Читать книгу The Goslings: A Study of the American Schools онлайн

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So it comes about that the principal indictment of this Tammany regime is not the money it spends, but the money it withholds. New York is the wealthiest city in the world; the masters of the city have money for palatial town houses, for country estates many square miles in extent, with homes as big as summer hotels; they have money for private yachts as big as ocean liners, and for luxurious motor cars by the tens of thousands; but they have no money to provide a decent education for the children of the poor. While their own children go to elegant private schools, the children of the poor are herded into dark, insanitary fire-traps, some of them seventy-five years of age; and even of these there is an insufficiency! Ever since my boyhood the refusal of New York City to accommodate the children who clamor for an education has been the blackest crime of the Tammany ruffians. At present one-third of the children are on “part time”; that is, they are turned out of school after two or three hours, to make room for another relay. The rest of the day they pick up the vices of the streets; and if they are made into young criminals, the city is ready and able to build whatever jails may be necessary.