Beginning
with the present year, it is taught only in the seventh and eighth
grades. The situation is so well presented in the report of the
Educational Commission of 1906 that further discussion here is
unnecessary. They summarize their discussion of the teaching of German
in the elementary schools as follows:
"Such teaching originated in a nationalistic feeling and demand on the
part of German immigrants, and not in any educational or pedagogical
necessity.
"It aimed to induce the children of Germans to attend the public
schools, where they would learn English and be sooner Americanized.
"For 15 years [now 25 years] past, German immigration has almost
ceased, and other European nationalities, as the Bohemians, Poles, and
Italians, have taken their place numerically.
"The children of the earlier German immigrants are already
Americanized and use the English language freely, and those later
born, of the second and third generations, no longer need to be taught
German in the schools beginning at six years of age.
"It is demonstrated by experience and by abundant testimony that
children neither from German nor from English-speaking families really
learn much German in the primary and grammar grades, that is, from six
to 13 years of age.
"Hence the Commission recommends that the teaching of German in these
grades be discontinued and that the German language be taught only in
the high schools.
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