The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-03-28
THE FORMAL OPENING
OF THE EDWIN BANCROFT FOOTE
 BOYS CLUB BUILDING
VIII Take Place on Thursday of Next week-LoeaI Y. NJ. c. A. Pioneers in
 Conducting a Boys's Club With Its

week-LocaI Y. NJ. C. A. Pioneers in
 Conducting a Boys's Club With Its
 Work.
 With the opening of the Edwin Ban- croft Foote Boys club this week the local Young Mems Christian association will enter into the field as the pioneers in the work of conducting boys club with the Y. M. c. A. work, and making it part of the work of the association thoroughly identified with it and sur rounded by the same principles which govern the workings of the association.
 The undertaking which the New Ha- ven Y. M. c. 4. has on it's hands at first glance seems like an unwieldy one, but when any one has taken the trouble to acquaint himself with the systematic methods by which the various depart ments are conducted and the machine like working of the whole is seen, then is it apparent with what skill the asso- citation and it's dozens of branches are kept going under the watchful eye of General Secretary William G. Lotze.
 In no department more than the boys club is the work carried on with inex- haustible enthusiasm. The first of Feb ruary last the club, which is located in the old polo rink, was informally open ed. The membership at that time was ninetyseven, the club having already been organized in the junior department rooms of the Y. M. c. A. building.
 The fifteenth of the present month the membership was 210, showing the popu- larity of the club among the class of boys it is primarily intended for. Only visit to the club will show the delight which the boys taken in their club home. Boys who daily have to work for living. who at tender years have been denied the luxury of an education and to whom the club furnishes the one opportunity for self-improvement, mor- ally, mentally and physically.
 Edwin Bancroft Foote, through whose gift of $25,000 the association was able to purchase the old polo rink property for its boys club, has erected for him. self monument that means more than a granite shaft, erected by loving friends or ardent admirers could every stand for. He has created something
 
 dividends in boyish gratitude shown in the faces and acts of the boys who nightly gather at the club for social evening and gymnastic exercise.
 That the club has reached the boys for whom it was originally intended there is not the slightest doubt. Harvey l.. Smith, the superintendent of the work, has gathered the following fig ures which show that the club is taking its own place among just the boys it was designed to aid March 15 the membership was made up of forty-five boys who gain livelihood selling news papers, thirty paper carriers, l. e., boys with routes, thirty clerks, thirty-four errand boys, sixteen factory hands, thir- teen office boys, four bootblacks, four, elevator boys and the remainder of a membership of 210 boys engaged in every conceivable occupatio
 The boys naturally divide themselves into two classes, those under fifteen an dthose over fifteen. The biggest number of the boys are fourteen years Of age, the next number are boys of fif- teen, then sixteen, thirteen, twelve, sev- enteen and so on, the youngest being ten, of which they are eleven boys, and the oldest twenty-one, of which there are two.
 An elaborate programme is being pre- pared and will be given under the direc- tion of the committees. The committee of management is composed of Charles P. Walker, W. L. Taylor Ashley L. Willis and R. F. Tilney. The chair man of the boys work is Rev. A. P. Stokes. The trustees of the club are H. H. Benedict, H. F. English, H. W. Far nam, W. T. Fields, Samuel Hemingway. c. S. Mersick, H. G. Newton, Ruther- ford Trowbridge, Pierce N Welch and s. H. Read. The advisory committee is A. P. Stokes, James H. Webb and Charles Kleiner.