Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/314

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

trips were productive of much good. A little girl seven years of age informed us that she had never been to the park before. I asked her if she had ever ridden on the street car. She replied : "Yes, I've hitched, but I never sat up straight like this before."

On these trips we observed the natural instincts of the chil- dren, and we learned more of their charac- teristics and inner lives than we could learn in a year of regular school work.

On one of the farms we visited the children were given all the milk they could drink and all the berries they could eat. But they drank and ate sparingly until we had wandered away, when they returned and hurriedly feasted, filling their pockets with berries and bottles with milk. A description of one of these excursions, as reported by one of the teachers, is so vivid that I quote it in full: "Our second excursion was auspiciously started by a softly cloudy day, which promised shelter from the hot sun's rays, with little danger of rain. The children marched in good and regular order to the station, bearing greasy bags, newspaper bundles, and dirty boxes of watermelon slices, hard-boiled eggs, sausage, bakery cakes, well crushed, and pop galore. Many whose delectable lunches were in the least accessible had them eaten before we reached our destination — Thornton, 111. It was pathetic to see the children rush for the ill-smelling and dusty chickweed of the roadside. One of their chief questions, iterated and reiterated at the park last week, had been : ' Can't we pick the flowers ? ' And this time, when we started, I said, 'We may pick whatever we choose, boys and girls, when we get into

STREET IN FRONT OF JONES SCHOOL