The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-07-26
VACATION DAYS

You are probably anticipating a va yourself one. Perhaps you remember with longing the weeks and weeks of summer vacation that you had as, a child, but did you know how to spend it then? It seems a delightful pros peet. but it is really hanging rather heavily on the hands of some of the school children who are free from May or June until September.
 If they are in reach of a municipal play ground. the question of their spare 1 time is most happily settled but there are so many. many children who can not have the benefit of these play grounds and they have to depend upon themselves for occupation.
 The best solution of this long vaea- tion Is a division of the day into hours for work, self-improvement and play. One would hardly question the advis- ability of having a child do some work through the summer. Both girls and boys should learn early that it is their duty to contribute something to the welfare of the family. and their work should be such that it will add to their own comfort and that of other mem bers of the household. Of course, the circumstances of the family will de- termine what this work will be, and the different ages of the children will decide the division of the work among them. It may be a stated part of the | housework, caring for the bedrooms or the dining room. milking, wooding, gathering vegetables, keeping the poach vines trained. laundering the table napkins or the towels every morning, polishing the silver, or talk ing entire charge of the baby for a certain length of time. Whatever il is. it should be a definite task to be done at a, regular time each day, and something which the child can recog- nize as being of real importance, not just something to occupy his time. As to pay, there are two arguments | Any child over years old wants some spending money of his own and 1t is 1 only right that he should have it. Just I as soon as he Is old enough or as soon he is allowed to spend money
 he should be provided with it in such | a way that he will never have to ask | for it as a gift. If it Is a gift, il should be distinctly such, without his | having to ask for it. If 1t is not to be a spontaneous gift, then 1t should be C stated sum paid to him in return fol his work. The child who has to ask for every penny of the spending money
 that he needs and the child who is al. lowed to beg money for charity pleas ure or for his saving bank are botf to be pitied.
 A little comradeship on this yer, point between a boy and his father will help to keep them from growinf lapart later. Suggestions as to how h, tch no hi, mo hAxxv 1a 1,s11 make it if he has not yet found some thing to do this summer and lessons il
 simple bookkeeping will be more thai worth the time devoted to them.
 Books in Vacation
 The child's work will occupy som three or four hours of the day. Ther
 will be ample time for self-improve
 ment or recreation other than play Under this head one naturally think
 first Of books. and books sugges
 school and there the child is. back t This winter work when vacation shoul
 be a change from that. If it were onl,
 possible for all children to find il II books the pleasure and companionshi that some children find in them, Thos
 whs have an inherited love for book
 and for reading have the advantage II of course; but newt to that the bes thing is a cultivated taste for read T. ing
 The parent who realizes that hi
 chlld does not care for reading am who then makes no exertion to interes
 aoth himself and the child in the lat
 ter's reading. neglects his child. An thoughtful teacher of the advance grammar grades can say from exper
 fence that there is only a brief perio of years at which a child can be taugh really to love books and to appreciat reading to the fullest extent and tha
 those children who pass this age an