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HOW A NEIGHBORHOOD BUILT ITS OWN
PUBLIC SCHOOL AND IS MAKING IT SELF-
MAINTAINING: BY RAYMOND RIORDON
REMEMBER Driver Nicholson of Truck D when as a
   newsboy I delivered the Washington Post to the engine
   house. He used to frighten me at first, so stern was
   he and so pointed and bristly his black mustache. But
   later I learned that his sternness was seriousness-a
   centering of his energy on the task in hand. He would
             say to me aDouT once a week, I Ou re a prompt, in-
dustrious boy. You'd make a good fireman. I know your mother."
And now I know that unconsciously the driver was seeing why, and
telling me why I was industrious-my mother. This dawned on me
suddenly one morning and since that time it has been easier to be
patient with others.
   Driver Nicholson is now Foreman Nicholson of Truck D and feels
his position. Some people feel their position so keenly that they are
all sensitiveness and pose and no work. Not so Nicholson. If engine
houses are supposed to be immaculate, Truck D's was more than
that. If a fire gained headway in that district the Foreman blamed
himself and put out new lines of prevention for the future. I wonder
if you know "that" neighborhood? On the south was the Govern-
ment arsenal with its transient troops; on the west the river with its
wharves and excursion boats; on the east a colony of negroes and on
the north a string of small stores selling everything from bottled
whiskey to suspenders. In all such communities you have four
classes. Old settlers-fine stock, the pioneers whose industry led
others looking for prosperity, but unwilling to toil for success, to
choose this spot. The semi-transient working population who as
motormen, street-car conductors, freight handlers, boatmen find it
necessary to live near their work. If they are able to thrive on the
existence offered by the corporations employing them, then they
settle in little homes without much chance for joy and with little
outlook for tomorrow. Or if their spirits are strong, with the gift of
dare and the energy of success, they soon move out and away. The
tradesmen-whether in groceries, liquor or clothing, become rich, for
their little capital-like all capital--enables them to be legal hold-up
men. Then there are the prostitutes who stamp the neighborhood
with the vicious flashes of their poor craven souls. But they, too,
had mothers. And Nicholson knew his neighborhood and protected
it from death and destruction, when he couldn't protect it from worse.
   I hadn't seen the Foreman for many years when I went to his
neighborhood one night. I had gone down to look over the ground
that had been familiar to me when a teacher at Greenleaf Public
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