CHAPTER XVIII.
THE "LAMBS" OF COTTAGE PLACE.
Beyond a certain point, the history of these various schools becomes monotonous. It is simply a history of kindness, of patience, of struggles with ignorance, poverty, and intemperance; of lives poured out for the good of those who can never make a return, of steady improvement and the final elevation of great numbers of children and youth who are under these permanent and profound influences.
In no one of the many branches whose labors and results I am describing, has probably so much vitality been expended, so much human earnestness been offered with such patience, humility, and faith, as in the humble Mission of "Cottage Place."
It began with a "Boys' Meeting," under Mr. Macy, a practical philanthropist, of whom I shall speak again.
The quarter is a very notorious one, and contains numbers of idle and vagrant boys and girls. The success of Mr. Macy with the meeting, and the experience he gained there of a wild class of girls induced him and his sisters to attempt in 1859 to found a School for girls; to this was gradually added a "Free Reading-room," a library, and various temperance and other associations. Ladies of position and wealth were attracted to it, as well as others, from seeing the quiet and earnest nature of the work done; there was no show or "blowing of trumpets," or any great expense, but there were two or three men and women connected with it who evidently thought night and day of the rough boys and miserable girls that attended it; who felt no toil too great, if it could truly benefit these unfortunate creatures.
The lady-volunteers seemed to catch the same spirit of Christian sacrifice and earnestness. One who has since become a missionary in a distant heathen land, poured out here for these American heathen some of the best years of her youth in the most enthusiastic and constant labors.
Others visited the homes of the poor, some taught in the classes, and all labored with their own hands to arrange the festivals and dinners which they provided so freely for the needy children. For twelve years now those young ladies or their friends have wrought, unceasingly at this labor of love.
The great burden of the School, however, fell on Miss Macy, a woman of long experience with this class, and a profound and intense spirit of humanity. I never shall forget the scene (as reported to me) when, at the opening of the School, after the July riots in 1863 against the colored people, a deputation of hard-looking, heavy-drinking Irish women, the mothers of some twenty or thirty of the children, waited on her to demand the exclusion of some colored children. In the most amiable and Quaker-like manner, but with the firmness of the old Puritan stock from which she sprung, she assured them that, if every other scholar left, so long as that school remained it should never be closed to any child on account of color. They withdrew their children, but soon after returned them.
Like the other Schools, the Cottage Place gives a great deal of assistance to the poor, but it does so in connection with education, and therefore creates no pauperism.
The same experience is passed through here as under the other Schools. The children are nearly all the offspring of drunkards, but they do not themselves drink as they grow up. The slovenly learn cleanliness, the vagrant industry, the careless punctuality and order. Thieving was very prevalent in the School when it was founded; now it is never known. All have been beggars; but, as they improve under teaching, and when they leave their homes, they never follow begging as a pursuit. Hardly a graduate of the School, whether boy or girl, is known who has become a thief, or beggar, or criminal, or prostitute. Such is the power of daily kindness and training, of Christianity early applied.
Outside of the School, great numbers of lads are brought under the influence of the "Bands of Hope," the "Reading-room," and the lectures and amusements offered them.
The result of all this has been noticed by the neighboring manufacturers in the moral improvement of the Ward.
THE LITTLE BEGGARS OF THE FIRST WARD.
One of the eye-sores which used to trouble me was the condition of the city behind Trinity Church. Often and often have I walked through Greenwich and Washington Streets, or the narrow lanes of the quarter, watching the ragged, wild children flitting about; or have visited the damp underground basements which every high tide flooded, crowded with men, women, and children; or climbed to the old rookeries, packed to the smallest attic with a wretched population, and have wished so that something might be done for this miserable quarter, which is in a Ward where more wealth is accumulated than in any other one place in America.
First I induced our Board to send a careful agent through the district, to collect exact statistics. Then an application was made to the wealthy Corporation of Trinity Church, to assist or to found some charitable enterprise for this wretched population under the shadow of its spire. For two years we continued these applications, but without avail. Then it occurred to me that we should try the business-men who were daily passing these scenes of misery and crime.
Fortunately, I struck upon a young merchant of singular conscientiousness of purpose, who had felt for a long time the sad evils of the Ward. With him I addressed another gentleman of a well-known elevation of character, and a certain manly persistency that led him never to turn back when he had "put his hand to the plow." A few personal friends joined them, and I soon saw that we were secure of the future. Our leader had a great social influence, and he at once turned it to aid his philanthropic scheme; he himself, gave freely, and called upon his friends for money. The School was founded in 1860, and at once gathered in a large number of the waifs of the First Ward, and has had a like happy influence with our other Schools.
Our treasurer and leader, Mr. J. Couper Lord—alas! too early taken from us all—sustained it himself in good part during disastrous years. Through his aid, also, a Free Reading-room was founded in the same building, which has been more uniformly successful and useful than any similar enterprise in the city. His devotion to the interests of these poor people has left an enduring harvest of good through the whole quarter.
The following extract from our Journal will give a good idea of the changes effected by this charity, now rightly called the "Lord School":—
A STREET-SWEEPER IN THE LORD SCHOOL.
"For a number of years, the writer of this remembers a little girl in the First Ward School who was a kind of bete noir of the school—Ann Jane T——. Both of her parents were drunkards, and were half the time on the Island under arrest; she herself was twice found drunk in the School before she was thirteen years old; once she attacked the teacher violently. She swept crossings for a living, and 'lived about,' often sleeping in halls and stairways; for a year she occupied the same bed and living-room with eight large boys and girls from the school, and some thirteen grown people; the lower part of the house was a dance-saloon and place of bad character. Annie seemed a hopeless case; she swore and used the most vile language, and was evidently growing up to be a most abandoned woman. The teacher of the Lord Industrial School, Miss Blodgett, was a person of singular sweetness and dignity of character, as well as remarkable personal beauty. She soon acquired a great influence over the wild girl. Once little Annie was found waiting with her broom in a bitter storm of sleet and hail on a corner, and the teacher asked her why she was there? and why she did not go home? She said she only wanted just to see the teacher—and the fact was she hadn't any home—'for you know. Miss Blodgett, there is no one cares for me in all New York but you!' This touched the teacher's heart.
"At length the father died on Blackwell's Island, and the mother was in prison, and Miss B. persuaded Annie to go away to a place she had found for her in an excellent family in the West. When the mother came out she was furious, and often made Miss B. tremble for fear she would insist on having the child back; but she gradually saw her absence was for the best. Now the mother is permanently in the Alms-house.
"The following letter came recently about Annie, who has been in her place some three years. The liberal and kind friends of the School will feel that one such case will repay all their sacrifices. Yet there are hundreds like them, though not so striking.
"It should be observed that nearly all the scholars live a good deal as Annie did, in crowded tenements, and more or less associated with dance-saloons and places of bad character. Yet only one has ever gone astray. Here is the letter:
"'F——, ILL., Feb. 15, 1870.
"'MY DEAR MISS FLAGG—Your favor of the 25th ult. was duly received. I am very happy to be able to give you good accounts of Annie, about whom you inquire. She has been with us constantly since she left you, and is now our main dependence. We have sent her to school a considerable portion of the time, and she is now in constant attendance there. Her truthfulness and honesty are something quite remarkable. We do not think she has eaten a piece of cake or an apple, without special permission, since she has been with us. Nothing seems to give her more pleasure than to be able to do something, especially for Mrs. W. or myself. We have been inquired of about getting such girls, by other people—our friends. Have you others whom you wish to place in situations which we could assure you would be good? If so, please inform me as to the manner in which you are accustomed to do it. Do you pay their fare to their new home, and are there any other particulars about which parties would wish to be informed? Respectfully yours, "'GEO. W. W.'"
Since Mr. Lord's death, another treasurer, Mr. D. E. Hawley is bearing the burden of the School, and, in company with a committee of prominent businessmen of the First Ward, is making it a benefit not to be measured, to all the poor people of the quarter.
A TRULY "RAGGED SCHOOL."
It is remarkable that the School which is most of a "Ragged School," of all these, is in one of the former fashionable quarters of the city. The quaint, pleasing old square called St John's Park is now occupied as a freight depot, and the handsome residences bordering it have become tenement-houses. Between the grand freight station and the river, overlooked by the statue of the millionaire, are divers little lanes and alleys, filled with a wretched population.
Their children are gathered into this School. An up-hill work the teachers have had of it thus far, owing to the extreme poverty and misery of the parents, and the little aid received from the fortunate classes.
FOURTEENTH WARD SCHOOL.
This is a large and useful charity, and is guided by two sisters of great elevation of purpose and earnestness of character, who are known as "Friends of the Poor" in all that quarter.
THE COLORED SCHOOL.
Here gather great numbers of destitute colored children of the city. Some are rough boys and young men, who are admirably controlled by a most gentle lady, who is Principal; her assistant was fittingly prepared for the work by teaching among the freedmen.
The colored people of the city seldom fall into such helpless poverty as the foreign whites; still there is a good deal of destitution and exposure to temptation among them. The children seem to learn as readily as whites, though they are afflicted with a more sullen temper, and require to be managed more delicately—praise and ridicule being indispensable implements for the teacher. Their singing far surpasses that of our other scholars.
Among our other schools is a most useful one for a peculiarly wild class, in the Rivington-street Lodging-house; one in West Fifty-third and in West Fifty-second Streets, and a very large and well-conducted one for the shanty population near the Park, called
THE PARK SCHOOL.
A very spirited teacher here manages numbers of wild boys and ungoverned girls. The most interesting feature is a Night-school, where pupils come, some from a mile distant, having labored in factories or street-trades all day long—sometimes even giving up their suppers for the sake of the lessons, with a hunger for knowledge which the children of the favored classes know little of. Two other Schools shall conclude our catalogue—one in the House of Industry (West Sixteenth Street), and the other in the Eighteenth-street Lodging-house. Both Schools are struggling with great obstacles and difficulties, as they are planted in the quarter which has produced the notorious "Nineteenth-street Gang." The teacher in the latter has already overcome most of them, and has tamed as wild a set of little street-barbarians as ever plagued a school-teacher.
A rigid rule has been laid down and followed out in these Schools—that is, not to admit or retain pupils who might be in the Public Schools. Our object is to supplement these useful public institutions, and we are continually sending the children forth, when they seem fit, to take places in the Free Schools. Many, however, are always too poor, ragged and necessarily irregular in attendance, to be adapted to the more systematic and respectable places of instruction. As been already mentioned, the plan has been steadily pursued from the beginning by the writer, to make these as good Primary Schools as under the circumstances they were capable of becoming. The grade of the teachers has been constantly raised, and many of the graduates of our best training academy for teachers in New York State—the Oswego Normal School—have been secured at remunerative salaries.
Within the last four years, also, a new officer has been appointed by the Board of Trustees, to constantly examine the schools and teachers, keep them at the highest grade possible, and visit the families of the children. This place has been ably filled by an intelligent and educated gentleman, Mr. John W. Skinner, with the best effects on our system of instruction.
Our plan of visitation among the families of the poor, whereby the helping hand is held out to juvenile poverty and ignorance all the while, has been effectually carried out by a very earnest worker, Mr. M. Dupuy, in the lower wards, and by a young German-American of much judgment and zeal, Mr. Holste, in the German quarter, and by quite a number of female visitors.
[Illustration: "PLEASE SIR, MAY I HAVE A BED?" (A sketch from life.) NO. 1.]