The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them

The great peculiarity of this school has now been adapted in the other Industrial Schools, under the name of the "Object System of Teaching" – a method which has proved so singularly successful with the children of the poor, that I shall describe it somewhat at length.

THE OBJECT SYSTEM

"I began with children," says Pestalozzi, "as nature does with savages, first bringing an image before their eyes, and then seeking a word to express the perception to which it gives rise." This statement of the great reformer of education expresses the essential principle of the Object System. The child's mind grasps first things rather than names; it deals with objects before words; it takes a thing as a whole rather than in parts. Its perceptive and observing faculties are those first awakened, and should be the first used in education; reflection, analysis, and comparison must come afterward. The vice of the former systems of education has been, that words have so much taken in the child's intellect the place of things, and its knowledge has become so often a mere routine, or a mechanical memorizing of names. The scholar was not taught to look beneath words, and to learn the precise thing which the word symbolized. He was trained to repeat like a machine. He did not observe closely, he had not been educated to apply his own faculties, and therefore he could not think afterward. The old system reversed the natural order. It began with what is the ripest fruit of the mature intellect-definitions, or the learning of rules and statements of principles, and went on later to observing facts and applying principles. It analyzed in the beginning, and only later in the course regarded things each as a whole.

The consequence was, that children were months and years in taking the first steps in education – such as learning to read – because they had begun wrong. They had no accurate habits of observation, and, as a natural result, soon fell into loose habits of thinking. What they knew they knew vaguely. When their acquirements were tested they were found valueless. The simplest principles of mathematics were almost unknown to them, because they had learned the science by rote, and had never exercised their minds on it. They could apply none of them. Algebra, instead of being an implement, was of no more practical use to them than Sanscrit would be. Geometry was as abstract as metaphysics. They had never learned it by solid figures, or studied it intelligently. Grammar was a memorized collection of dry abstract rules and examples. Natural history was only a catalogue, and geography a dictionary learned by heart.

Our manufacturers, who had occasion in former years, to employ these youths from our Public Schools, found them utterly incompetent for using their faculties on practical subjects. Nor did they go forth with minds expanded, and ready to receive the germs of knowledge which might be, as it were, floating in the atmosphere. Their faculties had not been aroused.

The "Object System" attempts to lay down the principles which have been tested in primary education, in the form of a Science; so that the teacher not gifted with the genius of invention and the talent for conveying knowledge shall be able to awaken and train the child's intellect as if he were.

Its first principle is to exercise the senses, but never during any long period at once. The play of the children is so contrived as to employ their sense of touch, of weight, and of harmony. Colors are placed, before them, and they are trained in distinguishing the different delicate shades – in the recognition of which children are singularly deficient. Numbers are taught by objects, such as small beans or marbles, and then when numerals are learned, regular tables of addition and subtraction are written on the board by the teacher at the dictation of the scholar.

The great step in all education is the learning the use of that wonderful vehicle and symbol of human thought, the printed word.

Here the object system has made the greatest advance. The English language has the unfortunate peculiarity of a great many sounds to each vowel, and of an utter want of connection between the name and the sound of the letter. No mature mind can easily appreciate the dark and mysterious gulf which, to the infant's view, separates the learning the letters and reading. The two seem to be utterly different acquirements. The new methods escape the difficulty in part by not teaching the names, but the sounds, of the letters first, and then leading the child to put his sounds together in the form of a word, and next to print the word on the black-board, the teacher calling on the scholar to find a similar one in a card or book. By this ingenious device, the modern infant, instead of being whipped into reading, is beguiled into it pleasantly and imperceptibly, and makes his progress by a philosophical law. He reads before he knows it. But here the obstacle arises that each vowel, printed in the same type, has so many sounds. One ingenious teacher. Dr. Leigh, obviates this by printing on his charts each vowel-sound in a slightly different form, and giving the silent letters in hair-lines. The objection here might be that the scholar learns a type different from that in common use. Still, the deviation from the ordinary alphabet is so slight as probably not to confuse any young mind, and the learner can go on by a philosophical classification of sounds. Other teachers indicate the different vowel-sounds by accents.

One well-known writer on the "Object System," Mr. Caulkins, seems to approve of what we are inclined to consider even more philosophical still – the learning the word first, and the letters and spelling afterward.

Most children in cultivated families learn to read in this way. The word is a symbol of thought – a thing in itself – first, perhaps, connected with a picture of the object placed at its side, but afterward becoming phonetic, representing arbitrarily any object by its sound. Then other words are learned – not separately, but in association, as one learns a foreign language. Farther on, the pupil analyzes, spells, considers each letter, and notes each part of speech.

An objection may occur here, that the habit of correct and careful spelling will not be so well gained by this method as by the old.

Mr. Caulkins's remarks on this topic in his Manual on "Object Lessons" are so sensible that we quote them in extenso: —

THE A B C METHOD

This old, long, and tedious way consists in teaching, first, the name of each of the twenty-six letters, then in combining these into unmeaning syllables of 'two letters,' 'three letters,' and, finally, into words of 'two syllables' and 'three syllables.' Very little regard is had to the meaning of the words. Indeed, it seems as if those who attempt to teach reading by this method supposed that the chief object should be to make their pupils fluent in oral spelling; and it ends in spelling, usually, since children thus taught go on spelling out their words through all the reading lessons, and seldom become intelligent readers. They give their attention to the words, instead of the ideas intended to be represented by them. When the child has succeeded in learning the names of the twenty-six letters, he has gained no knowledge of their real use as representatives of sounds, and, consequently, little ability in determining how to pronounce a new word from naming its letters. Besides, the names of the letters constantly mislead him when formed into words.

"He may have made the acquaintance of each of the twenty-six individual letters, so as to recognize their faces and be able to call them by name singly; but when these same letters change places with their fellows, as they are grouped into different words, he is frequently unable to address many of them in a proper manner, or to determine what duties they perform in their different places.

"Again, the words that are learned by naming over the letters which compose them seldom represent any ideas to the young learner; indeed, too many of the words learned by this method are only meaningless monosyllables. The children begin to read without understanding what they read, and thus is laid the foundation for the mechanical, unintelligible reading which characterizes most of that heard in schools where the A B C method is used. This plan is in violation of fundamental laws of teaching; it attempts to compel the child to do two things at the same time, and to do both in an unnatural manner, viz., to learn reading and spelling simultaneously, and reading through spelling. Reading has to deal with sounds and signs of thought.

"Spelling rests on the habit of the eye, which is best acquired as the result of reading. In attempting to teach reading through spelling, the effort of the pupil in trying to find out the word by naming the letters that compose it distracts the attention from the thought intended to be represented by it; the mind becomes chiefly absorbed with spelling instead of reading. When properly taught, reading furnishes natural faculties for teaching spelling; but spelling does not furnish a suitable means for teaching reading. Thus it will be seen that the usual plans for teaching reading by the A B C method compel children to do that for which their minds are not fitted, and thus cause a loss of power by restraining them from attending to the thoughts represented by the words, and to other things which would greatly promote their development. The results are that a love for reading is not enkindled, good readers are not produced. The few cases in which the results are different owe both the love for reading and the ability in this art to other causes.

"The pupils learned to love reading, and became able to read well, in spite of poor teaching during their first lessons. There is consolation in believing that this method, which produced so many halting, stumbling readers, is now abandoned by all good teachers of reading. May the number of such teachers be greatly increased.

* * * * * *

"The 'word method' begins at once with teaching the words in a manner similar to that by which children learn to distinguish one object from another, and learn the names. It proposes to teach words as the signs of things, acts, and qualities, etc. It does not propose to teach children the alphabet, but to leave them to learn this after they have become familiar with enough words to commence reading."

The Object System teaches geography very ingeniously. The pupil begins by getting into his mind the idea of a map. This is by no means so simple an idea as might be supposed, as witness the impossibility almost of making a savage understand it. The child is first told to point to the different points of the compass; then he marks them down on a blackboard; next he draws a plan of the room, and each scholar attempts to locate an object on the plan, and is corrected by the school, if wrong. Next comes a plan of the district or town; then a globe is shown, and the idea of position on the globe given, and of the outlines of different countries. Soon the pupil learns to draw maps on the board, and to place rivers, bays, lakes, and oceans. The book-questions now to be presented will not be on purely political geography or merely arbitrary lists of names. The child is taken on imaginary journeys up rivers, over mountains, by railroads, and must describe from the lesson he has learned the different productions, the animals, the character of the scenery, the vegetation, and the occupations of the people. Thus geography becomes a kind of natural science, deeply interesting to the pupil, and touching his imagination. Certain dry geographical names are forever after associated in his mind with certain animals and plants and a peculiar scenery.

Natural history is also taught in this system, but not by the usual dry method. The teacher brings in a potato, for instance, and carries the pupil along by questions through all its growth and development. Or she takes flowers, or leaves, or seeds, and stamps the most important phenomena about them on the scholar's mind by an objective lesson. Prints of animals are presented, and the teacher begins at the lowest orders, and rises up in regular gradation, questioning the children as to the uses and purposes of every feature and limb. They work out their own natural philosophy. They observe, and then reason; and what they learn is learned in philosophical order, and imprinted by their own efforts on their memories. It is astonishing how much, in these simple methods, may be learned in natural science by very young children; and what nutritive but simple food may be supplied to their minds for all future years.

From lessons in science thus given, the teacher rises easily to lessons of morality and religion. Nothing even in moral teaching impresses a child's mind like pictures, stories, or parables, or some form of "object-teaching." The modern charts and books are extremely ingenious in giving religious lessons through the senses.

The beginning of the higher mathematics may be taught children perfectly well under this method. Straight lines and angles are drawn, or constructed with little sticks, and named, and various figures thus formed. With blocks, the different geometrical figures are constructed and named – all being finished by the pupils themselves. On the blackboard certain lines are given, and with them "inventive drawing" goes on under the pupil's own suggestion.

Weights and measures are learned by practical illustrations with real objects, and are thus not easily forgotten.

Definition is very agreeably taught by the teacher's producing some object, say, an apple, and then making each scholar describe some quality of it, in taste, color, form, or material, and then write this word on the board. Very difficult adjectives, such as "opaque," or "pungent," or "translucent," or "aromatic," may thus be learned, besides all the simpler, and learned permanently.

The old bugbear to children, spelling, is by no means so terrible under these methods. The teacher writes two initial consonants, say, "th," and each scholar makes a new word with them, and it is written on the board; or a terminal consonant is given, or certain combinations of letters are written down – say, ough, in "though" and words of corresponding sound must be written underneath, or the different sounds of each vowel must be illustrated by the scholar, and the varying sounds of consonants, and so on endlessly – spelling becoming a perfect amusement, and, at the same time, training the pupil in many delicate shades of sound, and in analyzing and remembering words.

Grammar is conveyed, not by that farce in teaching, and that cross to all children, grammatical rules, which are, in fact, the expressions of the final fruit of knowledge, but the teacher writes incorrectly on the blackboard, both in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and the children must correct this; thus learning from the senses and usage, instead of from abstract rules. Reading is given as nearly as possible in conversational tones, and the old loud, mechanical sing-song is forbidden.

The principle most insisted on in all this system is, that the child should teach himself as far as possible; that his faculties should do the work, and not the teacher's; and the dull and slow pupil is especially to be led on and encouraged. But, as might be supposed, the teacher's task, under the object method, is no sinecure. She can no longer slip along the groove of mechanical teaching. She must be wide-awake, inventive, constantly on the qui vive to stir up her pupils' minds. The droning over lessons, and letting children repeat, parrot-like, long lists of words, is not for her. She must be always seeking out some new thing and making her pupils observe and think for themselves. Her duty is a hard one. But this is the only true teaching; and we trust that no Primary School in New York will be without a well-trained "Object-teacher."

CHAPTER XVII

THE LITTLE ITALIAN ORGAN-GRINDERS

Among the various rounds I was in the habit of making in the poorest quarters, was one through the Italian quarter of the "Five Points." Here, in large tenement-houses, were packed hundreds of poor Italians, mostly engaged in carrying through the city and country "the everlasting hand-organ," or selling statuettes. In the same room I would find monkeys, children, men and women, with organs and plaster-casts, all huddled together; but the women contriving still, in the crowded rooms, to roll their dirty macaroni, and all talking excitedly; a bedlam of sounds, and a combination of odors from garlic, monkeys, and most dirty human persons. They were, without exception, the dirtiest population I had met with. The children I saw every day in the streets, following organs, blackening boots, selling flowers, sweeping walks, or carrying ponderous harps for old ruffians. So degraded was their type, and probably so mingled in North Italy with ancient Celtic blood, that their faces could hardly be distinguished from those of Irish poor children – an occasional liquid dark eye only betraying their nationality.

I felt convinced that something could be done for them. Owing to their ignorance of our language and their street-trades, they never attended school, and seldom any religious service, and seemed growing up only for these wretched occupations. Some of the little ones suffered severely from being indentured by their parents in Italy to a "Bureau" in Paris, which sent them out over the world with their "padrone," or master, usually a villainous-looking individual with an enormous harp. The lad would be frequently sent forth by his padrone, late at night, to excite the compassion of our citizens, and play the harp. I used to meet these boys sometimes on winter-nights half-frozen and stiff with cold.

The bright eyes among these children showed that there was mind in them; and the true remedy for their low estate seemed to be our old one, a School.

Rev. Dr. Hawks, at this time, brought to my attention a very intelligent Italian gentleman of education, a Protestant and patriot, who had taken refuge here-Signor A. E. Cerqua. I will let him tell his own story of the formation and success of the School:

THE ITALIAN SCHOOL – THE FIVE POINTS SETTLEMENT

"Coming up Chatham Street and bending your course to the left, you turn into Baxter Street, a dark, damp, muddy street, forming one of the Five Points. On each side of the way are stores of old clothes and heterogeneous articles, kept by Polish and German Jews. Numerous 'Unredeemed Goods for Sale,' in the shape of coats, vests, and other unmentionable garments, are suspended on wooden stands in front of the doorways. There are also junk-stores, rags, bones, and old metal depots, and two Italian groceries, one opposite the other. Advancing farther, you reach the centre of the Five Points, synonymous of whatever is degraded and degrading, loathsome and criminal. Hero Park Street runs parallel to Chatham Street and crosses Baxter Street at right angles, thus forming four of the Five Points. The fifth point is formed by the junction of Worth Street, leading from this common centre in a northerly direction. This locality is very dimly lighted, and the few lamps scattered around only add to the repulsive nature of the place. The pestiferous exhalations of the filthy streets, and not less filthy shanties, inhabited by the lowest and most disreputable characters, are disgusting beyond any description. Scattered over this neighborhood, densely settled by the most depraved classes of all nationalities, there lived, and still live, some fifteen hundred of the poorest class of Italians, who traditionally cling to that locality. They are generally from the Ligurian coasts, which are over-populated. When the farms require working, the inhabitants usually have something to do; but, at some seasons, want of employment compels them to turn elsewhere. Men, women, and lads went in ordinary times to the largest cities of Northern Italy for temporary occupation, leaving behind their children to the care of relatives or acquaintances, who, owing to their business, inability, or carelessness, neglected in most cases to exercise over them parental duties. When the hand-organ came into vogue, they found it the easiest way to employ their unoccupied time. Seeing, afterward, that they could realize more by the organ than by the shovel, they went grinding all the year, and spread all over Italy at first, then over Europe and America. Some of the children left were sent for, while others were hired out to those who proposed a grinding-tour to America. Those who arrived here first having done well, others followed, and the tide of the organ-grinding emigration set in on a gradual rise. The failure of the Revolutionary movements of 1848 and 1849 having impoverished, to a greater or smaller extent, the several Italian provinces, gave a great impetus to this emigration, and it was not long before the Five Points were crowded to overflowing. Accustomed as they were to agricultural pursuits and out of the reach of better social influences, and totally ignorant of the language, they formed a separate colony, associating only with those of their own country in the Five Points. Had they displayed the vices or criminal inclinations which prevail to a deplorable extent among the low classes of other nationalities, they would soon have been brought to public notice and taken care of by our benevolent and religious societies; but they cannot be reproached with intoxication, prostitution, quarreling, stealing, etc; and thus, escaping the unenviable notoriety of the criminal, they fell into a privacy that deprived them of the advantages of American benevolence; and there is no instance of any visitor having ever been appointed to explore this fruitful field of operation.

OPENING OF THE SCHOOL

"Early in December, 1855, the writer, with Mr. Brace, visited several families. Our reception was not such as to promise success, although, considering their distrustful and suspicious disposition, consequent upon their isolated existence, they did not treat us disrespectfully. Having thus prepared and informed them, on the evening of the tenth of the same month we opened our School in a room kindly furnished by Rev. Mr. Pease, on the north side of the Five Points' square.

"On the first night of our operation we had an attendance of ten boys, six girls, seven young men, four young women, two men, and one woman (thirty in all), attracted, as may be evident by the age of the attendants, more by the novelty of the undertaking than by any definite purpose. Of that number, only two could read a little in Italian – not one in English; hence I formed a single class of the whole in the alphabet.

"By more frequent visiting, the attendance was, after a little while, nearly doubled; but toward spring it dwindled to such an insignificant number, that it was deemed expedient to close the school.

"Instead of being deterred by this discouraging feature, we determined to examine the field more carefully, and endeavor to discover the immediate cause of the unexpected check our hopes had experienced. Proper exertions in visiting, and cautious and timely investigations, soon brought out the fact that some absurd rumors had been circulated among them to the effect that our purpose was to turn them away from their own church, alleging, as conclusive evidence, that our school-room was used for Sunday religious meetings. These mischievous insinuations called for the utmost prudent activity on our part, for, although these people are not fanatics in religion, they, at that time, still clung with tenacity to the infallibility of their priest. I say at that time, because the unnatural and unchristian attitude assumed since by their spiritual guides toward Italy has forced even the uneducated class into a certain use of comparative rational freedom, and, beyond the spiritual, they will not follow their religious leaders. Meeting with only partial success by persuasion, I then promised shoes and clothing to pupils who would attend for three months consecutively; and having thus prepared the way, and without ever failing to visit the most unapproachable, it was deemed advisable to reopen the School in November, 1856. The attendance increased by some thirty, with a minor sprinkling of men and women. Shoes and clothes were distributed in March, but the number soon after commenced diminishing, until June, 1857, when the School, as in the previous year, had to be closed for a second time. Two great advantages had, however, been developed. Their ready acceptance of shoes and clothes given and distributed in our room was a powerful argument in my hands to answer their objection to the room; and among the floating attendance I had noticed a score or so of regular pupils upon whom I concentrated my best attention and every possible encouragement, in the conviction that the result of my efforts in that direction would prove efficacious to attract others. And, in fact, when the improvement of these twenty attendants became known, it was found comparatively easy to persuade others to school.

"It had now become evident to me that, with adequate exertions and inducements, the School could be established on a permanent and working order; and on the following September we recommenced operations with better promise. But a narrow-minded opposition partially marred our success this year. An Italian priest, called Rebiccio, from the confessional and from the pulpit, flung ferocious anathemas at all who permitted their children to attend our School. He even went from house to house to use his influence in the same direction. I sent a deputation of my oldest scholars to remonstrate with him and correct his misapprehensions by assuring him that we had no sectarian teachings. These same boys I took with me in visiting a number of the most superstitious families, and for the same purpose, but in both cases of no avail; only, instead of justifying myself, I found that these boys were equally suspected of complicity, some even assuming that they had already been converted. I felt disheartened, not because I did not hope to overcome all obstacles by patience, prudence, and perseverance, but because I could scarcely realize the actual occurrence of such an unflinching, unprincipled, and unjust persecution, or, what was still worse, of such credulous stupidity as was shown by the very people we intended to elevate.

Prompted by these feelings, I then wrote a letter to that worthy priest, inviting him to assist me in teaching, to take my place, to teach these poor children himself – in short, to do what he pleased, provided they were furnished with proper means to better their condition. The letter was couched in the most unexceptionable terms, and closed by entreating him to desist from his unjust attacks, and not to compel me to appeal to the public through the dally press, the last resort in this free country. Discouraged by the suspicious reception I met with from the majority of these people, and by the fruitless result of my aforesaid letter, I was then preparing a statement for the newspapers, when the whole opposition scheme exploded. Under the false pretext that he was going to hire a building to open a school for these children, in connection with a church, which he proposed also to build for them, this worthy priest had collected considerable money in the Five Points, when all at once he disappeared, and it was only after months that he was heard of in affluent circumstances in Italy. A natural and desirable reaction then took place among our people, and since then the School has been yearly in operation for eleven months, and with gradual prosperity. In June, 1866, desiring to extend our work and absorb all children exposed to the bad influences and examples of the streets that attended no day-school, we added also successfully a day session, so that now, with two hundred and twenty-eight (228) names on our books since October 1, 1867, we have a daily average of sixty-five (65), and one hundred and eighty-six (186) for day and evening sessions respectively. By these figures it will be seen that, while in other schools the proportion of the average to the names entered is, at the best, seventy-five per cent., nearly all our pupils on the roll-book attend regularly one of the two, and several both sessions. The attendants vary from five to twenty-two years of age, averaging about nine and a half. A little less than one-half of the whole are females.

MENTAL IMPROVEMENT

"Whoever has not associated with this class of Italians before our School was opened cannot form an adequate idea of the result attained both in moral and mental improvement. Out of the whole number entered since the commencement of operations, say, in round numbers, eight hundred and fifty (850), not over forty had a little and imperfect knowledge of reading the Italian, and only about ten had a slight acquaintance with the English. My first endeavors were directed to induce them to attend day-schools, and during the first three years over twenty became pupils of Public Schools. Later on, this number received accessions, amounting at one time to about fifty.

"Our course of study comprises the gradual series of English reading, spelling, and writing adopted in most of the Public Schools; geography, arithmetic, history, and grammar. The class in the last two branches this year is very small, as the students thereof, being mostly adults, cannot well attend regularly.

"Some twelve years ago, and for a time after, there were only two among them who had some knowledge of letters, and on them the whole colony had to depend for writing and reading letters in Italian and interpreting in English, on payment of charges varying from twenty-five to fifty cents. On becoming acquainted with this fact, I resolved upon teaching also the Italian to the most advanced in the English, which addition met with general favor, for, a year after, the pupils who could and did gratuitously perform the offices of the two literati increased to such an extent that one was usually found within each family or a circle of relatives. The time being limited, these studies are, of course, taught alternately, and the progress therein is not as speedy as would be desirable; but, everything considered, they show remarkable intelligence, aptitude, and willingness to learn. I might quote from reports of the principal press of this city on our last examination; but, as the School is free and always open to visitors, I will content myself with inviting our friends to look into the subject for themselves.

How gratifying when I enter the School to see the oldest of the attendants, but a few years ago illiterate and totally ignorant of everything around them, reading papers, and quoting, discriminating, and discussing the topics of the day, and forming a more or less correct idea of the state of things in the land of their adoption and in other parts of the world! Gratifying, indeed, to see these children, but a few years ago without any idea of patriotism, without any other principle to guide their judgment and actions than the natural impulses of a degraded selfishness, exchange intelligent views upon the moral standing and tendency of the political parties in this and in their native country! Many times I have been astonished at the extensive information and sound opinions they display in commenting upon contemporaneous events. The