p. 6 | Finnish Children Excluded for Speaking Their Language

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1907

Finnish Children Excluded for Speaking Their Language

A CONTROVERSY somewhat similar to the San Francisco-Japanese school question has arisen in Ohio. Two Finnish lads have been excluded from school because they conversed in their own language on the school grounds at Painesville, Ohio. The disheartening part of the matter is that the State commissioner has upheld the action of the teacher. The Finnish vice-consul at Cleveland has been appealed to by the parents of the debarred children; but it is doubtful if anything can be done by him to protect the rights of the Finns. It is impossible to detect in this matter any element of reason or justice. Despotic governments of the Old World have compelled children to cease using their parental language; but these Finns had migrated to “the land of the free.” But when America takes from her people the right to worship how and when they will, it is only another step in the same direction to take from immigrants the right to speak among themselves the language of their choice.