The Washington herald., 1913-10-12

milk are served. with a bit OF fruit oc-
caslonally. The diet is calculated. before
everything else. to be nourishing.
After breakfast the first number on the
prOgrar~ is active exercise until about
10 o'clock. Then a three-quarters of an
hour period of study takes place. gener-
ally spelling, grammar. or history. A
quarter of an hours recreation and an
hour of arithmetic make up the forenoon.
Hot. soup or broth. bread and jelly, and
milk or warm cocoa make up the noon
day meal. Then follows a performance
that knocks the feet from under one of
Erandmothers most cherished old the
ories
The children are bundled up in steamer
chairs or cots and bade to go to sleep
while their lunch digests. Poor old grand
mother gasped many a time before new
discoveries of science were able to per-
suade her that this method of procedure
would not send the child to an early
grave or leave him cranky old dyspep-
tic, but the schools have the proof of
their wisdom right in their own records,
which show that contrary to the old be-
lefs the children grow strong and
healthy under such treatment
Nature Is Text Book.
At O'Clock some study of nature akin
geography, and an instructor escorts the
pupils through the fields and hills and
points out to them the different objects
like pools and slopes and lakes which the
dry textbook frequently only half i'm
presses on their minds. After an hour
and a half of such talks with nature,
recreation and games are again in order
until 4 clock, when some handiwork or
other study fills the time up till the serv-
~ 1lnra :
The menu for this meal is very change
able including meats and vegetables.
milk. and other healthful foods. By $50
the children are again in their homes,
and after telling mother and father, in
those cases where there are a mother and
a father, all about the days work, they
are thoroughly ready to run off to their
waiting cots for good nights rest.
Under circumstances of this nature it is
no hard matter for child TO spring
quickly back to health.
As the fundamental idea of this move
ment is to fit the school to the child
rather than to make the child measure
I'D to the requirements of the institu-
ton there can be no set schedule or rou-
tine which will apply in all cases. Ere
CUently the schools will have in at
tendance cripples who are unable to in
dulge in the walks and games OF the
ether children, but IN these cases Il
teacher is always provided to interest
them in livid stories which often give
ar much knowledge as the pupils can
acquire in their rambles. In cases where
the condition of health is such that l.
viii not permit of attendance at all of
the classes the invalid is allowed to rest
during certain periods while the others
go ahead with their work. Many OF the
schools even employ buses and auto
mobiles to collect the feeble children
from their homes in the morning and re-
turn them in the evening.
Immunity from Colds.
Another difficulty arises in the winter
time when the weather would ordinarily
be termed Indictment. Almost the first
question asked by critics and opponents
when the proposition of open-air schools
was launched was, How will YOU keen
the child from catching cold or even
pneumonia, If you expose him to the
rigorous open-air Of northern winters?
This question partially answers itself.
because there is such a thing as man
becoming acclimated to weather con-
dltions and the children who attend these
schools in a short time become almost
immune from colds.
II. however, a child who has been
walking or playing in the snow gets his
body or feet wet there can be no harm
come Of IT as long as he is active, and
the moment that he steps in on the floor
space, or, as in some classes, the open
room, he is Immediately hustled to the
warm, inclosed baths and there thor
oughly dried before he is exposed to the