River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-04-02
Remarkable Discipline in a Negro
School

"When I strike this bell, " said Super
inteudent Doty, of the Morris Street
color 4 school, when / was inspecting
his branch of the public school system
of Charleston the other day, "the noon
recess is over, and every one of our l.
400 boys and girls is in duty bound to
become motlonless, pres CRYING what
ever attitude he may happen to be in at
the time of the bell-stroke. You may
be interested to watch the effect"
So saying, he struck button. The
loud, sharp note of an alarm bell re-
sponded to the pressure, and L stepped
quickly to the window.
The assortment of grotesque positions
to be witnessed below beggars descrip-
ton. Here a boy had ball raised in
midair, while over yonder stood an
other lad with hands extended ready
to catch the ball In one place some
youngsters were playing at leap-frog.
There a couple of hands were locked in
a seeming death-grip, having been
caught by the signal in the act of wres-
Ting. In one place an automatic game
of tag was illustrated In another a
girl had her arms extended in the pro-
cess of rope-skipping, "Pompeii with
out the debris" / remarked
"This is of course only feature of
the discipline which we try to preserve"
explained Mr. Doty. "Opce l rang
this preliminary signal and then walk
ed leisurely from window to window to
see how it had been obeyed From the
last window / discovered a lad literally
standing ON his head with his feet rest
ing against the fence, where he had
been for two or three minutes. l
rang the second bell in haste, and
from that day prohibited the
fine art of posing on the head.
But that incident illustrates the prompt
and iron-clad adherence to the very let
ter of the law which is cultivated here.
The second stroke of the bell forms the
entire school into professions"
A third stroke, and rs if by magic or
by machinery doors flew open in every
part of the large room. Still another
stroke, and IN marched the files, class
ut time through each opening. Every
bov and girl was exactly in line, the dis
tances between the pupils was invaria-
bly, uniform, and there was graduation
of heads in each class according to the
height Of the pupils. During the exer-
else Of whole hour that followed there
was not the slightest deviation from rig
id military order Never head turn
ed once, never a hand stirred to rub a
tickling ear or nose, and never sug-
gestion of a mistake occurred in the
complicated evolutions Of the hour.
After all the classes had in some mex
plicable way found their respective
quarters, twenty monitors marched up,
ten on one side of the principals
desk and ten on the other. These
class monitors submitted their reports.
Only two had failures TO chronicle and
those failures were of the smallest pos
sible importance, amounting to lack of
sufficient promptness IN obeying the
first bell.
care these children really alive?"
said under my breath. 1T all seems
like some ingeniously contrived mechan-
ical puppet-show on a vast scale,
And vet there was no bored, automa-
/ tic expression on the bright faces be-
I fore me. Evidently the pupils revealed
in the very rigidity Of the decipline to
which they were subjected. | think
/ perhaps the personal magnetism of
/ Superintendent Doty had something to
d. with securing such superb system.
1 Certainly / never saw anything in the
/ North which even approximated the
matchless discipline Of these Morris
Street colored children. The effect
was beautiful beyond my power to ex-
/ press.-Augusta (Ga.) Correspondence
/ of the Chicago Inter Ocean.