“As I told you the other day, people have been in the habit, or to speak more correctly, were in the habit during the ante-bellum days, of regarding firemen as a lot of toughs and loafers who got together to have a good time and a big hurrah, and sometimes even for political purposes, and comparatively few really knew what a fireman’s life meant. Well, when you look at those books there, many of which were written by people of the highest eminence in science or literature, you realize that there must be something in the art of overcoming the most destructive and dangerous of all the elements to excite the attention and enlist the brains of these men. Now take this book for example and glance through it.”
Bruce took a large flat volume which Mr. Dewsnap handed him, opened it, and glanced attentively at some of its copper plates. They represented men in quaint, old-fashioned costumes, engaged in putting out fires by the most primitive of means, chiefly by leather buckets passed from hand to hand. The book, as Mr. Dewsnap explained, was printed in 1735 in Holland by Jan vander Heiden, the first inventor of flexible hose. It was an exhaustive treatise on conflagrations and the art of extinguishing them.
“What did they make the hose of in those days?” asked Bruce, as he studied the old-fashioned prints with deep attention.
“Leather,” replied Mr. Dewsnap. “And leather continued to be used until forty years ago. In fact, it’s used to a great extent to this very day in the smaller towns and cities where fires are of rare occurrence. There are some men who claim that it is better than rubber because it lasts longer and does not rot so easily, but I just showed you that book because its pictures would give you some idea of the enormous advancement that has been made in the last century and a half. Here’s another book written in German that is devoted entirely to the burning of the Theatre Comique in Paris a few years ago. Four books in all have been written and published on that subject alone, but strange to say, no book has yet been written in regard to the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre, which was a catastrophe involving an infinitely greater loss of life. It is interesting, by the way, to know that every great fire teaches us some important lesson, and the direct result of the Brooklyn Theatre fire was a number of new laws which govern the construction of theatres, and provides for various improvements and appliances for safety that had never been thought of before.”
“Why is it,” inquired Bruce, “that so many of these books seem to be by French, German or English authors, instead of by Americans? It seems to me that as we have the best department in the world, the best books on the subject ought to be by American writers.”
Mr. Dewsnap smiled broadly at the boy’s remark. “That’s a very pertinent question, my lad,” he said, “and the answer to it is simply this: Those foreigners are more given to writing and talking and thinking than we are. Here we go ahead and do things without stopping to write books about them. I’m expecting some foreigners here within a short time, and when they come I shall take them down to call on Chief Trask. If you see them, you will understand what I mean when I speak of the difference between Americans and either Germans or Englishmen.”
“What do you consider the greatest improvement that has been made in the department in your recollection?” asked the boy.
“Well, to my mind, though I would not have admitted it twenty years ago, I think that the fact that politics has been eliminated from the department is one of the chief things that we have to be thankful for, and I believe that it is almost the first time in the history of the world that a fire department has been run without mixing it with political affairs. Why, before the birth of Christ, the Emperor Pompey once refused to allow a new fire company to be formed in Rome because he knew that it was merely an excuse to get together a new crowd of his political opponents, and in the old days when I used to run with a company, politics and the fire department were very much mixed up. I could give you the names of dozens of men who have reached the highest offices in the city and have climbed all the way up by means of their connection with the fire department. Some of these were good men and others were not. But nowadays when a lad like yourself enters the service he sees nothing ahead of him except that service, and the consequence is if he stays in it he devotes himself to his duties with no object in view except to become chief of the department. At least that’s what he ought to do.
“But for all its politics and its toughs, the members of the old department had just as much pluck and were just as ready to take the hose nozzle in hand and go right into a burning building as they are to-day. I’ve shown you these books, my boy, because I wanted you to feel that there was a dignity in the service to which you intend to devote yourself, and if you want to rise in it, it must be by hard work, obedience to orders, and constant study. Don’t be afraid to borrow some of these books of me to read when you have nothing else to do. There are plenty of them that are in English that you could learn something from. It’s education nowadays that tells. But I’ve a project in my mind that both Mr. Trask and I have devoted considerable time to, and I hope to live to see the day when it will be carried out. I want to see a school established in which boys like yourself can be trained for the fire department just as they are trained for the navy. My idea would be to take a number of boys every year from the public schools in the city and give them a regular course of training in gymnastics and special scientific studies so that by the time they were twenty-one they would be much better prepared to fight fire than are the young men that usually join the department at that age.”
“That’s a magnificent idea!” cried Bruce with an enthusiasm that was so hearty and genuine that the old gentleman was delighted, “and I can tell you one thing, and that is you wouldn’t have any difficulty in getting scholars for it. It seems to me that every boy in New York is just as crazy to run to fires as I was when I lived in the country. Why, do you know sir, that every time we start out of quarters there’s such a swarm of young ones in the street that it’s a wonder we don’t run over two or three of them. And besides, boys seem to me to be tougher and more supple than men. There are lots of things I can do in an athletic way that Tom Brophy can’t and he’s twenty-five years old.”