cover any sort of trouble. One of the girls who had not
been coming regularly was discovered in Harlem Hospital, suffer-
ing from the effects of an abortion. This girl and her younger
sister were asked to leave the school.
These girls were followed up by the investigator. They had
gone to P. S. 119, where they had an unsavory record because of
obscene notes they had written to other girls, and later had been
sent to the Training School at Hudson through the efforts of the
school nurse, who reported the case to the Children's Society.
St. Mark's School charged no fee to its pupils, but made a
small charge for books, amounting to about fifty cents a year in
the lower, and one dollar in the upper grades.
There are other churches, chapels and missions in the Harlem
district; so numerous are they, in fact, that almost without ex-
ception between Seventh Avenue on the west and Fifth Avenue
on the east, from 133rd to 135th Streets and from Lenox Avenue
on the west on up to 140th Street, every block has from two to
five organized congregations reflecting every shade of faith and
nationality. The Danish West Indian has his chapel, as has also
the West Indian from Barbadoes; while many of the ministers
formerly in charge of formal congregations, but who for one
reason or another had been deprived of or had left their parishes,
have opened small independent "missions" that are more or less
private and personal enterprises.
There were few philanthropic organizations in the district at
the time the investigation began: The Hope Day Nursery, St.
John's Home for Working Girls and the Milk Station of the Diet
Kitchen Association. Since that time the Colored Branch of
62
the Young Women's Christian Association has moved into
Harlem.
The Hope Day Nursery occupied a four-story brownstone
house at 114 West 133rd Street, and had been established for ten
years. At the time the investigation began its capacity was en-
larged, by permission of the Department of Health, from twenty-
five to forty children. The matron in charge was also a mem-
ber of the Board of Directors, who were all colored women. The
matron said that the average attendance at the nursery was
about 35.
A charge of fifteen cents was made for each child cared
for, two children in the same family being taken for twenty-
five cents. This is the highest charge in any day nursery. The
parlor floor, the only one visited by the investigator, was fairly
well furnished and well kept. A mothers' club had recently
been organized with an enrollment of twenty-seven members and
at each monthly meeting a speaker was provided. Dr. E. R.
Roberts, a colored physician, spoke at one meeting on the care
of children. The investigator met with the club, by invitation,
in February, 1913, and spoke to them on neighborhood problems.
The matron was desirous of forming an auxiliary to the Nur-
sery among the women of the neighborhood, as distinct from
the Board of Managers. She thought that an auxiliary might
help with the problems both of the Nursery and of the neigh-
borhood, as there was no social work whatever connected with
the Nursery. This plan, however, was not carried out in spite
of continued planning and proffered coöperation, because the
Board of Managers felt they were not warranted in under-
taking any additional expense. The annual budget was already
$2000, of which $1000 went for rent, and it was a hard struggle
to gather this together. The suggestion was made that, since
they had no other activities in the house, a smaller house, such.
as might be rented east of Lenox Avenue at about $700 a year,
and which would be nearer poorer homes, might be preferable.
in view of the smaller outlay, both for rent and for upkeep.
The children of school age in the families registered at the
Hope Day Nursery were permitted to have luncheon there, if
desired, and to come there after school, but there were, as already
stated, no organized social activities for these children and they
were left to their own devices when they came. Seventeen chil-
dren of school age from fourteen families were given after school
63
care.
The matron said she knew little about the families on their
list, as all details were left to the maids.
The work of the Music School Settlement, at 257 West 134th
Street, under the direction of Mr. David I. Martin, is coming to
be a potent factor in the lives of the colored people. The head-
quarters are busy from the moment school closes until bed-time,
as well as the entire day on Saturday, with children's orchestra
rehearsals on Sunday afternoons.
The school was established by Mr. David Mannes in 1906, and
has grown steadily and healthily. In the main school and the
branches maintained in the Free Kindergarten Association for
Colored Children, at 202 West 63rd Street, and in the New York
Colored Mission at 227 West 30th Street, upwards of 250 children
were being instructed in piano, violin, 'cello and ensemble playing.
The actual work performed in teaching may be termed, however,
merely the skeleton of the educational program of the settle-
ment. Its influence is felt in every institution in the city de-
voted to the interests of the colored people. In the orphan
asylums at Riverdale and Kings Park, respectively, Mr. Martin
has maintained classes in vocal and orchestral music, and he is
continually busy preparing benefit performances for this or that
philanthropy. When the principal of P. S. 89 asked where
he could secure talent for his Friday morning assemblies, he
was placed in touch with Mr. Martin, and the coöperation that
resulted brought definite returns, not only in the pleasure given
by the programs Mr. Martin furnished on various Friday morn-
ings, but in the influence on the development of the boys who
were referred to the Music School Settlement for instruction.
The Music School Settlement has made a dignified position for
itself in the community, and its concerts given at intervals in
Carnegie Hall, draw large and interested audiences. The pro-
grams are devoted to the works of colored composers, inter-
preted by colored musicians.
Mr. Martin desired for Harlem a building that would not alone
house the Music School Settlement and provide an adequate
auditorium for its concerts, but would also serve as a center for
other social as well as more practical activities. He felt that
the colored people should have a better amusement center than
was available for them.
The colored branch of the Young Women's Christian Associa-
tion, at 121-125 West 132nd Street, was established in Harlem
64
during the period of the investigation, moving from its old
quarters in West 53rd Street into three brownstone houses in a
neighborhood only recently opened to colored people.
The work there followed closely the lines laid down for the
Association's activities, and touched the problem of the school
child only through its library and organization of Camp Fire
Girls. The superintendent said that their educational pro-
gram was decided upon from year to year. Their membership,
recruited for the most part from housemaids, dressmakers,
visiting maids, manicurists, hairdressers and that class of work-
ers, made evening classes difficult, as much night work was per-
formed by all the members.
The rear yards of the houses have been thrown together and
fitted up for tennis and basket ball.
The older members of the Camp Fire Girls' circle were being
drawn into the membership of the Association, and among these
girls were found no members from the needier families. The
girls were all from one social group, and appeared to have many
social interests. Although these girls were receiving much help,
they apparently made no return, and no community interest or
social service on their part grew out of their connection with
this branch of the Young Women's Christian Association. From
individual instances known to the investigator material for
some sort of social service might doubtless be found among
the members of the Colored Young Women's Christian Associa-
tion, even though it consisted of nothing more than waking and
getting off to school the children of some working mothers.
Even if this service were not rendered continuously, two weeks
or a month devoted to instilling correct habits of rising and pre-
paring for school might help. One small boy's attendance prob-
lem was solved by merely persuading his older sister, who had
thought it of great importance to meet her girl friends and go to
school with them, that her brother's prospective career as a
truant was likely to lead to serious consequences and that it
was her first duty to escort him to his school, which did not hap-
pen to be the same one she attended.
The possibility of coöperating with the school for the pur-
pose of rendering some form of assistance in working out the
children's problems was suggested to the superintendent, who
said she would endeavor to work out a program along that line.
The sole milk station of the colored district of Harlem, that of
65
the Diet Kitchen Association at 27 West 139th Street, had, in
addition to its regular milk station activities, organized a mothers'
club with the aid of the social worker from the Free Kinder-
garten Association. This worker felt that a day nursery was
also greatly needed in this neighborhood, which was made up of
thickly populated tenements of medium grade.
One of the most illuminating incidents of the investigation
was connected with this milk station. A tuberculous baby girl
was discovered in one of the families visited and the mother was
sent to the milk station to have the baby's weight carefully
watched, as well as to secure for both mother and baby the
material and educational privileges of the station. The woman.
became enthusiastically interested in the nurse's counsel and
in keeping a record of the baby's progress, and knew to the frac-
tion of an ounce its gain or loss. During the spring the baby
had whooping cough, which she transmitted to one of the older
children in the family-a child of six. In June, on going in to
learn how both children were getting along, the visitor found
them still coughing, and on that particular afternoon entertain-
ing about fifteen of their friends in celebration of the baby's
second birthday! The mother was so proud and happy it.
seemed impossible to scold her then, but afterwards she was
asked why she had exposed all those children to the whooping
cough. She said they might have caught it anywhere, and
added that she was sure that the baby had contracted it at the
milk station because that was the only place she went, excepting
to walk or to the moving pictures!
When the agent of the Harlem branch of the Charity Organi-
zation Society was consulted as to social conditions in this sec-
tion, she said family relations were in such a confused and
tangled condition among the colored people that she could find
little upon which to base family reconstruction. In her opinion,
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was infi-
nitely more needed than the Charity Organization Society, as
most of the children in families brought to her notice required
other guardianship before a constructive program for their fu-
ture welfare could be worked out. Applications to the Charity
Organization Society for assistance were increasing rapidly from
the colored population, and while help was undoubtedly needed,
it was apparent that other readjustments were equally neces-
sary. At that time a list of representative colored people who
6
66
might coöperate with this branch of the Charity Organiza-
tion Society and perhaps form a colored neighborhood advisory
board, was given the agent, and after several months they were
asked to meet with her to form a class for the study of relief
work.
The district east of Lenox Avenue, and running to the East
River, from 131st Street on the south to 142nd on the north, con-
tained the poorest and neediest of the Harlem Negroes. Aside
from the smaller and less important churches and missions
(excepting the two on 138th Street) there were no social agencies
whatever, and cheap dance halls run by private clubs, some of
them in tenement basements, flourished.
It is the almost universal custom in this section for every adult
member of the family not incapacitated by age to go out to
work; and in one home after another the children were found to
be either alone after school or in the charge of an aged grand-
mother, sometimes an efficient guardian but more often incapable
of understanding conditions or remedying them if she did under-
stand them.
St. John's Home for Working Girls at one time made an effort
to establish settlement activities in its 134th Street house, but
the home has since moved to 132nd Street, west of Lenox Ave-
nue, into a less needy neighborhood.
There are said to be sixty thousand colored people in Harlem
between 130th and 142nd Street, Park Avenue on the east, and
Eighth Avenue, Seventh Avenue or Lenox Avenue on the west,
according to whether the blocks beyond have been opened to
colored tenants or not. It is difficult to estimate adequately
the work done in this section by the small missions and churches.
If it were not for their ministrations, both spiritual and physical,
Harlem Negroes would fare badly.
RECREATIONS, PRIVATE AND PUBLIC
The most salient point developed by the study of the social
agencies was the apparent lack of response to any activity that
was not founded on a real and practical need. Boys' and girls'
clubs had not generally been successful; classes were very mod-
erately successful; and day nurseries did not seem to be filled to
their capacity at any time. Parents appeared not to be en-
thusiastic about the possibilities of clubs, especially for girls;
and the interest of both boys and girls did not hold, except in
67
the case of one or two brigades of Boy Scouts and the chapter of
Camp Fire Girls which was made up entirely of girls coming
from a superior type of home.
Irregular attendance at clubs and classes is the subject of gen-
eral complaint by social workers among the colored people. It
is not difficult usually to secure a good audience for special meet-
ings that have been well advertised, but for week in and week
out activities the interest must be more than ordinarily deep to
hold any large number, whether men, women or children. The
colored people do not take their recreations seriously. A club
to them is a staple form of amusement available every week,
which logically gives way to a ball, a "social," or an even-
ing at the theater. It would be difficult to make them under-
stand that there is any virtue in regular attendance at an ac-
tivity of that nature; and in discussing the matter with them
from the standpoint of the club leader, who must be present and
who sets aside the time regularly, the almost invariable response
has been in effect: "Yes'm; but the meetings is for pleasure
and may be jest that evenin' our pleasure is somewhere else."
In two of the centers the question of poor attendance in the
girls' clubs took on a more serious aspect. One of the head-
workers followed up the absences, and found the girls, who had
never before been allowed to go out of the house in the evening,
had taken advantage of the unwonted liberty to go to a dance-
hall. When this was reported to the parents they were naturally
angry and refused to permit the girls to go out again in the even-
ing.
In the other case, the parents said they allowed the girls to
go to an evening center across the street from their flat, watching
them from the window until they entered the building in which
the club met. It was learned that the girls were accustomed to
go to the club, remain there a few moments, and then leave and
go to other places of which their parents knew nothing.
This raised the question-which has been since discussed by
the workers among colored boys and girls-of the desirability of
evening clubs, for young girls especially. None of the school
principals who were consulted favored evening clubs but they
believed that school girls should have their recreation after
school, devoting the evening to study and early retiring.
Few of the parents approved of the clubs at all, whether after-
noon or evening; and the carefully brought up girls who did
68
belong to social clubs, or took part in church entertainments,
were accompanied by either a relative or woman friend. Even
the younger members of the Camp Fire Girls, organized under
the auspices of the Young Women's Christian Association,
were accompanied to meetings by parents or by other older
women.
When asked what they thought about the desirability of after-
noon clubs and other social activities in the schools, there was
almost unanimous approval on the part of parents; but
although settlement clubs and classes were recommended when-
ever children were found who had no such connection and who
appeared to be in need of it, a card of introduction to the head
worker of the settlement given the mother and the nature of the
work fully explained, not one instance was found in which such
a connection had been made.
It has been often said that in their public amusements the
colored people are restricted to shabby, badly kept resorts where
questionable, if not actually degrading, performances are offered.
Every moving picture and vaudeville theater in the colored
districts was visited on a number of occasions, and taking them
as a whole they offer attractions equal to those shown in any of
the white neighborhoods known to the investigator. These
theaters have come into existence only during the past few years;
and on Seventh Avenue, 135th Street and Lenox Avenue there
are eight well-kept, well-lighted, decently managed moving
picture houses, the Lafayette, Seventh Avenue and 131st Street,
leading in the attractiveness and variety of its program. Edu-
cational features, such as moving pictures of the National Colored
Men's Business Association, with Booker T. Washington and
other colored men of national reputation, historical scenes of
interest to colored people, and a vaudeville bill that earned
for itself a special article in the Sunday World have made this
the leading amusement place in Harlem for colored people. It
would be difficult to imagine a more decent, more responsive,
and better pleased audience than one finds in this theater. An
especially popular organization, the Colored Players, has ap-
peared several times in this theater, and its members might de-
velop with very little guidance into definitely artistic portrayers
of the life of their own people. This theater building also con-
tains a dance hall, the only one of its kind, open to the colored.
public each night. In the colored community dances have
69
taken the form of balls given under the auspices of one social or-
ganization or another, varying in character with the organiza-
tion giving them. The Lafayette dance hall is, however, a new
venture and promises to be a successful one.
The Odd Fellows Hall, on West 138th Street, between Fifth
and Lenox Avenues, has an excellent auditorium, and is much
used for concerts and entertainments. Young's Casino, at
134th Street and Fifth Avenue, and the Manhattan Casino,
155th Street and Eighth Avenue, are much used for concerts,
balls, basket-ball matches, etc.
The athletic contests between the teams of various churches,
colleges, settlements, etc., are usually followed by some form of
social gathering, and constitute the healthiest, sanest, as well as,
happily, the most popular form of amusement of the well-
brought-up young people. No one attending them could doubt.
the genuineness of the pleasure they afford their audiences. It
might safely be said that Harlem, at any rate, offers much that
is definitely good to the colored young people in the way of
amusements. Downtown, aside from the settlements and
churches, there is nothing of value, however. The moving
pictures are poor and the vaudeville houses offer nothing worth
while. In fact, in the immediate San Juan Hill neighborhood
there was not at the time of the investigation a moving picture
house of any kind, good or bad.
In none of these districts were enough forms of social activity
found during these preliminary visits to account for the recrea-
tion of any large number of children of school age and only
through the intensive study of school cases were the definite
needs discovered.
PART II
INTENSIVE STUDY
I. NEIGHBORHOOD CONDITIONS
In the intensive study made, following the preliminary survey
of general conditions, three districts were included: Harlem,
San Juan Hill, and the Chelsea District between 34th and 42nd
Streets-districts quite as different in general character and
composition as though they constituted three distinct and sepa-
rate cities.
The Harlem colored district lies roughly between 130th and
145th street, extending for the most part from Eighth Avenue
to the East River. Certain blocks-136th and 141st to 145th-
have few or no homes open to colored people between Lenox and
Eighth Avenues, but from Lenox Avenue east to Park Avenue
and to the Harlem River, there is little or no restriction against
colored tenants. From 130th to 132nd Street, between Lenox
and Seventh Avenues, is found the best part of the district-
brown stone houses, varying from medium to poorer grade, with
an occasional sprinkling of the better class house. This district
continues up Lenox Avenue from 130th to 145th Streets.
Property values in this section have declined, as is usually the
case when streets are given up to colored residents. Fifteen
different real estate agents who were questioned on this point
could give no reason for the decline. On the other hand they
acknowledged that colored people paid higher rents than did
white tenants in the same houses; that they kept the houses in
quite as good repair as did the white people who formerly lived
in them; and the Suburban Homes Company, owning two model
tenements, the Hampton and Tuskegee, on West 63rd Street (for
colored people only) said that these tenements were kept in better
order, rents were paid more promptly and less trouble was ex-
perienced by removals, than in any of the other three groups of
tenements owned by the same company in other parts of the
city, and occupied by white tenants.
At the time of the investigation, banks and title guarantee
70
71
companies had been for over a year refusing to renew mort-
gages on property in colored districts. It is impossible to say
how far this was one of the manifestations of the much talked of
real estate panic, but it has not tended to improve the temper of
the Harlem Board of Trade, which has been unfriendly to the
influx of colored population and has fought inch by inch every
gain in territory by colored tenants, especially in the direction
of the better neighborhoods. In the blocks adjoining those in
which colored people lived, brownstone house after brownstone
house bore a sign, "To Let" or "For Sale."
From Fifth Avenue east, in some instances to Park Avenue,
in others to the East River, and from 130th to 145th Streets,
are the poorer class of flat houses and tenements; in some blocks
white and colored are mixed. On Lenox Avenue itself, a
number of high grade apartment houses have been opened to
colored tenants and are for the most part filled with colored
people of the professional classes, one or two of the houses,
however, being in ill-repute. One hundred and thirty-fourth
and 136th Streets between Lenox and Fifth Avenues are par-
ticularly given over to "Buffet" flats, so-called because liquor
is illegally sold in these places. They are also, in the majority
of cases, disorderly resorts. Rents vary from $12.00 for a three-
room unheated flat to $60 and $70 for six- and seven-room ele-
vator apartments. The medium priced houses rent for about
the same as houses of their class in like white districts, i. e.,
$18-$20 for a four-room steam-heated apartment of the new
law type; $26 and $28 for five- and six-room apartments of
the "railroad" flat or type of flat having no private hall, etc.
There was much complaint from tenants of poor heating and lack
of attention to the collection of garbage. The streets were in
fairly good condition, but there was considerable violation of the
ordinance against placing garbage and refuse on the streets in
packages. This was not nearly so noticeable, however, as in the
East Side tenement districts.
The district was well-lighted but poorly patrolled and between
Lenox and Madison Avenues an officer was seldom found. On
one occasion the investigator walked about for three-quarters of
an hour before finding a patrolman.
The shops are ubiquitous, and there is not a block in any part
of the district that does not boast at any rate an undertaker's
or a caterer's establishment.
72
From Seventh Avenue to Fifth Avenue, the shops on 135th
Street represent every variety of trade, with poolrooms, barber
shops and restaurants predominating. The restaurants are
unusually inviting. The tables are spotlessly clean and the
service and food excellent.
A real estate office, handsomely furnished, is manned com-
pletely by a colored staff, from the proprietor to the office boy.
A large and growing furniture business has been established.
Lawyers, doctors, dentists have offices between Lenox and
Seventh Avenues. There are grocery stores, dry goods and
millinery shops, corsetiers, milliners and dressmakers, custom
tailors and undertakers.
The National League on Urban Condition Among Negroes
has its Harlem headquarters in this block, in which the work of
its housing and employment bureaus is carried on.
But over and above all, located everywhere and anywhere in
this and other colored districts, is the hair-dressing-massage-bath
industry carried on by the colored women-the "Beauty Parlors"
of the race. More will be said of this industry in the chapter de-
voted to occupations. (See pp. 120-121.)
In the block between Lenox and Fifth Avenues are the pool
and billiard rooms, and moving picture and vaudeville theatres,
with more grocery stores, restaurants, etc., but of a cheaper
grade than those in the block farther west.
Following is a list of the shops on three blocks: 134th Street
between Lenox and Seventh Avenues; east side of Seventh
Avenue between 134th and 135th Streets and 135th Street be-
tween Lenox and Seventh Avenues. The list shows also the
shops owned or operated by white people. It was not possible
to secure any information concerning the amount of capital repre-
sented by or invested in these shops.
BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
One Hundred and Thirty-fourth Street, between Lenox and Seventh Avenues
South side of street, starting at Lenox Avenue
Butcher (store).
Tailor (store).
Laundry (store).
Barber shop (store)
Grocery (store).
White
•
44
"
Colored
White
Shoemaker (store)
Grocery (store)..
•
Employment Agency (in flat house)
Restaurant (basement flat house).
"
Colored
73
Tailor (flat)...
Expressman (flat)
Laundry (flat).
•
Ice and coal and shoe shine (basement flat house)
Minister (sign stating "Funerals-Marriages").
Dressmaker (flat)...
Restaurant (in basement)
•
Shoemaker and shoe repairing (in basement)
Ice, coal and wood (basement in flat house)
Milliner (flat).
•
Milliner (also piano teacher) (flat).
Tailor (basement-cor. Seventh Ave.)
.
•
· •
•
·
•
Colored
"
"
White
North side of street, starting at Lenox Avenue
White
Colored
"
Cigars and stationery (store)
Restaurant (store).
Hairdressing, etc. (flat).
Tailor (flat).
•
Jeweller (West Indian) (flat).
Dressmaker (flat)..
•
•
•
•
Shoe repairing (basement in flat)
Ice and coal (basement in flat).
Hairdressing, manicuring, etc. (flat)
Florist (flat).
Notion store.
·
•
Hairdressing, facial massage, manicuring, etc. (flat)
Church of God" (in flat house).
Piano studio (in flat house).
Dressmaker (in flat house)
•
"
"
(Eight furnished room signs were found in the block, including both sides of
the street.)
Seventh Avenue, between 134th and 135th Streets,
East side of street, starting at corner 134th St.
Ice cream parlor and tea room (store).
Pool room (store).
Barber shop (store).
Barber shop (store).
Undertaker (store)
Laundry (store).
·
•
•
•
•
Ready-to-wear women's clothing (store)
Furs (store).
·
Restaurant (colored patrons) (store).
Fur shop (store)...
·
Colored
44
*
""
White
44
(Colored fur operator employed, earning $9.50 per week)
Drug store..
White
One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street between Lenox and Seventh Avenues
South side of street, starting at corner 7th Ave.
Shoe shop (store).
Hat cleaner (store)
•
Tailor (store)
Dentist (flat). .
Graduate nurses' home (flat)..
Hairdressing, shampooing, scalp treatment (flat)
Electric massage machines (flat).
N. Y. News (flat).
Dressmaker (flat)
Real estate (flat).
•
·
•
•
Real estate (flat).
Employment Agency (flat)
Lawyer (flat).
•
•
White
•
"
Colored
"
44
74
Hairdresser and dressmaker (flat)
Jewelry and novelties (flat).
Milliner (flat).
·
•
Saloon (store)
Restaurant (store).
Merchant tailor (store)
Grocer (store).
Tailor (store).
Grocer (store)
Barber (store)
Saloon (store)
·
· •
·
•
· •
Restaurant (double store)
Delicatessen (store). .
•
•
Coal and wood (store, basement)
Candy and cigars (flat).
Barber shop (basement and flat)
Hairdresser (flat).
·
Lunch stand (store)
Painter (store)
•
•
Second-hand furniture (store)
•
·
•
•
•
·
•
•
•
Colored
แ
White
Colored
White
"
•
Colored
เเ
White
.Colored
"
•
·
•
"
•
•
•
Real estate (store).
Barber shop (store)
•
North side of street, starting at 7th Ave.
Real estate (double store).
Plumber and Printer (store)
Tailor (West Indian) (store).
•
·
•
White
.Colored
White
Colored
Colored
White
Colored
(Tailor states that he employs white operators, because he finds it
difficult to secure colored workers.)
Cigars (double store). .
Tailor (double store)
Dressmaker (double store).
•
Advertising Agency (double store)
Stationery (double store).
•
•
•
Furniture (double store)
Grocery (double store).
Undertaker (double store)
Harlem Branch Urban League.
Laundry supply (store).
New York News (store).
Stationery (store).
Teas and coffee (store)
•
•
•
Furniture (two double stores)
Grocer (store). .
Undertaker (store)
Music (store).
Barber shop (store).
Shoe-shine (store). .
Custom tailor (store)
•
•
·
Real estate and insurance (store)
Market (store).
•
•
Milliner (store)
·
Dresser (store)
•
•
•
•
Family liquor (store).
Grocer (store).
•
Shoe-shine (store)
Bakery and groceries (double store)
Dry goods (store).
Laundry (store).
•
Dry goods (double store).
Electric contractor (store)
Shoe-shine (store). .
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
·
Colored
(
•
"
White
Colored
White
Colored
เ
·
"
"
White
Colored
"
White
Colored
"
"
White
Colored
White
Colored
White
"
Colored
White
Colored
White
Colored
"
75
The Harlem District, aside from the fact that the houses are
tenement houses, might be a colored village so far as its out-
ward characteristics are concerned. The sociability of groups.
on the streets, the general informality of life and the close com-
munity of interests and social relationships of the families living
in the tenements have little that is typical of New York about
them. The cosmopolitan character of the district becomes ap-
parent when one finds a newly arrived family from the West
Indies eagerly and perilously hanging out of fourth story windows
to view the strange street life of their adopted city, one mother
saying that her four-year-old son's especial admiration was the
"box full of music that comes around on four wheels every
day." From one apartment come the strains of a Bach fugue
being practiced by the daughter of an established merchant of
the neighborhood, who is fitting herself to teach music. Still
another few steps discloses a front stoop alive with children and
a bandanaed "Auntie" fresh from the South. Sandwiched
among these is the New York Negro family, thoroughly and
typically American in its mode of life and ideals.
Harlem, as previously stated, has had few purely social agen-
cies. The normal every-day life of the people centers about the
home, work, the church and public amusements, the two latter
providing most of the social life of the community. Public
amusements: moving picture theatres, public halls, etc., are
multiplying quickly, and shop-windows are crowded with hand-
bills announcing entertainments furnished by every sort of col-
ored organization, from a basket-ball contest between Howard
University of Washington, D. C., and a local team, to a dance or
a picnic by independent social organizations.
In spite, therefore, of its dearth of settlements and other or-
ganized philanthropic activities, Harlem cannot be said to lack
amusement facilities for its adult colored population, nor are
these facilities, as indicated in the preliminary survey, of a char-
acter to be despised.
The children are not so fortunate. Aside from the public
library and the "movies" there is little for their pleasure. In
summer a few badly regulated and itinerant carousel shows
establish themselves in the unoccupied open lots of the neigh-
borhood. During the summer of 1914 a trial of the suggestion
made in another part of this report, that these vacant lots be
equipped with playground apparatus, was inaugurated. There
76
is no park space and no playground except in one public school;
this has never been well organized and is given over, in the main,
to practice by the various basket-ball teams of the neighborhoods.
In spite of this dearth of organized amusement for children, or
perhaps because of it, in this district as well as in the others
visited a more normal social life was found among most of them
-a normal, social enjoyment of visits exchanged informally
among friends, "taffy-pulls," etc.-than the investigator had
observed in any other tenement population. After-school visit-
ing was the rule among little girls who were friends and whose
parents were not too busy to permit this form of amusement.
The children of poorer working parents were, as a rule, however,
not thus fortunate. These children either played upon the
streets without any care, or were instructed by their parents to
remain indoors, busy with household tasks or with the prepara-
tion of lessons. In some cases it was impossible to secure en-
trance to an apartment, although the children had been seen at
the school, so strictly had they been ordered to open the door to
nobody. Both this strict care on the one hand and the lack of
care on the other were found to arrest development in the child,
and instance after instance of the lack of means of self-expression
was noted among these children who go through life from day's
end to day's end without companionship, their parents having
no knowledge of what their thoughts are, to say nothing of
properly guiding those thoughts. It is no wonder that numer-
ous cases of backwardness develop at the age of twelve or four-
teen years; or that the scale of conduct and mentality does not
show a larger proportion of high grade children.
Scattered through the district, but especially in the blocks be-
tween Lenox and Fifth Avenues, on 134th and 136th Streets, were
the "Buffet" flats previously mentioned. In visiting the homes
of school children on these blocks, however, less than half a
dozen flats were found in which there were any evidences of
irregularities of this nature. A number of colored people when
asked about this stated that few children had been seen in the
"Buffet" flats by anyone familiar with them.
As this description shows, Harlem is a normal community with
a normal community's good, bad and indifferent features. San
Juan Hill, on the other hand, is by blocks philanthropic or neg-
lected slum in character; and the population seems to divide itself
between the "up-lifters" and those to be or in process of being
77
up-lifted. The community institutions, shops, stores, etc., have
no relation to the neighborhood itself, and are not owned or
operated by the colored people. The stores are for the most part
on the Avenue and there is nothing characteristic about them.
Here and there a small business owned by colored people is spring-
ing up tentatively on the edge of a block, giving one the impression
of being ready to pick up its skirts and disappear on slight prov-
ocation; but the characteristic portion of the neighborhood is
made up of model tenements erected by philanthropists; of
settlements and other agencies for social betterment; and of
mission churches for the most part philanthropically supported.
Directly across the streets from the model tenements, however,
tenements were found with stairs in such dangerous condition
that the visitor was almost precipitated from roof to cellar on
several occasions; and many statements were made by women of
the neighborhood that they had been received at police stations.
where they had gone to make complaints of neighborhood dis-
order as though they, themselves, were criminals.
Aside from the Public Recreation Center between 10th and
11th Avenues and 59th and 60th Streets, there is no form of
amusement in the immediate neighborhood, except those con-
nected with social agencies. There are no moving picture houses
and no theatres nearer than 8th Avenue and 59th Street or Broad-
way.
Rents in this district vary from $8 to $10 for three rooms un-
heated, to $16 and $18 and even $24 a month for steam-heated
four-room-and-bath flats in model tenements.
In the district farther downtown, between 34th and 42nd
Streets and between 53rd and 59th Streets, the former section
lying within the boundaries of the Chelsea Neighborhood Associa-
tion, the most heterogeneous population imaginable lives to-
gether, sometimes in the same house, always in the same block.
All the tenement houses are old-fashioned and the majority of
them are dilapidated. Rents vary from $8 to $12 in the un-
heated houses to $16 and $20 in those supplied with steam heat,
the latter, however, being rare. The colored population, mixed as
it is with Greek, Armenian, Jew and Italian, is in its speech and
manners distinctively, one is tempted to say "Cockney" New
York. It should be explained, perhaps, that by "Cockney" New
York one means the New York of Chimmie Fadden and his ilk.
This population has none of the accepted characteristics of the
78
Negro, and if not its occupations, at any rate its interests are in
sports of one sort or another. Families live here year after year
and are almost as much a part of the neighborhood as the build-
ings themselves. The sprinkling of new-comers stays but a short
time and school records show an almost constant transfer to
either the San Juan Hill or the Harlem locality.
The only agency for colored people in this neighborhood is the
Abyssinia Baptist Church between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.
There are no clubs and classes, however; only the Young People's
Society for Christian Endeavor and the Sunday School. The
congregation, for the most part, lives out of the district.
There are two colored missions below 34th Street. The
ministers in charge are representative colored men interested in
everything concerning the development of their race. They
have, however, organized no social activities for young people,
and while a few of the boys and girls attend the New York
Colored Mission's clubs and classes, the location of this mission
on West 30th Street is too far downtown to affect the pupils of
the school on West 40th Street.
Home conditions were alike in Harlem, San Juan Hill and the
Chelsea districts in spite of the dissimilarity of these districts
in other respects.
In the families visited, the much-talked-of "Lodger" problem
was found to be, after all, not so much of a problem. Few of the
families in which there were no male members received male
lodgers. When the mother was a widow, her lodgers were in-
variably women. Far from being the virtue-devouring ogres
they were supposed to be, the lodgers, as a rule, took a lively in-
terest in the children's school progress; and many times on visit-
ing the homes these same lodgers were found helping the children.
with their lessons. On more than one occasion the lodgers ad-
monished the children to be careful about telling the truth and
assisted their memories from time to time, when the children
themselves could not recall matters about which inquiries were
made.
Eight boys and four girls had no companionship whatever
except the lodgers in their homes who worked at night, every
member of the immediate family going to work during the day.
Undoubtedly there is danger from lodgers, but in the majority
of cases it seems only fair to assume that this danger may be
quite as much due to carelessness of parents in choosing the cali-
79
bre of their lodgers as to any inherent evil in admitting lodgers
to the family. Instances have occurred of the betrayal of girls
by trusted friends lodging in the family, but they have also
occurred under other conditions. Undoubtedly lodgers eke
out incomes that in many cases would otherwise be inadequate
to support life.
A very real and ever present danger was found to lurk in un-
occupied flats, roofs and basements of tenement houses. The
majority of cases of sex immorality of school children encountered
in the course of the investigation or heard of from other sources,
had been made easier of accomplishment because of the avail-
ability of one or all of these three places. Danger from places
of this sort is very hard to guard against. Immoral resorts.
regularly carried on in furnished rooms, "bachelor apartments,
etc., may be placed under police surveillance more easily than the
above mentioned places.
Homes of every variety were found, and in both atmosphere and
physical condition they reflected every shade of character and
expression that belongs to families who live in New York and send
their children to the public schools. Tasteful furnishings, quiet
colors, well-chosen pictures and an air of comfort in some houses
contrasted with other homes containing broken furniture and
giving a general impression that someone had assembled all the
family possessions in the centre of the floor and then tossed them
haphazard to the four corners of the apartment. Between these
two extremes lay solidly, and in the great majority, the typical
fittings of the installment-furniture-house "five-rooms-complete-
for-$
-," invariably accompanied by a brass bed-stead,
and very generally by a piano.
The greatest surprise of the whole investigation was encount-
ered in a dilapidated tenement in the West Forties-the only
house that seemed dangerous to enter because dusk was falling
and the family to be visited lived on the fourth floor. The girl
who lived there had been reported by her teacher "backward of
understanding and uncertain of temper," and the dark, rickety
stairs were climbed with many misgivings. The apartment was
a poor three-room affair with bed-rooms partitioned off by hang-
ings; but in one corner was a new piano of excellent make.
While talking with the girl and with her mother (both of
whom were apparently below average in every way), the girl
was asked if she cared for music, a question prompted by the
80
presence of the piano. She said that she did not, but that her
older sister had graduated from the Washington Irving High
School three years previously and had been unable to find em-
ployment as a stenographer and bookkeeper, for which occupa-
tion she had been trained. Her ambition was not to be killed,
however, and she had become a chambermaid in a small west-
side hotel, devoting all her leisure time to the study of the piano.
"She's got two years more," her mother said, "and nobody
ain't going to boss her no more. No Ma'am; that girl, she cal-
culated she's going to be something.
The girl was asked during the visit if she had thought of any
occupation she would care to follow, and her mother chimed in
with "Now, Miss, it's like this. You knows and I knows we all
aint got the same kind of brains; and L. here, she got just plain
house-keepin' brains. She aint like her sister. No Ma'am."
And so the homes, some planned with fine taste, some deco-
rated with gay paper flowers, chromos and plush furniture, and
still others, the expression of "just plain housekeepin' brains."
In all of the homes of the better type there was a striking
prevalence of pictures with the Maxfield Parrish and Jules Guerin
coloring. So general was this type of picture as to be almost
startling; and these homes finally grouped themselves in the
mind of the visitor, as of the "Parrish type." The rich tones and
Oriental or mediæval subjects evidently appeal strongly to the
love of form and color that is so strong a characteristic of the
Negro race. In this type of home, the pictures formed a back-
ground for furniture usually of the mission style, with simple
liberty curtains and hangings at the windows and doors. The
men who supported these homes were lawyers, railroad employees,
chauffeurs, musicians, chefs, porters, etc., while the women, who
in many cases bore no small share of the cost of maintenance,
were dressmakers, steamboat stewardesses, theatre and depart-
ment store maids, lunch-room cooks, etc.
But orderly or slovenly, tasteful or garish, comfortable or
squalid, there is found in the majority of colored homes a spirit
of home-making and of what is expressed only by the German
“gemüthlichkeit," and by no word in any other language. A
big, bare kitchen at the top of a tenement house, the back door
open, letting in a flood of sunshine with a cat basking in its
warmth, while within a little group of girls sit about a table and
chatter, and one is greeted by the small hostess and introduced
81
,,
to "my little friends.' Another kitchen, filled with newly
washed clothes, soapsuds, unwashed dishes and a large perspiring
mater familias. Tucked into the corner of a big rocking chair, a
small brown brother, his head drooping on one shoulder, pessi-
mistically surveys the visitor. An inquiry whether the baby is
ill, brings a hearty: "Lord no, Miss, he all ain't sick. He's
'ceitful, he is. He's jest takin' you in."
He's jest takin' you in." Or one is ceremoniously
led to a living room, to discuss the affairs of the child or children
in whose behalf the visit is made, and usually the entire family,
including lodgers, interestedly survey the problems in hand.
The frequency with which parents and children were found
reading the Bible together when calls were made on Sunday, bore
still further testimony to the very real part religion plays in the
Negroes' lives. A discussion of the previous Sunday's sermon
was often found to be the topic of conversation when a call co-
incided with that of other visitors.
On the other hand, in some of the homes a sideboard laden with
every variety and size of drinking glass was the most conspicuous
article of furniture; and card parties were frequently interrupted.
In a rear fourth-story room a little child was found battling for
life with pneumonia. Her labored breathing mingled with the
snores of a drunken father stretched across the foot of the bed.
Her eyes were glazed in semi-consciousness but her tiny, hot
hand held fast to a pitiful paper bag of candy. The elderly
neighbor in charge, who was endeavoring to give the patient a
drink of ginger ale, said that the mother, the sole support of the
family, was away at work. The child had not been sent to a
hospital because "if the baby died her mother wanted to feel
that she had done everything she could."
The number of men on the street and at home during the day
was a puzzling matter, as it had been to the school nurse; and it
was not until a résumé of the occupations of these men showed
how much night work they performed as railroad porters, chauf-
feurs, elevator men, longshoremen, tunnel laborers, etc.,—that
their presence resolved itself largely into a question of night em-
ployment, rather than of unemployment.
To what extent the marriage tie bound the parents of the chil-
dren visited cannot be stated with any degree of accuracy. By
their own statements six mothers were divorced and six had never
been married. The homes in which the children of these women
lived varied as widely in character as did the calibre of the women
7
82
themselves. From intelligence and industry to ignorance and
indolence, they ran the gamut in the scale of human equipment.
V. J., 13 years old, in 6-B grade, showed no trace of color, had
charming manners, an agreeable personality and every mark of
good home training. Her father was a white man to whom her
mother had not been married. The five-room flat in which she
lived was plainly and comfortably furnished, and V. was a mem-
ber of a large colored church congregation, was active in Sunday
School affairs and enjoyed the affection of her playmates.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children had
separated V. from her mother two years previously, and had sent
her to Boston to attend school. "I missed mother so much,
though," V. said ingenuously, "that I just couldn't study. We
couldn't bear to be away from each other, and when I came back
to New York, I was way back in my studies." Whenever V.
was called upon after school, she invariably was found busy with
household tasks: mending, music lessons, and other homely
occupations.
Under threat of a second separation by the Society of Pre-
vention of Cruelty to Children, V.'s mother, who was a house-
maid, finally consented to marry the man with whom she was
living; and the last word received of V. was a message from her
mother that V. was no longer to be registered as V. J. in school,
but that she would take her step-father's name of F
Mrs. F. bitterly resented interference with her private affairs; and
said that if V. had been neglected,—"if she was not being brought
up like a little lady"-such interference might be warranted.
G. B., 12 years old, in 5B grade, was found, on visiting her
home, washing dishes while her mother sewed on a little dress for
the immaculately kept baby sprawling on the floor. Mrs. M.
gave her husband's occupation as porter in a downtown office.
building. A few moments later she stated that G.'s father was
in Jamaica and the inquiry if he was on a vacation brought the
explanation in quite a matter of fact manner, and in G.'s hear-
ing, that her husband was not G.'s father to whom she had never
been married. "I was engaged to him and the wedding invita-
tions had been sent out, when I found out he was a gambler;
and of course I wouldn't marry a worthless man like he was,
she said. When the hope was expressed that good care would
be taken of G. so she would not make a like mistake, “No in-
deed," Mrs. M. replied, "I was brought up very strict, and I am
just as strict with G."
J. T.'s father was a Scotchman who deserted her mother after
she had borne him two children, to "Go back home and be
married," as J. told me. J. had been brought up in an orphan
asylum until her twelfth year, when she had been placed by her
mother in the family of a hair-dresser, masseuse and manicure,
for whom she worked after school and to whom she was appren-
83
ticed. J.'s mother was a housemaid and spent her "afternoon
off” with J. taking her to the park or to the "movies" but, and
J. wept bitterly as she related it, "Mother is a church member
and she won't let me go to Sunday School because she don't want
people to know I belong to her.”
T. M. was tenderly cared for by her father's wife, Mrs. M.,
although her mother was Mrs. M.'s niece.
Additional instances of irregular families were found in the
cases of the exceptional children.
The above mentioned instances were not specially reported
children; and the facts were gleaned in the regular course of
house to house visiting. On the other hand, out of more than
five hundred homes visited, less than twenty-five bore any vis-
ible stamp of irregularity; and since the information concerning
irregular conditions was given quite frankly and freely, it is
only fair to suppose that there was not a large percentage of
concealment in regard to conditions in other families.
Without exception, in homes where there were step-mothers or
fathers, the support of the children fell to the natural parent.
Other household expenses were as a rule shared equally, but the
mother or father as the case might be, supported the children,
unless indeed, as happened in two instances, the children sup-
ported themselves. In the first of these, the mother stated
that the child, a boy, was so frail that he would never be able to
perform hard manual work, and she was anxious for him to
secure an education so that he might be fitted for less arduous
work. The mother herself was not working and there were no
other children. The boy was working from four in the afternoon
until twelve at night in the lavatory of a family hotel, where he
had no fresh air and only artificial light. For this work he was
receiving $12.00 a month!
In the other family there was a step-mother. The father was
janitor of two steam-heated flat-houses for which he received the
rent of a four-room apartment in the basement and $30.00 a
month. All the work of attending to the garbage, scrubbing
halls, etc., was performed by his children by his first wife.
In both these instances school records were suffering, and sev-
eral visits had to be made in order to convince the parents that
if home conditions were not remedied it would be necessary to
appeal to the law or some social agency in behalf of the children.
With these two exceptions, however, the children were sup-
ported by their surviving parent.
84
The large number of men who were living away from home and
not supporting their families constituted a noticeable hardship
to the mothers. In not a single instance had the aid of the law
been invoked to compel these men to provide for their children.
Without exception the women gave as the reasons for not prose-
cuting their husbands or the fathers of their children, either their
own lack of time to go to court, or a disinclination to force sup-
port from the delinquent man. When the whereabouts of the
fathers were known, however, the custom was prevalent of send-
ing the children to their father for money for their necessities.
In two instances it was possible, where the father was away from
the city, to get in touch with him through the Charity Organiza-
tion Society and to secure from him at least temporary provision
for his family.
II. SCHOOL CHILDREN
The object of the study of colored school children, as stated
in the chapter on Method and Scope of Investigation, was to
learn what causes, if any, were active in affecting the school
status of the children and their ability and opportunity to ad-
vance beyond the attainments of their parents and thus main-
tain their place in the march of events.
The preliminary survey indicated clearly that their social
environment was affected by forces in which color or race con-
sciousness played a more or less dominating rôle.
To what extent this fact is responsible for the school status of
the children as disclosed by the intensive investigation, it is not
possible to state with any degree of accuracy. It is fair to as-
sume, however, that broken homes, illiterate parents, and the
lack of care which is the result of the predominance of working
mothers play their part in creating the conditions found. When
to these causes is added the consciousness that schoolmates,
teachers, and the community at large have to a greater or less
extent a "color problem" in mind, the reaction of such conscious-
ness must of necessity have its effect on the child.
The intensive study was begun January 1, 1913, and was
carried on by the investigator during the following nine months
in the schools and in the homes of the children.
The group studied includes 441 boys and girls in the public
elementary schools, 37 girls in the Wadleigh High School and
Annex, 15 boys in DeWitt Clinton High School, and 38 girls in
the Manhattan Trade School, a total of 531. While the evening
85
schools attended by colored pupils were also visited a number of
times to secure information concerning tendency and oppor-
tunity, no intensive study of the pupils in them was attempted.
The information secured in this phase of the investigation will
be considered under three heads: 1.-Elementary school pupils;
2. High school pupils; and 3.-Manhattan Trade School
pupils.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PUPILS
In selecting the 441 elementary school pupils whose records
are compiled in this section, it was at first planned to consider
only such children as had reached the grammar grades, that
is, the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades, as these children
seemed to offer better material for noting ability and tendencies
than those of the lower grades. For this purpose, the following
colored children were studied: All in the 8th grades of P. S.
69 and P. S. 119, Manhattan; all in the 7th grades in P. S. 69;
part of the 7th grade in P. S. 119, Manhattan; and all in the
fifth and sixth grades in P. S. 100 and P. S. 141, Manhattan.
Later it was deemed advisable to study some children in the
first grade, in order to learn the age at which children entered
school under the most normal physical conditions, as well as the
home conditions surrounding the beginning of their school career.
For this purpose, the pupils in the Henrietta Day School of the
Children's Aid Society were selected because the school is located
in the heart of the San Juan Hill colored district. In addition, a
group in P. S. 28, Manhattan, made up of children from families
coming directly from the South or from families in which both
parents were working or the children were not living with their
parents was studied.
In connection with the study of exceptional children, it was
also deemed advisable to study the entire group of truants and
part of the pupils in ungraded classes in P. S. 89, Manhattan.
These pupils were naturally not confined to the first, fifth, sixth,
seventh or eighth grades as originally planned, but were scattered
throughout the grades. This accounts for the fact that in the
following tables a few pupils are found in some of the grades not
originally contemplated in the study.
General School Conditions.
In evaluating the material gathered from the schools studied,
it was found that considerable allowance would have to be made
86
because of the different ways in which the problems covered were
approached and treated by principals and teachers in the various
schools. This is particularly true of the problems of irregular
attendance, and of the personal relations existing between the
teachers and the colored pupils or their parents. In the larger
schools, where, as a rule, the principals left the interviewing of
parents to clerks, who could not be expected to bring as sound
judgment to bear upon the situation as would the principal or
head of department, there was naturally considerable miscon-
ception of general conditions and individual problems. The
small school, in which the head of department was in charge of
matters of attendance and discipline, did more efficient work and
notification of absences and the remedying of tendencies toward
truancy or misbehavior were in better control. In the case of the
larger schools, however, parents frequently complained that there
was much delay between the time of the child's absence and their
receipt of information concerning it; and the children had the
opportunity of becoming chronic truants before their parents
or guardians had any information concerning their absence.
In one school the following system of supervision of incipient
truants was in force and showed excellent results. After an
interview with parents or guardians an arrangement was made
whereby the time of leaving home in the morning was noted by a
responsible person in a book carried by the pupil, the teacher
registering in the same book the time of reaching and of leaving
school. The time of arrival at home, registered by the home
authority, completed the record. Each week, the head of de-
partment checked up these books with teachers, pupils and home
guardians. The plan was found to have a markedly good effect
in disciplining the offenders.
Two schools were handicapped in dealing with the attendance
problem by the fact that this was inextricably interwoven with
other problems of the school. In one of them bad feeling be-
tween the boys and some of the teachers was so pronounced
that it reached the public press on at least one occasion, when
an indignant mother appeared in the school and physically
chastised a man teacher for beating her son.
In special cases referred from this school there was a notice-
able amount of tension between the teachers and pupils, and
very little doubt that corporal punishment was used rather
freely. The teachers admitted that they inflicted corporal
87
punishment, but intimated that it would be impossible to exercise
any sort of control without it. One of the teachers openly said
that she felt that she was being degraded by teaching colored
children, and the principal said that no response was received
from the teachers to suggestions that parents' meetings be held.
At the close of the investigation the principal was closely in
touch with all the neighborhood agencies for colored people.
At the request of one principal for help in furnishing a program
for the Friday morning assemblies, he was placed in touch with
the Music School Settlement for Colored People and since then
many of his pupils have gone to the Settlement for lessons.
In another school personal antipathies played a prominent
part, and problems of working parents plus these school antip-
athies between teachers and pupils created a situation that will
require much smoothing over for some time to come. The
school nurse was active in assisting with the social problems of
this school, but far more time was required than she could give
from her other duties to cope adequately with the situation.
The school was not co-operating with any of the social agencies
of the neighborhood. There were several complaints from clergy-
men that attempts to secure help in stopping crap games in
front of the school house had met with rebuffs.
The attitude of the schools toward social activities also varied.
Few of such activities existed. Branches of the Public Schools
Athletic League, walking, swimming and folk dancing clubs,
etc., were organized in four of the schools studied, i. e., P. S.
89, 100, 141 and 28. While the physical benefits derived from
these activities is undoubted, they seem to have slight social
significance, the atmosphere especially in the case of the Pub-
lic Schools Athletic League being similar to that of the classroom.
One gratifying result of the investigation is the fact that a
certain amount of misunderstanding by the school authorities
of conditions among colored families was cleared up; as, for
instance, the prevalent belief of school principals that colored
men were idle and in a large percentage of cases supported by
their wives. This belief was found to be based upon the fact
that the fathers so often came to school in response to notes from
the teacher and stated that the mothers had not come because
they were at work. This custom was proven, by the intensive
investigation, to be due in the large majority of cases to the fact
that the father worked at night, part of the time, at any rate;
88
all elevator men in apartment houses, for instance, work in
alternate night and day shifts.
In regard to the general complaint of difficulty in securing
attention from colored parents to requests to call at the school,
the investigation showed plainly that this was not due so much
to neglect or indifference as to the fact that the parents com-
plained of were, with few exceptions, working people, and the
visit to school meant actual and hardly-to-be-sustained loss of
money.
The effect of the unbiased consideration it was possible for a
disinterested person to give to the adjustment of difficulties
can hardly be over-estimated. Situations that were at high
tension relaxed; and incipient enmities between pupil and teacher
were smoothed over with little effort.
An instance of such adjustment is shown in the case of a boy,
eight years of age, whose attendance was irregular and who was
told on several occasions to ask his mother to come to the school.
Notes to the parents brought no results. When this case was
reported, the boy was recognized as belonging to a family whose
father was a flagrant offender in keeping all his children out of
school to perform his own tasks as janitor of a double apartment
house, while he himself apparently did nothing but direct the
work. The boy had been told by his teacher that he was being
given a final warning and that he must bring his mother to school.
He appeared the next morning without his mother; later he
said that his teacher boxed his ears and he refused to go back to
school. It was found on inquiry that the mother could not go
to school on that occasion because she was in bed suffering with
rheumatism of the feet, and that the father refused to go to see
the teacher. The situation was explained to the teacher, and
she not only understood it but said that she would visit the
family and would try to use her influence with the father to be
less exacting in the matter of home duties of the children.
Another instance was that of a girl of very high-strung, nervous
temperament, who was reported as having insulted both her
sewing teacher and her class teacher by unseemly mirth during
the sewing lesson, and by throwing her sewing on the floor and
generally "having a tantrum" when her class teacher rebuked
her. She had been sent home and had refused to return.
visiting the home it was discovered that the girl was subject to
severe nasal hemorrhages which were usually followed by fits of
On
89
hysterical weeping. She had had a hemorrhage on the morning
in question and had not wished to go to school; but her mother
persuaded her to go and the customary hysteria followed. The
girl was taken to a physician who found that she was suffering
from a circulatory disturbance. She was placed under the care
of a physician and the matter was explained to both teachers.
The class teacher and the girl were afterwards the firmest possi-
ble friends, and the teacher declared that she was becoming more
and more impressed with the forgiving nature of the colored girls.
The study brought to light other facts that applied to all the
children, whether white or colored. It was found, for example,
that systems of keeping records on pupils' cards varied widely as
between the schools. In some schools, health records could not
be secured because those records were made only on the set of
cards in the possession of the teacher and were not transferred to
the cards filed in the principal's office, the latter being the set
used in the investigation. In other cases complete records were
filed (see pp. 100–101).
Besides showing a varying attitude on the part of principals
and teachers with regard to meeting and dealing with difficult
conditions, the report discloses such a variety of ways in which
the children were affected by these conditions that general con-
clusions are almost impossible. This is clearly illustrated by the
following contrasted histories:
Two children, a boy and girl, among the youngest members of
the normal group, the boy 9 years and 5 months, and the girl
9 years and 6 months old, while totally unrelated, even unac-
quainted, presented marked similarity in personality and
temperament and the sharpest possible contrast in environment
and opportunity. Both were bright, keen, eager, impulsive,
attractive and responsive. The boy, neglected and in rags, was
already busily engaged in assisting with the organization of a
"gang" of street-boys after school. The girl, daintily clean,
all perky bows and much given to delighted struttings on errands
for "teacher," was her mother's closest chum. Both fathers were
away from home. In the boy's case he was a waiter in a hotel
at Garden City. The girl's father was a railroad conductor and
came home only once a week. The boy's home was on the top
floor of a tenement. His mother was a fretful, quarrelsome
woman and was away from home at work all day. The boy ate
a solitary breakfast, luncheon and, in the busy season, dinner,
often preparing his own meals. The girl's mother said, "G. is
all I have, and I must always be home when she is out of school.”
The boy's marks both for work and deportment were C and
90
his teacher characterized his conduct as "troublesome" and his
mentality as "fair." The girl had B for work and A for deport-
ment. Her teacher called her "a lovely child" and stated that
she was
very bright." One child was being given her chance in
life; the other was growing up as the streets trained him. His
older brother was in the Juvenile Asylum, committed for stealing.
"
Another group, this time two girls, in the same class of the same
school, one II years and 5 months old, the other II years and 6
months old, also presented marked similarity of personality,
tastes, manner and general personal equipment. Their cir-
cumstances were as different as those of the two children de-
scribed above.
One, the fortunate one, was also the daughter of a railroad
conductor. Her home was in a spacious apartment comfortably
furnished. Her mother was occupied with her household and
her children. The other was one of a brood of five, deserted
by a drunken father. The mother went out to do cleaning every
day in the week, and earned $1.50 a day, or $9.00 a week, on
which she supported herself and five children. This marked
difference in environment had, however, no apparent effect
on the scholarship of these girls, and a study of the school records
gave no hint as to the handicap under which one of them was
working, for both were marked by their teachers B for work and
B for conduct.
So contradictory have the results of the study often proved to
be, therefore, that one would need to present in detail the indi-
vidual problems connected with almost every one of the children
visited, in order to present adequately the findings of the in-
vestigation.
School Status of Individual Children
The study of school records was made from cards on file in the
principals' offices. The information gleaned included age, grade,
mark for work, mark for conduct, and attendance. The marks
for work and conduct were the average marks for the term ending
with the Christmas holidays in 1912. In addition to the mark-
ings for work and for conduct, the teacher's estimate of the child's
general capacity as regards mentality and character were secured.
The number of years of school attendance in New York was also
noted, where possible, and, in some cases, the attendance else-
where. This latter information could not be considered ac-
curate, as it was frequently found that data apparently covering
all the school time in New York did not take into consideration
the fact that pupils who had, at some previous time, attended
school in New York, had gone to school elsewhere, and had been

16
Grade
5-6
6-632
L-39
7-73
IA.... 16
12 2 4 5
3 716 10
IB
2A..
2B.
3A..
3B..
4A.
4B.
5A
5B.
6A.
6B...
7A....
7B....
:
8A....
8B
Total
19
:
8-374
85
8-83
6-38
9-91
9121-10
10-101
TABLE II.—AGE GRADE TABLE OF NORMAL PUPILS (AGES AS OF SEPT. I, 1912)
Age
5 4
I
I
2
1012-11
11-11/1/
11-12
12-12/1/
:
40 16 14
ΙΟ IA
56 10
26
20 IB
2A
I
I
I
I
:
1
1
4
I
3 2B
2
23A
I
I
2
2 3B
1
I
I
4A
I
I
2
2
4B
I
2
46 7 7 7
75
I
3 I
2
46
3
ΙΟ
33 5A
I
26
4 5 3
I
3 I
I
27 I
8 18 5B
I
2 2
:
:
5 3
1
2
I
I
6
3
2
2 II
2 2 2
20❘ I
4
15 6A
I
18
I
7 10 6B
2
I
:
:
:
2 3 3 2
1. I
15
2||13|7A
I
67
768 6
3
3 3
43 I
13
29 7B
2 5 4 6
4 3 7
2
1
34
7
27 8A
I 6
62
366
I
I
I
27
7
20 8B
19 18 14 13 7 5 267
10 18 14 24 22 14 24 29 21
II
14 11 16
7
I
2
337 33
100
204
Grade

92
Grade
5-6
6-63/2
631-7
7-731
8-3-4
8-83-1/
6-38
9-9/
91-10
10–103
101-11
11-111
11-12
12–121
12-13
TABLE III.—AGE GRADE TABLE OF EXCEPTIONAL PUPILS (AGES AS OF SEPT. 1, 1912)
NINETY-ONE PUPILS IN REGULAR CLASSES REPORTED FOR CAUSE
Age
13-1331
13-14
IA.
I
I
1
IB..
2A.
I
·
I
I
2B.
I
I
3A.
I
I I I
I
I
3B.
I
I
2
4A.
•
:
:
4B.
2 2 I I
5A.
I
5B
6A.
:
:
3
I
I
I
IA
I
I
IB
1
I
4
I
3
2A
2
2
2B
I
I
8
2
2
4
3A
:
3
2
I
ΙΟ
2
8
3B
I
2
3
3 4A
I I
I
I
2
2
2 3
I
2
I I
II
++
7
4B
14
I
I
12
5A
I
I
I
I
I
3
I
9
I
8
5B
3 I 2
23
I
12
12
6A
6B.
I
2
2 2
I
I
୨
I
8
6B
7A..
7B.
•
8A..
:
8B
Total
I
2
I
:
:
I
3
I
4
I 7A
4
7B
8A
:
:
:
:
:
:
:
2
2
I
3 4 5 3 3
4
IO
II
857
7
8 2 I I
:
:
8B
I 91
S
513
13 73
14-14
14-15
15-15
15-16
191-91
16-17
17-171
Total
Under age
At age
Over age
Grade
93
entered later as new pupils on their return to the New York
schools. Furthermore, owing to lack of official records, the
period of attendance in schools outside of New York quoted in
this report is frequently based merely on the memory of members
of the family or of the child itself.
"
The 441 children considered in this section fall into two broad
groups: the "normal" group, comprising 337 pupils, and the
exceptional" group, comprising 104 pupils. The age-grade
distribution of the normal group is given in Table II, and the
age-grade distribution of the "exceptional group" is given in
Table III.
The group of exceptional children includes, in addition to 53
who were specially reported by principals and teachers, 40 truants
who were studied because of the relation which their home con-
ditions evidently bore to their school difficulties, and II ungraded
class pupils. The age-grade distribution of this exceptional
group, given in Table III, comprises only 91 out of the total of
104 children, as the II ungraded children mentioned above,
together with 2 mentally defective children in the group of 53
above referred to, making a total of 13, could not be included in
such a classification.
The grades in which the children are found in these two tables
are the grades in which they were registered at the beginning of
this investigation, January 1913, and the ages under which they
are recorded are their ages of the preceding September, that is
September 1, 1912, the approximate date of their beginning the
work of these grades.
The most obvious fact revealed by both of these tables is the
large proportion of over-age pupils. In the normal group,
60.5% are over-age for their grade, and, in the exceptional group,
the retarded children aggregate 80.2% of the total number.
As already pointed out in the preliminary survey, these pupils
constituted the major problem of the colored child in the schools.
in which they were located. This fact is further emphasized
when the extent of retardation in the several grades, as shown in
Tables IV and V, is taken into consideration. It will be noted that
the degree of retardation in the whole group ranges from less than
one year to five years in both the normal and exceptional groups.
The at-age group in both the normal and exceptional groups
(See Tables II and III) is relatively small and rather uniformly
distributed through the grades.
94
TABLE IV.-NUMBER OF RETARDED CHILDREN, BY GRADE AND
PERIOD OF RETARDATION-NORMAL GROUP

Number of years retarded

Grade Less
than
2,
12140
1
2/1/20
1, 11/2, 2, 2212,
321/2, 4, 412,
less less❘ less less less less less less less
than than than than than than than than than
11/2 2
4/12 5
3,
Total
3
31/12 4
IA
IB
•
2B
3A
•
3B
4B
5A
5B
6A
•
6B
7A
7B
8A
8B
55
481
•
I
•
6
42
4
I
I
I
I
I
I
1 21
I
I
I
I
HHH
337
I
2
I
I
I
I
HH
I
сл
I
1 2
2
132
7H
223336
73T2 3O TO
I
:
2
2
8
I
6
Total 45 49 37 25 18 14
•
ΙΟ
20
3
I
33
18
2 2 2 3∞o
15
ΙΟ
13
29
- :
I
27
20
I
3
I
I
9
4
2
I
204
TABLE V.-NUMBER OF RETARDED CHILDREN, BY GRADE AND
PERIOD OF RETARDATION-EXCEPTIONAL GROUP

Number of years retarded
Grade
Less
than
1, 11, 2, 23, 3, 3/1/2 4, 42,
less less less less less less less less less
than than than than than than than than than
Total
1 1/1/2 2 2/1/2 3 3/12/20 4 4/ 5
5A
·
5B
6A
I
6B
7A
7B.
I
I
2
1 2132
I
IA.
2A
2 B
•
HHH
I
I
•
I
•
I
3A
I
3B
4A
I
4B
I
I
2
2
I
I
1 3
131 221
1 2 2
I
.3
I
: H
I
I
·
12
321
I
I
Ι
I
2
I
Ι
•
I
Ι
ICHINH H
3
7
I
12
I
8
12
I
I
8
I
4
I
3
2
4
8
Total
13 7 12
I I
ΙΟ
5 6
6
2
I
73
95
The under-age group of 33 in the normal group is made up
almost exclusively of pupils in the IA and IB grades, who were
under-age, for the most part, because they entered school before
reaching the normal age. In all the other grades of this group
combined only seven under-age pupils are found, which, in view
of the large number of retarded children in the upper grades,
would seem to indicate a strong tendency toward progressive
retardation in the school life of the child. The exceptional group
naturally shows a smaller percentage of under-age children than
the normal group. In the latter case, the percentage is 9.8%,
in the former only 5.5%. The total number, 5, is so small that
less importance can be placed upon its distribution than upon the
distribution of under-age children in the normal group. How-
ever, with one exception, it will be noted that all the 5 cases fall
within the first three grades.
In Table II, giving the distribution as to grades and ages of
children in the normal group, it was pointed out that 204, or
60.5%, of these children were retarded. An attempt was made to
discover, if possible, through further study, some of the reasons
for this great amount of retardation. Only 147 of these children
could be found. Of the remaining 57, fifteen were not known
at the address given on the school records except that in one
case the janitor said the family in question had moved two years
previously; eleven were said by janitors or neighbors to have
moved out of town; eleven were called on three times without
finding anyone at home, and twenty had moved and were not
traced.
The records of the 147 children found showed first, that 98
had attended school in New York City only, and that 49 had
attended school in New York and elsewhere. Secondly, 58,
including 41 of those who had attended school in New York
only and 17 of those who had attended school in New York and
elsewhere, as shown in Table VI, had entered school over-age and
had been in school the normal or less than the normal length of
time required to make their grade. While these children were.
over-age for their grade and were therefore apparently retarded,
they really constitute a rapid advancement group, although none
of them were in E, or rapid advancement classes. Constituting,
as they do, 28.4% of the total of 204 retarded children in the
normal group, they tend to modify considerably the adverse
conclusion that might be drawn from the statement already made
96
that 60.5% of the normal group were retarded. It might truth-
fully be said that over one-fourth of the retarded children in the
normal group were, in reality, artificially retarded, by reason of
the fact that they had not been in school long enough to enable
them to make their grade at a normal age. Only 89 of the 147
children in the so-called retarded group, therefore, constitute
the truly retarded group, i. e., those children who, whether they
entered school at, under or over age, had been in school longer
than the normal time in which they should have made their grades.
TABLE VI.PERIOD REQUIRED BY RETARDED PUPILS TO REACH
GRADES
(A) PUPILS ATTENDING SCHOOL IN NEW YORK CITY ONLY

No. years over-age
No. years less
than normal time
to reach grade
Less
than
1 year
1, less
than
2 years
2, less
than
3 years
3, less
than
4 years
4, less
than
5 years
Total
3 years or more...
2, less than 3 years.
I
5
3
2
II
I
•
5
3
:
1, less than 2 years.
Less than I year.
Normal time.
I
IO
H:
I
22
8
Total...
21
15
4
I
41
(B) PUPILS ATTENDING SCHOOL IN NEW YORK AND ELSEWHERE

No. years over-age
No. years less
than normal time
to reach grade
Less
than
1, less
1 year
than
2 years 3 years
2, less
than
3, less
than
4 years
4, less
than
5 years
Total
3 years or more
2, less than 3 years.
I, less than 2 years.
Less than I year..
Normal time .
•
::
2
2
2
4
I
2
I
I
2
•
4
9
4
Total.
•
•
•
4
7
2
4
17
97
In the apparently retarded group of 58 children shown in
Table VI, are some typical cases of children coming to New York
from the South who had never been in school up to an advanced
age:
W. H. B., 14 years old, in 3B grade, had been only two years
in school, coming to New York from Virginia at the age of 12,
with no previous schooling.
E. B., 12 years, 6 months old, in 5A grade, had been in school
only 3 years, 4 months, coming to New York from Virginia.
L. S., 13 years, 10 months, in 5A grade, had been in school only
3 years, 4 months, although born in New York and living there
all her life.
The 89 children in the truly retarded group can be subdivided
as follows:
Attended New York schools and elsewhere:
(a) Entered at or under age.
(b) Entered over-age.
Attended New York schools only:
12
20
32
(a) Entered at or under age.
(b) Entered over-age.
•
•
24
•
33
57
89
Of the 32 children in this group attending school in New York
and elsewhere, only 3 were retarded because of non-promotion
due to failure in their studies. Eleven had been demoted on
coming to New York; 8 had been out of school for a term or
longer because of illness; 4 had had an abnormal amount of
absence because of poverty or illness in their homes, and 4 had
been kept home to care for younger children.
One of the most aggravated cases was that of R. J., who had
attended schools for colored children in Washington and Balti-
more, graduating from the colored high school in the latter place,
and who, on coming to New York at the age of 16, had been.
demoted to 7B in the elementary schools.
Another girl, who was graduated from high school at 18,
had spent 8 years in the Alabama schools for colored people,
where the schools are open only 7 months in the year and at-
tendance is rendered irregular by the necessity for helping with
farm work.
Of the 57 children attending school in New York only, 12
8
98
were in grades IA and IB and their over-age was due in each
case to the incidental absences due to infantile diseases, such as
mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc. Of the remaining 45,
14 were retarded because of non-promotion due to failure in their
studies. All of these pupils were marked C for work. Ten were
absent for one or more terms because of illness; II had been
irregular in attendance at one time or another because of illness
or poverty at home, and 10 had been absent frequently to care
for younger children.
The list of localities from which colored children in this re-
tarded group came to New York comprises the following:
Norfolk, Va..
Bermuda.
Philadelphia.
Trinidad, W. I.
Danish W. I.
Boston.
•
·
•
St. Thomas, W. I..
Georgia (county school)
Barbados
Henderson, N. C.
Putnam, Conn..
•
Charleston, S. C..
Alexandria, Va..
Cumberland, Va.
I
12 4H-2
Long Branch, N. J.
Jamaica, B. W. I. .
Jacksonville, Fla.
Porto Rico.
•
·
Hamilton, B. W. I..
British Guiana.
Darlington, S. C..
Kent Island, Me..
Portland, Me..
I
I
I
I
·
•
•
34
I
I
3
Birmingham, Ala.
I
Charlotte, N. C.
I
Riverdale, N. Y. (Orphan Asylum) 2
Savannah, Ga..
Washington, D. C.
Baltimore, Md..
222
+
•
•
·
·
St. Croix, Danish W. I.
Baltimore, Md...
Antigua, W. I..
Paris, France.
Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.
Asbury Park, N. J.
Atlanta, Ga..
•
221
I
I
I
I
·
I
•
.
I
I
I
I
I
I
•
I
I
I
I
A digest of the marks for work and conduct (Table VII) shows
a decided tendency to the average or B grade of child for work,
with a somewhat higher rating for conduct. The exceptional
group naturally shows a smaller percentage of high grade chil-
dren. The average or B grade children number about the same
in this as in the normal group; but the percentage of low-grade
(C and D) children is much higher than in the normal group.
In examining the subjects in which the children were deficient,
arithmetic appeared to be the bête noire of all groups. In dis-
cussing one pupil's deficiency in this subject with her mother,
she said they had tried every available means of overcoming the
child's difficulty and had finally decided that the newspapers
(it was at the time comment on the school inquiry of the Board of
Estimate and Apportionment was being published) were right.
in saying that arithmetic was not taught properly in the schools.
General deficiency occurred to the largest extent among the
exceptional children, as was to be expected.
66
TABLE VII.-NUMBER AND PER CENT OF CHILDREN IN NORMAL AND EXCEPTIONAL GROUPS HAVING DESIGNATED
MARKS IN WORK AND CONDUCT
Normal
Group
Total
number of
children
A
Work
B
C and D
A
Conduct
B
C and D
No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent. No. Per cent.
Under-age.
33
12
36.4
14
42.4
7
21.2
18
54.6
9 27.3
18.1
At-age.
100
22
22.0
63
63.0
15
15.0
49
50.0
40
40.0
II
10.0
Over-age
·
204
30
14.7 127
62.2
47
23.1
94
46.I
95
46.5
15
7.4
Total-normal.
337
64
18.9
204
57.5
69
23.6
161
47.6
144
42.6
32
9.8
90*
3
4.4
48
52.7
39
42.9
18
19.7
48
52.7
25
27.6
Exceptional...
* One child, a tuberculous cripple, died during the investigation, reducing the total of 91, as given in Table III, to 90.
100
A study of attendance shows little variability as between the
under-age, at age, and over-age of the normal group, the at-age
group somewhat curiously having the lowest percentage. The
attendance of these groups was as follows:
Under-age group (33 children) attendance average.
At-age group (100
"
91.3%
"
89.5%
Over-age
"
(204
"
92.2%
Average for total Normal Group (337 children)
•
91.3%
"
Exceptional
(89*
•
78.3%
"
88.3%
"total of 426 children.
The general average for the normal group, 91.3 per cent., is
good; in fact, it is better than the average attendance for the entire
city, which is 89 per cent. The exceptional group, however,
shows a considerably lower general average, 78.3 per cent.,
which would be somewhat lower if it were not raised by two
pupils marked "A" for work whose attendance in both cases
was over 90 per cent. The average attendance for all the chil-
dren studied, 88.3 per cent., differing as it does by only 0.7 of 1
per cent. from the general average of 89 per cent. for the entire
city, bears out only to a very slight extent the contention of the
school authorities, as stated in the preliminary survey, that poor
attendance next to over-age constitutes the most acute problem
of the colored school child. It is probably more nearly correct
to say that it constitutes one of the most acute problems of the
entire school population.
In both normal and exceptional groups attendance, like
charity, was found to cloak many ills, and what appeared in the
school record as merely an absence meant anything from a pass-
ing indisposition to the gravest misfortune or delinquency.
It would have been extremely interesting to make some de-
ductions regarding health and its influence on scholarship and
attendance, but the health records were too incomplete on the
cards studied to offer much of value or significance. It was not
possible to work in the classrooms, and neither during the noon
hour nor after school was it feasible to have access to the class
cards for a sufficient period of time to select the cards of colored
* Two children in the group of 91 exceptional children did not have atten-
dance marks, as these children were tuberculous and had been out of school for
some time. They were reported for the purpose of having them placed in
sanatoria.
† Report of City Superintendent of Schools for year ending July 31, 1913,
Table II.
ΙΟΙ
students for the purpose of securing health records. There are,
therefore, wide gaps in these records and not much of value may
be gleaned from the number secured. It was found, however,
in several instances that children who had attended the same
schools from kindergarten to the sixth and seventh grades had
no health records noted on their cards; and these children said
they had never been examined by a school physician.
Of the normal group of 337 children, only 167 cards with health
records noted on them were found. Some of these children had
only one physical defect; many had several. Among the more
prevalent and important defects were the following: defective
teeth, 74; defective vision, 12; defective breathing or tonsils,
or both, 36; weak throats, I; heart weakness, 2. Fifty-eight
were stated to be in normal health. Of 91 in the exceptional
group, 41 had no physical record on their cards. Of the remain-
ing 50: 10 had defective teeth; 3, defective vision; 7, defective
breathing or tonsils, or both; 3, tuberculosis; and 6, various
troubles. Twenty-one were stated to be in normal health. It
is hard to believe that so large a proportion of this "difficult'
group was physically normal.
Teachers, with one or two exceptions, paid little attention to
health in relation to the standing of pupils, and much miscon-
ception of certain situations could not fail to arise in consequence.
Pupils recently convalescent from scarlet fever, pneumonia, etc.,
were characterized as lazy and unambitious, and a child who
returned to school after a two years' absence because of spinal
meningitis was reported stupid and inattentive. The disabilities
were clearly the result of disease, the children's previous records
bearing no relation to the faults mentioned.
Malnutrition was one of the most serious conditions that could
be studied in this connection. Only 15 cases were noted on the
cards; of these, out of eleven visited, only three (numbers 7, 10
and II below), could be traced directly to poverty:
Under-age Normal Group
1. D. M., II years 5 months old; 6B grade; lived in 4-room
flat with mother and father and two younger children;
income, $14.00; mother not working. Mother said that
D. was in such a hurry in the morning and at noon that
she never ate enough. D. had defective teeth and hyper-
trophied tonsils.
2. A. C., 10 years 6 months old; 5B grade; lived with aunt
who stayed at home; father died in child's infancy and
102
mother was a housemaid; very good home; 4 rooms with
uncle and aunt and three small children. Aunt said
(and A. confirmed statement) that A. had everything she
wished for in the way of food. A. had defective teeth,
defective vision and hypertrophied tonsils.
3. E. C., 10 years old; 5A grade; lived with mother and two
older children in 3 rooms; father dead; family income,
$10.00 a week; evidently no lack of food. E. had de-
fective teeth.
At-age Normal Group
4. F. H., 12 years 4 months old; lived with mother and father
and 4 younger children in 3 rooms; family income, $18.00
a week; had little recreation; father very strict; ap-
parently no lack of food, but living conditions bad; one
brother delinquent; no other physical defects.
Over-age Normal Group
5. D. E., 13 years 4 months old; 6B grade; aunt and cousin,
in 3 rooms; aunt cooked in day nursery; cousin suffered
from venereal disease; D. said she often ate her meals
standing in order to get back to school in time; did not
like breakfast; no other physical defects; mother and
father both dead.
6. R. B., 13 years 4 months old; 6B grade; lived with mother,
four lodgers and younger sister in 6 rooms; family income
about $12.00 a week; father living in Bermuda; mother
said R. ate too hastily because of hurry to get to school;
prepared breakfast and fed younger children at lunch;
roller skates after school; no other physical defects.
7. M. H., 12 years 7 months old; 5B grade; lived with grand-
mother and 2 younger children on $5.00 a week; father
and mother dead; physical defects.
8. A. E., 12 years old; 5A grade; lived with mother, 2 brothers
and aunt in 3 rooms; income about $4.00 per week; father
not living; hypertrophied tonsils; aunt helped some with
expenses.
9. M. A., 10 years 3 months old; 3A grade; lived with mother,
father, sister and brother in six rooms; not allowed out of
doors after school; family income about $20.00 a week;
subject to colds; no other physical defects.
Exceptional Group
10. W. S., 12 years 7 months old; 6A grade; lived with mother,
2 younger and I older child in four rooms; father dead;
family income, $7-8 a week; defective teeth; often kept
out of school to care for younger children, also because
mother had no money to buy clothing for school.
11. A. S., 12 years 6 months old; 3A grade; lived with mother
and 2 younger children in mission home; mother de-
103
serted; youngest child one month old; mother and sister
scrubbed floor at mission. (Since close of investigation
has become T. B.)
The remaining four children could not be found. On the
other hand, malnutrition was discovered among a number of
children other than the fifteen above referred to, whose school
records contained no mention of it. For example:
M. K. and her four sisters and brother were supported by their
mother on $9.60 a week, $5.00 of which was paid for rent. These
children were examined at a dispensary and were found in an
advanced stage of under-nourishment, their abdomens being
distended from chronic slow starvation.
L. Q. was placed successively with four uncles and aunts by an
immoral mother, and was found to be emaciated, irritable and
of slow mentality.
J. E. and his brother, deserted by father and mother, were being
cared for by their grandmother, who also supported her mother
by day's work and washing. She said, "When we don't have
anything else to eat, we eat bread, but we all share alike." The
boys' conduct was troublesome and their mark for work was "C."
They were thin to emaciation, and the older boy, 10 years, 5
months old, was eager to be out of school and at work.
C. M., marked B. for work and conduct, an illegitimate boy,
living with his mother and grandmother both of whom worked,
was thin and listless, although the family income was $10.00-
$12.00 a week and there was an ample supply of food. C. said,
'Sometimes I forget to eat my breakfast and lunch."
These instances emphasize the necessity already pointed out
for close contact between home and school, in order that the
child's problem may be intelligently studied and solved.
Status of Home Life
The statement by the school authorities that broken homes and
working mothers were largely responsible for poor attendance
and scholarship among colored children is borne out by the in-
tensive investigation. In Table VIII, dealing with these ques-
tions, the families of only 248 children in the normal group and
86 in the exceptional could be considered, as facts could be se-
cured only for this number.
Reference to Table VIII shows that, in the normal group,
only 40.8% of the children, and, in the exceptional group, a
still smaller number, 23.2%, were found living with both their
parents. There was a larger number of step-fathers and step-
104
mothers in the homes of the exceptional children than in the
normal group-11.6% as against 8%. The number of children
living with their mothers only, the father being either dead or
away from home, was also larger in the exceptional than in the
normal group-42% as against 33.4%. Only a small per cent. in
either group was found living with their fathers only, the mothers
being dead or away from home. These children made up 4%
of the normal and 5.8% of the exceptional group. Thirteen
per cent of the children of the normal group and 15.1% of the
exceptional group were living with other relatives, while a mere
handful, .8% of the normal and 2.3% of the exceptional group
lived apart from relatives.
TABLE VIII.- -NUMBER AND PER CENT OF CHILDREN LIVING WITH
PARENTS OR OTHER PERSONS
Person or persons with whom
child was living
Normal group
Exceptional group
No. Per cent.
No.
Per cent.
·
Both parents.
Both parents (stepfather or step-
mother)..
Mother only
Father only.
Other relatives.
Apart from relatives.
ΙΟΙ
•
40.8
20
23.2
20
8.0
IO
11.6
83
33.4
36
42.0
ΙΟ
4.0
5
5.8
32
13.0
13
15.1
2
.8
2
·
2.3
Total..
•
248
100.0
86
100.0
A curious family arrangement was found in the case of one of
the children of the exceptional group. A boy, E. S., 9 years, 9
months old, in the 4B grade, was kept out of school because he
had no shoes. On visiting the home address given in the school
it was found that he and his sister were being given their meals.
there by their father's wife, but slept in the home of their mother
who was never married and who had had two other children by
other fathers. The father was in the West, employed in a large
hotel, and had sent no money for the maintenance of the boy
and his sister for six weeks. Mrs. S. was very ill with what
proved later to be pernicious anæmia, and could not earn
enough money to care for the children. After much persuasion
she permitted the matter to be placed in the hands of the Charity
105
Organization Society, whose efforts brought a substantial re-
sponse from her husband. She refused, however, to permit
application to be made for the commitment of the children. She
was a refined, intelligent woman, a West Indian of French descent,
and said she wished the children to be in their mother's custody
if she herself was no longer well enough to care for them. When
asked whether she thought it was doing justice to the children.
to have them brought up by a woman of loose morals, she said,
"I should not regard Miss H. (their mother) as a woman of loose
morals. She is and always has been a very hardworking young
woman, and if I make myself content with these arrangements,
I cannot see why the public should feel concerned.”
One little chap, 9 years II months old, in the 2B grade, was,
on the other hand, apparently suffering from the sins of a re-
calcitrant mother who had "run away with another man," as
his father said. The father had divorced her and married again.
The second wife was so completely devoted to her husband that
because he worked at night as a chauffeur she also secured night.
employment that she might be at home with him during the
day. The boy was evidently in the way, and was given money
to buy his lunch outside and was not permitted to come home
till supper time after his parents had gone to work, leaving his
meal prepared for him. The boy expressed himself with great
difficulty, and it was apparent that he had little opportunity to
talk with anyone. This case was one referred to a philanthropic
agency with full data, but nothing was done and the boy later
developed into a chronic truant.
Another child, an orphan, well cared for in a comfortable
home, had no companionship except that of a bed-ridden grand-
mother who refused to permit her to associate with other girls
"because they were so bad." In consequence, the child's whole
life revolved around school and making fancy work at her grand-
mother's bedside. The grandfather and the uncle were longshore-
men and were absent all day and most of the night.
A pertinent question regarding these broken families was
whether one or both of the parents were dead or were not living
at home. Only 147, or 59.2%, out of this total of 248 children
in the normal group had both parents living; and in a still
smaller percentage of families, 101, or 40.7%, were both father.
and mother living at home. The exceptional group showed 39
children, or 45.3%, both of whose parents were living; and only
20, or 23.2%, both of whose parents were living at home.
106
TABLE IX.-WORKING MOTHERS
Mother at home
Mother away from home
Working
Not
working
Working
Group
Total
number of
children
Total
Total
Father
Father
Father
Father
dead or
working
working
working
Father not
working
Father
dead or
away
away
Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
Per
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
cent.
cent.
cent.
cent.
cent.
cent.
cent.
cent.
:
:
28
42.5 50 75.8
Normal
Under-age
At-age.
19
4
21.0
I 5.3
76
Over-age
143
22 28.9 12 15.9
30 21.0 24
16.8
13∞
I 5.3
6 31.6
6
31.6
7
་
36.8
3.9 37 48.7
23
30.3 2
5.6
62 43.4
32 22.3
ww:
13
68.4
2.6
2.I
14 18.4 39 51.3
81
46 32.2
56.6
Total-normal
238
56 23.5 37
15.6
12
5.0
105 44.I 61
25.6
5 2.1
67
28.2 133 55.9

Exceptional
66
I 1.5 12
18.2
3 4.5
16 24.2
22
33.3

107
Second only to the question of broken families is that of the
working mother, as shown in Table IX. The total comprising
this table is less than that in the groups considered in Table
VIII, because it was impossible in many cases to secure the
reasons for the parents' absence from home. Facts could be
obtained from 238 families only in the normal group and 66
in the exceptional.
In the normal group, 105 mothers (44.1%) were at home and
133 (55.9%) were away from home, working. Of the mothers
at home 56 were not working and 37 were working, and in both
cases the fathers were living at home and supporting or partially
supporting the family. The remaining 12 were either widows
or deserted. Of the group of 133, 61 were partly supported by
their husbands, 67 were either widows or deserted and 5 were
apparently supporting their husbands at home. Of the entire
normal group, therefore, only 56 mothers (23.5%) were at home,
not working, the father supporting the family.
Of the exceptional group, in only 16, or 24.2%, out of 66
families were the mothers at home, while in 50 families, or 75.8%,
the mothers were away from home at work. Of the first group
one was not working, twelve were working in homes which the
father also supported, and three were working at home as the
sole support of the family. In the second group of 50, 22 mothers.
were partly supported by their husbands, the remaining 28
being widowed or deserted.
It is very evident from this table how much larger a proportion
of the mothers of the normal children were at home where they
could watch closely over the welfare of their children. In the
cases of those children who had been reported by principals and
teachers as in difficulty for one reason or another, (exceptional
group), only 24.2% had mothers who were at home throughout
the day, while in the normal group as high a per cent as 44.1
were living under these more favorable conditions.
Even more striking is the contrast between the normal and
exceptional groups in cases where the mother was living at home
and not working, thus being able to devote all of her time to the
care of her home and children. In the normal group there were
56, or 23.5% so situated, small enough at best, while in the ex-
ceptional group there was only one, or 1.5%.
The frequency with which widowed or deserted mothers were
found in the exceptional group as a whole as compared with the
108
normal group as a whole, while not so striking, is, nevertheless,
significant. In the former case there were 31 (3 at home and
28 away from home) or 47.0% of the total so situated, and in the
latter case 89 (12 at home and 67 away from home) or 37.4% of
the total.
In both groups, as previously stated, economic necessity pre-
dominated as the reason for the mother's absence from home;
but in a number of instances, the desire for an outside interest
or a veritable fury of industry on the part of the whole family
left the children without after-school guidance of any sort.
After-school Activities
In studying the after-school activities of the various groups of
colored children, it was possible to complete the records in 314
cases. The small under-age group was omitted because it com-
prised so many of the younger children of whom nothing very
characteristic could be learned. The remaining 94 children,
which make up the original group of 441, had either moved away
when the study of their out of school work and recreation was
made or so little could be learned of their lives that they were not
included in the number studied for after-school activities.
314 children studied are grouped as follows:
At age.
Over-age
Exceptional
·
80
.153
81
The
All the activities, both work and play, which were discovered
fall under the following heads:
Home work, including housework,
errands, jobs not errands, care of
children.
Sunday School.
Street Play.
Home Play.
School clubs (P. S. A. L., etc.).
Settlement or Church clubs.
Visiting.
Entertainments, socials, etc.
Theatre.
"Movies."
Basket-ball.
Lodge club.
Music lesson.
Boy Scouts.
Camp Fire Girls.
Home studying.
In summing up, all clubs have been considered together but
the lodge clubs actually appear in only three instances. Most
of the children have more than one activity, as appears in the
tables.
109
TABLE X.-TABLE SHOWING COMPARATIVE FREQUENCY OF
DIFFERENT FORMS OF HOME-WORK


At-age
group (80
children)
Over-age
group (153
children)
Exceptional
group (81
children)
Total (314
children)
Housework.
Errands.
·
Jobs not errands.
29
5
26
366
73
29
131
27
58
15
II
35
Care of children.
·
3
14
5
22
A surprising number of children in all the groups were busy at home and this
did not mean in any case in the manufacture of commercial articles. Several
boys earned money, however by helping the janitor, selling newspapers, wash-
ing dishes and doing errands. Carrying home laundry, sweeping, mending and
washing clothes are some of the duties under "housework" and "jobs other
than errands." Nine girls were making or helping to make their own clothes
and several others sewed at home or with dressmakers.
Many children in the at-age group had no form of homework on account of
their age, 29 of the 80 being under eight years of age. Of the exceptional
group twenty had at some time been sent to correctional institutions or had
become confirmed truants.
TABLE XI.-TABLE SHOWING COMPARATIVE FREQUENCY OF
AFTER-SCHOOL RECREATION

At-age
group (80
children)
Over-age
Exceptional
group (153
children)
group (81
children)
Total (314
children)
Sunday School.
72
133
30
235
Clubs
•
16
43
IO
69
'Movies
20
42
16
78
Street play.
28
36
40
104
Home play.
·
14
17
12
41
Visiting.
Entertainments
Theatre.
Home study..
18
35
56
9
31
9
49
II
17
6
34
7
27
38
Music lessons.
•
ΙΟ
20
33
Basket-ball . .
I
4
5
Boy Scouts.
6
6
Camp Fire Girls.
3
3
Some children in the at-age group had as many as six forms of
activity. All had at least two.
In the exceptional group, out of 15 forms of activity including
homework, 9 children had one activity; 19 children had two
ΙΙΟ
activities; 26 children had three activities; 20 children had four
activities; 7 children had five activities.
As no child in this group had more than five forms of activity
and as all but twenty were busy with some sort of home work,
and as street play and the "movies" were the most popular forms
of recreation, the inference is easy. Sunday School cannot be
classed as a form of recreation nor does it often connect itself
with activities throughout the week. Its existence, however,
cannot but be valuable.
Of 13 children in ungraded classes and included in this group,
all were busy at home. One boy sold papers, seven did errands,
two boys helped with the janitor's work. All attended Sunday
School and eight went frequently to the "Movies." Two were
Boy Scouts and one boy belonged to a settlement club. This
record would be hard to duplicate in any similar group of children
of another race.
The most salient feature in the tables is an almost unbroken
column of Sunday School attendance. Of 314 children, only 79
failed to attend Sunday School regularly. On the other hand,
the activity showing the lowest number is the Camp Fire Girls,
there being only three. Five of the normal children played basket-
ball and there were six Boy Scouts, all in the exceptional group.
The children having no home duties were almost invariably too
young to be so occupied, although in a few instances studying in
the final school year made attention to home duties impossible.
The very young children, those in grades IA and IB, were for
the most part limited to Sunday School, street and home play.
Those over ten years old, however, had home duties, varying from
running errands to the entire care of the house, in half a dozen
instances even including the making of the child's own clothes.
"Movies," it goes without saying, were popular with the ma-
jority of the children. Visiting and entertainments-which
meant usually church entertainments—were next in popularity.
Only fourteen belonged to the Public Schools Athletic League
and thirty-two to settlement, church or lodge clubs. Thirty-
eight were engaged in home study.
As stated previously, no attempt was made by any of the pa-
rents or the social agencies visited to correlate outside activities
with the children's school needs.
Girls in the 8A and 8B classes found themselves too much
occupied with their studies, as a rule, to have any other interests;
III
but in the other grades little if any account was taken of the
child's school progress in measuring his capacity for outside ac-
tivities. The street play, viewed in its entirety, seems unusually
healthful and zestful in the colored neighborhoods. Roller-
skating, base-ball, the precarious "roller-skate automobiles,"
made of two tandem rollers with packing box strips mounted for a
foot-board, are everywhere. "London Bridge" flourishes among
groups of little girls. Housekeeping establishments on the front
steps of flats are not allowed by janitors but nevertheless are
ubiquitous. But back of it all is the feeling that few watchful
eyes are guarding against accidents, and that day after day these
street children are forming their habits and thoughts from the flot-
sam and jetsam of the street life that is the only life they have.
2. HIGH SCHOOL PUPILS
The fact that at the time the investigation was made only 15
colored boys were registered in De Witt Clinton High School,
and only 36 girls in Wadleigh High School and Annex, is no
measure, it was learned from talks with numbers of colored men
of affairs, of the extent to which colored boys and girls are re-
ceiving more than a common school education.
Colored people of means, as a rule, send their sons and daugh-
ters to standard colleges and preparatory schools conducted
exclusively for colored people. Clergymen, publicists and pro-
fessional men who had sent their sons and daughters away to
school, stated that there were so many social attractions in New
York for young people it was well-nigh impossible to keep them
interested in their studies.
It may therefore be assumed that, among the high school boys
in particular, the pupils are not fairly representative either in
number or calibre of the element in the colored population that
is seeking to man the professions and other occupations requiring
so-called higher education.
The principal of the boys' high school felt that the colored boys
in that school were not promising. He was, indeed, doubtful
if the high school curriculum could in the future be maintained
at anything like its present standard because of the increasingly
inferior calibre of all the pupils, of whatever nationality, which
he attributed to our inability to assimilate our immigrant popula-
tion fast enough for educational purposes. He felt, however,
that even though their poorest Latin pupil was an Italian, and
I12
the most hopeless student of German was a Jew, the colored boys
were even further removed, in their mental equipment, from the
material that gave promise of benefitting them to any great
extent from high school training.
The mentality estimate by teachers as given in Table XII
showed only 9 of the 15 pupils to be of average or better than
average calibre, considering 60 as an average.
TABLE XII.-CLASS AVERAGE AND ESTIMATED MENTALITY OF 15
DEWITT CLINTON HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
No.
Mentality
Marking
I
123456 7∞ a
8
9
ΙΟ
II
12
345
13
14
15
Good...
Below average.
Low...
Above average.
Below average.
Fair..
•
•
•
Better than average.
Normal....
Not up to average.
Not high.
Poor..
Average.
Good.
Fair.
•
•
Rather good.
•
61
57
•
28
•
61
65
62
77
59
58
•
•
45
48
75
64
75
70
76
The record of the girls of the high school studied shows a
higher grading. Fifteen out of the 37 received a rating of "sat-
isfactory" as to mentality. The principal was more optimistic
than the principal of the boys' school, and said that the colored
girls who came to him presented quite as many grades of intelli-
gence and character as did the white girls. He agreed with the
elementary school principals' statements that the calibre of the
girls was closely related to the quality of the home life to which
they were accustomed.
Both the teachers and the pupils felt that the lack of any help
at home in their high school work was a serious handicap. The
girls were especially prone to fall into despair at their failure to
grasp the first year's work in algebra and Latin; and eight girls
had made up their minds either to leave school or to change from
an academic to a technical course, in spite of their parents'
willingness and ability to have them complete their education.
They had evidently given little thought to what the completion
113
of their education would mean to them as individuals; but,
after receiving advice, they apparently saw the advisability of
going on, even though the struggle was almost a cruel one.
As suggested in another part of the report, the need for tutoring
among these boys and girls seems to be vital, and it is to be hoped
that those interested in stimulating intellectual ambition in the
race will place both teachers and pupils in touch with facilities
for securing such service, especially during vacation periods.
The list of occupations of 16 mothers and 19 fathers of high
school boys and girls speaks for itself in showing how little aid.
or stimulus is available at home:
Occupation of Fathers
Porters.
Waiters.
Chefs..
Pullman porter..
Moving van business.
Occupation of Mothers
Laundresses.
Housemaids.
Janitress.
Dressmaker seamstresses.
EE
Barber..
Watchman.
Elevator man.
Assistant janitor.
Attendant in animal hospital.
Ministers.
•
3
Caretaker.
Day's work.
Operator on lace curtains.
Maid in dry goods store.
Total..
-
4
+373
I
I
2
I
I
16
Total..
19
Three of the high school girls visited expected to teach in the
South after completing their high school course, as the standards
in many of these states do not demand normal school training.
The remaining number of girls expected to become teachers in
New York. One or two had plans, not definitely formulated,
however, of becoming trained nurses. All the girls visited were
told about the need for social service among their own people.
Without exception they were all interested in those church
societies for young people whose activities were of a purely
social or religious character; they also expressed much interest
in educational activities of which they were told, and seemed
anxious to be placed in touch with avenues through which they
might learn to direct their own efforts.
The boys seemed to have no definite ambitions or plans, except
in two instances. In one of these, the "boy" was a man of 37,
who had come to New York from British Guiana where he had
been teaching school. He was employed as an elevator man in an
apartment house, attending school as his hours permitted, and
was preparing himself for the ministry. In the other instance, the
9
114
"boy" was 21 years old and was a switchboard operator in an
apartment house. He wished to study medicine later, if he
could devise ways and means for doing so. Ten of the boys were
employed after school and their occupations were as follows:
Order boys, grocery company
Errand boys.
Porter..
Messenger in hotel (bell-boy)
Program boy in theatre.
General work, florist's shop.
•
·
Elevator man in apartment house.
·
Switchboard operator in apartment house.
2 21H
I
I
I
I
I
I
None of the girls had any occupation other than helping their
mothers with home duties; and most of them said their studies
were so difficult that they had very little time even for that.
The fact that the boys were engaged for a number of hours in
gainful pursuits, while the girls had only their studies to occupy
their time out of school, may account for the higher standard of
scholarship among the girls.
The girls devoted their Saturdays to attending theatre, playing
tennis, basket ball, attending meetings of Camp Fire Girls,
etc., while, with only three exceptions, the boys worked all day.
The number of both boys and girls attending high school in
New York city at the time of the investigation was infinitesimal,
but is no indication of the educational progress of New York
Negroes of the coming generation, as there is no means of know-
ing how many are attending the many high schools for Negro
boys and girls that are maintained in the South, as well as in
Pennsylvania and New Jersey and those now coming into exist-
ence in New York State, as, for instance, the agricultural college
at Binghamton, etc.
3. MANHATTAN TRADE SCHOOL PUPILS
The 38 girls whose records in the Manhattan Trade School
were studied include 15 girls who had graduated in previous
years and 23 who were students there at the time of the investi-
gation. This last group had been admitted for the year 1912-
13, all of them to the dressmaking department.
As stated in another part of the report, the principal of the
school found it difficult, if not impossible, to place colored girls
in any other field of work, although she and her placement
secretary said they had made no effort to discover a field of work
115
for these girls among their own race. She also said she was
obliged, because of the difficulty in placing the colored girls, to
require a higher standard of qualification for admitting them to
the trade school; and even given the desired qualifications, she
questioned the advisability of admitting anything like a large
proportion of colored pupils, because of the probable effect this
might have in the attendance of white pupils.
That the qualifications secured were high is shown by the
fact that of the 23 girls entered as pupils, four had attended
high schools for a year or more, fourteen had been graduated
from elementary school, one had completed 8A, one 7A, one
7B, while one had left school in grade 6A and one in 6B respect-
ively.
An examination of the records of fifteen colored girls who had
been graduated from the Manhattan Trade School in previous
years, as shown in Table XIII, developed the fact that in the
majority of cases the progress made by the girls was slow but
hopeful; also that race prejudice was encountered among both
employers and fellow workers.
TABLE XIII.-EMPLOYMENT RECORDS OF FIFTEEN COLORED GIRLS
FROM THE MANHATTAN TRADE SCHOOL
Occupation
Assistant finisher (record covers two
months).
Shopper and errands.
Finisher.
•
Assistant finisher, later machine
operator.
·
Assistant finisher and hemstitcher.
Embroidery; finisher.
Skirt hand.
·
•
Assistant finisher; skirts.
*
·
•
Assistant finisher.
Assistant finisher.
•
Assistant finisher.
Assistant finisher.
Waist finisher.
•
Assistant on skirts.
Not given.
•
•
•
•
Number of posi-
tions held since
leaving school
First
pay
Last pay
noted
аспол
5
$5.00
4.00
Not given
$8
6
4.00
5-6
93535
4.00
5.00
6.00
5.00
5.00
79776
5.00
6.50
4
5.00
4
4
5.00
5
5.00
5
26
5.00
IO
5.00
6
116
Employers' reports show varying degrees of approval:
"Not satisfactory." No reason given.
"Laid off because of seasonal work; not satisfactory."
"Very satisfactory to employers."
"Slow at first, but improved."
'Satisfactory to employer."
"Went into private dressmaking work. Doing well.”
"Unfortunate. Ill and not satisfactory.'
"Knows nothing except sewing on hooks and eyes."
"Objection because of color."
"Satisfactory. In line for promotion."
"Liked by employer."
One employer stated to the school that a girl was called up
on the telephone by white men. When asked how it was known
that the men were white, the school secretary said she did not
know; but the record of this remark was placed on the girl's card,
nevertheless.
The list of occupations of parents given below shows that the
girls were fitting themselves at any rate to keep pace with the
status of their parents, if not, indeed, to progress beyond it.
Occupation of Fathers
Baker.
Coachman
Cooks.
•
•
Waiter..
Expressman
Messengers.
Porters..
•
·
Elevator man.
Longshoremen
Street cleaner
Clerks.
•
Furnaceman.
Chauffeur.
Carpenters.
Bricklayer
Sexton.
•
•
•
•
•
I
I
Occupation of Mothers
Seamstress.
Laundresses.
Dressmakers.
•
I
Janitor.
I
1 2 1 1 2 2 H212
I
•
I
II
4
I
I
I
I
Housekeeper.
Waitress.
Maid..
None (supported by husband) II
I
·
Dead, or not living at home...
Not given..
2
5
Total..
38
Dead, or not living at home
Not given.
•
I
I
21
Ι
I
•
*
13
3
Total..
38
In visiting pupils in the 7th and 8th grades of P. S. 119, fifteen
said they were on the waiting list of the Manhattan Trade School
but had not yet been admitted.
In talking with the mothers of these girls, the advisability of
117
having the girls placed as apprentices with colored dressmakers
or milliners, rather than risk delay in admission to the school,
was suggested. These mothers were unanimous, however, in
preferring to have the girls take advantage of the city's educa-
tional opportunities, and laid special stress on the work of the
school employment bureau, through whose good offices they
hoped the dangers of going to improper places of employment
might be avoided.
Below is given an analysis of the 38 girls, all taking the dress-
making course, who were studied with regard to their previous
training, their record in the Trade School and their home status.
The needs for wider opportunities for training and better facilities
for placement are clearly indicated, because with the relatively
high standard shown by the school records of these girls a wider
variety of opportunities than simply dressmaking-a seasonal
trade-should have been open to them both in training and
placement.
PREVIOUS SCHOOL RECORD
One year in high school.
Two years in high school..
Three years in high school..
Graduated from elementary school.
Completed 8A grade.
Completed 7A grade.
Completed 7B grade.
•
Completed 6A grade.
Completed 6B grade.
·
Completed 5B grade.
•
Total..
2
3
I
19
3
2
2
2
2
2
38
Twenty-five or 68.9% were graduated from grammar school, or better.
Thirty-two or 84.1% finished 7A, or better.
Thirty-six or 94.7% finished 6A, or better.
AGE ENTERING TRADE SCHOOL
Thirteen to fourteen years.
Fourteen to fifteen years.
Fifteen to sixteen years.
•
•
Sixteen to seventeen years.
Seventeen to eighteen years.
Eighteen to nineteen years.
Twenty years.
•
•
•
I
1 2
II
II
7
5
I
Total.
•
.
38
118
Excellent.
Very good..
Good to excellent
Good...
Good but slow.
Fair to good..
Fair...
Fair to poor .
Average.
Not given.
•
·
•
•
Total..
RATING
•
HOME STATUS
Living with father and mother.
Living with father.
Living with mother.
Living with aunt.
•
•
Living with [not given].
Total.
•
III. OCCUPATIONS
I
I
2
12
5
7
3
3
I
3
38
21
I
12
I
3
38
Herman Schneider, Dean of the Department of Engineering
in the University of Cincinnati and one of the foremost authori-
ties on vocational work in public schools, has in his monograph,
"An Analysis of Work," divided labor into two classifications,
energizing and devitalizing. He says:
"A highly organized nervous temperament cannot permanently
engage in enervating work-i. e., work done over and over again
by each worker in the smallest number of cubic feet of space—
without making for the breakdown of the individual unless the
period of work is shortened sufficiently to permit this worker to
engage in some other form of activity which will counteract the
effect of his daily occupation.
It is fundamental that
mankind must do stimulating work or retrogress. This is the
bed-rock upon which our constructive programs of education,
industry, sociology-of living must rest.
One may
safely propose as a thesis that only that civilization will prevail
whose laws and life conform most nearly to Natural Law. The
worth of our education, our laws, our scientific management will
be determined by the extent to which they will make clear, con-
form with and supplement the laws of work. Their test will lie
in the degree to which they are useful in leading us safely for-
ward to better, brighter conditions of work and their basic idea
must be service to the mass."
He holds thus, that devitalizing tasks make for the breakdown
of the individual and the consequent deterioration of the social
group engaged in them because of their benumbing effect on the
nervous system.
119
Information concerning the occupations of 200 men and 236
women; fathers, mothers and guardians of the children visited,
was secured in the course of this investigation (see Tables XIV
and XV). Viewing these occupations in the light of Dean
Schneider's analysis, there is to be found among them only a
very small percentage of the devitalizing activities which the
industrial machine has created but which, for one reason or an-
other, have failed to engage the services of any great number of
colored people.
Dean Schneider's illustration of his point-a man who for ten
hours a day dropped metal disks into the slot of a stamping ma-
chine has no close analogy among the lists of occupations shown
on pages 123 and 124.
The occupation of elevator man, engaging the second largest
number in the group, is perhaps the nearest approach to the
monotony of the factory hand's work; but the elevator man, on
the other hand, has usually alternate night and day shifts of
work, he has contact to a greater or less degree with his passengers,
and a comparison of his employment with that of the factory-
hand is in his favor in all respects excepting that of wages. Few
men engaged in industrial work earn as little as $25 or $30 a
month, which is the usual wage of elevator men. On the other
hand, this wage is almost invariably augmented by tips.
It is noticeable that all the occupations engaging the largest
numbers of both men and women are those in which the work is
irregular either as to hours or periods of work.
Porters, longshoremen, elevator-men, janitors, among the men;
day-workers, dressmakers and seamstresses, among the women, are
all in position, to a greater or less degree, to relieve their work by
an occasional day of recreation or rest, in contrast with the fac-
tory worker's eight or ten hour day or longer period of work from
week to week and from month to month.
On the other hand, of course, these irregular hours and days of
work make for an instability of income which is especially hard
on the women who go out to do day's work, many of them relying
on this employment as their sole means of livelihood. Other
women find two or three days' work the means of filling in the
breach between the husband's insufficient income and the mini-
mum of family necessities.
Some interesting sidelights on the economic situation were
furnished by individual cases:
120
A mother who was sending a daughter through high school,
with another younger girl, still in public school, following in her
footsteps, was learning to make shirt-waists in a factory during
the day and took in laundry work which she and the high school
girl did at night.
.
Another woman, whose husband was a railroad porter, had sent
one girl through high school by working at lace curtains. This
girl had graduated from the Washington Irving High School and
was earning $12.00 a week in a Fifth Avenue dressmaking estab-
lishment. The other daughter was taking a course in dressmak-
ing and designing at the Washington Irving High School, and the
mother said that the two girls were planning within the next
two years to open their own dressmaking establishment.
Her
A girl, graduating at eighteen from public school and refused
admission to the Manhattan Trade School, was earning $6 a
week as an apprentice in a corsetiere's establishment.
employer spoke enthusiastically of her ability and faithfulness.
The girl's mother was cook in a tea-room but was planning, when
the daughter should have become entirely self-supporting, to
learn corset-making herself so that they might start their own
business.
A boy who had graduated during the year of the investigation
was employed as delivery boy for a large shoe-store at $5 a week
and was keeping house for his father, a widower, and a younger
brother, doing all the cooking, cleaning-everything but the
washing and ironing. His father was a longshoreman and the
boy could not go to night school or join a club because his father's
dinner must be ready between nine and ten o'clock at night.
Another boy washed dishes after school and on Saturday on a
dredging boat, to earn money to relieve his mother who was jani-
tress and took in laundry, the father being helpless with asth-
matic trouble.
A woman whose daughter was in her first year of high school
took in two washings a week, to pay the girl's expenses. The
father was butler in a private family and during the summer had
no pay except his living expenses. This woman, grizzle-haired
and over fifty years old, said that she was attending night school,
"so that A (her daughter) won't get away from me.'
Although the number of hair-dressers shown in the investiga-
tion is small, there are few residence blocks in the colored district
without from two to a half dozen establishments for hair-work,
massage and baths. Unlike many of their white prototypes
these places are not, as a rule, blinds for other less reputable oc-
cupations but are the outgrowth of the overwhelming desire of
colored women to have their hair straightened and to eke out
their own usually short locks with "transformations" of various
kinds.
121
Many of the women in charge of these establishments have
private customers among white women. This work, however, is
regarded as difficult because of the long hours of standing, in
consequence of which many of them are afflicted with broken
arches after several years of work; also because of their inability
to secure food in restaurants outside the colored districts. Two
of these women had become tubercular from long hours of hard
work, irregular hours for meals and sometimes inability to get
meals at all because they were obliged to fill engagements that
left them no time to go to the colored district for dinner or lunch-
eon. The pay, however, is the highest of any earned by colored
women, $12 a week being the least amount given by the women
from whom inquiries were made.
Among the occupations of the men, the best paid seemed to be
those of public porters at railway stations, of longshoremen and
of chauffeurs. The earnings of the porters, according to their
own statements, ran from $2 to $7 and $9 a day, the latter sums,
however, being exceptional. The homes of the men engaged in
these occupations were among the most comfortable visited and
their wives rarely worked.
Reviewing the whole occupational situation, one feels that the
colored men and women are engaged in pursuits that are in them-
selves more healthful than those of the immigrant population.
The domestic character of the women's work makes for training
them in keeping their own homes; and the homes in turn reflect
this influence by an atmosphere of homelikeness in the majority
of them which is rarely found in the same class of homes among
other nationalities.
The colored girl seems to adjust herself more readily to the
small shop than to the factory. A closer psychological study than
it was possible to make in this investigation would be necessary
to determine fully the reason for this. The desire for a more
personal relation with fellow workers and employers and the
greater individual freedom of the small establishment undoubt-
edly play their part in the problem. Recent graduates of the
public schools were found to be engaged as follows:
Girls.
Dressmaking establishments.
Corset establishments.
Fur making and modelling.
Millinery..
4234
122
Boys.
Newspaper route.
Florist's establishment (messenger)
Real estate office (office boy).
·
Second assistant drill tender in tunnel.
•
•
I
I
I
I
•
The outlook does not seem unpromising. In spite of the
somewhat pessimistic view of principals of trade and high schools,
the field of occupations is undoubtedly widening, albeit slowly.
Perhaps rather than toward the factory world of the white man,
the future of the colored girl and boy will tend to occupations
among their own people, following the race's development
through small establishments to large ones.
Already, colored business men have stated, there is a widening
field for colored clerks, stenographers, etc., in the colored com-
munity; and those interested in a vocational program for colored
school children might do well to bear this aspect of the situation
in mind.
A canvass of the colored people attending one of the evening
schools showed the following occupations among men and women,
boys and girls:
Women and Girls.
At home-no occupation..
Housework (general, cooks and waitresses)
Laundresses.
►
Dressmakers and seamstresses.
Maids (lady's).
Stenographers.
Milliners.
Nurses.
Office girl..
Hairdresser.
•
Men and Boys.
Porters..
•
•
Elevator men
Tailors..
Stock clerks.
Janitors.
Doormen.
·
•
•
•
•
•
*
•
Bath attendants.
Machinists.
Messengers.
•
•
Drivers.
Chauffeurs.
•
Office boys..
•
•
•
53
50
26
•
17
13
4
3
2
I
I
19
96
4332 2 2 3
2
2
3
One each, plumber, deliveryman, valet, fireman, agent, and chair
caner.
123
TABLE XIV.—WOMEN'S OCCUPATIONS (CLASSIFIED)


Domestic
Needle Trades
Business
Miscellaneous
Day's work....97
Dressmakers .12
Laundresses 30 Seamstresses . 9
•
·
• •
•
•
12
7
Housemaids .27
Cooks....
Lady's maids
Boarding and
lodging house
keepers..
Caretakers
Care of babies
•
•
6
4
I
Factory operators 7 Jani-
Hairdressers .4
•
Restaurant keep-
ers and caterers 2
Grocery-shop
keeper
Asst. in tailor
shop...
Undertaker
Canvasser for
patent medi-
cines..
•
•
I
I
I
•
•
tresses 12
Music
teacher. I
Actress.. I
184
21
I
17
Total
•
WOMEN'S OCCUPATIONS
(Arranged according to number in the respective groups)
Day's work.
Laundresses
Housemaids.
Cooks..
Janitresses.
•
•
Dressmakers..
Seamstresses.
Lady's maids.
•
•
Factory operators.
•
Boarding and lodging house keepers.
Hairdressers.
Caretakers.
•
• •
Restaurant keepers and caterers.
Music teacher..
Actress.
Care of babies.
Grocer...
•
·
Asst. in tailor shop. .
Undertaker..
.
•
•
Canvasser for patent medicines.
Total..
97
30
27
12
12
12
•
9
7
7
6
4
4
2
•
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
.236
14
236
124
Unskilled
TABLE XV.—MEN'S OCCUPATIONS (CLASSIFIED)
Skilled
Domestic
Hotel, club or
restaurant
Business
Professional
men
men
Miscellaneous
•
7 Expressmen. .4 Ministers
9 Coal dealer
I Caterer
Messengers..3 Tailors
Caretaker ..I Grocer
Genl. worker 1 Livery
•
•
I Lawyer
3 Groc. clerk..I
I Assistant
•
I Doctor.
I
weigher
3 Actor.
I
custom
I Musicians
2
•
house..... I
I
Foreman in
Farmer
I
Head porters
·
Porters.
43 Barber
2 Chauffeurs
6 Coachmen
I Butlers.
Elevator men
18 Printer
I Housemen
4 Waiters
4 Cooks
2 Steward.
Janitors..
·
15 Elec. wker.
I
Longshoremen. . 14 Painters
2
Laborers.
8 Carpenter
I
Stablemen
3 Engineers
2
Teamsters.
6 Asst. engineer
I
Street-cleaners.
2 Bricklayer
I
Asphalt worker
I Plasterer.
I
►
House-cleaner
I Asst. drill tender I
Furnaceman
I Cigarmakers
2
Steamboat stoker I
Watchman
I
Bank messengers 2
1 2
Washman in
laundry
I
·
coal yard. . I
Asst. ship-
ping clerks 2
Postal clerk I
Picture agts. 2
Salesman's
asst.
1
119
20
10
22
I2
8
Total.
9
.200
125
Porters.
MEN'S OCCUPATIONS
(Arranged according to number in the respective groups)
Elevator men
Janitors.
Longshoremen .
Laborers.
•
Cooks.
Waiters..
Teamsters.
·
·
Chauffeurs.
Coachmen.
Butlers..
·
43
18
2000 10 +00
I each, Asphalt worker
House cleaner
Furnace man
Steamboat stoker
Watchman
15
14
•
8
9
Washman in laundry
7
Barber
6
Printer
6
·
4
4
•
4
Bricklayer
Electric works employe
Carpenter
Asst. engineer
Expressmen
Stablemen.
Messengers.
Tailors..
Ministers.
•
•
Street cleaners.
•
•
Bank messengers.
Painters.
Engineers.
•
·
•
Housemen.
Musicians..
Asst. shipping clerks
Picture agents.
•
3
Plasterer
3
Asst. drill tender
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
~ ~ ~ ~
33 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Steward
Caretaker
General worker in restaurant
Coal dealer
Caterer
Grocer
Liveryman
Farmer
Lawyer
Doctor
Cigarmakers
•
Actor
Grocery clerk
Asst. weigher in custom house
Foreman in coal yard
Postal clerk
Salesman's assistant
The following is a list sent out by the United Colored Democ-
racy during the Municipal Campaign of 1910 and stated to rep-
resent the Negroes in the employ of the City of New York.
Assistant District Attorney.
Assistant Corporation Counsel.
Deputy Commissioner of Taxes.
Sealers of Weights and Measures (2).
Sanitary Inspectors (4).
Inspector of Vaults.
Inspector of Licenses.
Corporation Inspectors (5).
Deputy Inspector of Combustibles, Fire Department.
Inspectors of Water Meters (2).
Inspector of Hydrants.
Assistant Engineer, Water Department.
Inspector of Highways.
Inspectors of Disinfectants, Health Department (4).
Inspectors of Mud Scows (2)
Inspector, Tenement House Department.
Detailed Inspector of Garbage.
Stenographers, Dock Department (2).
Stenographer, Department of Highways.
Detailed Foreman, Street Cleaning Department.
Detailed Assistant Foreman, Street Cleaning Department.
126
First Grade Fireman, Fire Department.
Driver, Fire Department.
Law Clerk, Comptroller's Office.
Clerk, District Attorney's Office.
Clerk, Department of Finance.
Clerk, Tenement House Department.
Clerk, Health Department.
Clerks, Tax Department (2).
Clerks, Department of Docks and Ferries (2).
Clerks, Water Department (2).
Executive Clerk, Mayor's Office.
Patrolmen, Police Department (2).
Assistant Deputy Sheriff, Sheriff's Office.
Clerk, Register's Office, Brooklyn.
Clerk, Coroner's Office, Brooklyn.
Marine Stokers, Department of Docks (6).
Marine Sounder, Department of Bridges.
Confidential Attendant, Corporation Counsel's Office.
Messengers, District Attorney's Office (2).
Messenger, City Chamberlain's Office.
Messenger, Surrogate's Office.
Messenger, Department of Charities.
Messenger, Borough President's Office, Bronx.
Messenger, Water Department.
Elevator Attendant, Borough President's Office.
Cleaners, Sheriff's Office (2).
Cleaner, Department of Highways.
Doormen, Democratic Club (2).
Laborers, Department of Docks and Ferries (25).
Laborers, Park Department (12).
Laborers, Street Cleaning Department (380).
Laborers, Department of Sewers (2).
Laborers, Borough President's Office, Queens.
Laborers, Borough President's Office, Richmond.
IV. FAMILY INCOMES
As
No comprehensive study was made of family incomes.
stated in the first part of the report there was an evident unwil-
lingness on the part of many of the families visited to give in-
formation. Only 126 families responded. The incomes are
shown in Tables XVI and XVII.
The incomes given are those earned at the time the investiga-
tion was made, according to the statements made by the wage-
earners. They were said to be fairly representative of the year's
work, with the exception of those of the women who earned their
living by day's work in private families. These women had little
work during the greater part of the summer, and incomes were
correspondingly less at that time.
It was found almost invariably that in families where husband
and wife were both living, the wife did not work if the husband's
income was $12.00 or more a week. If under $12.00, however,
the wife worked, at any rate a portion of the time.
127
TABLE XVI.-FAMILY INCOMES-PER WEEK PER CAPITA

Group
I$
I-1.25
1.26-1.50
1.51-2
2.01-2.50
2.51-3
3.01-3.50
3.51-4
4.01-4.50
4.51-5
5.01-5.50
5.51-6
6.01-6.50
6.51-7
-L
Under-age,
13 families
2
2
5 2
2
At-age,
35 families..
I
3 5.. 6 4
5
53 I I
I
Over-age,
56 families
2 5 I 6
II
8
7
5 36
I
I
$7.50
Exceptional,
22 families
I 2
+
4 3 2
2
2
I
I
$9.50
126 families 4 9 615
•
26 17 16 12 6
I
9 I 2
2
Total,
TABLE XVII.—PER CENT HAVING INCOMES, PER WEEK PER CAPITA
Under $2.00
Between $2.00
and $4.50
Over $4.50
Total
Group
No.
Per
Per
Per
No.
No.
No.
cent
cent
cent
Over-age.
56
14 25.0
31
55.3
II
19.0
Under and at-age
•
48
13 27.0
29 60.4
6
12.5
Total normal . .
104
27
25.9
60
57.9
17
16.3
Exceptional.
22
7
31.8 II.
50.0
4
18.2
The amounts given in the table seemed, in every instance, to
be reasonably related to the employment of the wage-earners.
The table indicates that the largest number lay between $1.50
and $4.00 per capita per week, 74 of the total 126 incomes coming
within this range; the remaining 52 incomes showed 19 between
$1.00 and $1.50 and 28 between $4.00 and $6.00 per capita per
week.
The larger per capita incomes were invariably those of small
families, father, mother and one child, all steadily employed.
Although the total number of incomes given was too small to
afford much pertinent information, an attempt was made to com-
pare the incomes of the families in which there were overage
128
children with those of the families in which there were children at
or under age (see Table XVII), and also the incomes of the normal
group with those of the exceptional, in order to ascertain, if pos-
sible, whether the economic status of the family affected the
children's school record. Little can be inferred from the per-
centages given as the groups form a very small proportion of the
original groups studied. This is especially true when we con-
sider the fact mentioned above, namely, that large incomes often
mean working children.
PART III
NEEDS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Ten months of visiting in schools, homes, institutions and other
agencies concerned with the development of children, has indi-
cated that the problem of the colored child is two-fold: that it
consists not alone in overcoming the difficulties described in the
report and so fitting him to live usefully and respectably in the
community, but in addition to this in overcoming certain re-
strictions apparently placed on him because he is colored, for
example, in his opportunity to secure employment or in his choice
of the neighborhood in which he may live.
The first part of the problem, that which concerns itself with
his education and training, appears to be the same on San Juan
Hill and Harlem as in the East Side Ghetto and the Italian quar-
ter: i. e., children who have good homes and intelligent parents,
especially efficient mothers who remain at home to protect and
companion them, show the smallest percentage of departure from
the normal in both scholarship and conduct. In fact, so generally
has difficulty with the child been found to be coupled with an
inefficient mother or with a mother obliged for economic reasons
to leave her home for the entire day, that the temptation is
strong to ascribe the difficulty almost entirely to lack of home
training and care. However, in a number of instances children
have made normal progress and behaved themselves with pro-
priety in school when home conditions were everything that was
undesirable, and vice versa.
This part of the problem is an individual one, as each trouble-
some child requires careful study and adjustment in many direc-
tions. No generality has been found applicable to even a small
group of children and therefore while playgrounds may be multi-
plied and the methods of conducting them improved; while
day nursery activities may be elaborated even to making possible.
co-operation with the public schools; or Big Brothers and Big
Sisters, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, clubs and classes, etc.,
may be developed on the one hand, and the curriculum of the
ΙΟ
129
130
school changed on the other, it is unlikely that the child who
presents an unusual problem will be reached unless some one
person with the ability to judge reactions can give to that child
a large amount of time and sympathetic attention.
The second part of the problem, that part which exists for the
colored child because he is colored, does not seem possible of
solution so long as public opinion continues to find itself unable
to come to a decision on the question of whether the negro race
should or should not be under a separate régime in the social
fabric. And because of this race feeling or opinion (sometimes
both), emotions are aroused which in their action and counter-
action have created an endless chain of discrimination, grading
from indifference and neglect to active persecution. The very
social forces working in behalf of the handicapped of other races.
are in many instances not available for colored people. Those
most strongly affected by this state of affairs are naturally the
least developed and most defenseless members of this least de-
veloped of all the races composing our polyglot population, and
it is therefore difficult to say with justice, when lapses from stand-
ards are encountered, where individual disability stops and where
community responsibility commences.
After all, we are only beginning dimly to comprehend human
problems and to evolve from one angle or another methods of
dealing with them. The most we can do for the colored child is
to give him whatever is found sufficiently good to offer to other
children, and the least we can do for him is to give him the benefit
of every force now being employed to enhance the well being of
all children.
I. SCHOOL NEEDS
As the intensive study, reinforced by the findings of the pre-
liminary survey, points out, the two most pressing problems of
the children in the elementary schools are over age, i. e., retarda-
tion, and irregular attendance, the latter difficulty often being
the cause of the former. Various means within the schools have
been tried in order to overcome these difficulties; it is possible
that the same remedy applied to both ills outside the school, but
in full co-operation with it, would accomplish much.
1. Over-age. The large percentage of over-age shown by the
study—a percentage out of all proportion to that given in the
report of the City Superintendent for the year ending July 31,
131
1913, for the schools of New York as a whole-renders most
significant the step taken toward promotion by subject, and the
installation of double periods in reading, writing and arithmetic
which were inaugurated for over-age boys in Public School 89 in
the fall of 1913. Two hundred boys in grades 3B, 4A, 4B, 5A
and 5B were given two periods of reading and arithmetic instead
of one, in the grade work for which they were best equipped.
The result after two months showed that ten of these boys were
returned to their grades and the others exhibited such marked
improvement that the principal was inclined to think this problem
was in a fair way of being solved. Not only was the boys' scholar-
ship improved, but their conduct, attention and general morale
were noticeably better. There has been no further opportunity
to follow up the records of the pupils working under this plan as
it was inaugurated only two months prior to the close of this
investigation. The principal of Public School 89 was enthusiastic
in his estimate of the effect of the work on both the scholarship
and conduct of the boys, and Dr. Frank Bachman when consulted
concerning this experiment spoke of its great possibility for use-
fulness in all schools containing 6th, 7th and 8th grades. If the
plan has proved successful, its general use by the school authori-
ties is urged in coping with this over-age condition.
The life of the child outside the school, however, furnishes the
main reason for this evil of retardation. In all the districts
studied the greatest cause is undoubtedly the lack of care of the
children whose parents, for whatever reason, do not give them
adequate companionship and guidance, the problem that is
everywhere coming to be considered one of the greatest of those
affecting the mass of the population. These children, whether
of the families of working parents or of ignorant or immoral or
neglectful parents, or of widowed or deserted mothers, are as yet
untouched by any community scheme, whether churches, settle-
ments, day nurseries, school centers, etc., because all of these ac-
tivities deal with children en masse and none, so far as can be dis-
covered, study the child as an individual. If he is not interested
or does not attend these activities the burden of blame rests on
him or on his parents or guardians. The reaction of the child's
individual preferences is apparently not taken into account.
It has been shown fairly conclusively that the settlement clubs
and other activities do not-and undoubtedly cannot-give this
individual care. The work of the settlement as an institution
132
makes it impossible for the workers to adjust the hours for the
various activities to the needs of each child. Day nurseries would
need to be multiplied many times beyond their present number—
and in fact beyond the legitimate need for the peculiar service
they render if they were equipped to cope adequately with the
problem of the uncared-for child of school age.
The School Recreation Center would seem to be the logical
means of providing this care. Not the recreation center as it is
now organized, with incomplete equipment, an insufficient, un-
trained force and haphazard attendance; but a center based on
an accurate knowledge of the needs of the school population and
worked out through a careful canvass of the homes in order to
learn specifically which of the children require care and to secure
the authority of parents to keep those children in safe custody
until called for at the school; a center which should make ar-
rangements with class-room teachers for receiving the children
after their school tasks are completed, and which should devote
its program to activities that develop definite, healthy means of
self-expression in each child as well as protecting him from the
unguided, haphazard street life that now occupies all his waking
hours spent away from school-room lessons.
It has been suggested that widows' pensions would, by enabling
women to remain in their homes, obviate the necessity for this
community care of children. The study has shown, however,
that the children of widows form only a small percentage of the
total number of children requiring this care; and, more often
than not, the insufficient earnings of the father make it necessary
for the mother to be a wage-earner. Even if the limitations of
race did not tie colored men to unprofitable occupations in
the majority of cases, few of these men would be able in any
occupation to earn a sufficient wage to support a family. In-
dustrial conditions in the community as a whole are rendering
it difficult, if not impossible, for one wage earner to support a
family in decent comfort, and therefore the pensioning of widowed
mothers would relieve only a small percentage of the enforced
neglect of children because of economic necessity. Furthermore,
economic necessity is not the sole reason for neglect; it is sad but
true that numerous maldevelopments are plainly shown to be due
to parental inefficiency, incompatibility and misunderstanding.
Looking at the problem as one that concerns itself with the
best means of dealing with the child whose home life, for what-
133
ever reason, is not making for his proper development, a school
center of the character mentioned seems to afford a promise of
relief. Public School 28, located as it is in a district about
equally divided between vice and poverty, having few social
agencies of any sort and none for colored school children, has
suggested itself as an excellent place for inaugurating a center of
this nature. The principal of the school was keenly interested
in the plan, and the director of the Hudson Guild offered co-opera-
tion. In consideration of the peculiar service it was proposed
to render, the school would probably afford a better location
than would a church or a private agency for such a center, as
the parents of all the school children might thus be reached un-
trammelled by affiliations of any nature.
The vital points of the work of the center would of course be
the definite care given and definite responsibility assumed for
the children from the time they were taken from their classrooms
until they were called for by their parents or guardians. The
activities might range from walking and swimming clubs, as al-
ready organized in many of the schools, to basket-ball or baseball
teams, singing, cooking or sewing classes, study rooms, arrange-
ments for medical and dental care, etc. As the plan contemplates
care of the children on every school day and on Saturdays, if ne-
cessary, each child would require naturally a variety of activities.
Those with whom the plan was discussed thought it held prom-
ise of aiding definitely in the prevention of much juvenile delin-
quency, and made for building normal, well-trained children from
those who might otherwise become the street waifs or the lonely
shut-ins. This last group of children, lacking companionship.
and guidance, many of them without even ordinary facility of
speech as a means of self-expression, this study has found to be
the victims of the solitude, non-development or wrong develop-
ment resulting from parental neglect,-whether that neglect
was brought about by economic necessity or by other causes.
Of equal importance in dealing with this question of lack of
home care is the Visiting Teacher, without whose co-operation it
would be difficult, if not indeed impossible, to develop the center
just described.
In spite of the feeling by certain students of school problems
that the visiting teacher is a superfluity and that all difficulties
arising with school children can be adjusted by a principal who
possesses social consciousness and knowledge of community re-
134
sources and who works in co-operation with class teachers, attend-
ance officers, school doctors and nurses, and parents, there re-
mains the fact that at present in only one of the schools studied
was there any approach to this "team work"; and that even the
very excellent work done there did not tie up those loose ends in
the children's lives caused by the lack of parental care from early
morning until bed-time. None of the social agencies in the dis-
trict were available for the close-knit co-operation necessary to
care properly for these children, and none provided a place where
the children might be retained until their parents or guardians
called for them.
The results secured from individual cases referred to the social
agencies were not encouraging, and unless a radical change is
finally brought about in the following up of these individual cases
and in methods of dealing with them it would seem that, in addi-
tion to a school recreation center, visiting teachers were necessary
both in the Chelsea and San Juan Hill districts and in Harlem.
The situation would probably best be met at present by the
addition of several visiting teachers to the staff of the Public
Education Association. It has been suggested that the West
End Workers' Association and the Chelsea Neighborhood As-
sociation might be asked to join in raising the $1,000 or $1,200 a
year necessary to provide such workers in their districts.
In Harlem it has been suggested that the Urban League might
raise the necessary funds among the churches and other social
agencies in that district. This latter plan may not be a wise
one, however, as the Urban League is definitely committed to a
policy of employing and training colored workers and it seems to
the investigator that for this particular service the time is not
yet ripe for a colored worker in Harlem. For many forms of
social service a colored worker would, doubtless, be as successful
as a white one; but present conditions demanding training and
long experience on the part of the worker and a place of authority
in relation to the schools have seemed to indicate the advisability
of employing white visiting teachers. It is rightly maintained
that colored people must be taught to respect social workers of
their own race, and after the relation between the homes and the
schools has been established and a better understanding has been
brought about it may well be that a colored worker can more
advantageously be employed. At present it is the opinion of
the investigator that the situation, so far as the welfare of the
135
child is concerned, is in danger of being sacrificed to the plan of
training colored social workers.
2. Truancy. The second important problem in connection with
colored school children has been truancy and irregular attendance.
The intensive study points out, however, that truancy exists
in this group only to a slightly greater degree than in the entire
school population. It may be that the consequences of truancy
are more serious with these children because of the difficult home
conditions that prevail among them. In any case, whether or not
the problem is greater here than in other districts of the city,
it is sufficiently serious to justify recommending measures for
meeting it. In connection with this problem the investigation
brought to light what appears to be pertinent information.
In the first place, at 34 of the addresses given on the school
cards no knowledge of the child or family could be secured; and
22 more had moved and could not be found. The time lost in
looking up new addresses might be saved if the correct address
of each child were secured and verified at the beginning of each
term or oftener. The co-operation of older pupils of proven.
reliability, and of alumni associations might be of value here.
This question of attendance is also immediately affected by
parental neglect, indeed is almost identical with the general
problem of the child who is neglected or improperly guarded at
home, and the same remedies, therefore, can be applied. Prob-
ably no more significant fact has been developed by the study
than that in not one single instance were normal home surround-
ings found in the group of truant boys studied, and by normal
home surroundings nothing less is meant than a home in which
both parents were living, the father working and the mother
remaining at home to care for the children. The method of
taking no account of home conditions in the reports made by the
attendance officer cannot fail to leave this problem unsolved,
especially in the more aggravated cases of non-attendance.
In no department, perhaps, is the good effect of the visiting
teacher's work shown more distinctly than in dealing with cases
of incipient truancy, and it is just here that sustained effort
brought to bear on individual cases is of the highest importance.
The attendance officer, attached as he is to the schools of an entire
district, cannot, as a rule, give the necessary time for solving the
individual problems involved. Those attendance officers who
have become successful social influences with the truants in their
136
districts have usually been unsuccessful in handling a suffi-
ciently large number of cases to cover the districts adequately.
In one large school 500 out of 2,500 pupils had been reported for
truancy during one school year and the problem was so acute it
almost seemed to warrant the attachment of an attendance offi-
cer to this school exclusively. The difficulties arising from tru-
ancy conditions here, together with the unwillingness of teachers
to visit the homes; and the unpleasant relations existing be-
tween another school and some of the homes of its colored pupils,
all called for the help of the visiting teacher.*
In the smaller schools, like Public Schools 100 and 141, the
principal and head of department have practically been visiting
teachers, and might easily acquire a sufficient familiarity with
the social agencies available for help in meeting the problems that
arise in connection with non-attendance cases. In the larger
schools, however, the human side of the problem has not been
adequately dealt with, and much ill will has resulted on the part
of every one concerned. Social service and close follow-up work
are needed here just as surely as they are needed for the patient
leaving a hospital; a teacher or a school principal should not be
expected to give such service any more than are the nurse and
hospital superintendent.
Local school boards might well interest themselves in the work,
and in co-operation with alumni associations might render vital aid.
School luncheons would undoubtedly help, especially in Public
Schools 89 and 68, in dealing with the attendance problem, as
many of the children who go home to prepare their own lunches
fail to return in the afternoon. If luncheons were available at
school an understanding might be effected with parents whereby
the children needing luncheons would be kept in school during
the noon recess. There is an open air playground in P. S. 89
where the children of this school, who constitute the largest per-
centage of the problem, might have outdoor exercise at noontime.
The large percentage of colored children who are required to
care for younger brothers and sisters after school hours, or who
are kept from school to give this care, render desirable the forma-
tion in all the schools studied of the Little Mothers' Leagues or-
ganized by the Bureau of Child Hygiene of the City Department
of Health. On the application of the principal of any school a
* Some of these difficulties will be met if the plans of the new Bureau of At-
tendance are carried out.
137
nurse is assigned by the Bureau of Child Hygiene to organize the
League, and all the year round, summer and winter, the children
are instructed by nurses and doctors from the Department of
Health in various phases of child caring. These Leagues have
been of incalculable value in the East Side schools in which they
have been organized, not only because of their educational as-
pect but because of their salutary effect on the discipline and
general morale of their membership. Many an Italian and
Jewish mother has found herself confronted on the recreation
pier or in the park by an indignant Little Mothers' Leaguer,
flourishing a small admonishing finger under the nose of the merely
grown-up, but woefully ignorant woman, with the demand:
"Say, don't you know no better nor to give that baby lollipops?
Say, do you want to kill him before he's got a chance?”
A Parental School for Girls seems to be in every way desirable.
So much of the trouble with the children in court cases was found
to be rooted in non-attendance that if the first offenders were
dealt with by a parental school it would seem that more serious
trouble might be averted, especially in cases where working moth-
ers cannot discipline incipient truants in a sufficiently strenuous
manner to obviate the difficulty. In the case of the inefficient
and immoral mother a commitment for improper guardianship
would naturally be in order; but many cases of waywardness in
the daughters of working mothers undoubtedly would have been
checked on the safe side of actual immorality, if a parental school
had been available.
Mothers' meetings would undoubtedly help with this problem,
but those held in the afternoon have not been successful because
of the large proportion of working mothers, and the idea of even-
ing meetings has not met with favor by the principals or teachers.
An outside agency might undertake to develop these evening
meetings but here again rises the question of inaugurating any
activity exclusively for colored people in the public schools.
In Philadelphia, the Armstrong Association's school visitor
organized several remarkably successful groups of colored women,
holding the meetings in the members' homes and keeping each.
group small enough to make this possible. Noticeably good.
results were secured in developing the women themselves and in
eliminating many of the difficulties in the school with the children.
With the opening of a social center in the school these groups
were consolidated into a larger body which now meets in the
138
school building; but the young woman in charge of the work
stated that she felt much of the social spirit had been lost in the
merging of the clubs and the transfer to the school building, al-
though the problems of the children were more adequately pre-
sented and discussed.
It might be possible through the efforts of the visiting teachers
to promote school meetings in the evening even though class
teachers did not participate in the meetings. Most, if not all,
of the principals would take real interest in such meetings.
The lack of proper care of children by their parents or other
guardians has been found to lie at the root of so large a percent-
age of all the problems arising in school that one is almost tempted
to ask that failure to give such care be made a penal offense.
If a parent fails to clothe or feed or if he brutally beats a child,
the law reaches him effectively. If, however, he is merely very
industrious or over-indulgent and the spiritual and mental growth
of the child suffer quite as severely as does his body in the other
cases, it is difficult, often impossible, to secure for the child
his right to a "fair chance" to develop into a normal human
being. The colored child, because of his strong native instinct
for social relationship, is particularly in need of sympathetic in-
dividual attention. Club leaders and teachers in the settle-
ments, as well as in the schools, have remarked on the fact that
colored children require a greater amount of personal considera-
tion than do the white children with whom they come in contact;
and most of them agree that loneliness has much to do with this.
3. Weakened Mentality.-The noticeable tendency to mental
abnormalities at the age of adolescence requires a closer study
than it was possible to make during the period of this investiga-
tion, and the Committee is urged to give this matter considera-
tion. It has been suggested that the National Association for
the Advancement of Colored People might wish to coöperate,
if it should be decided to pursue the matter further.
It was not thought advisable by the Public Education Associa-
tion's executive staff, when the investigation was planned, to
make psychological tests of the mental calibre of the pupils
studied, but rather to gauge the extent to which such tests might
be necessary. The study of the troublesome children showed the
necessity for careful consideration of environment and home
training, especially in the border-line mental cases; also the nice
distinction that must be drawn between mental and moral defect.
139
4. Vocational Training and Guidance.-In close connection
with the problems within the school, especially in relation to
high and trade schools, exists the very important need of pro-
viding more adequately not alone for training for work, but also
for placing in situations the colored boys and girls who graduate
from the public schools or who are for any reason whatever leav-
ing school when they are legally permitted to do so.
The study has indicated plainly that there is a field for colored
workers in the industries; but it has also indicated that in the
trade schools there is race discrimination on the part of the
authorities and, especially, that the applications of colored girls
for admission to the Manhattan Trade School are not always con-
sidered in the order in which they are made. In view of the
fact that a number of girls from one school had failed to secure
admission to the Trade School it would seem to be in order to
have the question of eligibility of colored girls definitely passed
upon by the school authorities. This question might well be re-
ferred to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People which is concerning itself with all matters relating to the
civil status of Negroes. The eligibility to admission to a public
school is surely such a question and one of great importance.
A much more comprehensive knowledge of the occupations
open to colored boys and girls would be available if an endeavor
could be made in connection with grammar and high schools
to obtain information for at least two years after leaving school
concerning the work secured by the boys and girls who either
graduate, or who secure working papers before graduation.
This information might then be placed at the disposal of the em-
ployment bureaus of both boys' and girls' trade schools. There
is so much discouragement for these boys and girls in their
efforts to make a place for themselves that any light on their
problems would surely make worth while even a considerable
amount of additional expense and work.
It has also suggested itself that the evening trade schools.
might be helped very materially in placing their pupils by co-
operation with the vocational bureaus of the day trade schools.
None of the evening trade schools have had systematic placement
arrangements, although their need for such service is obvious.
Very definite recommendations as to summer studies, espe-
cially for first year high school students, would be of the greatest
value to these boys and girls. Some volunteer association, for
140
instance, the National League on Urban Conditions Among
Negroes, might find it desirable to discuss this matter with high
school principals in order to secure from them information and ad-
vice concerning the specific pupils who require summer tutoring or
study classes, and whom they might assist in procuring such help.
Several workers have urged the necessity for a school of do-
mestic science to train colored girls in housework. It is a ques-
tion whether colored girls should be trained for housework in
preference to any other means of livelihood, for other occupations
are undoubtedly opening more and more broadly and they should
rather be given their choice of an occupation for which they feel
they are fitted. The large number of colored people attending
the night schools shows an increasing tendency on the part of
the working population to make the best use of their leisure
time; and the lack of time for improvement as well as for recrea-
tion undoubtedly lies at the root of the growing unwillingness
to go into domestic service, together with the disadvantage, as
many of them have said, of "not being with my own kind."
"No one knows, Miss," one girl said, "how hard it is, where there
is only one in help, to be by yourself all the time and never talk
about things you want to." Whether for good or evil, this is the
cry of the house servant, colored and white, and the testimony
from both girls and their parents does not encourage a belief in
the success of a school to train housemaids if it were established.
5. Race Feeling.-In the consideration of the public school's
relationship to the problem of the colored child it is not possible
to ignore the matter of race feeling. While the majority of the
teachers showed much sympathy and kindly feeling for their
colored pupils there was undoubted evidence in some cases of
active dislike, and it has been noticeable that the principals who
have most successfully coped with this problem are those who
have insisted that no mention ever be made of color. One prin-
cipal told me that the salutary effect on the teachers' attitude of
this ruling made by her had been marked, and she felt that if
principals would consistently insist that no such term as "Ne-
gro" or "colored" be used in discussing their pupils, much im-
provement would be secured.
II. SOCIAL NEEDS
Aside from the need existing in the public schools to meet
adequately the problem of the colored school child, perhaps
141
the correctional institutions have the most immediate bearing
on the problem. The State Training School for delinquent
girls should undoubtedly be enlarged and at once, and every
effort should be made to make a place there at least for a colored
girl of school age who has become a mother or has been found
to have lapsed sexually. It seems a great pity that girls who
have had experiences of this nature should return to the public
schools and mingle with innocent children. The girls found in
this study to have had such experiences had not in a single
instance been ignorantly and innocently led astray, and there is
no doubt that every one of them would be benefited by the dis-
cipline of institutional life with definite training for a period of
at least several years.
If Hudson Training School is growing unwieldy in size, then
the question arises whether there shall be a second institution
for colored girls or, preferably, one for rural cases. In the second
alternative, the course of training might be arranged to fit the
girls for the kind of life they would return to after leaving the in-
stitution, aside from the fact that rural and urban cases probably
differ in nature more vitally than do the white and colored cases.
Since the foregoing matter indicates a wide diversity of opinion
on the problem of the delinquent colored girl, not only by the state
authorities but also by philanthropic organizations interested in
the question, it would seem advisable that a public conference be
called with a view to discussing the advisability of additional ac-
commodations for colored girls in the State Training School on the
one hand; and on the other hand, the relative value of establish-
ing a home for delinquent colored girls or a training school for
girls who are not delinquent, as Miss Davis has suggested.
In 1914 there was accommodation for fifty girls in the House
of the Good Shepherd Country Home, while only thirty-one had
then been committed. If the Protestant Mission societies will
parallel this extension of the Catholics' work, and will take care of
Protestant cases not eligible to Hudson or which it is not thought
best to send there, the community scheme for correctional work
should be fairly complete.
There is a real opportunity here for some agency interested
in the colored race to perform the service which is already being
undertaken by other races, of supplying a friendly visitor from
New York to visit the Hudson Training School or other correc-
tional institutions periodically, perhaps giving the girls religious
142
instruction but at any rate gaining a friendly footing with them
and helping with their care when their probationary period
arrives. The Council of Jewish Women has paid visitors who are
performing this service for Jewish girls both at Hudson and at
the Bedford Reformatory, and the value of their work has been
publicly endorsed by the authorities of both institutions.
The need of a parental school for girls has been spoken of, and
in the cases of girls too young for commitment to Hudson or of
school girls whose offenses do not seem to warrant such severe pun-
ishment and whose parents seem unable to cope with the situation,
such special school would undoubtedly be of real constructive
help with both white and colored truants and juvenile delinquents.
There is need for a public playground in Harlem and if the
owners of the numerous vacant lots would give permission to
have them used, the recreation committee of the Board of Educa-
tion or some other public or private agency might be induced to
equip them. This would fill the need for playgrounds until the
Board of Estimate and Apportionment could be prevailed upon
to make a purchase for that purpose.
The property adjoining Public School 100, at the corner of Fifth
Avenue and 138th Street, was unoccupied at the time this re-
port was made, as were a number of lots in the middle of the block
between Lenox and Fifth Avenues. Any one of these properties
is in a more congested neighborhood than the property already
suggested to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment between
Lenox and Seventh Avenues and could probably be bought at a
figure considerably lower than that asked for property considered
by them. It might also be possible to secure permission of the
owners of these lots to use them, so long as they remained unsold,
for playgrounds equipped in the manner suggested above. This
has been done in numerous instances in other parts of the city.'
It is hoped that a strong effort will be made to induce the
police department to check the growth of petty as well as of
graver criminal offenses in the Harlem district; here also efficient
aid might be secured through visiting the homes of the school
children. If the social agencies in Harlem were organized, and
if it were made known that a body of workers existed through
whom complaints requiring police action might be pushed, it
would no doubt be possible to improve conditions in Harlem as
they have been improved on the lower West Side.
*
* Cf. p. 75, indicating that such action has already been successfully under-
taken as a result of this suggestion.
143
So far as the colored school child is concerned, it is a difficult
matter to make a résumé of needs that may be met by agencies
supported by private philanthropy. With few exceptions those
now in existence have met with little response. The children
studied in this investigation show an almost infinitesimal per-
centage of affiliation with any philanthropically supported body,
and those who are members of clubs, classes, etc., do not attend
regularly.
Information gleaned from parents and teachers as well as chil-
dren themselves, indicates that this non-attendance is not due
primarily to indifference or neglect on the part of the children
and their parents but rather to the fact that the majority of
children, both boys and girls, are busy with household tasks,
errands, and in the case of the boys, with regular employment.
The minor, rather than the major reason for non-attendance
seems to be the failure of the activities offered to strike a re-
sponsive chord in the breasts of the would-be beneficiaries.
It has been pointed out that these colored children are apt to
respond to a real and practical need, and to attend activities
closely connected with their immediate home surroundings. In
the neighborhoods where living conditions are particularly bad
-as in San Juan Hill and parts of Harlem-one wonders why
social agencies of the neighborhood should be worrying about
inducing children to come to cooking classes, sewing classes and
clubs when there is so much need for inculcating the first principles
of citizenship in keeping departments up to their duties. Waring
Juvenile Leagues to see that the streets are kept clean, Little
Mothers' Leagues to see that the babies are kept clean, and a
Junior Tenement House Reform League to see that the houses
are kept clean and habitable might interest the children, whereas
other activities have so far failed to hold them.
Principals, teachers and parents were almost unanimous in
their condemnation of evening clubs for girls, or even for boys
who were in school. Those children who were being intelligently
brought up were, as a rule, given their recreation in the after-
noon, whether that recreation meant moving pictures, base-ball,
tennis clubs, or what not; and employed their evenings in study-
ing, with an early retiring hour.
The less fortunate children played on the street, both after-
noon and evening, but no parents were discovered who were
willing to consent to have girls, at any rate, attend evening clubs.
144
The experience of a number of club leaders, who had found in
dance halls and other undesirable places girls who were supposed
to be in their clubs, would seem to bear out this objection, espe-
cially in view of the fact that these same girls had never previ-
ously been permitted to go out at night unaccompanied by their
parents or other relatives.
Undoubtedly there is need for providing more wholesome ac-
tivities for younger boys and girls than are now provided for by
social agencies. Twelve years is the youngest age at which chil-
dren are admitted to clubs; whereas incipient truants and de-
linquents—especially children who have no home care-develop
vagrant habits at the age of seven or eight, and even at ten years
of age it is difficult to correct those habits. The need for after-
noon activities should therefore be emphasized, and for the young-
er as well as the older children.
Continuous, close knit, personal and individual work with
parents and children is undoubtedly required, as well as attention
to the recreational activities in relation with the personal prefer-
ences of the children.
Lack of discipline lies so vitally and palpably at the root of
most of the troublesome cases (where children have normal
mentality) that a factor in the success of any work would un-
doubtedly be the co-operation of those having authority over the
children. One method of securing such co-operation is that used
by the Henry Street Settlement where a child is never accepted
into membership of one of the clubs until the parents or guar-
dians have been formally visited and their consent gained. The
child is therefore aware that his recreation is not a free-lance
affair but has the cognizance and approval of those who have
authority over him.
Probably much of the lack of success in holding boys and girls
in clubs is due to the personality and methods of the workers.
New York, without a doubt, has less really good material among
its colored social workers than can be found in many other cities,
though there are striking exceptions to this fact. One reason for
this may be the larger salaries paid elsewhere as well as the more
sharply defined character of the colored population in other cities.
In New York the colored population is made up of almost as
polyglot and shifting a composition as is our white population.
The social fabric of the colored population, too, just emerging
as it is from a democracy that formerly had no elements of social
caste, is beginning already to develop a lack of sympathy between
145
those whose intelligence fits them to help and the strata most in
need of development, because of the false value placed on purely
intellectual attainments by some members of the group who have
desired or obtained a higher mental training.
The most successful hold on the boys and girls of the poorer
and least developed parents, was, I found, not that of the pro-
fessionally or quasi-professionally trained social worker, but
rather the influence of the less developed church and Sunday
School workers who were teaching the children playlets, "pieces
to speak" and other features of Sunday School and church
entertainments. These features were not as artistic nor did they
have the educational influence of cooking and sewing classes and
club activities offered by the regularly organized social centres.
Nevertheless, the church "sister" who, it seemed, never ceased her
activities in "getting up" church socials and Sunday School enter-
tainments, was the one who held her girls and boys-she called
for them and took them back to their homes from rehearsals.
There was a bond of sympathy between her and her young people
that was rarely seen elsewhere. In home after home Loretta, or
Avice, or Fred, or William was found so congenially occupied with
these activities that the lack of cooking or dressmaking or
carpentry class or gymnasium never suggested itself.
The love of self-expression—but self-expression on the plane
of their own development-is doubtless the mainspring of the
interest here. As Mrs. Johnson of St. Cyprian's Parish House
wisely said, "if social workers would only bear in mind the de-
velopment of a harmonious personality and not try all at once
to lift a human being from the depths to the heights in 'spots,'
leaving the various segments of his psychology at war with each
other, a more successful hold might be secured." Without doubt,
it requires a highly developed worker to make the proper dis-
tinctions, but this worker also felt that much of the lack of success
in reaching individuals lay in a failure to understand this point.
Too much emphasis cannot be laid on the fact that much,
almost everything, in the case of colored children depends upon
the personal influence exerted by the head worker, club leader,
or whoever comes most in contact with the children. This may
account, often does, for a failure to respond to recreational ac-
tivities no matter how generously provided. A genial atmosphere
and freedom from the disciplinary features of the classroom
should bring about success in securing regular attendance.
II
146
In the course of the investigation different groups of young
men and women were met who seemed to offer very valuable
material for social workers, either professional or volunteer.
These were the members of various church societies, the groups
of girls connected with the Y. W. C. A. and some high school
boys and girls. If the National League on Urban Conditions
Among Negroes should in its development of social workers, find
it possible to offer a prize of a college scholarship for some par-
ticularly excellent social service by the young men and women in
these church societies, the time seems to be ripe for an experiment
of this nature. A scholarship in college might also be offered to
high school boys and girls as a prize for exceptional social service.
A plan has been under consideration to offer a scholarship in the
high schools, but the wisdom of this seems questionable in view
of the fact that a decided feeling exists among the colored boys
and girls of high school age against anything that would tend to
differentiate them as a group in the schools. One girl had so
keenly resented a teacher's reference to the good record made by
the colored girls of her class, because they had been referred to
as colored, that she had with difficulty been induced to return to
school. To a less extent the same feeling existed in many other
of the colored pupils and for this reason it would doubtless be
wiser to offer the scholarship in outside organizations, under the
auspices of a properly qualified committee.
The need for settlement clubs and for similar activities as
shown in the respective districts studied is a diversified one.
In the San Juan Hill district a center is about to be developed by
the Stillman House branch of the Henry Street Settlement in the
house now occupied jointly by the Free Kindergarten Associa-
tion for Colored Children and the Lincoln Day Nursery.*
The Stillman House authorities and workers have felt in the
past that they were not successful in holding the boys and girls
in clubs. Probable reasons for this have been pointed out, and
as the lack of recreational facilities is the great lack on San Juan
Hill, if the new center lays the greatest stress upon recreational
features it may do much for the neighborhood. The gymnasium.
at St. Cyprian's, as has been stated, was not being used to its ca-
pacity, yet there was great need on San Juan Hill for such an
activity. It might be that Stillman House could help in develop-
ing this gymnasium.
* This has been done. See Appendix II.
147
Stillman House in its plan to take over the building occupied
by the Lincoln Day Nursery proposed to discontinue the Nurs-
ery. The large percentage of poor school attendance, especially
among girls, and the cause in many instances of their leaving
school before graduation, has been shown to be due to the fact
that they have been needed at home to aid in caring for the
younger children. Day nurseries are not an ideal way of meet-
ing this need, yet in the present scheme of industrial life some
method of caring for children of working mothers is likely to be
more instead of less necessary, since the trend of affairs takes
mothers out of their homes to an increasingly large extent.
If a
nursery or other method for such care is efficiently managed there is
surely a greater promise that the children will receive better care
than if they are left to the irresponsible, unsupervised care of
needy neighbors at a much higher cost. (The price usually asked
for this care is twenty-five cents per day; and for children too
young to be able to tell of neglect or ill-treatment it is a hazardous
method.) Any large center doing neighborhood work might
well extend its activities to include care for the children of school
age as well as the babies in the families on its lists, where mothers
are away from home. This after-care of school children is part
of the plan of some of the East Side day nurseries but has not
thus far been undertaken by the nurseries for colored children,
except in a most informal and undeveloped way.
If it is desirable to continue the maintenance of day nurseries,
an effort should surely be made by the management to go out
after its neighborhood problem. This might be done through
co-operation with the principals and attendance officers of the
schools, with the relief giving agencies and with the churches.
There was no opportunity to make a study of the families using
the Lincoln Day Nursery and therefore no comparison could be
made between their needs and those of the families with whom
the school investigation was concerned. The problem of the
nursery is, however, intimately connected with the problem of
attendance in the schools, and if a nursery could be conducted in
connection with a milk station and after-school care provided for
the children of school age on the nursery's register, a program of
social education of the families might be worked out. The sup-
erintendent of such a nursery should have the definite training
of the nurses at the milk stations, or the assistance of such nurses;
and by combining the day nursery with the milk station plus a
148
playground, study room and other activities for children of
school age, a really efficient center might be the result. If such
a center could be developed by Stillman House in its new home,
the neighborhood activities of San Juan Hill would present a
more rounded-out program. Or such need would be met if the
Board of Managers of St. Cyprian's, with a milk station already
established and with three houses available for activities, should
see their way to develop such a center, although it would prob-
ably have a better chance for success if it were non-sectarian.
St. Cyprian's milk station too, as previously stated, is not affili-
ated with the association of milk stations and does not have the
educational features in the form of mothers' meetings, house to
house visiting by the nurses, etc., that form so valuable a feature
of the milk stations conducted by the Department of Health.
An indirect method of partly meeting this need of after-school
care for children and all day care for babies would be the organi-
zation of a desertion bureau, such as the Jewish community
carries on.
Fewer women might be obliged to leave their homes
with the resulting bad effects on the neglected children if their ab-
sent husbands could be compelled to pay toward their support.
In Harlem, social workers among the colored people feel that
a settlement house is needed. But unless such an organization.
succeeds in bringing about far closer co-operation than at present
exists between the home, the school and the social agencies of
this district, it is not probable that anything having a vital bear-
ing on the problem of the colored child will result. The private
agencies are too apt to look on such co-operation purely as it
relates to the problem of the school or of the agency involved,
and not as it relates to the problem of the child.
The school social center seems to bear far more promise of
success in dealing with the difficulties of school children than an
additional private agency, since the agencies already in existence
have for some reason failed to check the evils of truancy and its
resultant bad habits in both boys and girls.
The Music School Settlement meets some of the social needs
felt in Harlem and might meet still more. It has been suggested
that its leader might extend the field of the settlement influence
by arranging with the better grade moving picture and vaudeville
theatres in the Harlem district to devote musical programs during
certain periods in the week or month to Negro music of the bet-
ter grade interpreted by Negro artists, featuring such programs on
149
their bills. In this way the Music School Settlement might influ-
ence a wider audience than it could attract to its own center, and
would accomplish its work in a more normal manner.
Concerts in Public Schools 100, 89, 119 and 68 might prove as
attractive in Harlem as they have in other localities. In fact, so
successful has this form of amusement proved in Brooklyn and on
the lower East Side, that it would seem as though Harlem were
somewhat backward in adopting the plan. Such concerts would
not, by any means, need to be given exclusively or continually
by or for the colored people, but Negro music and Negro musi-
cians might have an adequate representation in the program of
these schools as well as elsewhere in the city.
Money expended in promoting such a plan would reach a
larger and more constantly widening number of beneficiaries
than would the same amount invested in a new plant for the music
school and its upkeep.
The third district studied, that between 34th and 42nd Streets,
running from Seventh Avenue to North River, offers a clear field
for activities for colored people, for, except the colored mission at
30th Street, south of this district, there was no organized social ac-
tivity for colored people. It has been suggested that a milk sta-
tion might be established in this district from which might grow
mothers' meetings and the possibility of clubs, etc., for children.
The plan for a social center outlined in the recommendations
for school activities affords the best sort of opportunity for reach-
ing the children of the neighborhood and would be of great ser-
vice in this barren section.
There was evidence, too, for need of improved police service in
this district. The suggested conference on the co-operation
between social agencies, the police department and the health
department would without doubt have an important bearing on
the situation in this district as well as elsewhere.
SUMMARY
To summarize the special needs with which we are confronted
on finishing this report: It seems clear that the needs of the
colored school child who is backward or delinquent come chiefly
from a wrong home environment, or from lack of care. These
wrong home conditions usually result in retardation or truancy
or both. A cure can come only by careful attention to indi-
vidual problems. One way of giving this attention would be
150
through a socialized school recreation center and enough visiting
teachers to connect this center with the homes, or to deal with
the cases where there is no such center. School lunches and
mothers' clubs would also help greatly. In the question of tru-
ancy, a careful assignment of truant officers and a parental school
for girls are much needed.
In order to bring about better relations within the schools
greater care needs to be exercised by principals and teachers
with regard to race feeling or its expression. Further effort
needs to be made with regard to training for industry and finding
promising positions for the children who have been trained. As
to the work of social agencies, if more definite knowledge of the
home conditions and school standing of the children attending
clubs and classes were acquired by social workers who are en-
deavoring to form these clubs or classes, a better correlation be-
tween outside activities and both home and school needs would
without doubt follow.
More facilities for the care of delinquent girls are needed, as
well as better plans for recreation and follow-up work to prevent
such delinquency. In the matter of health everything is still
to be done, both in school and out, and more attention should
be paid by teachers to school problems caused by ill health, by
social agencies to fresh air work and after-school care, and by
public departments to co-operation both with schools and social
agencies on matters of health.
Among the general needs brought out by this report seems to
be the one of raising the standard with regard to sex morality
among these children and their parents. But before judging
that to be a greater need here than in any other congested quarter
of the city or less developed community, it is interesting to note
various opinions on the subject. It is peculiarly true of this
problem of sex morality that it is discussed as a Negro problem, a
Jewish problem, etc., when it is truly a universal problem, as the
following instance will show. Several years ago, the opinion
of a white woman who had worked among the more ignorant of
the southern colored people, was asked on the growth of con-
ventional marriage relations among them. She said, “I believe
I can best express the condition of affairs by stating that the
girls with whom we have been working have come to feel that
it is respectable to be married at least a short time before their
babies are born." Two years ago, while the investigator was in
151
the Hawaiian Islands, a Bishop there, who had had what amounts
to a father's part in rearing the native girls attached to his dio-
cese, was asked how he regarded the development of sex morality
in the native girl. He replied in almost the identical language of
the southern woman:
“I feel the most I can say is that we have succeeded in making
the girls feel really that it is respectable to be married before their
babies are born."
After returning from Hawaii the plan of undertaking welfare
work for a corporation having branches in many parts of the
United States was contemplated by the investigator. During
a visit to their manufacturing plant in a small Pennsylvania
community, made up of Pennsylvania Dutch, Hungarians, Slavs,
etc., where a settlement house had been established, the problems
of the community were discussed with the head worker and she
was asked how she viewed the problem of sex relations. She
made the following interesting reply:
"On the whole, I think the girls we have reached are coming to
feel that it is respectable to be married before their babies are born."
Until Mr. Abraham Flexner's report on Prostitution in Europe
was published, few people realized that the bulk of prosti-
tutes have not "gone wrong," but that their mode of life is
the outcome of the social concept of sex morality of the class
from which they come. The development of the institution of
marriage must be studied before one condemns as "immoral
the practices of a group whose morality is not yet removed from
the "right of the seigneur" so universally recognized in all feudal
states and which the colored races have had less opportunity to
outgrow than any other peoples. The reproach that a colored
woman is proud to bear a child by a white man can be surely
traced back to the teaching in the tribes that it was an honor to
bear a child by a chief. The very large percentage of colored peo-
ple who have reached the higher concept of sex relations and mar-
riage should form a strong basis on which to build hope for success
in the education of the masses of this people along similar lines.
A number of people who are familiar with the history of the
colored race in the United States and who know intimately the
conditions under which they have lived, feel that it is an incon-
ceivable injustice to measure their standards of sex morality by
those of the white race. Mr. Joel E. Spingarn, Chairman of the
Board of Directors of the National Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People said:
152
"There is nothing, in the first place, to show that sex im-
morality is not quite as grave a problem among white as it is
among colored girls under sixteen years of age. Aside from this,
however, we must take into consideration the fact that the col-
ored people have little reason to believe in the sincerity of the sex
morality professed by the white race. They have borne a heavy
burden of the white man's lust which broke down the conceptions
of morality, crude as they were, existing among the savage tribes
from which the slaves were recruited. For this reason the de-
terrent public opinion, which among white people plays so promi-
nent a part in maintaining the moral standards of white women
as far as sex relations are concerned, has been of slower growth
and is less harsh among the colored people. A colored girl's
character is, therefore, more solidly based on inherent traits;
that is, whether she 'goes wrong' or remains pure, she is more
apt to do so because it is her nature to, than because of any
pressure of public opinion brought to bear from outside.
that pressure were removed from white women, it might then,
under all the circumstances, be interesting to discuss the relative
sex morality of white and colored girls.
If
The members of this race, or mixture of races, whose destinies
have been dominated always by the drop of Negro blood when
that drop manifests itself in outward characteristics, must be
helped up to the measure of older races by means that appeal to
their own aspirations, likings and strivings.
There is a very general feeling both in the schools and among
the social workers and colored clergymen, that the colored people
themselves are developing rapidly and that conditions every-
where are growing better for them because of an increasingly
wider knowledge of the race's accomplishment on the one hand,
and of the growing need among themselves, on the other hand,
for all manner of workers, artisans, trades people and pro-
fessional men and women. One of their educators in a recent ad-
dress said:
"We who want to build and build firmly the foundations of a
racial economy, believe that the vocation of a man in a modern
civilized land includes not only the technique of his actual work,
but intelligent comprehension of his elementary duties as a
father, citizen and maker of public opinion, as a possible voter, a
conserver of public health, an intelligent follower of moral cus-
toms, and one who can at least appreciate if not partake some-
thing of the higher spiritual life of the world. We do not believe
that all these can be taught each individual in school, but it can
be put into his social environment, and the more that environ-
153
ment is restricted and curtailed, the more emphatic is the de-
mand that some part at least of the group shall be trained
thoroughly in these higher matters of human development, if,
and here is the crucial question, they are going to be able to
share the surrounding civilization."
It must be reiterated again and again that this is the world's
child race with a portion of its members grown to maturity, one
might say, by hot house forcing, as opposed to the slow devel-
opment of other civilized races. These maturer members of the
race, in turning to give a helping hand to their slower, less for-
tunate brothers, must have the help of the older nations who
have marched on before.
In one of Miss Lucy Pratt's wonderful “Ezekiel" stories, pub-
lished in McClure's magazine, "The Little Number Ones,"
Ezekiel turns back from his place in the anniversary procession
of the pupils of the colored school-the procession "moving
ahead too, straight down between the lines, just as the others had
done before," to aid the two little struggling twins, "the li'l
number ones," to secure a place in the procession. Their small
legs fail and both they and Ezekiel seem doomed to disappoint-
ment. But "Miss Lavinia," the wise white principal of the
school, halts the marching column until the exhausted little
figures are once more able to resume their way and join the others.
Her sister says, "I'm glad you lent a helping hand just then.'
'Helping hand?' repeated the other vaguely. 'Helping hand,'
she whispered. What was it about that and a race of children?
She tried to recall, but Ezekiel's face seemed to be burning haunt-
ingly up at her, filled with passionate reproach. 'I say dey's
li'l number ones!' came his hoarse, despairing little shout again,
'You's 'blige ter help 'em! Dey's li'l number ones!'
"She could hear it again very plainly, that hoarse, despairing
little shout, and very clearly she could see him coming again
helping the faltering little figures over the rough and stony way
that stretched out so hopelessly before them, encouraging them
with soft, gasping whispers, as they slipped and stumbled by his
side and then, with their hands still held in his, still leading
them on down the long, hard road, where the tramping proces-
sion had swept proudly ahead, and the better marchers had gone
on before."
نیا
APPEN
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE
Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
Work Conduct
duct
Mentality
port
1. L. D.
15.4
f.
6A
B.
B. Dignified. Fair.
Irregular
attendance.
2. G. B.
12.7
f.
6A
B.
B. Excellent. Poor.
Irregular atten-
dance, false-
hoods.
3. W. S.
12.7
f.
6A
A.
B. Excellent. Fair.
Irregular atten-
dance; pover-
ty.
4. M. B.
13.4
f.
5E
C.
B. Bad.
Good.
Misconduct.
5. R. S.
9.
m. 3A
B.
B. Good.
Poor.
Poor attention
to studies.
154
DIX I
"DIFFICULT CHILDREN" GROUP
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Sex immorality; ineffi- Ref. to S. P. C. C.; Nil; still at large S. P. C. C. said
cient mother.
later to Settlement. and unregenerate. could not find suf-
ficient evidence on
which to convict;
Settlement did
not succeed in se-
curing hold on
girl.
Not falsehood, but mis- Called attention of Seems more inter- Child has no care
understanding; belongs Settlement to case.
to a Settlement club.
Girl slightly defective.
No mother.
ested.
whatever; is in-
clined to be silent,
and lack of com-
panionship
home aggravates
this.
at
Poverty and poor home Ref. to Social agency. No improvement. Case not followed
conditions;
mother
working; no father.
Sex immorality; no fath- Ref. to S. P. C. C.
er; mother working.
sus-Recommended strict-
Petted too much;
pected feebleminded-
ness; defective teeth
and breathing; both pa-
rents working.
er discipline at home
and mental examina-
tion at school.
up; principal dif-
ficulty in family
two small children
to be cared for.
Sent to Hudson Tr. Case of needed au-
Sch.
Transferred to un-
graded class tem-
porarily.
thority;
mother
grand-
reared
child and had her
always with her
but became ill and
child's mother,
who was a domes-
tic, could not care
for her; was re-
leased by S. P. C.
C. once before,
after confessing to
misconduct, and
returned to school
principal's care;
volunteer super-
vision provided by
Social agency but
not followed up.
The boy was ner-
vous and jerky,
and could not con-
centrate his at-
tention upon any-
thing; both pa-
rents work and he
has little atten-
tion.
155
156
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "Diffi-

Marks
Teacher's Estimate

Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
duct
Work
Conduct
Mentality
port
6. S. S.
8.3
f.
نبه
IA C.
C.
Trouble- Poor.
some.
Suspected fee-
ble minded-
ness.
7. A. B.
13.10 f.
7B
A.
B.
Mischievous. Fair.
Truancy
and
general bad in-
fluence.
8. L. H.
15.2
f.
7B
B.
B. Wild.
Bright but
lazy.
Left school with-
out working
papers. Sus-
pected of being
wild.
9. N. W. 13.
f. 7B B+ C. Unruly.
Bright.
Truancy and ir-
10. L. R.
12.2
f.
3B
B.
C. Trouble-
Poor.
some.
II. C. T.
13.2
m.
6A
B.
B.
Good.
Bright.
regular atten-
dance.
Sex immorality.
(One of group
of seven de-
tected by prin-
cipal.)
Sex immorality.
(One of group
of seven de-
tected by prin-
cipal.)
157
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Defective eyesight and
nervousness; grand-
mother took child away
from widowed father;
bad home surroundings.
Sex immorality and il-
legal employment; lack
of discipline at home;
live on top floor of tene-
ment; mother rheuma-
tic and illiterate; coun-
try bred; no father; be-
longed to evening
classes.
Had difficulty about birth
certificate and could not
understand; did not like
school; good home, nice
girl.
Kept home to care for
younger children and
does not like school;
wants to go to work.
Sex immorality; girl pal-
Recommended glasses,
and placement in
other custody, to
visitor from Social
agency.
Ref. to S. P. C. C. and
Child Labor Com-
mittee.
Referred case to Board
of Health and Cen-
sus Bureau; straight-
ened out case.
Placed in ungraded
class; no glasses
supplied; no fur-
ther action taken.
Laundry
Probably the child
should have had a
chance in the reg-
ular grade after
having been sup-
plied with glasses,
before
being
placed in an un-
graded class.
proprie-Mother was glad to
have girl sent
south;
tress warned; sent
to uncle in Md. by
S. P. C. C.
Working as dress-
makers' appren-
tice.
Saw mother and re- Nothing.
ferred her to a vis-
itor who promised
to call.
says the
city is no place
for girls.
Has been a mem-
ber of the Hen-
rietta School eve-
ning classes for
several years.
Urged parents to have Parents refused to Principal requested
pably feebleminded and girl committed.
degenerate; mother and
father both at work;
mother low grade; girl
had invited boys into
flat when alone; former-
ly in ungraded class but
recently transferred.
to
Sex immorality; said Visited home; talked
L. R. invited him into
flat and later with 2
other boys and 3 girls
went to basement in flat
house.
with boy and mother;
referred cases
Settlement for visit-
ing.
consent to com-
mitment as L. is
the only child; |
mother decided
not to go to work
any more; prin-
cipal to have girl
recommitted
ungraded class.
to
that case should
not be reported to
S. P. C. C. This
probably a mis-
take, as girl is a
menace to com-
panions.
None; so far as Boy seemed bright
could be learned;
could be learned;
Settlement did
not visit; no
further complaint
at school.
and normal; very
much ashamed
and seemed im-
pressed with prob-
able bad effects in
later life if prac-
tice continued.
158
THIRTY-EIGHT Cases froM THE "DIFFI-
Marks
Teacher's Estimate

Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
duct
Work
Conduct
Mentality
port
12. R. W.
15.2
f.
8B B.
B.
Good and
docile.
Average not Cardiac trouble
good.
and aunt in-
tended placing
her at work in
factory.
13. C. R.
14.4
f.
6B
C.
C. Very bad.
Fairly bright Sex immorality.
14. A. J.
14.
f.
6B
B.
B.
Indifferent. Fairly good. Sex immorality.
15. I. M.
15.1
f.
7A
C.
C. Annoying.
Poor.
Intractability
and question-
able conduct.
16. J. C.
16.
f.
5B
B. C.
Fair.
Fair.
Intractability.
159
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
aunt Aunt consented to
allow R. to attend
night high school
to learn stenog-
raphy.
Aunt stated factory where
she herself worked (straw
hats), safer than office
for girl as attractive as
R.; not sufficiently
bright to teach.
to
Explained
danger of placing
girl with heart
trouble at work on
power machine.
Aunt makes $35 a
week in season
(Dec. to May)
working at straw
hats; has been
with same firm 15
years;
enough to live on
for balance of
year; has elevator
apt. and keeps
lodgers.
earns
Girl bad; accused of tak- Took to S. P. C. C. for Committed to Hud-Seemingly a vicious
ing earnings of other
girl from prostitution
and of making appoint-
ments with men for
other girl; both parents
working; did not know
of girl's doings.
prosecution.
son, June 4, 1913.
character.
cf. C. R.; both parents Same as C. R.
working; girl had no
cf. C. R.
These two girls, al-
though totally un-
care.
related,
have
about the same
physique, and the
same mental and
character-
moral
istics.
Bad home influence; girl Ref. to social agency. Understand
weak and silly.
that
nothing was done.
School nurse had
her committed to
Hudson 4 mos.
later.
No parents; does not like Ref. to visitor from Visitor
uncle with whom she
lives; says he overworks
her in his laundry.
social agency.
touch with girl;
did not recom-
mend her for em-
ployment.
This is a degener-
ate family. After
learning facts
about mother and
girl, boy was ex-
amined and found
feebleminded.
Under care of vol-
unteer supervis-
or from social
agency.
kept in No improvement;
left school and
went to work as
housemaid; kept
same place 5 mos.
(was still there
at last accounts).
160
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "DIffi-
Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Reasons for re-
Name
Age Sex Grade
Con-
duct
Work
Conduct
Mentality
port
17. C. W.
16.5
m. 6B
B-C
B-C Overbearing Special kind Over-age.
Should work.
18. W'. L.
IO.I
m. 5A
B.
B. Good.
Good qual- Truancy.
ity.
19. W. K.
11.6
m. 5E
B.
C. Trouble-
Sluggish.
some.
Truancy and
falsifying.
20. G. M.
9.4
f.
2B
D.
B.
Very good.
Doubtful.
Poor attendance
21. J. E.
10.5
m.
4B
C.
C.
Trouble-
Good.
Truancy and
some.
misconduct.
161
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Father dead;
mother Ref. to visitor from
works hard to give boy social agency.
opportunity to become
musician; boy works as
laborer to earn money
for lessons and to get
clothes.
Employment
office boy given;
had to answer
telephone and use
complicated filing
system; incompe-
tent; returned to
school and refused
to leave.
as Understand visitor
did not have mu-
sical talent tested,
because boy re-
fused
fused to
to go to
music school set-
tlement. Said he
preferred his reg-
ular teacher. Ap-
peared to be a
case of misfit posi-
tion.
Father dead; mother a Ref. to colored church Boy sent to Juve-
has never
domestic;
taken care of boy, but
has a furnished room in
which both live; mother
has no sense of respon-
sibility; boy is shy with
little power of self-ex-
pression; needs com-
panionship.
for Boy Scouts but
this did not hold him.
Has never
never been disci- Asked mother if she
plined at home; father a
railroad employee and
drinks; mother works
in shirtwaist factory;
boy runs about at will
except such care as he
receives at day nursery.
Child kept at home to
care for infant of guar-
dian.
J. and brother deserted
by mother; both illegiti-
mate and cared for by
grandmother who sup-
ports them and her
mother by going out to
day's work; has father's
address but he has never
contributed to boys'
support; mother has
disappeared; grand-
mother fine, energetic
personality; says often
they have nothing but
bread to eat.
12
could not place him
for day with some
friend who was a
good disciplinarian.
She said they were
going to send him to
boarding-school next
year. Ref. to social
agency for volunteer
supervision.
nile Asylum.
None; boy still at
school; still tru-
ant and delin-
quent.
Took to dispensary. Nothing done; fam-
Ref. to social agency ily moved away.
for sustained treat-
ment.
Ref. to C. O. S. for aid.
Later ref. to social
agency who placed
boy under volunteer
supervision.
Washing given by
C. O. S.; at end
of investigation
boy's conduct and
work marks had
dropped to D.
Boy might have
been placed in an-
other home or
boarded;
his
mother could have
paid a part of his
maintenance; as a
rule far better
plan than asylum.
Boy should go to
parental school;
recommended
this to principal.
Apparently neg-
lected case.
162
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE
"DIFFI-

Marks
Teacher's Estimate


Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
duct
Work Conduct
Mentality
port
22. M. B.
15.4 f. Ung.
B.
D. Good.
None.
Asked to have
committed to
Randall's Isl-
and.
23. M. R.
10.6 f. 3A
B.
B.
Fair.
Fair.
Bad attendance.
24. S. R.
9.2
f.
3B
A.
C.
Fair.
Fair.
Bad attendance.
25. W. M.
10.2
m. 3B
B.
B.
Surly and
cross.
Unsatisfac- Truancy.
tory.
26. E. W.
13.6
m.
D.
B.
B. Fair.
Slow.
Need for recre-
ation (Re-
ported by At-
tendance Of-
ficer).
27. J. H.
7.11
m.
2B
B.
B.
Good.
Fair.
Truancy.
163
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Taken to Dr. Schlapp's Committed to Ran- Still there; happy Mother who goes
clinic where she was ad-
judged a low grade im-
becile.
Irregular home arrange-
ments; girl and sister
kept home alternately
to care for infant broth-
father deserted
er;
family; mother help-
less but nice woman.
See No. 23.
Boy and brother living
with aunt and grand-
mother, both of whom
go out to day's work;
father sees boys only
once a month; W. chron-
ic truant with no one
to care for him; case
previously referred to
social agency by school;
no results.
dall's Island.
and contented;
mother much re-
lieved.
children; unsuc-
cessful effort to
employ-
secure
Ref. to social agency Clothing furnished
to find mother em-
ployment, secure re-
lief and place baby
in day nursery. Rec-
ommended that older
children be commit-
ted to institution.
See No. 23.
Called case to atten-
tion of social agency
visitor and had W.
tested by field worker
of Public Education
Ass'n for mentality.
ment for mother;
now in a home
for consumptives.
Baby dead.
Child is on
street, neglected,
because nothing
final was done to
help the family.
the
Found under-age
mentally. Volun-
teer visitor super-
vised boy and re-
ported improve-
ment; school rec-
ord shows decline
to C. in both work
and deportment.
Found boy working for Reported back to at- None.
grocer who said he was
too busy for a club;
tendance officer.
out to day's work
has somewhat ab-
normal personal-
ity; brother is al-
so slightly below
par mentally.
Example of fatal
consequences
which failure to
make connections
and do persistent
follow-up
work
sometimes has.
This case previously
referred to the same
social agency.
Notes of their vis-
itor on case show
supervisor ap-
pointed who re-
ported progress;
younger boy nice
child but sadly
neglected.
Boy seemed to en-
joy work; did not
urge anything
further.
only has time for Sun-
day School, and
casionally "movies."
OC-
Found irregular
irregular home Talked with mother
life; mother was nurse
in West Indies and never
had the care of her own
children until they were
grown; mother nice
woman but inefficient;
no control over the chil-
dren; boy suffers with
nose bleed.
about children's fu-
ture and her respon-
sibility; told her of
S. P. C. C. commit-
ment for improper
guardianship;
re-
ported physical con-
dition to school nurse.
Ref. to social agency
for supervision.
Mother working at
home taking in
laundry instead of
going out to day's
work; moved to
another neighbor-
hood and took
boarders. Boy's
attendance im-
proving.
164
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "DIFFI-
Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Reasons for re-
Name
Age Sex Grade
Con-
Work Conduct
Mentality
port
duct
28. B.McK. 12.2
f. Ung.
B.
B.
Very bad.
Low.
Bad influence in
29. E. W.
14.7
m. Ung.
A.
B.
class. Marked
tendency to
improper ac-
tions when
with boys.
commitment
desired for
boy.
Two teachers gave diamet- Institutional
rically opposed opin-
ions. One said boy was
vicious and should be
removed from school;
the other said his con-
duct was excellent; that
he had a good mind and
was a good influence.
30. M. F.
13.
m. Ung.
C.
D.
Doing well
Very low.
Asked to have
now.
him committed
31. O. C.
8.
m.
3A
B.
C.
Fair.
Unable to
judge be-
to institution
for feeble-
minded.
cause of ill
Reported as tu-
berculous.
health.
165
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Found home conditions
very bad; house dirty;
3 children of different
color; suggestive pic-
tures on wall; girl a waif,
had no known relatives;
pointed swelling under
chin that has had no
care.
Boy has no control at
home; father does not
live with mother and
mother goes out to day's
work; should go to an
institution.
Two cataracts; never
been able to see plainly;
youngest of 12 children;
attends Catholic Sun-
day School where priest
in charge says he is one
of his most helpful boys.
Family conditions very
poor; father and mother
ignorant, illiterate south-
ern negroes just moved
to New York; furniture
dilapidated and house
untidy; evidences of
great poverty.
Recommended for in-
stitutional care.
Wrote inspector of
ungraded classes ad-
vising that S. P. C. C.
be asked to commit
for improper guard-
ianship.
Nothing done; girl
still at school ir-
regularly.
Visited mother and No result; boy
aunt 4 times and pas- still at school at
tor twice. Mother close of investi-
refused unqualifiedly gation.
to part with boy who
is only child. Pastor
thought boy's brains
were "only addled"
and that he would be
all right as he grew
older; promised to try
to influence mother
to commit boy after
he was assured that
boy was a moral and
mental defective.
Advised mother to
take to eye and ear
hospital for treat-
ment of cataracts and
recommended that
boy be transferred to
school with classes
for blind.
Case had previously
been referred to so-
cial agency by the
school without any
result. Advised with
visitor regarding clin-
ical treatment for
boy.
Transfer to blind
class secured for
boy through field
worker of Public
Education Ass'n.
Boy given clinical
treatment and ta-
ken out of school,
later placed in
hospital where he
was trephined;
after return to
school threatened
to commit suicide
by jumping out
of window in
clerk's office; af-
ter this volunteer
visitor was ap-
pointed.
Commitment to in-
stitution for fee-
bleminded had
been recommend-
ed for boy by
previous visitor.
In view of home
conditions, visitor
from agency was
urged to push case
for institutional
commitment
through S.P.C.C.
if necessary.
166
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "DIFFI-

Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Reasons for re-
Name
Age Sex Grade Con-
Work Conduct
Mentality
port
duct
32. T. H.
14.
m.
Ung. B.
B. Very good. Very quick. Head of depart-
ment
felt
should
leave
school
and
work.
33. F. M.
12.6
m.
4A
A.
C. Excellent.
34. C. M.
Has brains if |In connection
he would
only
them.
use
with immoral-
ity charges
against a man
who had im-
moral relations
with F. and
other school
boys.
12.I
m.
E5
B.
C.
Very trouble-Deficient.
Chronic tru-
some.
ancy.
167
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Mother away from home;
boy living in basement
rooms with father who
was janitor; one of boy's
legs considerably shorter
than other and marked
impediment in his speech.
(Physician in ungraded
Dept. of Bd. of Educa-
tion stated boy should
have special eye exami-
nation, but as school
physician did not exam-
ine ungraded pupils,
pupils,
nothing had been done
about this.)
Very bad home influence;
father not living at
home; never married to
mother; sister commit-
ted to Hudson Training
School for sex immor-
ality.
Took boy to German
clinic for examina-
tion and found he had
orthopedic defect and
chorea;
Dr. pre-
scribed brace and hos-
pital furnished same.
Boy refused to wear
brace because he
could not play base-
ball in it. Warned
father of serious re-
sults to boy's future
health if not properly
attended to. Referred
to pastor of a colored
Church for visiting.
Nothing appreci-This boy is such a
able; when inves-
tigation closed,
boy still playing
in street without
brace; never vis-
ited so far as
could be learned.
physical wreck
little could be ac-
complished; Dr.
Fisk of the Ger-
man clinic said
that sooner or
later he would
become bed-rid-
den.
Boy was examined and Nothing appreci- Nothing short of in-
found positively
feebleminded; meas-
ured 9 years mental-
ly. Mother refused
to have him commit-
ted to institution;
says he is no worse
than other boys. Ref.
to social agency for
sustained attention.
Boy placed in charge
of volunteer visitor.
Very bad home condi-Referred matter of cor-
tions; indications of
'great poverty; had nev-
er been to school until
102 yrs. old with ex-
ception of 6 mos. in 7th
year; father had been
truck gardener in Flor-
ida and boy kept out of
school to aid him. Fath-
er died in 1909 and
mother brought 2 boys
to New York; she goes
out to day's work as
laundress and is in poor
health; said he did not
wish to go to school be-
cause his teacher had
struck him over the
head with a ruler while
asleep in class after he
had been up all night
with sick mother; lodger
in house confirmed story
of mother's illness and
boy's being up all night.
poral punishment to
Sec'y of Com. on
Hyg. of School Chil-
dren and later at her
request to Supt. of
Schools for investi-
gation; nothing fur-
ther heard from it.
Told boy he was only
injuring himself and
future prospects by
course and advised
going back to school.
Boy preferred to
work and stated he
had job at grocery
store from 1:30 p. m.
to 12 at $3.00 a week.
Referred to social
agency for follow-up
work.
able.
Boy still truant at
close of investi-
gation.
stitution and reg-
ulation of living
régime would
seem to have any
effect on this case.
168
2.
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "DIFFI-
Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
Work
Conduct
duct
Mentality
port
35. J. G.
IO.
m. 4B
A.
B.
Growing
Good.
trouble-
Incipient tru-
ancy.
some.
36. E. T.
12.6
f.
3A
B.
C.
Not bad but Very low.
Unusual amount
offensive
of absence.
personal-
ity.
169
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Very bad home condi- Talked with father; Boy's father has This was the worst
tions; mother dead;
father longshoreman |
with irregular hours but
trying to keep house-
hold together; one
brother in truant school;
older brother works in
shoe store and does
housework, cooking, etc.;
house very dirty and
dark; boy sweet-man-
nered and has good mind
but is unkempt.
Home conditions poor;
father dead; mother out
at day's work; home
clean but poorly fur-
nished; S. P. C. C. have
record of mother living
with her brother-in-law
who also had improper
relations with girl;
mother said E.'s absence
due to nasal hemor-
rhage, making hospital
treatment necessary.
recommended mov-
ing to lighter apart-
ment and hiring el-
derly woman to do
housework; father
anxious to do best
possible but unwilling
to have woman stead-
ily in house;
says
they make trouble.
Reported case to so-
cial agency.
him stay with
aunt during day-
time; for last
term of investiga-
tion boy's record
shows no absence
whatever; boy
showed much bet-
ter care.
Hudson Training
School but no
criminal proceed-
Took E. to hospital All 3 girls sent to
and examining doc-
tor secured state-
ment from her that
she had had improp-ings
er relations with nu-
merous men; found
she was suffering
from gonorrhea; took
girl to S. P. C. C. at
once who took her
and two other girls
implicated by her
into custody.
instituted
against men al-
though several
were named; S. P.
C. C. states "in
prosecutions of
this character the
credibility of the
complaining wit-
ness is of para-
mount import-
ance;" in this con-
nection S. P. C.
C.'s attention was
called to the fact
that one of the
men named by E.
had been report-
ed to the investi-
gator by a school
principal for simi-
lar offenses
kept home, with
one exception,
found during the
investigation. Six
mice were counted
running about
during visit.
170
THIRTY-EIGHT CASES FROM THE "DIFFI-

Marks
Teacher's Estimate
Name
Age Sex Grade
Reasons for re-
Con-
duct
Work
Conduct
Mentality
port
37.L.McC. 14.8 m. 4B
B. B. Good.
Good.
Employment
after school
without work-
ing papers.
38. W. S.
12.
m. 4A
B
B. Good.
Slow.
Much absence
and need of
clothing.
171
CULT CHILDREN" GROUP-(Continued)
Findings
Action Taken
Result
Remarks
Excellent home condi- Referred to Child La-
tions; mother and bor Committee.
grandmother both in-
telligent and working
at home as laundress
and hair-worker, mak-
ing a combined income
of $18-$20 a week;
boy's father had died
when he was 3 yrs. old;
family living in New
York only 6 mos., com-
ing here from North
Carolina; mother said
boy worked at moving
picture theatre turning
film reel, working from
3:30-10 p. m. week-
days and to 12 p. m.,
Saturdays and Sundays;
paid $3.00 a week.
Found boy living with
aunt and kept home fre-
quently to care for in-
fant of aunt; father liv-
ing with daughter at
another address; boy
ragged in the extreme,
looked thin and badly
cared for.
Reported case to S. P.
C. C. for action on
score of improper
guardianship. S. P.
C. C. at first found
nothing wrong with
home conditions, but
later persuaded fath-
er to take boy to live
with him in home of
married sister.
report no offense
Child Labor Com. The attendance of-
against child la-
bor laws found.
said
Boy's attendance is
regular and he was
well-dressed and
looked happy and
contented when
seen during last
part of the inves-
tigation.
ficer at the school
that this
moving picture
theatre was a
flagrant offender
against the child
labor law, many
of the school boys
working there suc-
cessively.
APPENDIX II
DIRECTORY OF SOCIAL AGENCIES FOR COLORED PEOPLE
This report includes all the secular agencies, and four churches which are
typical of the institutional work done by the colored churches. Dec., 1913.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Inc., 70 Fifth
Ave., New York city.
SECRETARY.-Miss May Childs Nierney.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-White and colored.
WORKERS.-White and colored.
Makes propaganda by means of meetings, etc., against race discrimina-
tion of whatsoever nature.
Publishes "The Crisis," W. E. B. Dubois, Editor, a monthly magazine
devoted to race topics.
Conducts a continuous campaign against lynching, segregation, etc.
National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes, 127 West 135th Street,
New York city.
George Edmund Hayes, Ph.D., Field Secretary: Eugene Kinckle Jones,
M.A., Asst. Field Secretary.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-White and colored.
WORKERS.-Colored.
WORK. For colored people only.
Travelers' Aid to colored women.
Women's club, meeting at Free Kindergarten Association.
Boys' club, meeting at N. Y. Colored Mission and White Rose Industrial
Home.
School Visitor.
Big Brothers (colored).
Big Sisters (colored).
Employment bureau.
Boys' summer camp.
Investigation of housing conditions.
Promotes conference of workers among colored girls.
New York Colored Mission, 225-227 West 30th St., New York city.
HEADWORKER.-Miss Peffer.
BOARD OF Directors.—All white.
WORKERS.-White and colored.
WORK. For colored people only-non-sectarian.
Day nursery, capacity 23 babies. Trained nurse in charge. Fee 5 cents
per day. (Older children have free play in back yard after school.)
Boys' club, carpentry class and athletics.
Girls' afternoon sewing class and evening embroidery class.
Men Mechanics,' Elevator Men's and Public Porters' Association, under
auspices of National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.
Music classes.
Employment bureau, domestic help.
Lodging house for women.
172
173
Social evening, Friday.
Sunday evening religious meeting for young people.
Church of St. Benedict the Moor, Catholic, West 53rd St., New York city.
PASTOR.-Father Thomas M. O'Keefe.
Sunday School.
Young men's and young women's societies.
Flat with living quarters for unemployed girls.
Employment bureau.
Men's and women's church organizations.
(This church, together with St. Mark's Chapel in Harlem, represents
the Catholic mission work among colored people in New York, dealing
with relief, unemployment and the social problems.)
St. Cyprian's Parish House, 177 West 63rd St., New York city.
PASTOR.-Rev. Joseph W. Johnson.
Gymnasium.
Needlework Guild.-Employs women and girls of the neighborhood,
paying them from 5 cents to 20 cents an hour for plain sewing; garments
sold to neighborhood people at cost.
Laundry.-Employs neighborhood women; all handwork and open air
drying.
Model flat.
Cooking and housekeeping classes.
Milk station.
Women's club.
Girls' clubs.
Boys' clubs.
Fresh air work.
Employment bureau.
Friendly visiting.
Deaconess of Episcopal church mission together with Mrs. Johnson, wife
of pastor, in charge of social work.
Henrietta Industrial School (Children's Aid Society), 224 West 63rd St., New
York city.
PRINCIPAL.-Miss M. L. Stewart.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND MANAGEMENT.-White.
WORKERS.-White.
Four hundred and sixty-five colored children enrolled in Public School
grades 1-A-4-B.
Day Classes.-Sewing, cooking, carpentry, cobbling and basket work.
Evening Classes.-Elementary, home and restaurant cooking. Elemen-
tary and advanced dressmaking.
Boys' club.
Girls' model flat-living room, kitchen, bedroom, bath-room-open five
nights a week.
Friendly visiting.
Free Kindergarten Association for Colored Children, 202 West 63rd St., New
York city.
HEADWORKER.-Miss Helen Titus Emerson.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-White and colored.
174
Kindergarten.
Library.
Penny provident fund.
Branch of Music School Settlement.
Senior and junior boys' clubs-hand work and games.
Senior and junior girls' clubs-housekeeping, dancing, singing, doll's
clothes and games.
Mothers' meetings.
Mothers' club.
Amusement club of National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.
Summer school and play center.
Outings, theatre parties, etc.
Home visiting.
Lincoln Day Nursery,* 202 West 63rd St., New York city.
SUPERINTENDENT.-Mrs. S. Green.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-White.
WORKERS.-Colored.
WORK. For colored people only.
CAPACITY.-79 children-40 babies.
Older children cared for after school by Free Kindergarten Association for
Colored Children in same building.
Children from Day Nursery graduate into kindergarten.
Mothers' club meets once a month.
Summer home at Mt. Kisco, on ten acres of land given by friend of the
Day Nursery at nominal rent; maintained by Day Nursery.
Stillman House, Branch of Henry Street Settlement,† 205 West 60th St., New
York city.
DIRECTION OF-Henry Street Settlement (white).
HEADWORKER.-Miss Ida Morgan.
WORKERS.-White and colored.
WORK.--For both white and colored people.
Seven trained nurses.
Study hours for school children.
Play room open after school.
Penny provident fund.
Branch of public library.
Men's club
Mothers' club
Parents' club
이
​Actively interested in neighborhood affairs. Thanks-
giving and Christmas parties given for the poor.
Uncle Remus clubs, No. 1 and No. 2, reproducing and acting Uncle
Remus stories, and giving instruction in raffia and basketry.
City History club for children.
Dramatic club for girls.
Carpentry classes for boys.
Athletic clubs for boys.
* This has been discontinued and the house is occupied by the colored
branch of the Henry Street Settlement, which is now called Lincoln House.
The activities of the Settlement are much the same as those formerly con-
ducted at Stillman House. (See Stillman House.)
† Now called Lincoln House. See Lincoln Day Nursery.
175
Cooking classes for girls (cooking teacher supplied by University Extension
Society, which pays half her salary. Settlement pays other half).
Dancing class.
Manicuring and shampooing class for women.
Number reached by clubs and classes, about 500 a week.
Fresh air work, boys go to Settlement Camp Henry. Mothers and
babies go to Settlement farm at Montclair. Girls go to P. E. Church
home at White Plains.
Summer playground, equipped by Parks and Playgrounds Department of
city. Worker supplied by Settlement. Average weekly attendance 473.
West End Workers' Association.
HEADQUARTERS.-Lincoln House, 202 West 63rd St., New York city.
SECRETARY.-Miss Ida Morgan.
PROGRAM FOR YEAR.-To improve police conditions on San Juan Hill.
Nov. 1914.
SECRETARY.-Miss H. T. Emerson.
PROGRAM FOR YEAR.-To better tenement conditions in same neighborhood.
White Rose Industrial Association, 217 East 86th St., New York city.
SUPERINTENDENT.-Mrs. J. E. Farrell.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-White and colored.
WORKERS.-Colored.
WORK. For colored people only.
Lodging home for working girls. Co-operates with Travelers' Aid visitor
of National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes.
Sewing classes for children.
Cobbling class for boys.
Boys' club.
Cooking instruction given to girls who have lodged in home and after-
ward become housemaids.
Religious service Sunday.
Young Women's Christian Association, 121 West 132nd St., New York city.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-Colored.
WORKERS.-Colored.
WORK. For colored people only.
Lodging accommodations for 20 young women-no meals served.
Classes in embroidery, dressmaking, stenography, cooking, vocal music,
Bible study and physical culture.
Camp Fire Girls' circle.
Basket ball and tennis court on grounds.
Employment bureau.
Library.
The Young Men's Christian Association was not included, as at the time of
the investigation it was not doing any distinctive work with colored boys.
Hope Day Nursery, Incorporated, 123 West 133rd St., New York city.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS.-Colored.
WORKERS.-Colored.
WORK. For colored children only.
MATRON.-On vacation; Board of Managers in charge.
176
Forty-five children can be accommodated.
Mothers' club in process of organization.
Older children of working mothers cared for after school but no organized
activities are maintained for them.
St. Philip's Institutional Church (Protestant Episcopal), 215 West 133rd St.,
New York City.
PASTOR.-Rev. Hutchins C. Bishop.
PASTOR'S ASSISTANT (in charge of social activities).—Rev. I. W. Daniels.
Sunday school.
Senior and junior clubs for boys and girls.
Boy Scouts.
Gymnasium.
Sewing classes for children.
Men's and women's church guilds.
Home for the aged.
Salem Methodist Episcopal Church (Institutional), 104 West 133rd St., New
York City.
PASTOR.-Rev. W. E. Cullen.
Sunday school.
Clubs for boys and girls.
Gymnasium.
Boy Scouts.
Church societies for men and women.
St. John's House for Working Girls, 36 West 134th St., New York City.
SUPERINTENDENT.-Mrs. M. B. Gregory.
SUPPORTED BY-Women's Auxiliary of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
Provides living accommodations for working women and girls (not in-
cluding board).
Women's clubs.
Boys' and girls' clubs.
Boy Scouts.
Sewing classes for children.
Chair-caning and cobblery classes for boys.
(A clinic attended by a colored physician was about to be established at
the time the investigation closed.)
Note: Since the close of the investigation, this Home has removed to
West 131st St.
Music School Settlement for Colored People, 257 West 134th St., New York
city.
MUSICAL DIRECTOR.-Mr. David I. Martin.
BRANCH.-202 West 63rd St., New York city.
INSTRUCTION in piano, violin, voice culture, sight singing and theory, 'cello.
Three hundred and thirty-two pupils registered in all departments.
Senior orchestra.
Childrens' orchestra.
Milk Station of Babies' Welfare Association, 36 West 139th St., New York
city.
In addition to milk station activities (weighing babies, selling various
grades of milk, etc.) a mothers' club has recently been organized.


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