New-York tribune., 1909-10-17
SCHOOL ON A BOAT
Miss Hartman Lends Susquehanna
to Little COnSun ptiUes.

i used TO be a country School teacner,' was tho
way John Birdsell, the teacher in the school for
little consumptives just opened the ferryboat
Susquehanna, at the foot OF Columbia street.
Brooklyn, explained his ability to handle mixed
grades He needs the ability. The children regis
tered in the school range all the way from small
boy not long out Of the kindergarten to a girl
who is doing high schOoi work There are eighteen
OF them now, but the Board OF Education has pro-
Vded forty desks. and Miss Lucy +. Ryder, the
nurse in charge of the boat, says new pupils are
coming in every day. and she thinks the desks
viii soon be filed
Various agencies cooperate in this school. Miss
Mary Hartman eldest daughter OF the late E. H.
Hartman, loans the boat to the Board OF Educa-
tion. She loaned Il last summer to the Brooklyn
Committee the Prevention of tuberculosis for
a day camp for cOnsumptives. which camp is still
continued on the boat The Committee the
Prevention Of tuberculosis provides the visiting
nurse Miss Austin who rounds up the little truant
consumptives when they don't come to school, Tho
Board of Health sends couple OF DOCTORS John
l. Baker and Hartwig Kandt, to visit the boat
three times a week The Red Cross is interested.
too and II was money from the Red Cross stamps
that made the day camp possible last summer.
More stamps will be sold at Christmas time prob
ably, to help buy the milk and eggs and other
necessaries for the tubercular pupils
There is fresh air galore where the Susuuehanna
lies, on the edge OF the Erie Basin. On one side
rise forests OF masts from the vessels that shoulder
one another IN the Basin On the other are the
not far distant. AS the boat now lies the school
room looks toward the Basin but when Il is taken
over 70 the foot of SSth street, it probably will
be soon, that room Will be the water side. II
really isn't room at adjust a part OF the deck
partitiOned off; and here Il is purposed that the
children shall study and recite, well wrapped up,
without any heat, matter what the weather
THE thirst for fresh air which they all acquire
after coming here awhile some family
Scraps, I'm told,' said Miss Ryder. ''YOu know,
/ Of
night and. OF course, after filling their lungs with
this outdoor air all day they can't endure the
stufy rooms most OF their families live in Some
OF the older ones tell me they just stay the
roof or in the street when they home, till bed
time. Most Of them have bedrooms to themselves,
they have the windows open.
Where do the children come from? Why various
parts Of Brooklyn, OF them from East New
York. There's pitiful case" the nurse added,
z under her BREATH as thin girl OF thirSeen so
Came along the deck toward the schoolroom. Her
mother died last summer. and she lives with two
/ older sisters both Of whom tubercuar, but
able TO work That child is crazy about flowers.
When she's coming across the vacant lots from the
| trolley in the morning-she lives in the heart OF
| the tenement district-she picks every little wild
| flower and every weed she can find, and brings
them TO US. I wish she could be at Stony Void,
| but she has a temperature, so I don't suppose
| they'd take her now. But she's getting better,
only her stomach's upset, SO she can't eat much.
Every child who comes here is a child who's
| been turned away from the public schools because
OF having consumption. And not one OF them is
from the batch had last summer. We had
fOrty-four children in the summer day camp. and
all but two improved so they admitted to the
| regular schools this fall And one OF those two
was physically all right, but his nerves were out
| of order.
When the children report, at o'clock. they get
milk and eggs all around Then Mr.. Birdsel puts
them through their arithmetic, beginning with the
| higher grades and getting by degrees down to the
/ "a children. Then they take reading, geography
| and so on. and at noon stop for good, hot din
/ ner OF soup, meat, vegetables and dessert. They
rest till I3O o'clock. when school is called. In the
| afternoon they have milk and eggs again.
| Il don't push them in their studies" Mr.. Bird
sell said. They are here to get well first OF ALL
/ Mr.. Birdsen knows how is himsef for he has
/ had consumption.
'"The school is boon 10 some Of these children,
Miss Ryder added There's one boy here who
cried like a baby, his mother said. when he was
turned away from the school where he'd been
going Then his mother heard OF this school. and
he comes faithfully every day. He's one OF the
unfortunate Ones-not enough clothes to keep him
warm. But somebody gave me S, and bought
an Oyercoat for him. and already he begins to look
better"
The school the Susquehanna is a part Of Pub
lie School q at Nelson and Hicks street, Brooklyn.