"Yesterday evening, when the teacher gave us news of the poor Robette, which will have to walk with crutches, he entered the Director with a new member, a boy of very dark face, her hair blacks, and blacks with big eyes, with thick eyebrows and reached on his forehead, dressed all in black, with a belt around the waist black morocco. The Director, after talking to the teacher in his ear, he went out, leaving him beside the boy, who looked at us with those big eyes blacks as frightened. Then the teacher took his hand and said to the class: - You must be happy. Today, the school enters a small Italian born in Reggio di Calabria, more than five hundred miles from here. We love your brother came from a distance. He was born in a glorious land, which gave Italy the illustrious men, and gives workers strong and brave soldiers, in one of the most beautiful lands of our country, where are the great forests and great mountains, inhabited by a people full of wit and courage. Vogliategli well, so do not realize that being away from the city where he was born, show them that an Italian boy, in any Italian school put the foot, we find the brothers. That said and got up on the wall map of Italy marked the point where Reggio di Calabria. Then he called loudly: - Ernesto Derossi! - What has always been the first prize. Derossi rose. - Come here - said the master. Derossi left from the bench and giving in to put next to the table, facing the Calabrian. - As the first school, - said the teacher - from the embrace of welcome on behalf of the whole class, the new companion, the embrace of the children of Piedmont to the son of Calabria. - Embraced the Calabrian Derossi, saying in her clear voice: - Welcome! - And they kissed him on both cheeks, with a rush. All clapped their hands. - Silence! - Cried the master, - not they strike hands in iscuola! - But you could see he was happy. The calabrese was happy. The teacher gave him the place and took him to the bench. Then he spoke again: - Remember the good of what I say. Why this could happen, that a Calabrian boy was like his home in Turin, and Turin was a boy at home in Reggio di Calabria, our country fought for fifty years and thirty thousand Italians died. You have to respect you, love you all of you, but those of you offended because this fellow was not born in our province, we would never be unworthy to raise his eyes from the ground when passing a flag. - When the Calabrian was seated, his neighbors gave him a pen and press, and another guy from the last bench, sent him a stamp of Sweden. "from the" Paper Heart "by Edmondo de Amicis
the photo is Lorenzo Vitturi