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.]