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

of such schools as those that stand in
our larger American cities. The
whole population of Thurii, very
likely, could be housed in Number
Sixty-Two or Number One Hundred
and Eighty Eight-the two biggest
schools in New York. These two i'm
mems palaces of education contain
two hundred and fifty teachers and ten
thousand pupils They would shelter
a dozen regiments of United States
infantry. Each contains an audi
forum as large as ar average theater,
and in round numbers, each cost d mill
lion dollars t. build.
AS to the information that is dis
pensed in these great universities of
childhood, it is, in many respects, far
beyond anything that was taught in
the most luxurious halls of learning
in the days of HerOdotus and Thurii.
Instead of the ''three RS" we have
now nineteen different branches of
knowledge. Our little twelve-year-old
Americans are given a higher course
in science and hygiene than the gra-
duates of Oxford and Cambridge
received less than a century ago.
They learn more about the Consti-
tuition of the United States than many
a lawyer knew in the early period of
the republic. They are taught to sing,
to sew, to cook, and to know much
about the long story of the human
race.
What would a pedagogue of long
ago think OF a school in which boys
were taught t" wis IT,, to fish, TO
cobble shoes. to weave, to plant rad
ishes and potatoes. and to hammer
iron into shape on little anvils?
What would he think of a school in
which girls learned to wash. dust,
prepare meals. and take care of
babies? Yet in the vacation schools
of the past summer there have been
twelve hundred teachers giving just
such instruction to the children of our
over crowded cities.
All name of innovations have
been introduced to make life more
worth while for the children of the
tenements who have not inherited
their share of the green fields. A
voyage to Milwaukee on a whaleback
is the most popular branch of study
in Chicago. In New York, too, there
is a real ocean-going vessel in which
boys are given a two-years' course in
navigation. Probably the most ex-
pensive school playground in the
world is Seward Park in the over
packed East Side of New York.
There are here three acres that have
been captured from commerce at a
cost of two and a half millions. in
which every fine evening you may
see more than seven thousand chill
dren playing games and listening to
band concerts.
All told. New York City is spending
three hundred thousand dollars a
year for school Fairgrounds. Like
other cities that have grown swiftly,
it did not think of the playground
problem until too late. 1t is now
practically impossible to provide
as much land as the six hundred
thousand children of the greater city
ought to have. Five hundred acres
more. which would not be too much,
would cost at the present time not far
from a hundred millions. The best
that can be done in some parts of the
city is to build Fairgrounds on the
school roofs. This has already been
done in a dozen instances.
The United States, of course, has
no monopoly of good schools. But
there is one respect in which the Amer
can public school stands absolutely
alone. 1t is the only institution in
which the children of all nations are
taught to work and play t~ogether-to
learn one language and to be loyal to
one flag.
MAKING AMERICAN CITIZENS.
Here is one school in New York, fol-
instance, which is a veritable Noah's
Ark of twenty-nine na~tiOnalites. Be
sides a small handful of native-borr
children. there are Irish, Germans,
English. Swedes. Russians, Poles.
Greeks, Italians. Hungarians, Egyp'
tians Rnmanians. Scots. Slavs,