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