“‘Now, Tony, wouldn’t you like to have a good breakfast every morning,—some hot coffee and nice rolls?’
“‘Yes, mum.’
“‘Well, do you know the Salvation Army where they give breakfasts to little boys who need them?’
“‘Yes, mum.’
“‘Well, if I get you a ticket, won’t you go there to-morrow and get your breakfast?’
“The little fellow’s eyes flashed and he looked straight at me and said, ‘No, mum, I don’t want it.’ Really, I admired his spirit. Poor as he was, he did not want charity.”
Better than any argument the principal’s own words show the cruel, inquisitorial method and its effectiveness in suppressing the truth. I repeat, that was the method of inquiry generally adopted, and it was upon reports based upon the results of such examinations that the special committee of the Board of Education based its report.
V
Of course, not all teachers are so tactless. A very large number are merely unobservant, possibly because they have become inured to the pitiful appearance of the children and their painfully low physical development. It is common to hear teachers in poor districts say: “When I first came to this school my heart used to ache with pity on account of the poverty-stricken appearance of many of the children and the sad tales they sometimes tell. But now I have grown used to it all.” That, in many cases, tells the whole secret—they have grown accustomed to the sight of stunted bodies and wan, pinched faces. There are teachers, earnest men and women devoted to their profession, and consecrating it by an almost religious passion, who study the home life and social environment of the children intrusted to their care; but they are, unhappily, exceptions. The number of teachers having no idea of how a healthy child should look is astonishingly large. The hectic flush of disease is often mistaken by teachers and principals for the bloom of health.
In one large school the principal, in the course of a personally conducted visit to the different classrooms, singled out a little Italian girl, and asked with a note of pride in his voice: “Wouldn’t you call this a healthy child? I do. Look at her round, full face.” There were a great many signs of ill health in that little girl’s appearance which the good principal did not recognize. I pointed out some of the signs of grave nervous disorder, due, as I afterward learned, almost beyond question, to malnutrition. Her cheeks were well rounded, but her pitifully thin arms indicated a very ill-developed body. I pointed out her nervous hand, the baggy fulness under her eyes, and the abrasions at the corners of her twitching mouth,[[46]] and asked that the teacher might be consulted as to the girl’s school record. “She is not a very bright child,” said the teacher, “and what to do with her is a problem. She is very nervous, irritable, and excitable. She seems to get exhausted very soon, and it is impossible for her to apply herself properly to her work. I think very likely that she is underfed, for she comes from a very poor home.” Subsequent investigation at her home, on Mott Street, showed that her father, who is a consumptive, earns from sixty cents to a dollar a day peddling laces, needles, and other small articles, the rest of the income supporting the family of seven persons being derived from the mother’s labor. They occupy one small room, and the only means of cooking they have is a small gas “ring” such as is sold for ten cents in the cheap stores.