Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/329

 THE MOVEMENT FOR VACATION SCHOOLS

311

that of the police. Our system seems to need vacation schools .... in which the hours and methods of study should be adapted to the season." (See Annual Report for 1897, Cam- bridge, Mass.) But, in spite of the wisdom of the committee

SINGING IN THE WOODS

and repeated mooting of the subject, with requests for an appro- priation, the Cambridge council has not yet seen fit to provide the necessary funds. But there, as in other cities, it has remained for women to be sufficiently far-sighted and sympathetic to find the ways and means to satisfy the growing need of the children, and to avert the threatening evils of the street. The first vacation school was established in Boston in 1885, and since then New York, Chicago, Cambridge, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, and New Haven have organized vacation schools. All alike hope that before long the boards of education in their respective cities will undertake their management. New York has already done so, after an object-lesson of four years con- ducted by the Association for the Improvement of the Poor,