Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-21
ARE PROVING APT PUPILS
Experience Little Difficulty With
First Lessons in English.
COURTESY TO THEIR TEACHER
Boys Instructor Greatly Surprised
When She Is Honored in True
Oriental Style.


They are Serf Eddin Khan. aged twelve;
Mozaffer Eddin Khan. aged fifteen, and
Mohamed Ameen Khan, aged sixteen.
Serf and Mozaffer are brothers. Mo-
named is a cousin. They are living with
the secretary of the Persian legation at
1900 Belmont road They were sent here
by the Persian government TO receive an
American education, and after looking
the field over it was decided to place
them in a public school in Washington.
They never spoke a word of English
before yesterday: yet. marvellous 10 re-
late, they approach the top or the sec
ond grade class today They are re-
markably quick, and quickest of all is the
Youngest prince, Serf. He and Mozaffer
came alone to school today. for their
cousin became enamored of coastlng down
Columbia road hill on a miniature auto
mobile and cut his hand after school
yesterday.
1t did not bother the principal. Mrs
Smith. when she learned the boys could
speak no English. She says she often mas
had that problem. So she sent them to
the second grade. where Miss Mcnamara
started their education by holding up a
box of chalk. Box, she said. BOX,
they answered. and after that teacher
and princes were firm friends.
Princes Sit at a Table.
The princes sit at a table, because the
furniture of the second grade is too small
for them On the table Us a plebeian pickle
jar with bunch of golden rod. With
this national flower the little oriental aris-
tocrats got their first lesson in American
citizenship.
They crowned their first day at an
American school with courtesy. When the
bell rang for the second grades to let
OUT for the morning the teacher was
standing with her back to the princes.
She heard a soft chatter in strange
tongue and. turning, she saw Serf Eddln
Mazaffer Eddin and Mohammed Ameen
with their hands spread out in front or
them, gracefully bowling to her and paying
their respects in pure Persian. She felt
odd. 1t was her first experience with three
Persian princes and an oriental salaam.
This morning a Star reporter went to
the Cooke School to see these boys. To
get things straight right away Miss Nc
Namara explained in hurry that their
title of khan was not family name. Oh.
no. it signified royal birth, and is used
something like esquire was used orig
inally. So with that all straight the
visitor watched.s
Salaam as They Enter.
Serf, aged twelve, came first. He has
big round brown eyes and roguish face.
Behind him came Mozaffer, his brother,
aged fifteen, who has downy mustache.
They salaamed and took their places by
the pickle jar. Little American boys and
girls came trooping in. The little princes
watched them without displaying trace
of ill-bred curiosity. Miss Mcnamara
of "Arnold's Primers" Like a true gen.
tleman the littlest prince jumped to his
feet and, bowling to his teacher, took the
books from her. He remembered from
yesterday, and, going down the line Of
desks, he put primer before each little
girl and boy. Yesterday the teacher
did It.
Miss Mcnamara held up some blank
paper and looked inQuiringly at the two
boys.
..Pay-per" said one of them. hesitattisg
w. He remembered from yesterday, too.
Then they all spelled "goldenrod." 1t
took Serf about twelve seconds to re-
member the combination of letters. which
he had never, never heard before. He
spelled it, too, faltering only on the cor
rect pronunciation of the letters. But
he spelded it, and just to show that he
knew what it was. he put his hand upon
the flowers in the plebeian pickle jar.
Ten little boys and girls went to the
blackboard and wrote the word from
copy. Then they wrote 1T with the
copy erased.
Exercise at Blackboard.
in the room went up, including the brown
hand of the littlest prince. 1t was almost
certain that he did not know what the
teacher meant. but up to the black
board he marched, with his older brother
by him, and the two of them wrote
.goldenrod, the first word in English
they had ever written. They wrote 1t
fast. and very WELL While they were
doing it a girl next to them was strug-
.rpl. ll,o
produce the marvellous effect Of a word
that looked like .'gol darn red Miss
Mcnamara made her rub it out in
jify.
pupils were gathered for opening exer-
cises. A piano struck by strong hands
was starting the opening chords of MY
Country, Tis of Thee and big school
prince became a real boy His face
frightened. his brown eyes flashed and he
smiled, and then he actually grinned He
looked over at the visiting newspaper man
and just chortled with boyish Joy. That
American music sounded good to him.
Miss Mcnamara looked inquiringly at
the littlest prince
WHAT she asked.
''TZing.' chorted Serf.
Sing" corrected Miss Mcnamara
''TZ-ing," said Serf.
IL was a medley they were singing and
playing outside. The American national
air gave way 10 the tOredQOr song from
Carmen" and the Pilgrims Chorus" fol-
lowed that. The littlest prince wiggled
with delight. After "Tannhauser" came
something from Aida" which Verdi
wrote at the request of a shah of the
princes own land, and after that the big
girls and boys In the hall outside trilled
along a little from Loves Old Sweet
Song" and the littlest prince just loved it,
He was boy, and boyish boy at that.
Hands Book to Girl.
But suddenly he became the lttlest
prince again. A very small and very
pretty little girl came in. late. She was
prettied out in white and pink and sweet
as honey. She looked shyly at her
teacher and then looked shyly at the lit
tlest prince. She was seven and he was
twelve. He looked at her. solemnly and
respectfully. He saw she had no Ar
nold's primer. Slipping from his chair,
regardless of the lesson going on, he
went TO the pile of primers and selected
one
Then going slowly and sedately to the
little pink and white girl he handed the
book to her. She took it with a little
girls smirk. All she saw was a dark
faced little boy giving her book
But IL was really little prince showing
his innate respect for ladykind.
for he salaamed slowly just as they do
In Persia. while outside the piano was
rafting away at a march from q comic
opera.