"Boss, me no lika dis job. Give me my money. I goin' home." The speaker was an Italian member of America's new National Army. "And," said his captain to me, "that's all the conception a lot of them have of why they are here."
I went to the great cantonments expecting to see a great body of Americans. I found thousands of Italians, Poles, Russians, Rumanians, Greeks, and others-all potential Americans, to be sure, but with a long way to travel yet ! In each of several camps of 30,000 to 40,000 men I found 4,000 to 5,000 who understand little English and speak still less. Of course this proportion would be determined in each cantonment by the districts from which the men came.
I talked with scores of colonels and other officers, and all agreed that this was one of their greatest problems. One regiment had about eighty per cent "foreigners." Many had fifty per cent. Whole companies were made up mostly of Poles or some other foreign nationality. Imagine these fellows from the slums of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, getting off their trains, being taken to camp, marched to their quarters, given instructions which they could little understand, and beginning immediately a life as new and strange to them as aeroplaning would be for you and me ! . .
To build real soldiers out of this material is a slow process, requiring infinite patience. One captain told me this as a joke on himself:
"To-day when drilling my men I was provoked so many times by one fellow who refused to listen or obey orders that I sailed into him before the whole company. After I had completed what I thought was a rather impressive speech one of the non-commissioned officers saluted and said, 'Excuse me, Captain, but that man doesn't understand a word you're saying ! "'
When a new crowd of men comes to camp it is no uncommon sight to find men wandering aimlessly around in their off hours, hopelessly lost. They do not know the number of their regiment, company, or barracks, and in a camp of five thousand acres and more all barracks look alike. One of these huge cantonments is a maze for any newcomer, even for the educated American who does not hesitate to inquire his way.
Fancy some of these foreigners, many of whom have not even their "first papers," grasping quickly the fundamentals of our government the real meaning of our war, and the bewildering nomenclature and courtesies of the army camp ! It all seems so impossible. One afternoon I had the privilege of being in one of the barracks while a colonel was explaining to his captains the exact way everything should be arranged. "Exact " hardly describes it. Of course the bed had to be made just so, the poncho had to be folded exactly right at the foot, the mess-kit had to be hung on a certain nail, a few things were permitted to be visible, the rest "under the mattress," etc. There by the door stood a dozen foreigners, just arrived, who could hardly speak a word of English, and my thoughts went beyond them to the boardinghouses and industrial plants whence they had come. Yet to-morrow these same foreigners would be following out these same strict orders making their own beds with a precision that would dismay the tidiest housekeeper. Talk about raising the standard of living-in the army camps it is done with one stroke of the pen, overnight ! A few days later I saw those same "rookies," in army garb, drilling, and I could barely recognize them. There is something profoundly inspiring about it all. At the same time there is something very pathetic about the ignorance of these men. The officers, on the whole, are showing splendid patience and a fine spirit in the face of great difficulties.
There are humorous as well as pathetic stories. Joe came in after hours one night and was greeted by the guard in the usual manner"Halt! Advance and be recognized!" In answer to the question "What's your name?" Joe replied, "Ah, you no guess it in a thousand years." He probably went to the guard-house, and, as one colonel said, "There are many there because of ignorance rather than viciousness."
At Camp Upton one evening a major was stopped by a "Halt!'! from the sentry. The major stopped, the sentry advanced and again said, "Halt." "Well, what do you want?" inquired the major, with rising anger. "Halt! Now I think about time you run-I shoot!" L)f course the sentry was taken to task, and it was discovered that he had misunderstood the order to shoot if any man refused to halt after being ordered to do so three times. The major however, sympathized with the foreign sentry and admitted that he was a good sport in at least telling him to run ! . . .
The Roberts method, as it has been called, takes a group of foreigners absolutely ignorant of the English language and teaches them all equally well, even though there may be a dozen nationalities in the class at the same time. There are three fundamental principles of the method: First, that the ear and not the eye is the organ of language. That is to say, we learned our native tongue by hearing it spoken by our parents and others. We did not learn from books until long after we had learned to speak. The Association experts, therefore, realize that they must first teach the foreigners (who, as far as English is concerned, are really children) how to speak. The reading and writing come later in the lesson.
Second, that each lesson must deal with a common experience of every-day life.
Third, that each sentence must suggest what the next sentence shall be. That is, the sentences must be logically arranged and all bear on the main theme.
A teacher, therefore, proceeds as follows: He says to his men, "You say this after me-Awake." The class in unison then repeats the word, which as yet they do not understand the meaning of, and the teacher corrects their pronunciation. He then gives them a second word-"open." They repeat this. He follows with "look," "find," "see." Very quickly the men memorize these five words in the order given, until they say them without the teacher's help. Incidentally, you will note that the men have been learning verbs, the vitally active part of each sentence. The teacher then uses these verbs in sentences, acting each sentence slowly and with dramatic precision: "I awake from sleep." " I open my eyes." " I look for my watch." " I find my watch." "I see what time it is."
In from five to ten minutes the men memorize perfectly these five sentences. They understand the meaning, because the teacher carefully enacts each word and sentence. The teacher then has his pupils memorize the second set of sentences: "It is six o'clock." "I must get up." " I throw back the bedclothes." " I get out of bed." " I put on my pants." "I put on my socks and shoes."
And so on through the process of getting up in the morning. If an hour to an hour and a half is allowed for the lesson, about half of the time is well spent in this acting out of the lesson and memorizing. It is amazing how quickly men really understand and can repeat the lesson without the teacher's help. When that point is reached the teacher exhibits a large chart upon which the lesson is printed. The men then connect what they have seen dramatized and what they have memorized with what they now see in print. Thus they say the lesson from memory while looking at the printed words with the result that they very quickly learn to recognize the printed forms of the words already learned. Then each student is given a lesson sheet to keep-on one side the lesson in print and the reverse side in script. They then read in unison both sides of the sheet many times until they are actually, in spite of themselves, learning to read....
After a class the other night I heard a young Italian say to his teacher: "Teacher, I want thank you. Before I came here I no have chance to learn any much English. Now I learn whole lot, I be better soldier."
Most people do not recognize that there are over 40,000 native illiterates in the camps, many of them from the southern mountains. . . . An Association secretary discovered one of these men crying himself to sleep in his barracks. When asked what was the matter he replied, "I don't like it here in France." It took considerable time for the secretary to convince the man that he was not in France, but in reality only a few hundred miles from home. The secretary did everything he could for the man. He saw he was surrounded with helpful associates, and in a few days he was in a much happier frame of mind....
There are in America to-day approximately 15,000,000 foreign-born and 20,000,000 more of foreign parentage. There are only about 5,000,000 foreign-born voters, and fully 5,000,000 who speak very little English. More than 3,000,000 aliens of military age are exempt from draft because not naturalized. In the face of facts like these let us see to it that every agency in every city in America be commandeered to help educate and inspire with loyalty these men from other lands, whether aliens or citizens and whether or not they are to be drafted!