8 



THE NATIONAL, GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



JL_ ^ 



Photograph by Paul Thompson 



the: soap-box orator and his auditors 



In no other city does the sidewalk Demosthenes thrive so well as in New York, and in no 

 part of New York so well as in Madison Square. He is always against things as they are. 

 His doctrines are those of the Bolsheviki, and his remedies would undoubtedly be worse than 

 the disease; but he always commands an audience and never passes the hat. 



what is called New York's politics, stories 

 of graft and the like, are but the froth 

 and foam which fleck the waves of the 

 city's life, while beneath runs a deep cur- 

 rent of progress and public spirit, which 

 takes form in carefully conceived and 

 splendidly executed health laws, in a 

 school system that has accomplished won- 

 ders, in a water system surpassing any- 

 thing of its kind on earth, and in a hun- 



dred and one other ways not quite so 

 dramatic as the printed stories of its poli- 

 tics and graft, but none the less full of 

 human interest. 



the; public schools 



Along with many other cities, New 

 York long since learned that a vast ma- 

 jority of the children who attend public 

 schools do not go to college afterward. 



