Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-03-16
WATERBURY EVENING DEuocRAT SATURDAY. MARCH 1e 1907
THE STAGE FRESHMAN
Has Rival in Book Being Circu-
 lated in Public Schools.

When Douglas Hyde lectured in Waterbury he congratulated his au- dience on the success of their effort to put the stage Irishman out of busi- ness in the local theaters. The vast assemblage cheered and the lecturer gracefully acknowledged the compli- ment with a modest bow. It would seem Hyde and his audience flat tered themselves with the idea that, after a long struggle, they had final ly relegated the stage Irishman to the grave of oblivion, but if they en- tertaihed any such idea they were very much mistaken. It may be a fact that the stage Irishman had to find some other platform than the one he had been convulsing audi ences from at Polls and the Jacques, but the Bronson library came to his rescue and afforded him a wider field than he ever could hope to enjoy at the opera house. If you doubt this just take peep at the book sent out to the public schools from the juven- ile department of that institution en- titled Children of the World" The author is Thomas Stevens and the illustrations are by some joker named Collins. All the cuts leave a favorable impression upon the minds of the youngsters with the exception of the Irish boy. Young Pat" who appears in tatters and rags, with dis hevelled red hair, a cudgel of stick under his arm and short stump of a clay pipe sticking out of one cor ner of his mouth. For background he has hog pen and two fat porkers for companions. Is it any wonder that many of the children don't know which they prefer to own kim ship, the Irish boy or the pigs? The cut is cruel libel on the Irish boy and it is a wonder why the depart ment of education allows it to circu- late in the public schools. These are delicate things to touch. Whoever mentions them is sure to be charged with being over sensitive, thin skinned and lot of other things of that sort. Some will say they do no harm. Perhaps that is true, but the purpose of all literature put in the hands of the children should be to improve their minds and make them better. What good, then, can be ac- complished by an education that gives the pupil false impression of the character of his neighbor? The average Irish boy in his native coun- try as some of us knew him when his opportunities were not quite as good as they are at the present time, didn't look any different from the offspring of other white men and white women, and the idea of inn pressing upon the minds of the ris- ing generation in the United States that he is something of curiosity is vicious. to say the least, and if the Bronson library agents don't think so it is the plain duty of the board of education to step in and. put their feet down hard on anything that tends to keep alive bickerings and contentious that have done vast amount of harm and never served any good purpose. The book is now doing service in the Mulcahy school and it is wonder the teachers didn't send it back to the library instead of passing it out to the children. but as all of them are students of the Bron- son library and received share of their early impressions of Irish char acter from books found on its shelves probably they thought the cut of the Irish boy and his environment the real thing.