Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-23
IS
REDUCED TO WANT
TEACHER IS ATTACKED BY
LANDLORD
Writes Last Appeal to Los Angeles
Educators, In Which He Scores
Citizens for Their In
difference

!
for the cause of humanity in education
of the masses came to light yesterday
afternoon when Constable De La Monte
was called to interfere in an argu-
ment between q landlord and Prof. M.
G. Simkins, one of the most thorough
exponents of Esperanto language" In
this country.
| The professor, reduced to positive
want through failure of his plans in
Los Angeles, engaged in argument with
his landlord or his landlords represen-
tative with disastrous results, for the
aged professor was attacked and in
jured before the officers interfered.
Prof. Simkins came to Los Angeles
several months ago from the east. His
plan was to establish Esperanto thor
oughly in the Los Angeles schools and
colleges before moving northward and
advancing the language to every COL
| lege on the coast that would receive it.
Esperanto is the universal language, a
language which ALI the nations of the
world are learning to some degree and
which the exponents thereof hope to
make the one language of the world.
Writes Final Appeal
Some of the big eastern colleges ac-
cepted 1t, and Prof. Simkins, one of the
lllOSC lIlOIOu6n pIOl6SSOLS VI lIlG new
language, came west in the hope of
establishing 1t here. Prof. Simkins is a
brilliant man, we'll educated, and his
enthusiasm for his new language was
magnificent. but he met with failure.
The instructors of the city did
not take to the new language. 1t
failed to appeal to them in the light
that it had to the easterners, and Prof.
SimkinS and his aged wife were re-
duced to want, and finally to the HUI
initiation of an attack from their land
lord.
Yesterday a final appeal which Prof.
Simkins had written and which set
forth in pitiful detail his fight to estab-
lish the language he loved in the Los
Angeles colleges, was found at his
home. 1t reads as follows:
MY LAST APPEAL
"An open letter to President Bovard,
| University Southern California; Pres
ident Baer, Occidental college; Su
| perintendent Moore, Los Angeles pub
lie schools; Superintendent Emery,
Harvard Military school; Superinten-
| dent Adams Yale School for Boys;
the principals of Los Angeles COM
mercial schools; the principals of
the several girls academic schools,
and the heads of education in Los
Angeles generally:
II must first give you an incident,
because it leads directly UP to the main
subject which now, for the last time,
have to present to you.
1.-TWO days ago l received from Eng
land a set of lessons in universal Ian
guage, printed in Braille character for
the blind.
"All over the civilized globe arrange
ments have been made to carry delega-
tions of blind children to Cambridge,
England, the coming August, where.
before the third worlds congress of
the international language, the blind of
all nations will give oral and visible
manifestations of that new heaven
which this wonderful discovery has
opened up to them by enabling those
of different races and languages to COM
municate freely with one another. I
say the blind of all nations will have
this glorious opportunity freely. No!
The blind of America alone, in all hu-
man probability, will not have it. Why?
Because those of your class, ladies and
gentlemen, who are supposed to be
right in the van of educational prog
ress, you who hold the position of
teachers against all intruders, you fall
back upon the childish plea, which each
and every one of you have repeatedly
made to me: I haven't time
I'm France blind man, DIR. Emil
JdNdls VIII IldS dCHIcNeu lHOT6
| ton in the fields of education and of
science than have all you put together,
nevertheless in his busy life has taken
time to lay the foundations yes, and
to direct the building of the super
structure of this grand work in one de.
partment of education.
Work Going On
"All this may be news to you. He
died a few days ,,go, and if educators
in other lands were like you, ladies and
gentlemen, that work would stop. But
| it's going right on. The only difference
in results will be the greater disgrace
to this countr.' for it's apathy engen-
dered and fostered by your conduct.
Indeed, had it been left to you, ladies
would hardly have ever heard as yet
that such a stupendous movement
toward human brotherhood is in exis-
tence. But another foreign teacher who