306 boys, 332 girls—out of public or private schools; whereas, of the same ages there are 708 children—376 boys, 332 girls—out of Sunday schools. From three to seven years of age the percentage of children out of public schools is 68.5, and out of Sunday schools 70.2. With the children of kindergarten age and the children of grammar school age, therefore, the state, through its compulsory education process, is doing better business than the church. It must be conceded that to the church, rather than to the public schools, the superior percentage of children of kindergarten age in kindergartens may be due; for, in the portion of the city canvassed, the kindergartens under the care of the board of education accommodate only half of the children attending kindergartens.
In this same region 3,709 male heads of households are wage-earners, and only 2,623 of them are church members. The factors of these totals do not absolutely correspond, but almost so, and it can be said, therefore, that only 70.7 per cent. of the wage-earning heads of households in the region are church members.
There are twenty-seven nationalities in the region canvassed, and when the numbers of wage-earners and church members in the various nationalities are studied, some very striking facts appear.
The number of Irish church members is larger than the number of Irish wage-earners, and the same is the case with the Canadians in the district. American heads of households who are church members are slightly in excess of the number of American fathers, wage-earners; and the Scotch, Austrians, Swedes, Danes, and Italians are all above the percentage of the entire district; while the English, German, Dutch, Swiss, Norwegian, Russian, Bohemian, and negro percentages are all below the average. Only 45.5 per cent. of German fathers, wage-earners, are church members; and that this is a fact of large moment to the church’s place among social agencies in New York is evident when it is remembered that the Germans are New York’s leading foreign nationality.
