NEW BUILDING OPENED

BAILEY GATZERT BUILDING OPENS ITS DOORS.

With Half Dozen Exceptions Its 500 Pupils Are Chinese and Japanese.

Main Street School moved today! Five hundred children and 13 teachers bade joyful farewell this morning to the old Main Street Building, in use since 1875 -- part of the time as a city stable -- and forced their way through pelting rain and blustering winds to their future home in the new up-to-date Bailey Gatzert School between Weller and Lane Streets on 12th Avenue South. Formal dedication of the new building will not take place till after Christmas.

At 9 o'clock, children, teachers and parents began to gather at the old school in preparation for the hegira, waiting under a forest of umbrellas or shielded only by mackinaws and raincoats for the signal of the principal, Miss Ada J. Mahon. That given the procession, color guard in advance, quickly covered the 12 blocks to the new school, where Henry R. King of the School Board and School Architect Naramore were waiting.

Chinese and Japanese.

Round-eyed with wonder and pleasure, the newcomers swarmed in after their principal, the Queen Bee of her school community, and took possession of their new quarters.

"Yes," said Miss Mahon, "it is a great day for us. In 1910, the first year of my work here, we had 134 children, Mongolian, white and negro. Today we have 500 students, all Japanese and Chinese, with half a dozen exceptions. In 1910 we had four teachers, where 13 are now required. It has been a wonderful experience, with the finest kind of support of the district and school patrons.

Cooperation of Parents.

"In all my service here I have never had trouble with a single parent. The children are sent to school to learn their lessons and get all we can give them of American ideals, manners and ways of living. The children understand this and I feel that with the home cooperation we are getting and the splendid enthusiasm of our teachers, the school is making citizens of which Seattle will be proud."

Director King expressed the great satisfaction of the board in the completion of the building and today's installation.

H.H. Okuda, chairman of the community committee of the district; C. Ito, president of the Japanese Association of North America, and K. Nakashima, its secretary, presented the principal with a letter of appreciation as the school left its old quarters for the new.