Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-31
Special Correspondence of The Star.

! SRS~ioA SofEeslSuueuce OF Inc StaI
NEW YORK. December 80. 1905.
| Within the green -picketed Enclosure that
surrounds the estate of the Cathedral OF
| st. John the Divine on Morningside Heights.
New York. stands far back an ancient
square mansion of faded yellowish brick,
| the back windows of which look out upon
noisy stone quarry and dusty heaps of
| huge stones that one by one are raised
| every day and merged into the cathedral
walls Already these walls tower overpow-
| eringly high above the fiat roof of the an
| cient house itself
Years ago this was the Leake and Watts
Orphan Asylum. Orphans swarmed every
| where. up and down its imposing stone steps
and around its classic pillars. Within the
| bare-walled. high-ceilinged rooms inside
| there used to be children in rows OF beds
at highland by day at rows of porrdge
| bowls and at rows of desks. Now the worn
| yet dignifed entrance admits to the great
convention hall of the Episcopal conference
| the east wing is given over to that part of
| the cathedral draughting and modelling
| work which may be done indoors; the ca
| thedral choir school is quartered in the
west wing, and the orphans, most of them.
| have long since departed to find the lost re-
| iatlonship whose lack stigmatiZed their
| identities
| Happily. a different lot of children now
! pervade the west wing-not motherless,
| fatherless homeless dependents, but for
! tunate sons of more or less well-to-do
parents, who manfuly pay for their own
| schooling with their singing-thirty boys in
| gray uniforms trimmed with the purple
| cathedral braid, who return every day after
3 o'clock evensong to comfortable homes
| throughout the city.
The choir boys in their stalls in the crypt
| under the growing choir cassocked In pur-
| pie and surpliced in white, are models of
| perfect behavior such as the pessimistic
| observer cannot associate in his mind with
| the boys he has known He is inclined to
| think that the choir boys We're specially
born to that estate, that these are no mere
earthly boys who sit in the chance. And,
in a sense, the pessimist feels correctly;
the chorister may not be merely any boy
with good voice. He is chosen for his
good disposition and his good breeding, as
we'll as for his power to sing well. There
is such a thing in the mind of the head
master as the ideal chorister, and, to APP
proximate that, a boy must be an all
around little gentleman with sound body.
X
| He Is taken in the school on probation,
and after a few weeks generally proves
himself. Not invariably, however. Some
times all the powers of evil may success
fully be smothered in a small boys interior
for the length of the predatory period and
longer, only suddenly dismayingly to break
out at an unexpected provocation. Even
the choir boy who is most firmly fixed in
innocence Is not an unearthly cherub, but
off parade frequently Is nothing but
monkey subject to reproof and discipline.
In the subjects that it teaches, the choir
school is like any other day school. except
that instruction is free, including. even Eek
tras'' and a musical education. The cost
of military uniforms and text books is
borne by the pupils parents. The school is
organized into a military company, with
officers of it's own from captain down to
sergeant, and it drills for fifteen minutes
before school begins at 8 o'clock every
morning Once a week it IS carefully SUI
pervised in a regular military drill by the
army officer who takes charge of the mil
itary operations at st. Johns School in
Fordham.
It is not to make little tin soldiers out of
the cathedral boys that they are taught to
shoulder arms and march and counter
march each day, and to enter the class
room in wel-organized battle array and to
retire without disorder 1t is part of the
discipline that trains the spirit as well as
the body to an "eyes front, head up pol
icy boy needs poise and self-control TO
sit In q stiff stall through a service lasting
from an hour and a half to twice that time,
with never side glance at the congreSa-
tion and never a whisper nor so much as
smile through all those hours for the best