Foreign Language Press Service

Send Your Children to School

Dziennik Związkowy, Aug. 30, 1911

The time for opening the schools is rapidly approaching. In a few days they will be wide open to youth desiring learning. It is the proper time to prepare children for school, no time should be lost.

It is high time for us Poles to think seriously about our children's education.

Many parents think that a grammar school education is good enough for a child fourteen years old, and that it is old enough to go to work at that age. Unfortunately, many fathers think that an elementary education is sufficient for their children, because that is all the education they, the fathers themselves, ever had.

Besides, the father is not going to support his children all his life.

Listen, honorable father! Would you not be grateful to your parents if they 2had helped you to get a good education, a profession or a trade? Would you not bless them today for such generosity, for their endeavor to secure for you a better future? Today you are a common workingman selling your energy and health for a very small compensation, because you have no qualification that would entitle you to a better position. You are qualified to handle only a pick, a shovel, or a hammer. As long as you are healthy and fit to work you are good, but as soon as you lack these qualifications you are considered inefficient and will be replaced by another workingman; and you will not be asked whether your future is assured or not.

Your parents, honorable father, would have equipped you with a better education, had they been in better financial circumstances. They did not provide you with a good education, profession or trade because they could not afford it.

You, honorable father, live now in America and conditions here are much better. If you care to give your children a better education than you 3have received yourself, you can do so. High school is absolutely free. The school books are supplied, if the parents are poor.

All that is necessary is good will and a little sacrifice.

Let us take, for instance, the Jews. Every Jew, even a very poor one, tries by all means to educate his children. High schools, colleges and other institutions of higher learning are filled with Jews, and this is the reason why they have such strong influence in this country.

Let us look around and compare our positions with that of the Jews. What high positions do we occupy? Where is our commerce? There are more Poles in America than Jews; but what have we accomplished? One may say that we could not accomplish anything, because when we came to this country we were poor. This is quite true, but the Jews were also poor when they arrived.

Only one generation was necessary for Jews in America to create an intelligent class. We Poles had the same chance, but we did not take advantage of it.

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Let us awake and avail ourselves of an opportunity which is rightfully ours.

Let us send our children to school, and make good, intelligent citizens out of them, then we shall benefit greatly not only our generation, but also the whole Polish nation.

The schools will open soon. Whoever has a child, a graduate of grammar school, should send it to a high school. Do not delay, this is the proper time.

We should give our children a good education, as high as possible. We should use all possible means, even deny ourselves, for the good of our future, our young generation, our nation. Anything you do for your children will benefit you also. Your children will appreciate it and will be grateful to you. Your old age will be pleasant, not bitter. The whole nation will be grateful to you, for you will help to build the nation. To school! All who can do so should go to school.

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