The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1906-10-17

the republic for which it Sandstone
nation, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for ALL"
This pledge is now being taught to a
hundred thousand little immigrant
children who arrived in the United
States last year.. 1t has already been
learned by the hundred thousand who
came in 1904. They make more prog
ress in patriotism, it seems, than in
any other subject.
1.-THE most popular stories that we
tell these children" said one of the
teachers, "are the stories of George
Washington and his c%herry-tree ex-
plot, the crossing of the Delaware,
and the capture of the Hessians."
In this way they are started on the
wide road that leads to American citi-
zenship and farther. Some day, who
knows, a son of one of these young
newcomers may win a four years lease
of the White House from his fellow
Americans. Was not Andrew Jackson
the son of an Irish immigrant?
1t is the public school. too. which is
doing the real work OF the Americana
zatiOn in the new communities which
we have adopted mo the family.
There are now forty thousand little
brown children in Porto Rico and two
hundred thousand in the Philippines,
who are singing america and
pledging allegiance to the republic
which has ''libert.r ;.nd justice for
ALL
Even in Alaska there are nor than
two thousand little EskimOs who walk
to school over sevrn feet of snow and
answer to such names as Ok. back
and Sega-bruna. And such eager
scholars. Some of them are in SO
great a hurry to get to school that they
run away from home before breakfast.
Others go fo..' miles in fifty-belOw-
zero weather. Generally, in Alaskan
| schools. tn. irst lesson is how to get
thawed out.
AuASKA s r~INDEER SCHOOLS
But probably the most eXtraOrdi-
nary schools mat any bureau of edu-
cation ever has had to manage are the
fifteen reindeer schools for grOwn-up
EskimOS. Ten thousand raind 'er have
been brought IRON Siberia at a cost
of two hundred and fifty thousand dol
lars, and the Eskimo young men are
being trained as herders. After a five
year course of study, each graduate is
set up in business with a herd of fifty
reindeer, lent to him by the govern
ment.
A whole race is thus, being put to
school. Instead of wandering from
place to place. in search of seals and
w~alruses. re FsquimOs may now sci
tie down and become prosperous herd
ers. 1t is said that Alaska might cas-
lily support ten million reindeer.
These reindeer schools, by the way,
are practically the only ones that have
not been captured by the women teach
ers. Elsewhere nearly three-quarters
of our teachers are women Arkansas
has the fewest and England has the
most. William T. Harris, a mere
man. is Commissioner of Education:
but there are two State Superinten-
dents, in Idaho and Colorado, fifteen
city superintendent, and twenty-seven
heads of normal schools, who belong
to what may call the educational sex.
Fifty years g a young wOman's
education was considered satisfactory
if she could crochet a Berlin-wOOl
parrot with beaded eyes. But in all
American schools at the present time,
Alaskan reindeer ranches excepted, all
the doors of opportunity are open to
girls and boys alike. In fact, so far
as our high schools r concerned,
three pupils out of five are girls.
AS to when our first public school
was started, it is not safe to say.
Four or five States are claiming the
honor. The truth is that u public
school system is very young. The
Oldest school in New York City is
celebrating its centenary this year.
The idea that all children have equal
right to life, liberty, and education, is
a new one in the history of the human
race. The belief that every child has
a right to be educated, whether the
father can pay the bill OF not, was, a
century ago, declared to be a danger
Gus theory
THE SCHOOLS OF PIONEER DAYS
The first schools were certainly small
enough to allay all suspicious. Oneir
Virginia was founded by a donation Of
four cows; another in Massachusetts,
was endowed by a collection taken uI
on board ship. George Washington's
first teacher was an old slave named
Hobby, who was also the gravediggel