Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/922

* VACANT LOT FARMING. 786 other cities, including Cliicago, Kansas City, and Philadelphia. In the majority of cases the man- agement has been in the hands of private chari- table societies, as in New York and Boston. In Denver an independent committee was estab- lished; in Pliiladelphia, the Vacant Lots Culti- vation Association has been specially chartered. Finally, the administration has in some instances bi'cii in the hands of the municipal authorities, as in Hutialo and in Detroit. The most important single influence on the success of vacant lot farming is the personality of the superintendent, who must not only be a practical farmer, but must have executive ability, tact in handling people, and commercial knowl- edge enough to dispose of the crops profitably. The cultivators and their families usually con- sume a portion of their produce, but the larger part is generally sold in the local market. In most cases land has been lent for the pur- poses of cultivation, but sometimes, as in Boston, it has been rented. After the initial outlays for preparing the land, sup]ilying seed, tools, etc., have been made, the running expenses do not in- clude much beyond the superintendent's salary. The scheme involves less danger of pauperizing the recipients than do ordinary methods of poor relief, while the work offered is educative in itself. Objection has been raised that it com- petes unfairly with self-ilependent farmers, but while this charge has some weight against vacant lot farming as a permanent establishment, it hardly makes against it as a relief measure in times of economic distress. As a matter of fact financial results have generally been satisfactory. ^'itli the return of industrial prosperity, atten- tion to vacant lot farming diminished. Phila- delphia is among the few cities in which it has continued to increase. The association culti- vated nearly 200 acres in 1002, as against 130 in lUOO, and 27 in 1S97. The number of persons aflected has grown during the same period from 57S to 3775: the value of the total produce in 1902 was $50,000, the total outlay .$5557. while the cost per plot sank from $18.25 in 1897 to $7.00 in 1902. The purely educative side of vacant lot farming has recently been developed in the children's 'home gardens,' or city 'farm schools,' which have been started in Xcw York and elsewhere. Consult : New Y'ork Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, Notes. vol. i., Nos. 1 and 2 (1895-90); Speirs, Lind- say, and Kirkbride, "Vacant Lot Cultivation." in iyharUifs Review, vol. viii.. p. 74 (containing bibliography). The Philadelphia and other so- cieties publish reports. VACATION SCHOOL. A term used, quite arbitrarily, to indicate a school kept in many American cities during the customary summer vacation for the children of the public schools. The term has no reference to the more advanced schools connected with universities and colleges or with popular educational institutions such as the Chautauqua (q.v.). though the motive for the establishment of these more advanced schools may be much the same. The use of the term as well as the institution itself is confined almost Avliolly to the United States, nor does it have any reference to the ordinary school term as extend- ing through the summer months, as it does in the rural regions of many States. The vacation VACCINATION. school is of very recent establishment, save in a few isolated instances, and owes its origin to the work of philanthropic societies in caring for the cliildren of the poor of the larger cities during the extreme heat of the summer. While there are sporadic instances of such schools kept by these societies as early as 1860, when the Old First Cliurch of Boston conducted one, and there are even .some instances of scliool boards providing for such work, as in Newark, N. .1., in the same year, the -movement has become of importance only since 1898, when the Board of Education of the City of New Y'ork took over the schools pri- marily founded by The .Society for the Improve- ment of the Condition of the Poor. During the summer of 1903 that city provided for 58 such schools, employing 1500 teachers, at a total ex- ]icnse of more than $100,000. At the present time all the large cities of the country and many of the small ones, to the extent of some 200 in all, support such schools. The work of the vacation school is of a much more practical nature than that of the ordinary session and is devoted more to constructive work by the child. Consequently manual training, housekeeping, sewing, together with nature work, local history, and geography, combined with excursions, form a prominent part of the curriculum. VACCINATION (from vaccine, from Lat. mcciniis, relating to a cow, from imcca, cow; connected with Skt. vasa, cow, from va-i, to bel- low, or perhaps with ulcsnn. bull). Inoculation with Tficciiiia or cow-pox, to protect the in- dividual against smallpo.x, HiSTOBY. JIany years before the time of Jenner it was observed in widely separated locali- ties that accidental infection with cow-pox con- ferred immunity against smallpox. Inunermann quotes Von Humboldt as referring in his travels in the tropics (1803) to the fact that native ■shepherds in the Jlexican Cordilleras believed in the protection afforded by vaccinia against small- pox, and quotes Brun as making a similar state- ment in reference to the clan of Elihots in Balu- chistan. Peasants in different parts of Europe, especially in the southern part of England, in Holstein. Mecklenburg. Hanover, and Saxony were firmly convinced of the fact. In 1763 Dr. Heim, of Saxe-Meiningen. learned through his father, a clergyman, that milkmaids of that country neigliborhood asserted their belief in the protective influence of accidental vaccinia against variola. The English physicians Sutton and Fewster, having heard of similar beliefs, in- oculated with human smallpox, in 1778. several persons who had been infected with vaccinia, without result. Medical men paid but little heed to their reports, and apparently further experi- ments were not made by them. A Gloucestershire farmer, Benjamin Jesty. was probably the first European to vaccinate as a preventive. He in- oculated successfully his wife and two sons with bovine virus in 1774. having himself secured immunity from variola throiigh accidental vac- cinia. It is further reported that Piatt, a school teacher near Kiel, vaccinated two children with bovine virus to protect them from an epidemic of smallpox in 1791. But great and lasting credit is no less due to Edward Jenner (q.v.), who in 1768 began a thorough scientific investi- gation of the matter, and placed the performance