The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1913-09-16

n Last spring, ten-year- Ralpn III
me of the Rochester public schools,
rote a letter to his teacher;
II DO You know what the Child S
Welfare Exhibit is for? Well, If you
10 not know what it is for, will ten
Tou. 1t is for the child to know bet
Ger and try and keep the house clean,
Tor a dirty house is terrible house
II live in. And most every disease
fomes from a dirty house-especia1ly
%IbercuIosis."
E Ralph had been to the Child Wei
ARE Exhibit and come away with one
Important truth thoroughly Impressed
MDon him. The exhibit was held dur-
fhg the second week in April. Every
Hne helped. and as their part the pub
&c and parochial schools offered their
children as living demonstrations Of
Rochester school work. There were
aances, drills, and games every after
aoon and evening Children sang to-
Eether, and other children formed
small classes in sewing, carpentry,
Electric wiring, cooking. rug weaving
Craving, etc, and worked steadily I'M
Ser the direction of teachers The
@chooI children of Rochester were con-
SANITY in touch with the exhibit; they
Fere given special holidays in which
10 see it; and their interest was Keen
The following week those in the upper
grades were asked to write letters tell
ing about what they remembered
an1ined for the purpose of ascertain
ing first the most effective form Of
presentation for exhibit material, and
second, the degree to which children
understand and remember the lessons
which different exhibits are designed
20 teach In making the tabulation,
only those letters were used Wnlcn
were written by the children tnem-
selves without outside help. Sever
al had to be discarded because they
showed evidences of suggestions ana
corrections from the teacher. Every
reference to an exhibit feature was
counted. even where the child spoke
of the same thing more than once.
The most popular feature among
the children were the entertainments
each afternoon and evening This
consisted of dances, drills, games. and
chorus singing by the children them
selves.
The school children, with the help
of their teachers, also formed classes
which worked and recited as living
exhibits All the children found the
classes interesting. Says little Mich
ael Ettoiapia-
Il saw manual training. They were
making desks to sell them Many
people bought them for their chill
dren to get learned to write and read.
I saw some girls they were making
candy. and asked if they would sell
the candy They said No, little boy,
we don't sell candy SO the people
could see how to make candy"
Particular attention was paid to the
work Of[4ke1 bays from the - shop
School, There was a class in cleo
tric wiring where the children loved
to watch the work
The most impressive single exhibit
seems to have been that of the tidy
ana untfdy home, which received
per cent of the 1923 references The
raV-1T
received per cent each and the
dairy, playground, and market 3 per
cent.
The moving pictures appealed
strongly to children in the fourth,
fifth and Sth grades; they are men
toned only half as frequently by
those in the seventh and eighth The
other exhibit features received prac-
ticaIfy the same amount of attention
from children in all different grades
Many children devoted two pages or
more to a description of the bedrooms
and kitchens in the tidy and untidy
home Here is an account given by a
-ten-year-o1d girl in the fourth grade:
Then in a corner opposite. shat it
showed how dirty people keep their
houses. The bedroom had dirty old
clothes on the bed which was half
made. The Kitchen was all dirty and
dusty and there was can of tomato
emptied out in the dishpan with wet
dripping, greasy rags right above
them and dripping into them. And
the table cloth was all dirty and muss-
ed up, and there was some sour sauer-
kraut and cabbage mixed together and
cooked an hour or two too long. The
coffee was the strongest I have ever
seen in my life. and don't believe [
shall ever see any more as strong as
that as long as 1 live, and there was
not any milk for it, and the pickles
were n4oufdy enough to kill any child,
and the sausage was terrible"
The same child went on to describe
the clean and dirty dairy.
The clean and dirty markets held
a peculiar fascination for the children,
and there are vivid accounts of the
Eat that was walking over the meat
and licking meat and the COWS
Head with a disease that made it all
Iumpy, lying in the corner, with the
blood dripping OUT AS Helen re-
narls-
In the good store the store keeper
was dressed in white, the food all
looked clean and in a nice glass case.
In the bad store the cat was on the
counter and the celery and lettuce
was all dried up, and the rest is too
disgusting to tell about
All the children saw the moving
picture show, which they take care to
tell us was a free show The film
dealing with the care of the teeth.
that telling the story of a boys camp,
one vaguely described as he Knocked
his wife down and he knocked his
children down, and. they all fought
and the clean milk film received the
most attention.
The library proved a great attrac-
ton to the children. Near the library
was a booth showing the guns cards
jimmies, daggers. etc, taken away
from small boys in the chfldren's
court There was also a lurid coIIec-
ton Of dime novels from the same
source.
This booth and the exp1z3aers in
charRe-tne explainers sees: . hare
done effective work in the Rochester
iexhibit-im pressed the boys very ser