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                      The Metropolis of Mankind
                           By Mrs C. B. Sterling
                           (Continued from last week)
   Along with many other things New York long since learned that a vast majority of the 
children who attended public school do not go to college afterwards.  So that instead of 
trying to fit the boy or girl for college they are developed with the vocational idea and
the immigrant's children are being trained for independence, with skilled hand.
When the boy or girl reach the age of thirteen, they are ready to take up something
besides text books and a foundation is layed for life training.  In the boy's department
are to be found courses in machine-shop activities in sheet metal work, electric wiring,
plumbing, wood working, mechanical drawing, sign-painting, garment designing, and
printing.  The boys who finish these courses are well fitted for life's work.  For the girls,
vocational training reaches its highest expression at Washington Irving High School.
When one reflects that seven out of every nine children of school age in New York
are of immigrant parentage, a situation is disclosed that might be termed startling, 
especially when it is remembered that the school army of Greater Gotham is so 
large that if marched ten abreast in close formation, the front rank would be board-
ing a North River ferry-boat when the rear guard was crossing the Schuylkill out
of Philadelphia.
   It is a staggering task which confronts the city in Americanizing such huge numbers
of youthful foreigners.  Indeed, did it not happen that New York is so rich, with
assured values greater than those of the next seven cities in America combined it
might well call upon the government for aid.  But with such wealth it is bearing the 
burden alone and is doing it admirably.
   In my research on New York nothing has been of greater interest than the New York
public schools.  One could spend hours upon the subject.  As it stands first
among all the agencies for Amercanizing the immigrant's children.  How these 
schools take seventy odd tongues and substitute good English; how they not
only labor to fit boys and girls for intelligent and useful places in the country's
great industrial system, but bring the trained pupil and the open job together; how
each year they provide for the children of an added population equal to a city such
as Memphis, Tenn.
   But come with me and let us see how this city guards its people's health and here
again the big city shines.  If there ever was a city on the face of the globe which
to superficial judgment would seem a paradise for all the germs in the catalogue
that city is New York.  From every continent, every climate, from every country
under the sun come its inhabitants.  For the most part those who come from 
foreign lands are as ignorant about the germ theory as a primary pupil is ignorant
about differential calculie.
   Everyone knows that crowding tends to magnify the health problem.  "Too
thick to thrive," is a phrase which diagnosis the health situation in many an over
crowded populated center.  And remember will you, that New York has on the
average square mile as many people as the whole state of Nevada, and
that in the east side the population is many times as dense, the wonder is
that it is possible to prevent the city from being a pest hole, with every
infectious disease epidemic, from anthrax and ague to typhus and cholera.
Futhermore, the elevated, the subway and the surface lines would seem
to afford unexplained opportunity for the spread of disease.  But in spite
of these conditions New York is one of the healthiest cities in America.
Comparing it with Baltimore and Washington with all its over-crowding
and east side ignorance and its vast daily intercourse, New York has a 
health service second to none in the world.
   There are enough babies born in New York every year to populate four
cities the size of Oshkosh, Wis., Hamilton, Ohio, or Springfield, Mo.  The
stork visits that city more than 150,000 times annually.  Only a few years ago, 
one out of every five of these little kiddies went to tenant a tomb instead of
gladden a home.  Today the baby army goes marching on with but one in ten
of its number lost.  So efficient is the milk and nurses problem, in caring for 
these little ones, 50,000 kiddies visit the milk station a year.  Can you grasp
that?
   In every phrase of its development New York City is like an adolescent
child who is forever immencity of the problem?  Outgrowing its clothes. Its
schools, rich as they are, can not build fast enough.  Its transportation lines
can not build fast enough.  Its bridges and tunnels are always pressed
to capacity.