[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 19 (Monday, February 23, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S1456]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  RECOGNITION OF ISIDORE NEWMAN SCHOOL

 Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am honored to recognize Isidore 
Newman School as it celebrates 100 years of educating the children of 
New Orleans.
  When the school opened its doors on October 3, 1904, it was in a 
class by itself. Then called Isidore Newman Manual Training School, it 
adopted a philosophy, in vogue at the time, that teaching children 
skills such as sewing and woodworking would enhance their minds. It was 
the only school of its kind in New Orleans. On Newman's opening day, 
the principal, James Edwin Addicott, explained the little-understood 
teaching concept to The New Orleans Times-Democrat: ``The manual 
training school does not attempt to teach any particular art or trade. 
What it does attempt is to educate the hand as an invaluable and 
necessary aid in the development of the brain.''
  The school was unique for another reason: its unusual assortment of 
pupils. On that historic first day, the young Mr. Addicott stood at the 
doors of his brandnew school and waited for 102 children to arrive from 
a Jewish orphanage a few blocks away. It was for them that Isidore 
Newman, a German-Jewish, rags-to-riches immigrant, had endowed the 
school. But Mr. Addicott also waited for 23 children from private 
homes, Jewish and non-Jewish. For Mr. Newman had specified that this 
school be open to all children, regardless of religion.
  The school's reputation for academic excellence and top-notch 
facilities spread, and within a few years, children from private homes 
outnumbered those from the orphanage. Gathered together in this unique 
environment--for New Orleans society was quite segregated at the time--
the children did just what the founders dreamed they would do: they got 
along. The school became a haven of inclusiveness, and friendships 
formed on the playground lasted a lifetime.
  By the 1930s, Newman had become a college preparatory school, no 
longer offering courses in the manual arts. By the 1940s, the orphanage 
had closed. But Newman continued to be the most religiously mixed prep 
school in the city.
  Newman's first century has been filled with triumphs, tragedies, and 
lots of laughs. The school has always felt like a large, extended 
family, where the development of the individual and the individual's 
devotion to the whole are stressed equally. Newman instills in its 
students the value of service to one's community, while at the same 
time encouraging the personal growth, intellectual and otherwise, of 
each child. The results have been remarkable. In 1985, Newman was 
recognized as 1 of 281 exemplary schools in the United States by the 
U.S. Secretary of Education. It was one of only seventeen private, 
nonsectarian schools chosen. And Newman has been a model of diversity. 
In 1968, Newman became the first private, nonparochial school in New 
Orleans to desegregate.
  Today, Newman is an accredited, independent, coeducational school 
serving more than 1,100 students from prekindergarten through 12th 
grade. The school's record of academic excellence is on a par with the 
best prep schools in the Nation. Its graduates have gone on to the 
finest colleges and universities. They have presided over Federal 
courts. They counsel Presidents. They write bestsellers. They are 
Rhodes scholars. They play professional sports. They run large media 
conglomerates and Fortune 500 companies, and they have been generous, 
important philanthropists and civic leaders in New Orleans and beyond.
  I congratulate the school on reaching this important milestone, and I 
wish Newman all the best for another century of excellence.

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