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| Russian Vice Admiral Alexieff. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Thursday, July 19, 1900.
AFTER THE RUSSIANS.
Chinese Had Made Extensive Preparations in the Amur District.
ST. PETERSBURG, July 19.—Reports have been received by the Russian general staff from the Amur district showing that the Chinese have made serious preparations there and are now concentrating on the railway line from Aigun to Saghalien. They are well supplied with artillery and have large quantities of munitions.
The Russian General Cribbovski after reconnoitering the district returned to Blagovetchensk, capital of the province of Amur, on Monday.
Other official reports confirm the serious news of the stoppage of work on the Manchurian railway owing to the Chinese attacks, especially at Charbin, where an attack by 400 Chinese was repulsed on July 9. Charbin is in a critical state, being cut off from the west, south and north.
Russian troops have been sent from different points to protect the railway. The Chinese, however, are still working on the eastern section of the line, which gives hope that energetic measures may succeed in restoring order.
In the opinion of the general staff the chief command of the allied forces at Tien Tsin will eventually devolve upon the Russian Vice Admiral Alexieff in conjunction with the Japanese commander-in-chief.
WAR IS DECLARED.
RUSSIA TAKES THE INITIATIVE AGAINST CHINA.
Because the Chinese Government is Directing the Boxers and Chinese Have Invaded Russia the Chinese Envoy at St. Petersburg is Handed His Passports and Requested to Leave.
NEW YORK, July 19.—In a long cable from London anent the uprising in China the London correspondent of The Journal and Advertiser asserts that having satisfied itself that the imperial government of China is not only countenancing the acts of the Boxers, but is directing their movements and that regular Chinese troops will have invaded Siberia the Russian government yesterday handed the Chinese envoy at St. Petersburg his passports and requested him and the members of his mission to leave the country.
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| Li Hung Chang. |
VICEROY'S MEMORIAL.
Li Hung Chang and Others Gave Good Advice to Throne.
LONDON, July 19.—A dispatch from Canton, received here yesterday, gives some additional facts relative to the memorial to the throne which Li Hung Chang told the foreign consuls he, as doyen of the viceroy's, had induced all the other viceroys except two to frame, as reported in the Canton dispatch of July 16. The memorial insisted upon the necessity of five points, as follows:
First—Protection of foreigners in the empire, whether war breaks out or not, in order to preserve China's prestige as a civilized state.
Second—The rescue of foreign ministers still living, as negotiations would then still be possible and the governments of those saved might use their influence in favor of China.
Third—A letter of apology to the German emperor for the murder of Baron Von Ketteler, as well as a proposal for the mediation of other powers, and a written assurance of China's good intentions, to be given to the United States and France.
Fourth—Full compensation for all losses of lives and property of foreigners.
Fifth—Orders to be given to the military and civil authorities of Chi Li to punish robbers and marauding troops.
Li Hung Chang added, in his interview with the foreign consuls, that in the event that the legations were saved the United States, Great Britain and France had promised to recognize his good will as far as possible, and he expected a similar attitude by the other powers.
PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.
China's Grievance.
The Utica Press notes the fact that President James B. Angell of the University of Michigan and Mr. Dooley both consider the causes of China's uprising, and both arrive at substantially the same [cause]. Dr. Angell, says the Utica Press, says there are "special causes why the Chinese view with dissatisfaction the coming of the foreigner." They did not invite him, they were forced to receive him, to see railways and telegraphs and improved methods of mining introduced. The Chinese had lived after their own plan thousands of years. Their religion satisfied them. Their ways of doing things were sufficient unto them. They regarded the western methods and inventions as mischievous and desecrations, and when the powers talked calmly of dividing China and did seize territory here and there, protest not unnaturally has taken the form of uprising and violence. Dr. Angell does not justify retreat before the latter. Progress is the rule and mission of civilization. "The powers must do that which will make residence in Pekin as safe for foreigners us in any capital, even if they have to destroy the whole empire of China."
Mr. Dooley, while not carrying his discourse to the same conclusion, agrees with Dr. Angell as to the causes of the trouble.
…Mr. Dooley relates how the railroad men run their lines through the sacred cemeteries, and perhaps ballast their tracks with the bones of his ancestors. They hurry things with the telegraph and telephone, and select spheres of "influence" to suit themselves, to the disturbance of the routine and profit of "the little liquor store." Patience ceases to be a virtue and "Hop Lung Dooley" and his kind determine to have it out with civilization.
Not all foreigners have misused the privileges granted in China, but all must share the vengeance which the mistakes and abuses of the few, and the grasping of power, have incited a long enduring people to [react]. The causes of disturbance and resistance are indisputable. They may be indefensible from the eastern point of view. The savage possessed the American continent, Civilization crowded him out, by methods and through bloody scenes not unlike those reappearing in the East. China must become as Europe and America are, safe to the civilized man within its borders even if the transformation be at the price named by Dr. Angell. The challenge of the West has been ungraciously given, thrust into the face of China by avarice and might. It is taken up in a way that compels its maintenance to the end that the fittest methods and most enlightened government shall prevail.
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| Ferdinand E. Smith. |
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
THE ANNUAL REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT F. E. SMITH.
Increase of Attendance This Year Over Previous Year—Need of a High School in Cortland—Present School System Inadequate—Request for Submitting Proposition to Voters for Addition to Central School for This Purpose.
To the Board of Education of the City of Cortland, N. Y.:
It gives me pleasure to transmit to you my fourth annual report:
Since my last report, Union Free school district No. 1, of the town of Cortlandville, Cortland, N. Y., has been changed into a permanent school district of the city of Cortland, N. Y. The title of "Commissioners of Union Free School District No. 1," has been changed to members of the ''Board of Education of the City of Cortland, N. Y." The organization of the new city school system under our charter has been effected and is in full operation.
The past school year has been the most successful in the history of the Cortland public schools. In spite of the scarlet fever which kept so many of our pupils from school for a number of weeks, our records surplus former years. During the past year 1,172 pupils were registered in the public schools of Cortland. This is an increase of eighty-five pupils over the number registered last year. The total days attendance for the year was 184,861. This is an increase over last year of 12,505 days. The average daily attendance has increased from 888 pupils per day last year to 967 pupils per day this year, or a net gain of seventy-nine pupils per day. The per cent of attendance on the total number of pupils registered during the year has increased from; .817 last year to .826 this year. The per cent of attendance based on the number of pupils actually registered from week to week has increased from .9625 last year to .968 this year.
The following is a complete table as compiled from the registers from each room in our public schools as to the number of girls and boys registered, total days' attendance and the percentage of attendance:
KINDERGARTEN.
Our first public school kindergarten room was opened in the Schermerhorn school last September. Although we had not intended to admit but twenty-five pupils during the first term, we did admit thirty, as the parents were anxious to get their children into the kindergarten school. The attendance for the first term was excellent, and the results were very satisfactory. Early in the last half of the year, scarlet fever broke out at this building and for about eight weeks the attendance was very small in all departments of this school.
Fifty-seven different people visited the kindergarten during school hours, or more visitors than are reported from any other one building in the city. These figures do not include people who visited school exercises such as are held at Christmas or Arbor day.
The kindergarten teacher held several mothers' meetings during the year. These meetings were well attended. The program for each meeting was arranged under the direction of Miss Adams, and the papers and discussions were very profitable.
I am sure that this factor in our school work is to become a very important one; and that our kindergarten department will become exceedingly popular with our people.
I wish to commend the teachers of the Schermerhorn school for the reception which they gave at their school building to the members of the board of education, to the teachers of the other schools of the city, and to the parents and patrons of their school. It had a commendable spirit and can not but result for good.
HIGH SCHOOL.
The greatest need of the public schools of the city of Cortland is a good high school. It is not necessary for me to enter into an argument to prove to our citizens that a high school is needed for the education of the young people of this city and vicinity. I will simply say that in 1899 there were 541 high schools and 134 academies in this state. There is hardly a village of a thousand inhabitants in this state that does not maintain a school of secondary grade. I have looked in vain for a city or village of the size of Cortland that does not provide for its sons and daughters a high school training. We only have to look about us to see the tendency of the times. Syracuse has just appropriated $400,000 for a new high school. Ithaca and Elmira are doing likewise. The high school has come to nearly every community and is regarded to-day as the "people's college."
The necessity of a good high school for a city of the size of Cortland is so manifest that in my judgment it simply needs action on the part of those in authority for the people to seize the opportunity to provide for themselves and their children educational advantages which other like communities enjoy.
The full high school course covers four years of work. In 1895 the Central school organized an academic department and for three years did the first two years of the high school work. For the past two years we have extended the course so that our graduates this year completed three years of the high school work, and held thirty-six count certificates at graduation. We are now simply at our limit. We have not the room, equipment or teaching force sufficient to do the rest of the high school work. We must have more room, or our school will receive a check in its growth, and many pupils will be turned away from its doors.
As you will see by the foregoing tables, the Central school registered during the year 553 pupils. There was registered at one time 510 pupils—the seating capacity of the building. This is an average of over fifty pupils per teacher. In fact, the average daily attendance for the city is more than forty-two pupils per teacher with a registration of fifty-one pupils per teacher.
To give you an idea of the conditions that must be met in the near future, it is only necessary to consult our June regents' examination report. One hundred sixty-five pupils took this examination, passing in one or more subjects. These are academic people or within twenty weeks (one term) of it. There are also 150 people who are in seventh and eighth grades. Not all of these will reach the high school, but a way should be provided so that they may if they wish to do so.
I suppose there is a historical reason why Cortland is not provided to-day with a high school building, and a full high school course of study the same as other villages and cities in this state of its importance. It is because of the advantages which our pupils have enjoyed at the State Normal school. It is well understood that for the first eighteen or twenty years of its existence, the Normal school maintained an academic department for Cortland students. For the past ten or twelve years it has not. During this time academic students have been admitted to the Normal department, but they have had to take their work with the regular Normal students.
If the Normal course was simply a high school course, this might answer in a way. But it is not. Courses of study that combine subject matter, pedagogy, psychology and history of education are rather difficult courses for the average high school student to select his high school training from. It is perfectly patent to everybody that a course of study suited to equip a teacher for teaching is not any better suited as a course of study for a high school student than the regular high school course is suited to perfect a teacher for teaching. These two lies of work are as distinct and separate as the work of the builder differs from that of the architect. The new courses of study going into effect in the Normal schools of the state this fall only emphasize this argument. This is my reason for saying that the historical argument against Cortland being provided with a high school does not now exist.
The Cortland Normal has done a magnificent work for Cortland, but it cannot do for a city of nine or ten thousand inhabitants what it did for a village of three or four thousand. Conditions have changed and the professional school has a higher work marked out for it. Even now the Cortland Normal more than compensates the city for its investment. The primary and intermediate departments of the Normal alone return to the taxpayers of Cortland over seven per cent [sic] on their investment. The real facts are: the old Normal building which Cortland built is used almost exclusively for Cortland grade pupils. The state keeps it in repair, provides teachers and janitors at no expense; or an actual saving to the taxpayers of at least $6,000 per year.
The tax rate for the maintenance of the public school last year was less than 2 1/2 mills on the dollar or less than $2.50 per thousand. But there is still another side to this question. There is only one full high school in Cortland county and that school is Homer academy in our neighboring village. Cincinnatus, McGraw, Marathon, Truxton and Cortland have union schools. Union schools are schools classed under the University of the State of New York as a school of lower grade than the high school because they are not equipped and do not require four years' instruction for graduation. Cortland needs a high school from a business point of view. It must be the high school center for Cortland county the same as Ithaca is for Tompkins county. Merchants and business people can not afford to let the farmers and residents within a radius of 10 or 15 miles seek other schools because of the lack of facilities at Cortland. Where the man takes his son or daughter to school, there he does his trading and his banking.
It is, no doubt, a mistaken policy of economy for us to crowd so many pupils into our grade rooms as it has been necessary in the past. With fifty or more primary pupils in a room, how much individual attention can they receive from the teacher? In Batavia they place two teachers in a room with fifty or sixty pupils—one to hear the class recitation and the other to give individual assistance to the pupils at their seats. The plan is said to work admirably. I do not recommend this plan, but I do think that we should provide more school room.
It will not be necessary for Cortland to spend a large amount of money to get the desired room for a high school, grade rooms and kindergarten.
After an informal discussion, the board of education came to the conclusion that it would be much better to build a good, substantial brick addition to the Central school in the place of building further additions to our frame school buildings. This policy seems a wise and economical one.
The Central school was built with a view of an addition if future needs should require it. We have the lot and it is centrally located. Pupils from all parts of the city are willing to come to the Central school after the fourth or fifth grades. We can provide for all our present needs here and for a number of years in the future.
I think this policy will meet with the approval and support of all of our thinking people. I, therefore, recommend that during the present year the question of building an addition to the Central school be submitted to a vote of the people for their approval, and that this be done in time so that the building may be completed for use at the beginning of the next (Sept. 1, 1901) school year.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT.
F. E. SMITH, Superintendent.
McGRAW, N. Y.
Breezy Items of Corset City Chat.
The following are extracts from a letter received by the STANDARD man this (Thursday) morning from Frank D. Oliver and was written before his regiment, (the Ninth Infantry) was ordered to China, where it was so badly cut to pieces.
O'DONNEL, P. I., May 30, 1900.
Your letter found me well. It is very warm here. The only comfort a man can have is to sit under a shade tree or stay in his little bamboo hut until the sun goes down. We are stationed in this town which is twelve miles from a railroad and among the mountains. There are some springs and a small river to bathe in. Deer are plentiful and are caught by the natives in big nets similar to those used by our fishermen in the States. They set these nets and set the grass on fire on all sides. The deer run head down. Not seeing the net, their horns are entangled and they are held prisoners until their captor arrives.
The natives of this country dress very light, wearing no shoes or stockings, and coat and pants are of very light linen, costing for the whole suit about 50 cents. Their principal food is rice and fruit, the latter mostly bananas and cocoanuts which are raised in large quantities here. Considerable sugar is also raised here. Fishing is one of the great sports of the natives. They catch them in baskets of bamboo. A house can be built here very cheap. One 10 by 12 and from 12 to 18 feet high from ground to eaves, costs about $8 American money or $16 in Spanish money, which is in circulation in the islands. The Filipinos have no money of their own except a large awkward looking coin larger than the Canada cent. The natives are not very industrious, doing all their work in the morning and sleeping the rest of the day. They are a treacherous lot. The only thing they care for is a large knife called a bolo. It is something like a grocer's cheese knife, about a foot long and sharp as a razor. They are carried by the insurgents who are now divided into small bands and are killing Americans when caught in twos or threes.
It has been very quiet here for the past two months. There is much sickness on the islands, the hospitals being full most of the time. Chills and fever are caused principally by eating too much fruit or sleeping with damp clothes on. We are now dreading the rainy season which lasts for three or four months, during which a soldier is wet all the time. During the last rainy season we were stationed at San Fernando, a large town on the railroad, where it rained for eighty-two hours without stopping, causing eight inches of water on the ground. It has commenced to rain while I was writing this and after five minutes of it a stream of water is running down the road. You can judge what our showers are by this.
We have eight men mounted on large horses called the Mounted Scouts. I am one of the number. The natives have small horses something like a Shetland pony. They are tough and can stand more hard riding than the larger American horse, which must have his oats and hay regularly while the Filipino stakes his out and lets him feed grass and weeds, where he is always ready for a journey in the hot sun at any minute. K troop of the Fourth cavalry have the small horses which have helped give them such a reputation. Eighteen new men joined the company on May 20. All have a white complexion and are fat and healthy, while the rest of the boys are tanned till they look like natives. Am with a good crowd of fellows and have got along well since I enlisted. Give regards to all my friends.
FRANK D. OLIVER, Company A., Ninth infantry.
BREVITIES.
—Members of the St. Vitus club will hold a dance at the park to-morrow evening.
—New display advertisements to-day are—Stowell & Co., Cut prices, page 7; M. A. Hudson, Cortland's crockery store, page 8.
—Twelve cows gathered under a tree to gain shelter from a storm were struck by lightning and all killed during a shower at Gouverneur Tuesday night.
—The house party of Cortland young people who have been guests of Mrs. Charles P. Knapp at Oquaga lake near Deposit for the past week returned home last night.
—Matt McCormick, charged with being a tramp, was sent on his way this morning by Judge Davis. Walter Baker was given a suspended sentence for being intoxicated in a public place.
—John O'Connors, proprietor of the Truxton hotel, was relieved of his pocketbook containing $50 while boarding the night train in Syracuse on his return from the A. O. H. convention.
—Mrs. B. A. Benedict gave a delightful progressive whist party to a company of friends Tuesday afternoon. Six tables were played and an enjoyable evening was spent. Refreshments were served.
—Our McGraw letter to-day contains a letter from Frank D. Oliver of that place a member of the Ninth Infantry which is now in China. It was written before the regiment left the Philippines,
—A public meeting will be held in Fireman's hall to-night at s o'clock to consider the baseball outlook. Next Monday is double header will be played on Athletic field with Troy. Tuesday will be ladies' day.
—A new switch from the D., L. & W. R. R. is being laid to Wickwire Brothers' works. It branches from the main line south of the Lehigh Valley Junction and extends west through Mr. W. R. Randall's property parallel with the Lehigh Valley tracks till it reaches the land of Wickwire Brothers. This will make a great addition to their shipping facilities.
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