Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/339

 THE MOVEMENT FOR VACATION SCHOOLS 321

onel Francis Parker, of the Chicago Normal School, and Professor Gabriel Bamberger, of the Jewish Training School. No text- books were used. Manual training, including sloyd, paper fold- ing, drawing, clay modeling, and sewing for the girls, was given to all classes from the kindergarten up ; singing and gymnasium work were important features, but, above all, a weekly excursion to the country was the center around which all study in the school revolved. The exursions were made possible through the generosity of the Chicago Record.

Cards were distributed through the neighborhood of the school, and before long the throng asking admission was so great it was necessary to ask police aid to keep order. Three hundred and sixty children were finally admitted ; during the term over 4,000 applied. The teachers engaged were the best obtainable, it being felt that in a school of this kind, where everything depended upon the personality of the teacher, excellent results could be obtained only by experienced teachers. The excursions were not conducted as picnics, but each class in care of its teacher used eye and ear and hand to gather all the information possible, to see the life under stone or in flower, to know the country as a place of beauty and productiveness both. Throughout the term the course of work was guided by the advice of Professor Bamberger, who was chairman of the educa- tional committee. The school commissioner of the district, who was at first doubtful as to the success of the venture, testified that nothing that had occurred in the district had been of so much benefit as had the vacation school. The most pathetic as well as lamentable ignorance of the country and country life was discovered, proving that from books alone, without actual sight of the objects studied, comparatively little is learned by the children, as is illustrated by the child who pictured a cow as big as a dog, who was shocked that milk should come from the cow ; by the one to whom a puddle was a lake, and by the numbers who had never seen a group of trees, nor a field of clover or wild flowers, when these seemed so easy of reach.

In 1897 circumstances rendered it impossible for the Civic Federation to conduct a school. The settlement of the Univer-