Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1895-05-08
A MIXED SCHOOL.
70 Nations are Represented in a
Grammar School.
MAKING AMERICANS OF THEM ALL.
Where 800 Sons and Daughters Of For
eigners are Learning Our Lam
guage Together.

Twenty nine nationalities are repre-
sented in one of New York's public
schools. This school is Grammar School
No. 20, at the corner of Mulberry and
Bayard street, in the Sixth Ward. New
York.
There are in the primary and gram
mar department Of this school 1900
children, and at the last census there
were represented among them Hebrews.
Italians, Germans, Irish. Greeks,
Russians, Poles. French. Scotch, Eng
lish, Welsh. Swiss, Chinese, Sicilians,
Assyrians, Tunisians North Africa.
Javanese, Congo West Indians. Cubans.
Norwegians, Swedes, Austrians. Hun
garians, Herzegovinians. Wallaohians.
Moldavians. Egyptians, Danes and
Armenians.
1t is not probable that any other city
in the world can offer more interest
ing study in cosmopolitanism than this,
and it is coming down to the dynamic
principles of this complex, concrete
American nation to learn how these
foreign elements are assimilated by the
public school system of New York and
turned into the ranks of English-speak
ing citizenship.
A World reporter spent day with
this juvenile congress of nations in the
big building down on Mulberry street;
looked into dark eyes and blue eyes,
eyes that bore in their depths the my
steries of the East. Irish eyes that
laughed and twinkled, italian eyes
that had the limpid shadows of mid
night skies; read histories in small up
turned faces and heard music of far.off
lands in the soft patois and lisping
tones of these American babies gathered
from the ends Of the earth.
You are not to think Of them as the
ragged children of the street. AS a
whole they are we'll clad and well be-
haved. At many Of the east side
schools with larger proportion of
children of native-b born Americans you
will find less evidence of home care. for
Mulberry street and it's enyirons hold
some prosperous trades people.
No school Of little Puritans in con-
ventional New England town, where
the family names are the same that
they were two centuries ago, as the
moss-grown grave-stones in the town
burying ground might prove. could be
half as interesting and promising of
remarkable results as this crowd of
children, the offspring Of adventurous
parents who have come FROM many
lands to seek fortune in America.
Not over 10 per cent. of these chill
dren speak English in their homes the
proportion in the primary being under
and that in the grammar department
over this estimate. Where a child
learns the English language it is
month by month educating the house
hold unconsciously. and with the aid of
the evening schools the assimilation of
the foreign POPULATION is more thorough
than the theorists might believe.
If Mulberry street is Little Italy. +"
the big brick building on the corner of
Bayard street is whole atlas of
Europe, Asia. Africa and the islands of
two continents bound together in one
American binding.
There is bust of George Washing
ton, father of his country, and of the
redoubtable Christopher Columbus,
who discovered America, over the desk
Of the principal of the primary depart
ment. Miss Rose O'Neil. and on holi-
days of this Republic the Star-Span-
glsd Banner floats from the flag pole on
thu roof. Holidays, feast days and fast
days in all the calendars Of all the
nations and all the creeds are really the
most puzzling feature with which the
teachers have to oontend-beyond the
difficulty of language, with their Co.'S
mopolitan broods.
But although only three tiny pupils
in class of forty-two present in the
primary department hear English
spoken in their homes, English is the
language in which every child who en-
ters the school is taught, and the Amer
icanism is thorough and convincing.
The average of scholarship of the CHI
dren also compares favorably with that
OF the schools where children of native
born parents are in the majority,
!, mother wit or the shrewdness of tie
70 obAOOb u1Ohih hohAh6 uP AVA viz NAo"'
vantages Of studying in new Ian
guage.
Miss O'Neil, in charge of the pri-
!, mary, and sister of the principal Of the
, grammar department. is bright. keen,
kind. witty and sensible Irish gntle-
woman who has had life's experience
/, in the care of children and is sufficient
~ broad-minded to be entirely free
from religious or race prejudice aid to
take motherly pride in the sot of
American girls and boys she produces
from the raw material that comesinto
her hands from every class and kind of
home round about Mulberry street.
"They do not know their own names
and can't speak word Of English
when they come to us, many of then"
said she. "If you could be here atthe
beginning of the term, in SEPTEMBER,
you could understand something of ;he
difficulties we have IN OvercOnie mt