New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1909-08-29
HELPING 4 CHILD.

Ii has been finely said by Phillips Brooks, thar
lover of God and men and little children. that
he who helps a child helps humanity with an
''immediateness that no other help given to a
human creature in any other stage OF human
life can possibly give again. For more than
three decades the highest form OF service for
humanity. according 10 the view Of the great
hearted Bishop of Massachusetts. has been
given 10 the beneflciaries Of the Tribune Fresh
Air Fund. Started as a means of taking little
children from dark tenement surroundings to
the green country fields II has gradually de-
velOped until health rather than happiness has
become the dominant factor In selecting the
children for the country outing Not that fun
and plenty Of II IS lost sight of, but that ap-
parent need and way of meeting II are kept
constantly to the front.
Three hundred little boys and girls are cared
for in one Fresh Air home In the Catskills-
children such as ole meets in the dispensariCs
and clinics and missions and settlements ana
in the streets of the great East and West sides
of the metrOpOlis-and every one of them il
likely TO be Il consumptive later I'm life! No
child is taken into this particular home unless
a physicians certificate shows that one or both
parents have tuberculosis. Such formidable
rivals of this dreaded disease are pure food and
plenty of it and fresh air in abundance that the
physicians say enough resisting power can he
generated by these children during a month or
more under the ideal surroundings and care at
this home 10 prevent many Of them from ever
contracting tuberculosis.
He would have a heart 10 be pitled more than
to be condemned who could stand unmoved as
he saw the companies of convalescent children
starting for Deposit In care OF trained nurses
from hospitals and lnfirmaries-aIl IF them
fha
from the beds in children's wards or from the
operating tables, not few children under ten
or twelve years suffering from heart disease,
one little fellow with chalk bones which break
almost without prOvocatiOn. many carrying with
them the diagnosis which will aid the trained
nurses at the Convalescent Home I'm giving
them the special attention which they need. lie
would need a surgical operation whose heart
did not thrOb with joy as he saw the same
children come romping back a month later n
transformation so great that one of the city
nurses says: when some of our heart cases
'have returned from Deposit we have scarcely
been able to recognize them, they were so
much improved"
Or take the six hundred girls near the sea-
shore-children in years, all under sixteen. but
none under twelve. Sometimes these little
mothers" wage earners for a family caring for
home cares and anxieties; the real tragedies of
life are not portrayed on the biboards. nor vet
exhibited in the divorce courts. Is II NOT =
blessed thing that so many men and W men.
who, as Mrs Browning says, "are kind when
they think Of IT," have seized the opportunity
OF providing an outing for these silent sorrow
bearers? The nurses, who rejoiced that a
home was to be opened for children of tuber
cular parentage, expressed the hope that this
would not mean closing the home for the older
girls; happily ii did not
In addition TO the three special homes and
seven other general Fresh Air homes. thou-
sands of families, in half dozen states within
five hundred miles of New York have opened
their hospitable homes to the little people whose
only plea their need, but who in their time
have given, according TO their entertainers. far
more than they have received. The blessings
given and received have not been one-sided
To carry on this philanthropy about S4Oooo
year Is needed. Twice this year the treasury
has been exhausted. In July an appeal was
printed In these columns and s27 90, has heen
received and used The Fund needs SI25Oo To