CHAPTER X.
INITIATION It is not worth while to refer to voluminous school statistics to see just how many "green" pupils entered school last September, not knowing the days of the week in English, who next February will be declaiming patriotic verses in honor of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, with a foreign accent, indeed, but with plenty of enthusiasm.
It is enough to know that this hundred-fold miracle is common to the schools in every part of the United States where immigrants are received.

And if I was one of Chelsea's hundred in 1894, it was only to be expected, since I was one of the older of the "green" children, and had had a start in my irregular schooling in Russia, and was carried along by a tremendous desire to learn, and had my family to cheer me on.
I was not a bit too large for my little chair and desk in the baby class, but my mind, of course, was too mature by six or seven years for the work.

So as soon as I could understand what the teacher said in class, I was advanced to the second grade.

This was within a week after Miss Nixon took me in hand.

But I do not mean to give my dear teacher all the credit for my rapid progress, nor even half the credit.