The Arrangements For Supplying New York
With Water Are Magnificent.
The drainage of the new part of the
city is excellent.
The hospitals are almost alluring. The lunatic
asylum which I saw was perfect - though I did not feel obliged to
the resident physician for introducing me to all the worst patients
as countrymen of my own. "An English lady, Mr. Trollope. I'll
introduce you. Quite a hopeless case. Two old women. They've
been here fifty years. They're English. Another gentleman from
England, Mr. Trollope. A very interesting case! Confirmed
inebriety."
And as to the schools, it is almost impossible to mention them with
too high a praise. I am speaking here specially of New York,
though I might say the same of Boston, or of all New England. I do
not know any contrast that would be more surprising to an
Englishman, up to that moment ignorant of the matter, than that
which he would find by visiting first of all a free school in
London, and then a free school in New York. If he would also learn
the number of children that are educated gratuitously in each of
the two cities, and also the number in each which altogether lack
education, he would, if susceptible of statistics, be surprised
also at that. But seeing and hearing are always more effective
than mere figures. The female pupil at a free school in London is,
as a rule, either a ragged pauper or a charity girl, if not
degraded, at least stigmatized by the badges and dress of the
charity. We Englishmen know well the type of each, and have a
fairly correct idea of the amount of education which is imparted to
them. We see the result afterward when the same girls become our
servants, and the wives of our grooms and porters. The female
pupil at a free school in New York is neither a pauper nor a
charity girl. She is dressed with the utmost decency. She is
perfectly cleanly. In speaking to her, you cannot in any degree
guess whether her father has a dollar a day, or three thousand
dollars a year. Nor will you be enabled to guess by the manner in
which her associates treat her. As regards her own manner to you,
it is always the same as though her father were in all respects
your equal. As to the amount of her knowledge, I fairly confess
that it is terrific. When in the first room which I visited, a
slight, slim creature was had up before me to explain to me the
properties of the hypothenuse, I fairly confess that, as regards
education, I backed down, and that I resolved to confine my
criticisms to manner, dress, and general behavior. In the next
room I was more at my ease, finding that ancient Roman history was
on the tapis. "Why did the Romans run away with the Sabine women
asked the mistress, herself a young woman of about three and
twenty.
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