The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/Americanization which the Department of the interior conducts

Americanization which the Department of the interior conducts from Washington quite sensibly and with proper appreciation of its complexities has become identified in the minds of some state legislators with Prussian methods of suppressing all that may be inconvenient to the rulers of the state. Thus in Nebraska the legislature made it a crime not merely to have non-English public schools, but to teach children privately, out of school hours and ordinary school buildings, any language but English; and the chair of Bohemian in the University of Nebraska, ably filled for ten years by Prof. Šárka Hrbková, has been abolished on the pretext of insufficient attendance, although other universities are just beginning to introduce courses in Slav languages. In Illinois also an attempt was made to make it impossible for children to learn any language but English, but after the bill passed in the Senate, it was killed in the House, mainly through the efforts of members of the legislature, Joseph Plaček, Joseph Peřina, Edward Smejkal and Joseph Petlák.