The Democratic advocate., 1908-05-01
Summer Colonies for City People.

About this time of the year We
hear more or less of the"city farms,
where some of the pupils of our
schools are annually encouraged to
cultivate little patches of unoccupled
land. The movement is commendable.
The occupation is wholesome, taking
the children off the street" inculca-
ting respect for property and bring
ing them a little closer to nature than
they could hope to get in the desert OF
brick and mortar wherein most OF their
lives are spent. 1t might be helpful
to a growth of the movement in this
city to learn what has been accom-
plished in this respect in Berlin, the
capital of Germany. The impetus, as
here, was given by the public school
teachers; something was done by the
public authorities, but in the main the
"arbor gardens" of Berlin are the out
growth of cooperation on magnifi-
cent scale.
Parents were induced to rent, at a
cost of 81 for the whole summer, a
patch of land in the suburbs, unfit for
farming because cut up by railroads
or newly-laid-out streets. On such a
leasehold family might erect a struct-
ure of boards with corrugated iron
roof and a veranda. These "arbors"
are necessarily cheap, for the land
may have to be vacated at short
notice when wanted for building oper-
ationS. Though the allotmentS are
small, there is still room enough on
each for a horizontal bar or a swing,
and a few bare spots for the very
young to play in the sand after the
ground required for planting seeds
and growing things has been reserved
Families aesthetically inclined grow
flowers and trail vines over their
"arbors;" others, utilitarian from nee
essity or choice, plant potatoes, car
rotS and other edible vegetables. Some
families camp in their arbors all sum-
mer, but thousands return to city
homes at night. Several hundred or
a thousand ''arbor gardens" form a
colony, with an unpaid official ap-
pointed by the city, who arranges the
leasings, collects the rent and is as
sisted by Colonial Committee" in
keeping the peace. "Colonists' who
frequently disturb good order are
stricken from the lis, and their leases
are not renewed. But such cases are
rare; people who are fully and pleas
antly occupied are not apt to be quar-
relsome. The season lasts from May
1 to October 1, the school population
meanwhile regularly attending their
schools, which can be reached cheaply
and quickly by the elevated and sur
face lines.
There are more than fifty arbor
colonies in the suburbs of Berlin, and
the estimate that several hundred thou
sand children live thus in the open air
during the camping season and in
vacation time is conservative though
rather indefinite. A visitor to Berlin
is struck by the apparent smallness OF
the juvenile population, the streets
and parks being almost bare of chill
dren. When school is out they hurry
home to work in the garden. The
harvest festival, with flag raisings and
illumination and, of course, singing
and music, is a memorable day. A
Berlin teacher remarked: 1T is
noticeable that since these school chill
dren are engaged in lucrative work
which does not go beyond their
strength, and since they perceive with
their own eyes the results of their
labor, a sense of responsibility is en-
gendered which has a beneficial in
fluence upon school work also. Re-
spect for all kinds of labor and per-
ceptible decrease in the destructiveness
so often found among boys are un-
mistakable effects" There has also
been observed great diminution OF
the number of juvenile offenders, the
alarming increase of which, as re-
marked in governmental report of
the year 1870, was one of the chief
motives for the establishment of these
summer colonies.