The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-09-15
WOMAN QUELLS SCHOOL PANIC
PRINCIPAL O'CONNELL QUIETS
EAST SIDE MOTHERS.
u-nrcnsOniny Alarm Lest Their ChiIdren's
ThrOats Be cut Doctor the Innocent
Cause Miss OCOnneIl MAk . Force
fnl Appeal 10 the Angry Crowd.

IRA -
N fnl Appeal 10 the Angry crowd.
The voice Of Miss Margaret +. O'Connell
Of Public School 81, at GOuverneur and
Monroe streets, was listened to yester-
day when the doctor man came to the
school and the mothers Of the children
began 20 storm the doors to save their
children from the knife. The Doctor man
didn't happen to haye'a knife, but as the
open season for school panics IL on again
the mothers wanted their children anyway.
Evidently the memory Of the school
panic Of last June has not faded from the
minds Of the mothers or the children! The
children, however, are less to blame than
the mothers, the teachers say. for these
foolish scares. But II the mothers haven't
learned anything useful from previous
panlcs the teachers showed yesterday they
have learned that the way to prevent seri-
Gus trouble Is to get the children out in the
street at the first sign Of hysteria.
Abram Rovinsky. NJ. D.. who is one OF
the School Board physicians, was the in
nocent cause of the disturbance yesterday
forenoon. DR.. Rovinsky arrived in the
GLASS IA primary department about II
o'clock and sat in a chair beside the teacher,
Miss Barry, to arrange his examination
cards. The doctor has been coming each
day since school opened merely to make
examinations OF little throats and eyes and
q no intention of flashing anything more
harmful from his leather bag than mys-
FERROUS charts. This was the first visit OF
the doctor to the IA class, which is made
up of six-year-old children who have begun
70 60 to school this year for the first time.
Rosa Somebody whispered to Rachel
Somebodyelse that the man sitting near
teacher was a doctor man and that in his
black satchel were long sharp knives. The
story spread from seat to seat. Then there
was a twisting and turning and a nervous
rafting Of states. A little girl bounced out
In the aisle and screamed.
That scream was the last pound Of steam
bearable, and the boiler exploded. With
q rush the children started toward the doors
OF the room bowling with a nameless terror.
Only thin folding doors separate Miss
Barry's class from five other primary classes
on the same floor, and through these doors
the noise of the upToar passed on from
room to room until 500 little ones on that
floor, the second, were yelling and running
about Historically.
Then it was that the principal came
down from her officeSon the floor above to
learn the cause of the upheaval. One
glance at DR.. Rovinsky, standing bewildered
in the middle of a tragic ring around a rosy
game, was enough to tell Miss O'Connell
the cause of the trouble, and she started
In to say the day.
In a few minutes she had the children
arranged in lines, had telephoned for help
from the Madison st rect police stat ion and
had ordered the piano to help everybody
break into song. The choral singing in
ahildrnn panipG cnrTpEnpnHa wit Ia the fire
hose in parental riots.
Inthe first eXcit ement a few ofthe children
had got out on the street and scurried
toward nearby tenements. Wherefore,
when the sohool children had been
marched singing down the stairs and
ranged in lines along Monroe street the
mothers that the principal had been eX-
pecting began to arrive. Down the little
incline OF Gouverneur street they came
screaming, and ran along he line of children
like tigresses in search of their own. The
principal stood on the steps at the girls
entrance and told the mothers to take
their children home.
One woman named Mrs. Sedan was
crying for her six-year-old Sammy. Sammy
was found and submerged in a sea of kisses, !
after which Mrs. Sedan quoted down
upon being assured by Miss O'Connell that
Sammy could come back into school wit bout
fear of his jugular vein. The holiday
notion appealed to Sammy, however, and
the little boy refused TO return, whereupon
Mrs. Sedan took her offspring over her
knee and applied a broad hand far from
the iugular.
i By the time Mrs. Sedan had convinced
Sammy that he displayed no sense in being
frightened, there; were 40 few OF the part
time morning scholars left in the street
that Miss O'Connell decided there was no
use resuming the morning work. The
principal had used up her luncheon hour
now in pacifying mothers and children.
Also the afternoon pupils, who had seen
nothing OF the first scare, were beginning
70 arrive.
Before bringing the afternoon pupils up
% their fioors, however, the principal first
tool them into the big basement play
ground. 80 that she would feel safe from
q repetition of the earlier trouble when
the mothers OF the afternoon scholars had
heard Of the visiting doctor. There was
. merry time of singing. and games going
on when along came Mrs. Sedan again
with Sammy. Mrs. Sedan pleaded that
Sammy be taken back TO his class, and
Sammy was taken.
The pupils were about to be. marched
up stairs at 1870 o'clock when a terrific
banging at the Monroe street door again
brought Miss O'COnnell to the entrance.
Sh opened the door upon the excited Mrs.
Sedan.
elf me my Sammy screamed the
mother, who less than half an hour before
had been telling Sammy not to make such
q foolishness. You should not 10 cut
my Sammy's throat"
again headS popped out OF nearby tene-
ment windows excitedly and again the
maddened mothers charged upon the
building. All this was too much for the
teachers, and instead Of continuing the line
up the stairs the children were headed
toward the street. When they were all
lined up and Policemen Walsh, Foley and
Mott had showed the parents into some
semblance of order Miss O'Connell folded
her arms up on the rostrum Of the steps
and made a speech.
They got theirs in that speech, did those
mothers with lowered eyes. And lower
were the eyes of the older pupils, who
had bDsn unafraid through it all and were
now blushing for the hysteria of their elders.
And now go home, all Of you ' concluded
the girl orator. "Slpt. Maxwell has told
me over the telephone to use my own judg-
ment in the matter. and 80 I shall close
the school for the day. IF Won mothers had
half the sense your children rave these
silly panics would not happen. You ought
to be scholars here instead Of your little
ones"
Then the crowd filed away and the school
was left 10 Billy Anderson, the %janitor, and
the ~scrubwomen. For the rest Of the