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It was a general belief that all “Dutchmen” were cowards, and on the playground this idea was acted upon with considerable spirit. I was made the target of many a joke that I took in good part, until I realized that something positive was required of me. Then when a husky lad taunted me with being a “square-headed Dutchman,” and refused my demand that he “take it back,” my fighting blood was roused, and I administered a sound thrashing, the result of sheer, unscientific force. Nothing evokes the admiration of the gallant Irish so much as a good fight, and the result of that battle was the liking of my comrades, and especially one of the leaders among them, John F. Carroll, later familiar to New Yorkers as a leader in Tammany.

About this time I made up my mind to enter City College and, to prepare for that, I began looking about for a school which ranked higher than No. 18. There were a number of these, foremost among which were the Thirteenth and Twenty-third Street schools. I applied at both, but they were full. The next in rank was No. 14, in Twenty-seventh Street near Third Avenue, where they admitted me to the fourth class. I gladly accepted this comparative demotion, so as to utilize advantageously the two years remaining before I reached the college-entrance age, began my studies there in March of ’68, under Miss Rosina Hartman, a fine old spinster and a good teacher, and finished both her class and the third class before I was twelve.