The Opelousas courier., 1891-11-14
Cur Public School Houses.

Last week we went on a tour OF OBJ
servation among the public schools OF
Opelousas. We find it impossible to
describe tie rooms in which the children
are tangT, without exciting incredu-
lity. yet we deem it our duty to give
IL brief description of them in the hope
that it may arouse some attention OF
parents. The cold wintery weather is
gradually and surely approaching, and
if something be not done, the bright
eyed little children that attend the
schools. may expect to suffer all winter.
We first stopped in to examine the
house in which Miss Hebrard teaches
and suffers. She has AZ students in her
school and the room is 90 feet 6 inches
in length, by II feet 3 inches in breadth,
The ceiling is 7 feet 2 inches high.
| The house is old and dilapidated, and
about as badly ventilated as it could
we'll be made. The furniture, tif it
deserves such name) consists OF rough
| old tables, some heathenish looking
chairs, few stools of the rndest con
struction, few boxes, and pianks on
which loving parents little children
must sit all the school hours in absolute
pain.
We next visited the room in which
Miss Ealer teaches We measured it
and found it 22x14 feet. The mis-
named furnitured was not quite SO
varied in style, nor so entirely rude III
design, but it is far from being COM
Portable, or such as it should be. She
teaches AZ pupils.
Thence We went to Miss Mckinney S
school. She has AZ children under hel
care. The building is 90 feet inches
by IL feet 6inches in size, and measures
9 feet to the ceiling. Il is very badly
ventilated, and the furniture is aboat
on par with that which We found i'll
the other two schools. Lastly we
stopped i'll at Miss Mayors she has 2t
pupils under her charge, and teaches IL
a building measuring 30xl5 feet in size,
with very insufficient furniture i'll it
These four noble young ladies teacl
altogether l64 pupils in four houses
which if put up and sold at public
auction, Oh liberal terms, including that
which, for want of more appropriate
t name, we must call furniture, woulC
not bring enough to pay for the erection
| IL
The committee of twenty five have
made noble efforts to raise funds ant
will soon or late succeed but until they
do. the school children of 0pelousa
are predestined and doomed to suffe
while at school as much as the criminal
in the parish prison. Think of it, y
fond parents, you have money for th'
theatres, for balls, for horse racing, TO
billiards, for card playing, for 'Vhisky
bat none for the erection or, repairs o
the school rooms in which you dali,
imprison your little ones for hours
i will you longer suffer this to b
t so? Why are you so careful to Sc
! after their comfort at home, when s
: Indifferent to it in the school rooms
Ought not such state of things t
q bring the crimson to your cheeks I?
The young ladies who teach our pub
lie schools are among the most refined
elegant and intellectual in any commn
nifty Is it even respectful to requir
q them to have Ito teach for pittanet
:. in such miserable, old, delapidated
tottering and incommodious shanties
. aud to provide them at that2 Wi
parents not do as much for christia
!. teachers and children land these thei
! own,) as the British Government did q
one time for the Hottentots2 Oh q
Il .