New-York tribune., 1901-10-13

| mans life. Some special epoch is made to stand
out clearly, while the rest is filled in sketchy.
| In school of foreign born children McKinley's
| boyhood made especially interesting One es
say had good deal of original thought in it:
I'VE could see that he was good man by the
last words he spoke. Some of the words are Do
not hurt the man. 1t is Gods will We could
see that the people cared for Mckinley, for that
they decorated their windows, their stores and
schools and buildings and other things. When
Mckinley was sixteen years of age Abraham Lin
coin asked who will volunteer to flag,
and William Mckinley first to volunteer
William Mckinley went home and told his
mother. She very sad, but she said all right
She gave him many blessings. God saved him.
He was a soldier, Congressman and President"
This child was twelve and heard English only
at school.
In addition to the work in connection with
literature, history and events. the chill
dren write what will help them in their geog-
raphy. In their study of Asia the teacher tells
them about Mahomet, and a twelve-year-old
Jewish girl the lower East Side writes a
| typical composition as follows:
In Arabia their many religiC ms. and be-
| cause of this their were many people who had
| no religion Mohammed was born in Mecca in
| the year $40. He was a poor camel driver,
| but married rich woman and could give
| himself to study. When forty years of age
has given himself up to teach new religion
Mohammed began to claim that he must
ceive book of laws from God called
/ the Koran. Mohammed persuted and had
! to leave Arabia. Mohammed returned to Mecca
! in the year 6}O and destroyed idols, and became
the religious leader of Arabia. His motto was
| that their is god but God and Mohammed is
! the prophet of God. Mohammed elevated the
women of Arabia to their highest position. Mo
hammed died in Medina in the year G,}.. He
slXty-hVe years old.
An excellent idea is developed about this time
J Of haN oh writ LOT Of
tion for places. and simple business letters
such every has to write at time
another. The teacher will sometimes tell them
| to cut any advertisement for help wanted from
n newspaper and 10 answer il suitably. In dis
! tricts where the children obliged to leave
/ the grammar school to go To work this is natu-
rally a great help to them Any child of poor
parents who has attended school until fourteen
years of age should bc able to write "a correctly
| expressed letter applying for place. When.
as is sometimes done. the girls and boys
asked To explain what they wish To become in
after life the need for this sort of thing is made
evident. If the school is situated in a poor dis
trict. bundle Of such compositions Will show
| the present desire to secure steady job
| significant comment on what at home
when the father is laid of
| Perhaps ii is this great need to forge ahead
in the struggle that makes the children of inn
| migrants so soon keep pace with those OF Ameri-
can birth The compositions quoted have
been taken from schools which the attend
ance is made up of children of Italian German,
Irish and Jewish parents, but they are, except
for an occasional incorrect of idiom. quite
equal TO those of American children. In fact
| IL is not unfair to say that the average immi-
grant child in the public schools is slightly ahead
| of the average American of the same age This
is not due, however, to any superiority of intel
lect, but to the fact that foreigners and the very
poor send their children to school before il is
customary for American mothers to let their lit
tie ones go away from home. In overcrowd-
ed tenement house big boys and girls of five
must go out into the world and leave the mother
time for the babies! Then the foreigners send
| their children with the utmost regularity, and
even when the mother is sick she will. if the
service for a few hours, at least. There is
staying at home for trifiing ailments or stormy
| weather
| In these circumstances the children soon learn
to write English about as well as do those who
have always heard it spoken There is no
trouble in weaving them from the old ways. The
difficulty is to that they do aside
all that was noble in the old life readily as
they do all that ignorant. and that they
are real, true hearted "Americans' before they
'sans- -personages distinctly estimabe in their