The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-12-09

Here again the little characters of the first book with their irresistible man. nerisms and dialect, furnish entertain- ment and newer glimpses of a phase of metropolitan life of whose existence few people were familiar before Miss Kelly published her first story She excels perhaps all others of the pres ent day, in writing with understand ing and sympathy concerning children, especially those in tenement house dis tricts. She has, moreover, clear, trenehant and animated style of dic- ton and the pictures she draws are very realistic. Excellent illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele add to the att tractiveness of the book All, or nearly all, of the stories in the book have ap- peared in McCure's Magazine, where they have attracted no less attention and favorable comment than the first which she contributed to that publica- ton; indeed, more than one of these stories, notably Little Bo-Peep," has revealed a new quality and a new power that had not hitherto been sus- pected in this author. Hitherto she has been most successful in treating the humorous aspects of the alien life that have been revealed to her through her observations as a sehool-teacher in New York's ghetto Tn Little Bo- Peep" however, she has shown an ability to handle an episode of the most tragic significance with profound pathos, yet with the most artistic re- straint
 Miss Kelly's foreword to her new volume tells most concisely of her work and aims and is as follows: T have often been asked how, now that I have left the East Side, find my material for stories of life in that quarter. Tn publishing this second col lection of tales about Little Citizen I welcome the opportunity to answer this question, since it enables me to speak directly to all my readers. whose interest in my work, so often and gen erously expressed has meant much to me Of course, although am no long CT teacher, I have by no means se- vered all connection with the East Side. I frequently go back to visit my friends of the Ghetto who have not, I am grateful to say, altogether forgot ten me, f I may judge by -he letters I occasionally receive from Morris Mog- ilewsly Sadie Gonorowsky and their associates. Other friends, in the schools or not, write me incidents and keep me- posted concerning events which they know will be of interest to me. And still have store of note books and memories"
 Miss Kelly then speaks with feeling of the people she has met and studied, and refers gratefully to letter from ] President Roosevelt in which he praises her work and her motives NO one" she says, Knows better than the ; President how deeply the problems of q city are those of the nation itself and how tremendous trust has been committed to It in making it the Mother of ,he Warde of I.iberfyS The letter which the President wrote Miss Kelly adds, referred to the story en- titled "In Loco Parents" which she has placed first in her collection in the present volume. The Presidents letter follows:
 Cy0ICl Aodyi 1Ns
 My dear Miss Kelly:
 Mrs. Roosevelt and and most of the children know your very amusing and very pathetic accounts of East Side school-children almost by heart, md I really think you must let me write and thank you for them. While I was Police Commissioner I quite of- ten went to the Houston Street public school and was immensely interested and impressed by what saw there. I thought there were good many Miss Baileys there, and the work they were doing among their scholars (who were so largely of Russlan-Jewish parent age, like the children you write of) was very much like what your Miss Bailey has done.
 Now a word of preaching-not to Miss Kelly, but to Miss Bailey. The scrape into which Miss Bailey got by following too closely Messrs Froebel and Pestalozzi (and these eminent men, like most other human beings, diluted their good work with bad work) was because of not seeing, and therefore not tellingathe plain, whole some truth To try to teach her pupils that there should never be any appeal to force when they lived under con- ditions which meant reversion to the primitive cave man if it were not for the continually exercised ability of the father of Patrick Brennan to cope with the Uncle Abys, amounted nere- ly to the effort to give them ideals ,4oI, when they got outside of the school room; and think it is an abomination to teach people ideals that will not work, because. instead of understand ing as they ought to that it is only false ideals which do not work they in such cases generally jump to the conclusion that no ideals at all will work. Teach them that the wrong is not in lighting, but in fighting for a wrong cause 'or without full and ade- quate cause, and you teach them what l is true and right and what they can act up to; but teach them that all r fighting is wrong, that the wars of | Washington and Napoleon are of the same stamp, that Lincoln and Attila l are on same ethical level and the re- suit is either vicious or nil If Miss [ Bailey's steady" the Doctor, would not knock down man who had in- suited her, would have a mighty poor opinion of him; but if he were brutal to the weak, or bully, or a tyrant, would have an even worse f opinion of him.
 2 There! I suppose I have been preaching again, when only meant to write a word of thanks and apprecia-