The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-01


 tenement districts; yet we know that 1t is true, and we also know that very small gifts on the part of those more | favored, involving little, if any, sacri- flee, will provide playgrounds which, however small, prove a paradise to the children.
 There is pathetic side to the appre- citation of these grounds by the mothers as well as by the children. One moth- CT said to the matron: T heard about this and did not think it could be true, so I came myself to see. What | blessing for the poor women who have | to go out to work!" Another, leaving her baby to dig in the sand pile, said: "Will she be safe? I have no other place for her but the street, and there are so many ice carts and cars l am afraid she will get run over" Still another, whose little girl was picked up on the street by the committee when | asked why the child wasn't at the | Eaton yard, eXclaimed: And will they take the baby, too? Oh, I'm so glad!" And the testimony of the children, all | though differently expressed, is quite as forceful as that of the parents. On Thursday while about seventy-five were | being kept quiet and busy in the Zun- der kindergarten room, outside the gate I were about thirty more, bareheaded, | many of them, in all the rain, peering | through the railing and repeating again and again the familiar question, Teach | CT, won't you let me in, please, teach l err" It was not easy to have to turn them away, but as yet we have but the one room, and in the Eaton school not | even that. We need no further proof that through these backgrounds we have reached the mothers and the chill | dren's hearts.
 MANY INTERESTED VISITORS. | Much enthusiasm has been expressed 1 by our many visitors. Among those | who have been most cordial in their in- terest and approval are Mayor l Farnsworth, MT Connor of the board
 of education, Judge Cleaveland, MT.
 Starkweather, Dr. Adelaide Lambert
 and many of the city police. Although
 so many are out of town, our visitors
 book is quickly being filled, and we trust all who have not yet visited the yards will surely do so and see for | themselves what is being done.
 l But there is a deeper side to the re-
 creationWork than that of merely mak- | ing the children happy and keeping ] them quiet. While we are, all of us, trying to solve some of the many socio- | logical questions which confront us
 everywhere, while we are all of us working for at least one of the many | characters of the regeneration or help | of the criminal or destitute, how small | O of
 are intelligently interested in, or actual l ally acquainted with, the work being done day by day in our public schools | We have in our play grounds children i who for the most part come from homes | over crowded, and always overburden-
 ed with the one great need of earning the daily bread, where a table is an un- | known thing, often where the English tongue is unknown, where there is nev- | CT the least encouragement towards I any higher life than the mere animal 1 existence And yet these children are l acquainted with some of the best liter
 ature in the world, have an elementary | knowledge of plants and flowers, of the | rocks and of the birds and animals; they can sing, not the common street | songs, but songs that are worth the
 knowing, as it can safely be said no
 other body of children outside the com
 mon schools can sing. In witness of
 this might be mentioned that all the way to and from Cesey Beach the chil- l dren, unprompted by the natives sang,
 Star Spangled Banner" My Country
 'Tis of Thee" Columbia the Gem of
 the Ocean" and many others.
 WHAT CHILDREN ARE LEARNING AS a result of this, and perhaps even more as a result of the personal infiu- ence of the teachers. these children are
 learning, not only to read and write and add, but also to appreciate the beautiful in nature and in art to turn from the poor and cheap literature and | choose the good, and are growing up
 such ideals of right and honor and truth and unselfiShness. These are the
 boys and girls who will some day make
 the large majority of New Haven's ! citizens. If the city could hold and in- f1uence them for good through school
 and college course it might perhaps af- ford to let them run wild for two months out of each year, but when we consider that a very small minority of | LHtIIl ever LtCCil Llic I1lSH SCHOOl, WH6H we have statistics to show that
 crime increases about 30 per cent.
 during the summer months, there is but one course open, to hold them while
 we can throughout the entire year.
 We trust that the play-grounds will in
 very short time broaden into the va-
 cation schools, which have been so suc-
 cessful in New York, Philadelphia and
 many other cities. That to do this we
 must have more money, and we feel
 sure that we are not mistaken in be-
 Iieving that New Haven will respond generously to our call for help.
 The public schools are not what they
 used to be. They are educational in
 the broadest sense of that word Shall
 not this educational influence which
 the children so need, which they
 enjoy and which most of them can
 have only for nine or ten short years,
 be given to them from September to
 September, making the summer term
 period of lighter work and less strin-
 gent discipline, but time when we can
 say yes to every child who pleads, , Preacher can't I cone?"
 l Wrathful buyer-Look herel You call