Despite the reputation of the Workmen's Circle schools, they are far from their goal. They are still in the developing stage and much has to be changed and improved.

The worst defect is the poverty in textbooks. At present there is not one textbook which is fit for the education of the Jewish worker's child in America. The present textbooks have all been written with the conscious intention to Judaize the American Jewish child--to make him love traditional Judaism, the Jewish holidays and the Jewish national heroes. All the textbooks which have been published in America fulfill, more or less, this task. However, they give the child very little, if anything, of general humanitarianism. There is in them, almost no description of social heroes, no discussion of labor holidays and no pictures of the Jewish worker's life nor of his fight for a better and more beautiful life.

2

Moreover, the music taught in the folk schools is not suitable for the Jewish child in America. The songs taught at present are taken mainly from the national-Orthodox life led by Jews before the modern period.

There are, however, many modern Jewish writers, who have written entire series of songs for children. Also, there are many modern Jewish composers who have composed melodies for those songs. We simply have to gather these songs and the music together, and publish them at popular prices, so they can be spread among the Jewish children.

But much worse is the situation in the course in Jewish history. The only Jewish booklet obtainable in this country is Dubnow's history, which is given as a premium to the subscribers of an Orthodox, conservative newspaper in New York. One can imagine the spirit in such a volume.

Furthermore, this Jewish history of the children's schools is badly translated from the Russian in a pedantically dry style. It is not suitable for children at all, especially not for worker's children. It also is a history with a 3philosophy. It attempts to plant into the minds of the children the old traditions in a modern form.

It begins with "sermons" and tells us that "God created heaven, the earth, and all that is in them in six days." Then, as in the Bible, the stories about the Garden of Eden, the quarrel between Cain and Abel, the Flood, and the Golden Age [are told.]

The difference between legend and history is intentionally obscured therein. And when the child begins to study real history, he is unable to differentiate between legend and fact. Even in the historical period of the "Kings", the textbooks make no distinction between historical occurrences, and the myths which have grown up around them.

Such a textbook is suited for the Jewish Heder [Old world type of Hebrew school] of the old home, or for the Orthodox Talmud Torah which does not reckon with time or place. So long as there is no other textbook, one will always find teachers and parents who will give their children Dubnow's history to read, and cause, thereby, great harm.

4

At this point, it is worth remarking that the parents are to be blamed greatly for the bad contents of history courses.

Jewish parents have been raised for the most part on Biblical stories, and for the great part, are still unaware of the distinction between legend and historical fact. Such parents claim that their children "do not learn anything" and "are ignorant" if they do not know the stories about Adam and Eve, the Egyptian exile, and the Patriarchs.