Chapter I: Part 1

The Survey,
Volume 30, Number 24,
September 13, 1913

THE COMMON WELFARE

=THE BINGHAMTON FIRE AND ENCLOSED STAIRWAYS=

After many conferences and two days of public hearings on the enclosure of factory stairways, following the Binghamton fire--and backed by the attorney-general’s opinion in regard to the scope of its powers--the industrial board of the New York Department of Labor has adopted rules and regulations for the enclosure of stairways in factories of four stories or under. On account of the vital importance of exits, their rules are quoted in full:

Regulation No. 1. In all factory buildings less than
five stories in height in which more than twenty-five
persons are employed above the ground floor, or in which,
regardless of the number of persons employed, articles,
goods, wares, merchandise or products of combustible
material are stored, packed, manufactured or in the
process of manufacture, all interior stairways serving as
required means of exit, and the landings, platforms, and
passageways connected therewith, shall be enclosed on all
sides by partitions of fire-resisting material extending
continuously from the basement. Where the stairway extends
to the top floor of the building such partitions shall
extend to three feet above the roof. All openings in such
partitions shall be provided with self-closing doors
constructed of fire-resisting material, except where such
openings are in the exterior wall of the building. The
bottom of the enclosure shall be of fireproof material
at least four inches thick, unless the fire-resisting
partitions extend to the cellar bottom.

Such enclosure of stairways shall not be required in
factory buildings in which there is an exterior enclosed
fireproof stairway or a horizontal exit serving as a
required means of exit, as defined in Section 79f,
Subdivisions 8 and 9 of the labor law. Where approved
automatic sprinklers are installed throughout such
buildings, such enclosure of stairways shall not be
required unless more than eighty persons are employed above
the ground floor.

Regulation No. 2. In all factory buildings no articles
or wares of a combustible nature shall be kept or stored
inside the limits of any stairway enclosure, or unenclosed
stairway, or on the landings, platforms, or passageways
connected therewith, nor shall such articles or wares be
kept or stored under any stairway unless such stairway and
any partitions or doors thereunder are constructed of, or
covered with, incombustible material.

Both rules become effective October 1, 1913. The labor law specifically provides for the enclosure of stairways in buildings over four stories.

The attorney-general’s opinion was asked by the Industrial Board in this case, for the purpose of determining at the beginning of its work the question of its powers not only in relation to matters not covered by legislation but also to those covered in part by law. The essential part of the opinion follows:

“It seems to me to be entirely beyond question that the
industrial board has power to adopt rules and regulations
upon subjects of which the statute already treats. The
statute itself makes mandatory provisions for many
safeguards and then makes provisions that additional
safeguards may be required by the industrial board. There
is nothing in the letter of the statute nor in its manifest
intent to confine the jurisdiction of the industrial board
to such few subjects only as are not expressly legislated
upon by the statute itself. Such an extensive limitation
upon its powers would be manifestly absurd and far foreign
to the evident purpose of the Legislature in enacting
additional legislation for the protection of the lives and
health of employes in factories.”

The attorney-general’s opinion further states that the legislation does not offend any constitutional provisions.

=SANITARY SURVEY OF THE OHIO=

The Public Health Service, under the direction of Surgeon-General Rupert Blue, has undertaken a “sanitary survey” of the streams which feed into the Ohio river. It is proposed to test the waters of these streams in order to determine scientifically to what distances the contamination of sewage is carried by flowing water. The object of the survey is to establish standards of pollution beyond which no community will be permitted by the federal government to trespass in dumping sewage into streams.

This is the first time that the federal government has ventured to invade the local police powers of municipalities, except in times of great extremity, such as during the yellow fever epidemics along the gulf coast.

The survey of the Ohio Valley will probably result in the erection by the government of “purification plants.” It has been suggested that such legislation will be deemed constitutional under the law prohibiting the transportation of disease germs in interstate commerce.

=OREGON COMMISSION AS STRIKE ADJUSTER=

The Industrial Welfare Commission which was created by the last Legislature to determine and enforce reasonable wages, hours and conditions of work among women and minor employes in Oregon began work June 3 with Bertha Moores representing the employes, Amedee Smith, a retired manufacturer, representing the employers and Edwin V. O’Hara, chairman of the committee of the Consumers’ League which secured the passage of the act, representing the public and chairman of the commission. Caroline J. Gleason, whose investigation of the wages and conditions of women workers in Oregon furnished the chief data in the campaign which resulted in the passage of the law under which the commission operates, is paid secretary.

At the beginning of its work the commission was asked to adjust a strike among the women employes of the Oregon Packing Company at Portland, which employs about 200 girls and women during the summer season. It had no power to make a legal ruling effective in less than 90 days and by that time the packing season would be over for this summer, so its office could be one of conciliation merely. Investigation revealed that with the piece rate in force a large number of the workers were earning as low as fifty to ninety cents a day. The commission succeeded in getting the company to sign an agreement pending the setting of a legal minimum, which fixed one dollar a day as a minimum for all workers except those “old or crippled” who may secure a special permit. Piece rate prices were re-arranged so that the worker of “average ordinary ability” would earn $1 a day, thus enabling the better workers to make more.

Two “conferences” of nine members each have been organized by the commission, one to consider questions relating to mercantile establishments, the other to deal with factory problems. The commission is engaged in forming conferences to deal with laundries, telephone companies and hotels and restaurants.

Interesting recommendations have been made by the conferences already established. The mercantile conference reported that forty dollars a month is required for the decent maintenance of women workers in that occupation. The factory conference has recommended $8.60 a week pay as a minimum for factory workers, and a nine-hour work day. The present legal maximum is ten hours a day. Investigation has shown that one-half of the department store girls receive less than forty dollars a month at present and about the same proportion of factory girls get less than $8.60 a week. If the commission, after holding a public hearing as provided by law, decides to enforce these recommendations, its decision will directly affect the wages of fully one-half the women workers in department stores and factories in Portland.

The commission has authority to regulate the employment of minors without calling a conference, though it holds the usual public hearing. It favors restricting night work of girls under eighteen in all industries, its chief opponents being the department stores.

=NEW METHODS IN MOTION PICTURES=

Motion pictures are bringing the scenes and events of distant lands and even of other ages vividly to the eyes. The Durbar, the coronation, the Scott antarctic expedition, the story of “Quo Vadis,” as shown by the “movies,” not to mention a thousand and one travel subjects from a railway trip in the Andes to street scenes in China, are playing a growing part in popular education. Films are being used increasingly to spread information and enlist public co-operation in the struggle against tuberculosis, dirty milk, flies and other menaces to health. And now, as described in THE SURVEY of September 6, Mr. Edison himself is enlisted in the problem of adapting motion pictures to school training.

All this development of course hangs on improvement in the mechanism by which motion pictures are projected on the screen. A new method is announced designed to eliminate all flicker which is clearly one of the serious problems in its strain upon children’s eyes. The inventor of the machine, called the vanoscope, is Lewis C. Van Riper and he essays to show continuous action by having each picture dissolve into the next instead of projecting a series of entirely distinct pictures on the screen. Col. S. S. McClure has been so impressed with the especial adaptability of this new method for educational purposes, that he is now on a trip to Europe to gain what he can for its wide use in this field.

In the prevalent method of motion picture projection, the film movement is in the nature of a series of quick jerks, each taking about one-half of the time given to each picture. Nearly 50 per cent of the time is taken up in moving the pictures forward and 50 per cent in projecting them upon the screen. Hence the flicker and the chance of eye strain.

The principle underlying this present method of projection is that the persistence of vision in the human eye is about one-tenth of a second. It has been found that a speed in projection of from 16 to 17 pictures per second is necessary to enable the eyes to retain the image of one picture until the next is projected upon the screen and to overcome or partially overcome annoyance to the eyes caused by the intervals. This is the rate of projection now used throughout the world on all standard machines for monochrome pictures and photographs for such use have had to be taken at a speed of at least 16 per second in order to appear natural.

Some of the advantages claimed for the new method are that there are no intervals between successive pictures, but each succeeding picture dissolves into the one preceding it in exact proportion as the volume of light shifts from one to the other; that there is no flicker; and less danger of fire because the projecting light does not reach the film directly, but is reflected by the mirrors; and that the front seats in an assembly room would be made as desirable as any other seats.

=BOSTON CONFERENCE ON ILLEGITIMACY=

Perhaps in no field of social work are the factors less adjusted, the issues more baffling, than in that relating to unmarried mothers. It has become not only desirable, but positively imperative, to a wise pulling together for the workers in Boston dealing with problems related to illegitimacy to unite in some sort of permanent group for free discussion of aims and means.

The Conference of Workers on Problems of Illegitimacy which was organized in Boston last year has had a fruitful year of discussion. Each month some general question has been up for consideration, the question always being precipitated by the detailed story of some puzzling specific case. In this way have been thrashed out the following questions:

What shall we do with unmarried mothers who are unfitted for housework?

Is it ever advisable to separate the child from a normal mother?

Is institutional or private care best for a pregnant girl and under what circumstances is each preferable?

What shall we do with pregnant girls from other states or countries?

The conference was pretty fully agreed upon the policies of treatment that follow.

It is advisable to keep mother and child together where possible if the mother is in any way capable of bringing up the child. In cases where the mother is unfitted for domestic service it may be decidedly wiser to place her where she is happier and more efficient, in a factory, for instance. But even here financial responsibility for the baby, and at least weekly visits to the child, should be insisted upon.

It is desirable to send back to the states or countries from which they come girls who arrive here pregnant in order that each section may develop care for its own unmarried mothers. Although this may mean old-fashioned care in the individual case because of the lack of modern agencies and institutions in places from which the girls come, it is one of the means of making localities that are not equipped to deal with such situations more alert to their responsibility.

It is difficult to determine in what cases individual care or institutional care is wise. Particularly wayward girls often need the discipline of an institution, while the more innocent type are not helped by association with those they are sure to be brought in contact with, even in institutions that take only first offenders.

Wherever there are not very positive reasons to the contrary, it is of great importance to tell a girl’s family of her approaching confinement in order to enlist their co-operation and to enable the girl to have the most natural and helpful relationships possible at a time when she needs every constructive influence to build up courage for her life ordeal and determination to keep her child and give it every opportunity within her power. Her family ought to be, and if properly approached and dealt with, often is, the social worker’s greatest asset in this effort.

It was discovered that little provision, other than that in almshouses, is made for people who have had cases of venereal disease, as the good private institutions caring for prospective mothers exclude, and naturally, such cases.

The Conference have also discussed at each meeting various aspects of the greatest single cause of illegitimacy--feeble-mindedness. They have tried to formulate more definitely the indicia of the high grade feeble-minded cases, and to determine more clearly the relation of the social worker’s investigation and history to the doctor’s analysis. They have debated the desirability of domestic service under supervision for these defective girls. The high grade feeble-minded girls if cared for in an institution probably cost the state more than the same girls doing domestic service, even allowing for the immense amount of surveillance necessary on the part of the visitor to keep them out of harm’s way. Neither institutions nor philanthropic agencies have enough equipment adequately to deal with this class of delinquents. The conference has faced the question of segregation in institutions and of sterilization as a means of preventing a continuance of this evil in future generations. They have asked whether it was ever safe to return a feeble-minded girl to the community. While agreeing that marriage of feeble-minded persons ought not to be permitted, they have not reached a final conclusion as to the best means of prevention.

A committee has been appointed to make an investigation of the causes other than feeble-mindedness that are at the root of illegitimacy. This committee has already done valuable work as a by-product of its main purpose in suggesting important points which agencies are apt to omit in their histories, and in aiding in a greater standardization of work. A full report is expected of this committee next year.

Study groups are being organized to take up the questions of legislation, venereal disease, the efficiency and range of existing institutions, public opinion, feeble-mindedness and statistics. Any further information about the Boston Conference may be had from the secretary, Mrs. Stanley King, 295 Beacon Street.

=PROBING
FOR PEACE=

The investigational method has proved of such demonstrated worth in all-American situations--whether of civic conditions or strikes--that its application to the peace movement will be watched with interest. The reference is of course to the appointment by the International Peace Endowment, through Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, acting director of the endowment, of an international commission of inquiry into the Balkan war. The first move toward this is said to have come from Bulgarians who in consequence of attacks on them by the Greek and Servian press demanded a public inquiry into the extent and responsibility for atrocities committed during the war. The New York _Evening Post_ calls the proposed work of the commission a “diagnosis of war,” and congratulates the peace movement on the greatest opportunity that has been presented it to win the world’s serious attention to the nature and implications of war. The topics of investigation include the responsibility for the outbreak of war, the economic waste caused by it and the truth about the outrages committed by non-combatants. Of these, the last appeals most strongly to the popular imagination, but the first, the responsible cause, is, in the opinion of the _Post_, the most fundamental. The main point of attack on war by peace advocates says the _Post_ “lies in the direction of ascertaining who or what is responsible for war. Is it being fought for a worthy cause, or is it being fought because certain leaders or certain interests desire war? It makes all the difference in the world whether the mangled bodies on the hillsides in Thrace and Macedonia are the price paid for the liberation of the Balkans from Turkish misrule, or whether those dead bodies and shattered limbs are incidents in the ambitions of a king or a commander-in-chief, and a testimonial to the skill of travelling salesmen from the gun factories at Essen and Creusot.”

A list of names has been suggested as members of the commission, but the final make-up will not be known until the meeting to discuss the work of the commission which is to be held soon in Paris. The proposed membership includes:

Prof. John D. Prince, of Columbia University, representing
the United States.

Francis W. Hirst, editor of the _London Economist_,
representing Great Britain.

Baron d’Estournelles de Constant, senator and president
of the French parliamentary group favoring international
arbitration, representing France.

Prof. Philipp Zorn, of Bonn University, representing
Germany.

Prof. Paul N. Milukoff, editor and leader of the
Constitutional-Democrats in the Russian Duma, representing
Russia.

Prof. Heinrich Lammasch, of the University of Vienna,
well known as a jurist, representing Austria-Hungary.

=PEACE IN WEST VIRGINIA=

The West Virginia coal strike, which lasted sixteen months, and was marked by the violence and bitterness of a civil war, has come to an end, and contracts have been signed on both Paint and Cabin creeks. The Paint creek agreement, which was signed on July 24, accords full recognition to the United Mine Workers, and grants practically all their demands, including the check-off; that is, the deduction in the office from the miner’s wages of his union dues and the payment of them to the union officials. On Cabin creek the agreement signed on July 29 did not grant recognition to the unions, but it is stated in the _Coal Age_ that by the change from the long ton to the short ton the miners have secured an increase in wages, amounting to about 12 per cent. They have gained also the nine-hour day, a semi-monthly pay, the right to employ check weighmen and to trade where they please. The Paint creek contract is to run until March 31, 1914, while that of Cabin creek is to continue a year longer, coming to an end April 1, 1915. The _Coal Age_ sums up the cost of the bitter struggle, now ended, as follows:

“Thirteen lives were lost in the insurrection. The cost in
money was as follows:

Operators loss in business $2,000,000; Loss to the miners
in wages $1,500,000; Cost to the tax payers of the State
$400,000; Additional cost to the tax payers of Kanawha
County $100,000; Cost to the United Mine Workers collected
by the check-off, a forced levy on the miners of Illinois,
Indiana, Ohio and Western Pennsylvania $602,000; Property
destroyed $10,000. This makes a total of $4,612,000.”

BUSINESS IS LIFE: A SURVEY
OF NEGRO PROGRESS

WM. ANTHONY AERY

Negro farmers, bankers, merchants, contractors, cotton brokers, insurance men, real estate dealers, social service workers, town and community builders, caterers, engineers, undertakers, educators--these men, representing the entire country and especially the South, told at the recent session of the National Negro Business League held in Philadelphia, with eloquence torn of simplicity and hard experience in the school of life, thrilling stories of success won through struggle, persistence, and good-will toward their white neighbors. The Philadelphia meetings furnished abundant proof of the statement that quality and service count in business and that men buy good products and efficient service without regard to color or race.

“Forward to the land!” In thundering tones did this command and entreaty ring out through the Academy of Music to the thousands of Negroes who had assembled to hear Booker T. Washington deliver his annual address to the league. There are some 200,000,000 acres of unused and unoccupied land in this country. Will the American Negro, especially the city Negro, acquire his share through hard work and thrift? Will young Negroes quit the poolrooms with their debasing effects and march into usefulness and comfort on the land? Will the Negro seek the signs of civilization--the automobile and the dress suit--and miss civilization as it is represented in the home and the bank account? Will the Negro forego some pleasures today so as to enjoy richer treasures tomorrow? Will the Negro allow others to think and plan for him instead of thinking and planning for himself? These vital questions of business and of life itself were put squarely to the thoughtful Negroes who had come great distances at their own expense and in many cases at considerable sacrifice of time and money. They also reached some of the city Negroes who had come out of mere curiosity to hear Mr. Washington urge a return to the Negro’s richest opportunity--the land.

Mr. Washington is far-sighted enough, however, to see the need of better Negro business enterprises. There is, indeed, according to his opinion, room in this country, without conflicting with the interests of white people, for 900,000 more Negro farms; 1,000 sawmills; 1,000 brickyards; 4,000 grocery stores; 2,000 dry goods stores; 1,500 shoe stores; 1,500 millinery shops; 1,000 drug stores and 90 banks.

Successful “demonstrations”--human interest stories--were a conspicuous feature of the sessions.

The organization of a $100,000 old-line legal-reserve insurance company by Negroes, headed by H. T. Perry, and its heroic struggle during five years to secure the paid-in capital, was told simply and dramatically by H. H. Pace. It shows what can be done in the South. Perry’s experience in Atlanta should put fresh courage into the hearts of ambitious Negroes who really want to give their people better stores, better banks, better insurance companies, better hotels, and better country life. The story of Perry’s defeat in collecting the paid-in capital, required by the Georgia law for the starting of the Standard Life Insurance Company of Atlanta, followed by his victory, through hard work and faith, emphasizes the importance of teaching men to act co-operatively when they wish to do big things. This story will long be remembered by the delegates and their friends, for it contains real “education for life, in life and by life,” as Dr. Wallace Buttrick has phrased the thought--the underlying aim of Hampton and Tuskegee.

Another interesting event of the past year, in the Negro business world, has been the opening of the $100,000 cotton-oil mill at Mound Bayou, Miss., a Negro town which was founded by Isaiah T. Montgomery, an ex-slave of Joseph Davis, brother of Jefferson Davis. This Negro enterprise shows what Negroes can do when they pull together and turn their disadvantages into advantages.

Nineteen years ago, J. H. Blodgett began his up-hill climb with $1.10 in his pocket and a suit of underwear in a paper bag. Further, he was arrested as a tramp for wearing a straw hat in winter time. Today, he owns 121 houses in Jacksonville, Fla., having a rental value of $2,500 a month. Blodgett got his start as a railroad window washer at $1.05 a day. He and his wife worked hard, saved their money, and finally built their own home. He declares that there is no excuse for young, able-bodied Negroes to waste their time in hotel work at $20 to $30 a month and tips when they can grow tomatoes in Florida at $1,000 an acre.

What is a correct formula for success on the farm? Henry Kelley, of Belen, Miss., who has been hard at work since 1873 and is now worth some $50,000 offers a reasonable one: “Industry, economy, education.” Kelley started out independently in 1886 with 520 acres of land which he cleared as quickly as he could. He built a home, and by degrees established a good business in cotton ginning, grist milling, and log sawing. Then he began to build tenant houses and to deal with his own people in the spirit of the Golden Rule. Today, he works 1,750 acres and has fifty tenants. His payroll ranges from $800 to $1,000 a month and he has work for his hands “from January through December.” He produces about 500 bales of cotton each season. He has no trouble, on account of his color, in doing business. His Mississippi white friends, he says, have always been good to him. Kelley is a hard worker still. His day--and that of his hands--is “from sun to sun.”

J. T. Kirklin, of Columbia, Mo., started in 1873 as a handy boy on the State University farm and received thirty cents a day. Out of his own wages he had to board himself. He was glad to keep his job because he was learning how to farm scientifically. In 1903 he began to take first prizes, in competition with white farmers, for his fine strawberries, carrots, watermelons, and garden truck. His first market wagon was an ordinary wheelbarrow. Later he bought two buggy wheels and made a wagon--a push cart. While some of his own people were laughing at his crude outfit, Kirklin was saving his money and improving his small truck garden. Today he is worth $20,000 and is a quiet and respected citizen.

Has the Negro building contractor who knows his business a fair chance to succeed in the South? B. L. Windham, of the contracting firm of Windham Brothers, Birmingham, Ala., declares that efficiency and not color determines the kind of work that Negroes receive. His firm has built a $100,000 apartment house for white people in Birmingham, Ala. It employs, on an average, 100 people--all Negroes--throughout the year to handle some $300,000 worth of contracts. The business of this firm of Negro contractors has grown from $50,000 in 1903 to $265,000 for seven months in 1913 and is carried on from the Mason and Dixon line to the Gulf of Mexico.

The annual meetings of the Negro Business League give some striking stories of Negro success and progress to men and women who need courage and inspiration for their work. Other stories could be cited to show that the Negro who applies himself to business and refrains from whining wins the patronage and good will not only of his own people but also of the white people. Courage, initiative, and persistence are indeed required for the task of establishing any business.

The resolutions, adopted at the final session of the league, summarized the progress of the Negro during fifty years of freedom. Ten million American Negroes now pay taxes on over $700,000,000 worth of property and own 20,000,000 acres of land (that is, about 31,000 square miles). They own 63 banks, capitalized at $2,600,000 and doing an annual business of $20,000,000. Today there are Negro business leagues in twelve states.

Facts of Negro progress need to be better understood by white and black people. One of the best sources of information is the Negro Year Book, edited by Monroe N. Work of Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.

CIVICS

THE CHILD WELFARE EXHIBIT THROUGH
THE CHILDREN’S EYES

MAY AYRES

This spring, ten-year-old Ralph in one of the Rochester public schools wrote a letter to his teacher:

“Do you know what the Child’s Welfare Exhibit is for? Well,
if you do not know what it is for, I will tell you. It is
for the child to know better and try and keep the house
clean, for a dirty house is a terrible house to live in.
And most every disease comes from a dirty house--especially
tuberculosis. Because we found out over at the armory that
when you get tuberculosis it keeps eating at your lungs,
and only fresh air will kill tuberculosis.”

Ralph had been to the Child Welfare Exhibit and come away with one important truth thoroughly impressed upon him. The exhibit was held during the second week in April. Everyone helped, and as their part the public and parochial schools offered their children as living demonstrations of Rochester school work. There were dances, drills, and games every afternoon and evening. Children sang together, and other children formed small classes of sewing, carpentry, electric wiring, cooking, rug weaving, drawing, etc., and worked steadily under the direction of teachers. The school children of Rochester were constantly in touch with the exhibit; they were given special holidays in which to see it; and their interest was keen. The following week those in the upper grades were asked to write letters telling about what they remembered.

Some 553 of these letters were examined for the purpose of ascertaining first, the most effective form of presentation for exhibit material, and second, the degree to which children understand and remember the lessons which different exhibits are designed to teach. In making the tabulation, only those letters were used which were written by the children themselves, without outside help. Several had to be discarded because they showed evidences of suggestions and corrections from the teacher. Every reference to an exhibit feature was counted, even where the child spoke of the same thing more than once.

The most popular feature among the children were the entertainments each afternoon and evening. These consisted of dances, drills, games, and chorus singing by the children themselves. Sarah, of the eighth grade, writes:

“Of all the good sights that I have seen and heard, I truly
think the exhibit was one of the best. The one particular
thing that interested me so much was the dancing which I
don’t think could have been any better,”

while Charlotte ungrammatically adds,

“I think it was a splendid idea to have these
entertainments, and I am sure it done the people good.”

The school children not only joined in dances and drills, but with the help of their teachers formed classes which worked and recited as living exhibits. All the children found the classes interesting. Says little Michael Ettiopia:

“I saw manual training. They were making desks to sell
them. Many people bought them for their children to get
learned to write and read. I saw some girls they were
making candy, and I asked if they would sell the candy.
They said ‘No, little boy, we don’t sell candy.’ So the
people could see how to make candy.”

Particular attention was paid to the work of the boys from the “Shop School.” There was a class in electric wiring where the children loved to watch the work. Here is a paragraph from nine-year-old Raymond’s description:

“There was a boy with a electric light on the front of a
box, to batteries in it, and a switch on the back. When I
saw this I said to him, ‘I wired up a electric light down
cellar and it turned on up by the cellar door.’ He said
‘Did you?’ and I said ‘Yes, sir.’”

The children were quick to recognize the ability of others, in such expressions as:

“The dresses they had were elegant, and everything they
did was grand. Not one boy or girl made a mistake. It was
perfect.”

One twelve-year-old reports:

“There was a booth where the children of the Industrial
School had the things they sewed. There were dresses and
sacks and not a girl over 13 years made them. It goes to
show what some girls can do.”

The most impressive single exhibit seems to have been that of the tidy and untidy home, which received 8 per cent of the 3,123 references. The moving picture show and the library received 6 per cent each, and the dairy, playground, and market 3 per cent.

The moving pictures appealed strongly to children in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades; they are mentioned only half as frequently by those in the seventh and eighth. The other exhibit features received practically the same amount of attention from children in all different grades.

Many children devoted two pages or more to a description of the bedrooms and kitchens in the tidy and untidy home. Here is an account given by a ten-year-old girl in the fourth grade:

“Then in a corner opposite that it showed how dirty people
keep their houses. The bedroom had dirty old clothes on
the bed which was half made. The kitchen was all dirty and
dusty, and there was a can of tomato emptied out in the
dishpan with wet dripping greasy rags right above them and
dripping into them. And the table cloth was all dirty and
mussed up, and there was some sour sauerkraut and cabbage
mixed together and cooked an hour or two too long. The
coffee was the strongest I have ever seen in my life, and I
don’t believe I shall ever see any more as strong as that
as long as I live, and there was not any milk for it, and
the pickles were mouldy enough to kill any child, and the
sausage was terrible.”

The same child goes on to describe the clean and dirty dairy.

“It showed how your milkman’s dairy should be, and how
dirty some of them were. The dirty dairy was all full of
cobwebs and there was straw and mud in the pails and a cat
was lapping the milk right out of the pails and the cows
were all muddy and dirty. But the clean dairy was lovely
and the barn was all pure white and the cows were the
cleanest I have ever seen and the milk was all rich and
creamy and clean because the pail was all covered over on
the top and the yard was all covered with green grass and
it all was just as clean and neat as it could be.”

Twelve-year-old Meta draws a lesson from the homes and the dairy. She says:

“The Child Welfare Exhibit is to show the fathers and
mothers how to bring up their boys and girls so that they
will make good citizens. If the citizens of a city or town
are good citizens, the town will be a good city or town.
You would hardly think a dirty house would have anything to
do with the future citizens, but it has. If a boy or girl
has a dirty home he also will be dirty not only in body
but in mind also. (Dirty in mind means a mind with which
you cannot think clear.) ... You must also have good food
because if your food is food which does not nourish you
right, your mind will not be good.”

The clean and dirty markets held a peculiar fascination for the children, and there are vivid accounts of the cat that was “walking over the meat and licking the meat” and the “cow’s head with a disease that made it all lumpy, lying in the corner, with the blood dripping out.” As Helen remarks:

“In the good store the store keeper was dressed in white,
the food all looked clean and in a nice glass case. In the
bad store the cat was on the counter and the celery and
lettuce was all dried up, and the rest is too disgusting to
tell about.”

Finally, we have this manly confession from an eleven-year-old boy:

“I think the child welfare exhibit was a very nice thing,
for it teaches you something, at least it did me. The
things that taught me the most was about the good and bad
rooms, for I have a bad room; and so did the good and bad
stores do me good.”

All the children saw the moving-picture show, which they take care to tell us was a free show. The film dealing with the care of the teeth, that telling the story of a boy’s camp, one vaguely described as “he knocked his wife down and he knocked his children down, and they all fought,” and the clean milk film received the most attention.

In the center of the armory a small playground was erected, and there the older children took their little brothers and sisters. One of them writes:

“One of the days when I was there a little girl was crying
as though her heart was broken, because she had to go home,
and her mother had to promise her she would bring her up
there the next day, so she would stop her crying because
she wanted to stay and play in the playground.”

The library proved a great attraction to the children. One after another tells of “reading most of the afternoon, and when I got out it was most night,” or of starting a book “which I came back the next afternoon to finish. It was a book of engineers.” The general feeling of the children is expressed by Sarah Sedita when she says:

“While looking around I could not express my joy, when I
went to see the library department and saw on a sign what
is to be in Rochester, which was no other than this--that
there is to be a public library and fifty other branches of
it at different places in the city. Although I have read
ever so many books, I could not help then to be overjoyed.”

Near the library was a booth showing the guns, cards, jimmies, daggers, etc., taken away from small boys in the children’s court. There was also a lurid collection of dime novels from the same source. Of these Katherine writes:

“I was talking to Mr. Killip about the boys he had to
handle, and he was telling how some of them acted. It was
very interesting to see the things he had taken from boys
under sixteen years--the revolvers, dice, knives, books,
cartridges, and other things. Some little boys came along
and saw the books and one said, ‘Didn’t I tell you those
were good books? See, they got them here!’”

This booth and the explainers in charge--the explainers seem to have done effective work in the Rochester exhibit--impressed the boys very seriously. Moses states the case:

“When a child reads a novel he gets interested in them and
likes to buy more of them. After a boy reads a great deal
of these novels he gets so that he thinks he is the things
that he is reading about. And soon after that he starts to
murder.”

Tabulation was made showing the distribution of references among the four main types of exhibit material--entertainments, models, motion exhibits, and photographs, maps, diagrams, charts, etc. To reach conclusive results, it would be necessary to secure the exact number of exhibits shown in each of the four classes. We know, however, that there were more photographs, cartoons, charts, maps, etc., in the Rochester exhibit than numbers on the program, or different models, or motion exhibits. Donald tells us--“There was charts of the teeth, mind, nostrils, ears, throat, various organs, limbs, and feet.”

But most of the children who attended the exhibit have only a vague memory of the photographs which lined the walls, and every reference of this kind is capped by three references to the program numbers. Models and motion exhibits receive practically the same amount of attention in all the grades. The lower grades were more impressed by the entertainments than the higher, and the higher were more impressed by the photographs than the lower. The per cents for all the children run: entertainment 35, models 28, motion exhibits 26, and photos, maps, etc., 11.

There were 271 favorable comments and 44 unfavorable comments on the exhibit. The favorable run from one little girl’s reiterated exclamation of “Oh, it was grand!” to Ralph’s dignified statement:

“Thousands of people were taught by the clean and healthy
attitude of the building a great number of things. It was
probably the best move toward cleanness ever held in this
city.”

With a few exceptions, the unfavorable comments have to do with the overcrowding, from which the children suffered greatly. As a natural result of such a throng, the halls became stuffy, and there seemed to be no adequate system of ventilation. One of the boys writes:

“There were imposing posters on the poor air system in the
tenement houses, but right there, where thousands of people
came daily, the air was so had that people who really
wanted to see the things stayed away.”

A twelve-year-old girl makes this scathing comment:

“At different booths they had pictures showing how to
prevent children from getting germs of disease. Then the
mothers take their children to a place like that. Saturday
night after I got in the Armory basement from dancing it
was so full of dust I could hardly breathe. Then we went
up stairs and mother said that the American mothers were
going crazy. The Child’s Welfare Exhibit is very fine, but
I think the Rochester mothers had better tone down and be
more careful of where they take their children. For it was
just full of germs down there, both up and down stairs.”

There were many general comments, and lessons drawn, such as “Many people will say ‘Oh, I can’t afford milk, it’s too expensive.’ But this is all foolish, as in the end milk is the cheapest and best of foods.” An eleven-year-old girl writes:

“The thing that took my interest was the different cares
and diseases of the babies that they are apt to get when
they are neglected. And it will help me very much during
vacation, as I am going to take care of the baby.”

Finally comes this simple tribute to the success of the exhibit:

“When looking at the pictures of poor children and homes
and the condition of the homes, it seems hardly possible
that such conditions could exist in Rochester, but when you
get out of doors again your eyes are opened and you see
conditions that you never noticed before.”

The children speak frankly in their letters, often telling more about themselves than they realize. There is something pathetic in the following glimpse of home life which Maurice affords us:

“The good food and bad are almost what I take, but I don’t
drink coffee any more, and will not take it. My brother
used to have coffee every meal, but since my mother was
there he drinks no coffee but all milk and bread. Bread is
about the only good food there is, and I have had lately a
good appetite for it.”

One feels a throb of sympathy for the boy who says:

“We need something to make us stronger mentally, and
something to abolish the truant officer.”

Many of the children are quite sure that the exhibit was for the instruction of the “lower classes” only, and have a pleasant feeling of superiority as they speak of its influence. Says one with some indignation:

“The thing impressed me as if the Italians and Germans
were having more done for them than the Americans and
respectable people.”

And finally ends a mournful letter with the conclusion many other observers have reached before her:

“The impression of the whole exhibit on me was that it is
slow work.”

It is of course impossible to draw any hard and fast rules as to the effect of exhibit material upon an adult audience from these letters of school children. Certain things, however, are of enough significance to warrant attention on the part of exhibitors. With the exception of the moving picture exhibit all these different features were about as interesting to the children in the seventh and eighth grades as to those in the fourth, fifth and sixth. Difference in age seems to have little to do with the strength of the impression received. The fact that children acted in the entertainments and motion exhibits probably accounts in part for their interest in these two forms of exhibit material, but it cannot account for the high per cent of attention paid to the tidy and untidy home, the moving pictures, the library, the clean and dirty dairy, or the clean and dirty market. Entertainments interested them most, models next, then motion exhibits, and photographs least of all. Difference in age becomes a factor when considering the type of material rather than the individual exhibit, and we find interest in entertainments lessening, and that in photographs and diagrams increasing towards the higher grades. Through all the grades, however, models and motion exhibits receive very nearly the same amount of attention, and together receive more than half of all the references made. Among adults, it seems safe to assume that the relative order of interest would be the same.

SOCIALIZING THE COUNTRYSIDE

MARY H. FISHER

A little over three years ago, in the spring of 1910, a newcomer to the little town of Amenia, Dutchess County, New York, inspired perhaps by the glorious sweep of the twenty-five acre field on his recently acquired possessions, summoned to his home a handful of his neighbors and laid before them the germ of an idea which a few weeks later was to blossom into the full-blown Amenia Field Day. At the start, the newcomer offered the community his field, his time, his assistance in every way possible, and asked and obtained of them that spirit of co-operation which has made Amenia Field Day stand for what it does today. In 1910 the attendance was 3,000; each succeeding year, it has increased; in 1913, it was 10,000, and 1914 will doubtless see it bigger yet.

The Amenia idea has been described as “an experiment in co-operative recreation”; a high-sounding phrase, which means simply that the people of Amenia get together, plan together, work together to the end that one day a year they may play together.

Simple though this idea is, it has not been an easy one to inspire in the hearts of New York and Connecticut farmers (for Amenia is less than three miles from the state line). The rural population is admittedly composed for the most part of conservatives, unimpressionable, and slow to arouse to anything which savors of innovation, and which does not bring in its train anything of palpable, material benefit. For generations past, they have had their county fairs, with concomitant cattle and poultry exhibits, horse-racing, fakers, and side-shows of rather more than a questionable nature. They have had farmers’ picnics, for the most part small affairs, of purely local interest. But the Amenia idea was conceived in a spirit bigger and broader, and, it is believed, more truly democratic and more representative of what public spirit in a rural community ought to be. To quote from the program of the fourth annual Amenia Field Day, “The Amenia Field Day offers, as a substitute for the commercialized fair, a free day of wholesome enjoyment, supported by the united efforts of a whole community. One day a year the people of Amenia invite the whole countryside to such a day of clean and simple recreation, without gamblers, fakers, intoxicating liquors, or vulgar sideshows. Admission to our festival is free to all.”

This year, the committee strained every nerve towards including in the day’s entertainment features that should take in everyone, young and old, of both sexes. For boys, they planned a series of athletic events, running and jumping contests, open to all comers, without limitation save as to age. Prizes were generously donated by a leading citizen of Amenia, but the committee is seriously considering doing away with all prizes next year, except the simplest of silk badges, commemorative of the event.

The scope of athletic sports, in which it is wise for girls to participate, is so limited that this year for the first time folk-dancing was instituted. The committee imported a teacher from the Bureau of Recreation, Department of Parks, New York City, and entrusted to her not merely the task of teaching the graceful and quaint dances, that have been imported from over the seas, to the maidens of Dutchess County, but the far more difficult task of organizing the classes, of getting the girls to join, of persuading the mothers to allow their daughters to join. Nowhere are social strata so well-defined, nowhere religious and racial lines so closely drawn as in the country community; nowhere are barriers of caste so hard to break down. To level the ranks of prosperous and poor, to bring about harmony between Catholic and Protestant elements, requires a very large measure of diplomacy and tact, combined with human sympathy.

For small children of both sexes, under mature leadership, were arranged the games which city children for generations past have known and loved, and in turn handed down to their smaller brothers and sisters; games such as “cat and rat,” “farmer-in-the-dell,” etc., which for some inexplicable reason seem never to have penetrated the school playgrounds of Dutchess County.

On Field Day, August 19, for miles around Amenia, the holiday spirit was in the air. Everybody with his wife and family, in automobile, farm wagon, or on foot, took the road that led to Amenia Field; even those who professed no interest in the events of the day, came “just to see who was there!” Everybody brought lunchbaskets and spread the contents under the trees, in true picnic style, since nothing but soft drinks and sandwiches were sold on the grounds.

Throughout the day, a band of musicians played patriotic and popular airs. The old folks gathered together contentedly in groups, listening to the music, while keeping an admiring eye on the prowess of their athletic sons, the grace of their daughters dancing on the sward. Young and old participated in the grand march that took place immediately after lunch-hour.

Afterwards, in a tent-covered auditorium, men and women of national prominence addressed an attentive audience on subjects chosen for their interest to a rural population. Suffragists, from Poughkeepsie and New York, by way of propaganda, presented an open-air pageant portraying the advance of women’s education in modern times. Meanwhile, a demonstration of alfalfa-growing, under the supervision of the Dutchess County Farm Bureau, and the State Department of Agriculture, was given in a neighboring field. Enthusiastic “fans” of Dutchess County were given an opportunity to cheer at a baseball game between two local teams.

The day finished with a band concert held in the Post Office Square, of Amenia, which had been decked with hundreds of lighted Chinese lanterns, strung from adjoining buildings. The expense of this concert, as of all the other features of the day, was met by popular subscription. Everybody was invited, nobody solicited, to contribute, according to his means.

On every program of Amenia Field Day has been printed these principles:

“You have got to make the country as attractive socially as
the city if you want to keep the young folks on the farms.

“There’s a good deal of work in the country, but most of
our boys and girls have forgotten how to play.

“Baseball is a splendid game, but it isn’t the only one.
Every healthy boy should be interested in at least half a
dozen others. Don’t merely watch others play games; play
them yourself.

“You can’t drink strong drink and be an athlete. Get your
boys interested in honest and healthy sports, and save them
from drink and dissipation.

“Contests and competitions are not the main thing. ‘The
strong compete and grow stronger; the weak look on and grow
weaker.’ The main thing is play. Learn the great lesson
that play is just as necessary for your sons as work.

“The community should help to run its own recreations. Its
festivals should be, not only for the people, but of and by
the people.”

MODEL HOUSING AS A COLLEGE COURSE

Some of the concrete results of the Tuskegee experiment in reconstructing the interior of the Negro rural home, were told in THE SURVEY of August 30. Paine College, Augusta, Ga., a school for Negroes, supported for thirty years by southern white people, who feel that the Negro question can only be solved when the white descendants of slave owners set their hearts and heads to the task, is endeavoring to experiment on the reconstruction of the Negro city home by change of material environment If a $50,000 endowment can be raised the college will put into effect a plan of housing designed to prove it profitable, not only morally but financially, to provide the Negro an exterior environment which shall make the task of educating him for life easier. The scheme and the demand for better housing on which it is based is described by Mrs. John D. Hammond, wife of and co-worker with the white president of Paine College.