p.4....The question of having the Scandinavian languages placed in the curriculum of Chicago's High Schools as optional courses seems to have floated into a back water for the present. In compliance with a petition by business and professional men the Polish language is to be tried out as advised by Ella Flagg Young, superintendent. Instruction in the Polish language will be offered during the first half of the 1911-1912 year and the resulting enrollment will, in a large measure, determine whether courses in Scandinavian languages will be established in one or more of our high schools.

This is a challenge to our Nordic people and should be taken up energetically in all parts of the city where our people live in considerable numbers. The Polish people are outstanding in the pride shown by their young people over their ability to speak their mother tongue and their knowledge of the history and traditions of their ancestral country. Here we challenge the pride of our Nordic Chicagoans. Have the French, Poles and Germans, in any way, a better reason to take pride in over the history and accomplishment of their respective 2parent countries than we Nordics? The emphatic and unvariable answer is "No".

Story City and Decorah, la., Eau Claire, Wis., Minneapolis, Minn. have succeeded in having Norwegian and Swedish courses established in their high schools with constantly increasing enrollment, and we in Chicago can bring about the same situation if we all put our shoulders to the wheel and push. With the number of our own people we have in Chicago we can, by mustering our pride and co-operation sense, give our children as good,if not a better opportunity to master a language that will make available to them the beauties of Nordic art, music and literature that are now, to them, a closed book. Translations of Scandinavian masterpieces in literature, Bjornson, Ibsen, Aasen, Grieg, etc., are miserable failures, laughable, and at the same time heartbreaking. Incidentally, and in connection with the foregoing , in a few weeks ,the newly elected mayor, Carter H. Harrison,will appoint several new members to the school board and a Norwegian member could help the cause to some extent.