New-York tribune., 1912-02-01
SCHOOL FARMS NEED AID
eaoue'S President Asks Public
10 Contribute S1.000,000.
MY. us PART IN THE WORK
chancellor Brown One of the
Speakers at Annual Meeting
at Colony Club.

aUe want 81 900. 600" is the slogan Of
me international Children's school Farm
League now.
, At the annual meeting of the league at
,--s;bs Colony Club yesterday afternoon Mrs.
uerrv Parsons. its president told the aU-
dsfrce that she wanted the public to con-
B tribute that sum and help tho league To
ahole its tunnel through.
81 was impressed by that phrase 'holing
,be tunnel through when I read the ac-
count this morning of the ceremonies in
tho Catskin aqueduct yesterday" she said.
@That is lust what VIC are trying 10 do.
Ne have built I'D a good system Of school
farm gardens hut We want more teachers.
Give us money for a permanent fund to
3 support training school and our tunnel
will be holed through
sr. Henry Griscom Parsons, secretary Of the
Z, league and director Of the department OF
school gardens at the University Of New
= York, said the university would father the
training school whenever the money was
raised
And it's an ideal spot for such school,
he added, with plenty If land.
"The Russell sage Foundation has given
gardening at the university. but what we
want is an e-year-round school So
many who want TO take the training don't
end il convenient to come Just at the time
Of that six weeks course. Besides, it won't
ls accommodate very many. We train some
teachers At our farm gardens during the
summer. but that is hard work looking
after the children and training teachers
too and it is wearing us out"
Mrs Parsons announced that the league
had at last secured the cooperation of tho
Board of Education.
We've waited ten years for it. and now
We have It," she said. And now that We
have il want to carry through "A big plan.
Crotona Park al 156th street, has six
schools fronting on it, with twenty thou
sand pupils among them. We want six
acres Of the 15s i'm that park to teach those
children how 10 farm. II will take money
,aAquip those gardens, but we mean TO get
4tre six acres and the money"
After Dr. Elmer Ellsworth Brown. chan
cellor Of New York University, lad said
some nice things about the league and the
importance Of It's work Mr.. Parsons
showed some moving pictures illustrating
the farm garden started last year in Jef-
ferson Park. at 1lith street and the East
River. and tho audience 'oh-rd" and "ali-sd'
as It watched the children pouring ont OF
? the Toulouse, with their rakes and wheel
barrows. digging and watering their plots.
and listening by the hundreds to nature
stories told by tho teachers Most Of the
pictures were what the speaker called
equal suffrage pictures" showing boys
and girls toling side by side or washing
china together after giving a social cup Of
tea TO visiting mothers.
-Four murders we're committed in that
park last year" Mr.. Parsons said. THAT
shows YOU the sort Of district it is Net
the children's little farm plots-l.O17 Of them
were never disturbed all last summer.
The neghborhood guarded them. In the
course Of the summer 1900 children-l7,og
little Wild terriers-camc there 10 hear the
nature stories. and not one Of them picked
leaf or trampled ON garden piot--thc
plets, mostly. of other children No one
need tell us that children arc bad we
knew better"