New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-04-16

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as they come in the minds Of the boys.
SCHOOL PRINCIPALS AND TEACHERS
WERE 4 BIT SKEPTICAL AT FIRST.
Several months ago Commissioner Woods
sent the first squad Of sergeants to the public
schools. The boys took to them at sight, but
the teachers and principals had to be per-
suaded that there wasn't some dark motive
behind the visit Occasionally it was neces-
sary for the sergeant TO repeat to the prn
cipal the speech he intended 10 deliver 70 the
boys and more than once. as a result of this,
the boys have heard most Of it from the prin
cipal when the sergeant was introduced from
the assembly room platform. leaving the poor
policeman to rack his brains for something new
and entertaining 70 say.
Now there are eighteen sergeants in the
squad-men selected for their good sense as
well as their ability to speak engagngy They
have visited each public school in Manhattan
three times. have been to every reformatory
at least once, and now are busy in Brooklyn.
The results as typiied by letters written to
the sergeants by boys in the various schools.
may be considered gratifying. Thousands of
them have promised to be good, not because the
sergeant-who is the poiceman's master, re-
member-wants them TO- but because they have
been persuaded its really more fun to be good
than bad.
In addition to the school lessons, the Police
Commissioner has instituted genuine reform
in the matter Of arrests for trivial violations
of city ordinances. Nowadays. when police
fb, IN, eshp
hours, he picks him up and takes him to school
"a punishment infinitely more painful than
carting him of to 4 station. 1t used to be
that boys could 90 back to their street corners
and boast Of having been arrested for truancy.
Now about all they can do is TO try TO per
suade their companions that they didn't get
good whaling when they got home from school
with a note from the principal TO their stern
and perhaps not too Spartan fathers. The
same rule applies 10 boys who are caught
hitching TO wagons and automobiles. They
aren't arrested. .but the scodng they get from
the policeman is punishment.
The lecture plan, worked out with the con-
sent of the Board of Education, and perfected
at Police Headquarters by Inspector Cornelius
Cahalane. in charge of the training school,
gives each sergeant a syllabus 70 talk from.
They visit the 462 schools in Manhattan on
schedule and talk to the boys from ten to hf-
teen minutes at the morning assembly. The
Commissioner does not pretend that the SER
geant is delivering a new message, but he IS
convinced that even an old one, delivered by
man in police uniform, carries much more
weight than if it had come from a teacher.
When the sergeant walks into the school
room there is excited whispering. What is he
doing there? Is he going to pinch some
body? No. that can't be. He's sergeant,
and about all a sergeant does is to go around
making cops behave. Maybe cop has sneaked
into the school building and fallen asleep.
Won't it be sport when the sergeant finds him
and drag5 him out, to bawl him out before the
whole school? There he goes to the platform.
lie isn't going 10 say anything? Hardly that.
The poceman's one motive IN life is to cause
people inconvenience. BY golly, he is going 70
say something.
In another minute the boys are hearing how
they can have fun in the streets without break