Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1915 — STPROES from the BIG CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STPROES from the BIG CITIES

School Whose Pupils Speak Eleven Languages NEW YORK. —Uncle Sam conducts In New York a school for little folk, the like of which will be found in no other place In the world. It is a school of all nations. Do not judge by this that it is big. for it is not Sometimes

there are as many as 50 pupils there, but usually the average is 25. The sessions are held in a long, bright and sunny corridor on Ellis island, where emigrants are landed. Sometimes you will find at study "the whole world in children," as a deeply impressed visitor recently observed. A photograph taken at a time when the school was not particularly well attended, shows kiddies who are Bohemian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Danish,

• Slav, Roumanian. German, Bulgarian and Yiddish. Each morning the mothers come with their children and sit at the farther end of the big room sewing *nd knitting for the soldiers. For it is all in the same building that they eat, sleep and lire. The little pupils can see from their windows the tall buildings of the city across the bay. What they do not know is that for some reason their parents have been forbidden to land and as soon as the terrible war is over they all will be sent back to their old homes. The ladles of the International institute learned about these children and knew that it might be many months before they could be deported, so they suggested the school and in December last sent Miss U. L. Polukalsaky to take charge of it. Some of the youngsters have been there since last summer. When the school was started they were very much happier, and already they understand enough English to talk to each other and some can even write little letters. Their teacher is a very wonderful lady and can understand anything they ask her, no matter what the language. But very soon they will all be able to talk "United States,” as a little boy from Denmark said. Every morning they copy in letters and figures many times, as they repeat after the teacher their names. Then she writes words on the blackboard and they learn these, also. They are given prints of animals and flowers and these they color with crayon pencils. Next they have a gymnasium lesson, drilling with swordlike sticks, marching and learning how to breathe properly. After luncheon they play all manner of games and have lots of fun. A little girl from far away Russia, for instance, tells how she used to play at home and the rest will all join her. Before long most of these children will be promoted to a higher class; then they will have another teacher. But whether these little friends are allowed to land in this country or are obliged to return to their own, it is safe to say that never will they forget each other, or the things they have teamed or the fun they had through the kindness and patience of their Hungarian teacher.