Address — Bird S. Coler. 41 



the age of fifteen can afford to pay something towards their maintenance), we 

 should still have our high schools and our colleges, but we should allow only 

 those to go up who show by their ability and their genius that it would pay the 

 city to give them the higher education. 



To-day our high schools and our College of the City of New York are 

 crowded with children, the only purpose of whose parents is to keep them at 

 education and to keep them from going into business until they get older, — 

 children who have shown no particular ability for a higher education. I do not 

 believe that they are entitled to it at the expense of the city ; nevertheless I do 

 believe that it is a paying investment for the city to have high schools and the 

 College of the City of New York, and, if needs be, to purchase scholarships in 

 the other great colleges ; so that when a boy leaves the grammar school he can 

 earn the right to enter the high school by a fair examination. This ought not 

 to be made so hard that it would preclude boys who were serious and had an 

 honest intent and wanted to educate themselves. The examination ought to be 

 so graded that these boys would have the chance to work their way up to and 

 through a college, even at the expense of the city. Then, when a boy or a 

 young woman came out of one of those schools, they would be known as a man 

 or a woman who had earned their education at the hands of the City of New 

 York. 



But what is to be done with the great mass, the ninety per cent, that have 

 to leave at the age of fifteen ? I believe the city owes more to them by far than 

 it owes to the children who are kept in there, not because they show any ability, 

 but merely because their parents wish to keep them in school at the cost of the 

 city. I believe that the great ninety per cent, are entitled to an opportunity to 

 acquire for themselves an education while they are at work, and while they are 

 helping to support their families. The greatest part of education (I know it is 

 so in my own case, with the little education that I have) is acquired after leaving 

 school ; and now, throughout the great City of New York, we are beginning to 

 recognize the fact of supplemental education. To-day the Board of Estimate 

 has before it a request for an appropriation of $3,000,000 to complete the great 

 public library at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. That will be granted 

 in a few days. Throughout the Borough of Brooklyn, in the last two years, 

 we have established five separate free circulating libraries. This year we have 

 made an appropriation that will allow the development of double that number. 

 All through the City of New York we are trying to develop a policy of supple- 

 mental education. 



That brings the question down right here to your own great enterprise and 

 the enterprise of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ; and it is a great pleasure for 

 me to be here and to state to you that I believe that this Institution is one of the 

 greatest starting points for a supplemental education in the City of New York. 

 The development also throughout our city of the free lecture system, of which 

 Professor Leipziger, who is here this afternoon, is the head, will do more good 

 to our city than the system of allowing parents to force a higher education at 

 the expense of the city. Let us give the great ninety per cent, a chance to get 

 ahead and make something of themselves in the world. 



As regards the appropriations for your Institution, I think this year you will 

 get over $130,000 for maintenance. I do not know how far that will go, but I 

 think it will go a great deal farther than the last year's money went. 



We are facing in the City of New York a great problem. The problem, to 

 my mind, of the government of the United States itself, is the problem of city 

 life and city government ; and it is only by the development of the individual 

 citizen, so that he has a better knowledge, a better education, and a better 

 interest in public affairs, that we shall ever have a better permanent government ; 

 and I believe it is the duty of every intelligent person, man or woman, to do 

 something for the great mass of our children that have to leave the schools 

 before the age of fifteen. 



I thank you for your attention. 



