It was a general belief that all “Dutchmen” were cowards, and on the playground this idea was acted upon with considerable spirit. I was made the target of many a joke that I took in good part, until I realized that something positive was required of me. Then when a husky lad taunted me with being a “square-headed Dutchman,” and refused my demand that he “take it back,” my fighting blood was roused, and I administered a sound thrashing, the result of sheer, unscientific force. Nothing evokes the admiration of the gallant Irish so much as a good fight, and the result of that battle was the liking of my comrades, and especially one of the leaders among them, John F. Carroll, later familiar to New Yorkers as a leader in Tammany.
About this time I made up my mind to enter City College and, to prepare for that, I began looking about for a school which ranked higher than No. 18. There were a number of these, foremost among which were the Thirteenth and Twenty-third Street schools. I applied at both, but they were full. The next in rank was No. 14, in Twenty-seventh Street near Third Avenue, where they admitted me to the fourth class. I gladly accepted this comparative demotion, so as to utilize advantageously the two years remaining before I reached the college-entrance age, began my studies there in March of ’68, under Miss Rosina Hartman, a fine old spinster and a good teacher, and finished both her class and the third class before I was twelve.
I was hardly settled in my seat in the second class when the following incident took place:
Mr. Abner B. Holley, who taught the first class, came into the room and complained about the mathematical shortcomings of the boys just promoted into his care; he explained that in his method of teaching arithmetic, it was essential to have someone for leader, as a sort of spur for the pupils. He gave us fifteen examples: speed and accuracy were to be the tests; and the boy who solved them most quickly and correctly was to be promoted. I finished first and handed up my slate. Holley carefully compared my answers with those on his slip and, before any other pupil was ready to submit his work, rapped for attention, and said:
“As these answers are all correct, there is no need of any other boy finishing. Morgenthau wins the promotion.”
Being too young to graduate in ’69, I remained under Holley until June, 1870. He was an excellent instructor, and it required no effort on my part to keep the lead in mathematics. In fact, he took pride in displaying my efficiency, and whenever any trustee, or other visitor, came to school, they would have a general assembly of all the pupils and then he would have me solve promptly some such problem in mental arithmetic as computing the interest on $350 for three years, six months, and twelve days at 6 per cent. Thus, as I required little of my time for what was, to most of the boys, our most exacting study, I devoted all my spare time to improving my pronunciation and mastering the spelling of English which is so hard for a boy not born to the language. I won 100 per cent. perfect marks throughout my second year and when, with about nine hundred other boys, I took my City College entrance-examination, I was well up among the three hundred selected for admission.
I always look back with pleasure on those years in Public School No. 14. Iron stairways, modern desks, and electric lights have been installed since my day; the Irish and German pupils have passed, the Italian tide is ebbing; on the student list Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, and Armenian names now predominate—there is sometimes even a Chinese name to be found. At exercises there, attended by three of my classmates and by Dr. John H. Finley, New York’s Commissioner of Education, I celebrated, in 1920, the fiftieth anniversary of my graduation; I took the 1,900 pupils to a moving-picture show, and commenced my now regular custom of giving four watches twice a year to members of the graduating class; but as I then reviewed the past and looked at the present, I felt that the old spirit had been well preserved and that, whatever the nationality of the children who enter the old school, they all leave it American citizens.
When I left there, I had my eyes longingly fixed upon the City College, but the law was then already my ultimate aim and wages were essential, so I spent my “vacation” as errand boy and general-utility lad in the law offices of Ferdinand Kurzman, at $4.00 a week. In those days little was known of “big business”; there were no vast corporations requiring continuous legal advice, and so the lawyers clustered within three or four blocks of the court-house; Kurzman’s quarters were at 306 Broadway, at the corner of Duane Street.
My early duties were the copying and serving of papers, but the time soon came when, young though I was, I was sent to the District Court to answer the calendar and, occasionally, fight for an adjournment. Stenographers and typewriters being practically unknown, the lawyer would dictate and his clerks transcribe in longhand, make the required number of copies with pen and ink and then compare the results and correct any errors. It was only when more than twenty copies were required that printing would be resorted to.
Such was my existence from June 21st until September 16, 1870. All the while, I tried to further my education. I had joined the Mercantile Library in the previous February. Within a short time, I was attending the Cooper Institute classes in elocution and debating, and later secured instruction in grammar and composition at the Evening High School in Thirteenth Street. I tried to do as much good reading as I could, and I find that my list for 1871 ranges from Cooper’s “Spy,” “David Copperfield,” and “The Vicar of Wakefield” to Hume’s “History of England,” Mill’s “Logic,” and “The Iliad.”