Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1917-09-27
COLLEGE GIRLS
PENETRATE KENTUCKY MTS.
UNIQUE Among Community Centres
Wellesley Women Finishing Rec
reation Hall.


On Caney creek. in Knott County,
Kentucky, in the heart of a mountain
Gus region hitherto unreached by any
civic work. q Radcliffe College girl,
Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, of Bos-
ton, former newspaper woman. and
her husband, Arthur ". Lloyd, of
Northampton, Massachusetts,, have es-
tablished a Community Center.
Unique among Community Centers,
its buildings are being erected by
college women from all over the
United states. The administration
cottage. set half way up mountain
on the Demonstration Farm upon
which the Caney Greek Community
Center is located. has already been
erected through 81 contributions from
individual Radcliffe girls, and larger
sums from Radcliffe Clubs.
wellesley women, by the same con-
certed method. are financing the build--
/ ing OF a Wellesley Recreation Han,
where the mountaineer can have safe
and educational occupation during
that portion OF the year when. in MS
| roadless isolation, there is no legiti-
mate vent for that energy he has in
herIted from ancestors who with
Boone blazed the wilderness Trail in
to Kentucky. Choice is being made
of Wellesley graduate as future Di-
rector of the hall.
Lastly. the Southampton Industries
/ Building for weaving. basketry, fur
niture making and other nearly-lost
arts in the mountains, is being
achieved through the cooperation OF
the women of Smith College. The
chief aim is to preserve the century
old patterns of ''Kivverlids" and the
dependable dyes of the cabin dye
pots"
Settlement workers all over the
United States are observing Mr.. and
Mrs. Lloyd because their methods are
the reverse of the stereotyped. They
| apply no preconceived theory to the
mountain people-either religious or
educational. They do not educate the
exceptional child away from an impos-
sible environment They begin with
i the mountain life, the cabin life, as
i il is and has been for 200 years. BY
example, by a Community Civic Club,
by district nursing service, by social
service extension, by the establish
ment of an exchange to obtain, for la
Dor or produce, the necessities of
life, by personal friendship with all
within reach, they gradually lift the
living conditions of the cabins until
Iproved environment automatically de-
/ sire and, with the help of the COM
i munity assets and opportunities, ulti-
mately acquire a safe, healthful and
i dependable economic status.
Several thousand college women are
i watching the Caney Greek Communi-
ty Center with interest because the
Center does not seek to provide a
classical education for a calico
gown" but because it seeks primarily
to improve housing conditions and
sanitation that the losing civility of
the southern highlanders may be pre-
served; and secondarily provide for
the mountaineers, in their home hol-
lows, opportunities for essential eco
nomic safety.
Marshall E. Vaughn, Secretary o.
Berea College, is one OF the trustees
of both centers, the Caney Creek Conn
munity Center and the Wis Community
Center on Troublesome Creek, the lat
ter the first Community Center es-
tablished by the Lloyds, and the post
Office address for both Centers On
the board of advisers are noted Sam
uel w. Greene, Judge of the Jefferson
County Court, Louisville, Ky; Edward
H. Stevens, librarian of Pratt Insti-
tute, n. ". and Francis II. Rowley,
president of the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to AMI
mails, of Boston.