Abstract
Public evening schools in the United States have always had a triple purpose: to teach vocational skills, to compensate for lack of previous education and to Americanize the immigrant. In New York, the evening schools performed all three functions, but be cause the city was home to millions of immigrants it was especially concerned with the need to reach the foreign born. Like evening schools everywhere, the New York City system was troubled by poor attendance, unsuitable curriculum and inadequate teachers. In some respects, however, particularly through a lecture program known as the "Peoples University," it had an important influence on the adult education movement. The effort to Americanize the immigrant during and after World War I increased the importance of all evening schools and other developments in the Twenties and Thirties led them to assume a different role. By 1935 the New York evening schools were no longer merely an agency for com pensatory education; they were now a full-fledged institution for adult education.
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