After Five Days Return to
ALLENDALE FARM
LAKE VILLA, ILL.

JERRY VOORHIS
12TH DIST. CALIFORNIA

HOME ADDRESS
R. F. D. No. 1
SAN DIMAS, CALIFORNIA

COMMITTEES:
FLOOD CONTROL
WORLD WAR VETERANS' LEGISLATION
PUBLIC LANDS
RIVERS AND HARBORS

V. R. LONG
FIELD SECRETARY

ADDRESS:
BALDWIN PARK, CALIFORNIA

HAROLD HERIN
OFFICE SECRETARY

ADDRESS:
138 HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D. C.

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, D. C.

February 28, 1940.

Professor F. O. Matthiessen
87 Pinckney Street
Boston, Massachusetts

Dear Matty,

Thanks a lot for your letter. I too was
mighty disappointed that I could not get in touch
with you when I was in Boston with a couple of
hours to spare. I do not know just when I will
get back again for I always regret it whenever I
agree to leave Washington during a session to make
speeches. It just is not a good thing.

We are still hoping that sometime you
will be able to get down here and see us.

JV:m

THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE

OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
343 SOUTH DEARBORN STREET
CHICAGO 4, ILLINOIS

462

130 MAR A. M.

THE COOPERATIVE LEAGUE

GENERAL OFFICES
CHICAGO 4, ILLINOIS

343 South Dearborn Street
WAbash 2-0667

Public and Member Relations

Literature-Film Department
Donald D. Martin

JERRY VOORHIS
Executive Secretary

WASHINGTON 6, D. C.

726 Jackson Place, N. W.
NATional 8765

Cooperative News Service
Public Relations

John Carson, Director
Wallace J. Campbell, Director

CHICAGO 4, ILLINOIS

July 10, 1949.

Dear Matty :

It would be just my luck
hat on the very day you are in Chicago I
have the chance. Our summer conference of
corp stuff people take place at Lake Geneva
Wisconsin July 12-15. It is my luck
meeting of the year. So unless you should by
chancevent to come up to Lake Geneva I
will miss you.

I am so anxious to see you hat
I am hoken - learted on this. My wife,
Louise, would le most happy to have you
call her at Winnetka 6-4711.

I do hope for better luck next

462

VOORHIS SCHOOL
*for BOYS*

BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Charles B. Voorhis, *President*
Royal H. Balcom
John R. Boardman
Royal R. Bush
William A. Johnstone
Burt L. Rice
H. Jerry Voorhis

Rev. Royal H. Balcom, D. D., *Rector*
H. Jerry Voorhis, A. B., *Headmaster*

THE VOORHIS SCHOOL FOR BOYS is a community founded as a practical expression of good-will toward boy kind. It welcomes to membership boys who have missed part or all of the blessings of a true home and who are able and disposed to profit fully from their experiences in a school which stresses both understanding guidance and complete and thorough preparation for a happy and useful life.

The school is situated in the San Jose hills about
half way between San Dimas and Covina. Much of
the one hundred and fifty acres is in rich, level ground
which will be devoted to horticulture, gardening, and
the raising of small stock. Here, under proper direc-
tion, the boys may learn to till the soil, plant and
care for the trees or crops, and perfect themselves in
whichever of these industries they may wish to pursue.
Part of the acreage is composed of rough, hilly
country on the banks of Puddingstone Creek. This
is the "Boy Preserve" where nature will be studied
at first hand, where ardent explorers will wind their
toilsome way, and where, no doubt, occasional scenes
of tribal conflict will be enacted.

The buildings are on an oak-dotted mesa from
which an unobstructed view of Mount San Antonio
(Old Baldy) and his lesser associates offers inspira-
tion. For the present there are the "Chapel of the
Beloved Disciple," the shops, the farm buildings, four
cottages for the boys, a great playing field, and homes

4

VOORHIS SCHOOL FOR BOYS

for the families of the school staff. Eventually there
will be homes in sufficient number to house one hun-
dred and fifty boys, an administration building, a
standard school building for our junior and senior
high school grades, and a gymnasium.

The ideal of this school-home is “home” life in the
fullest sense of that word—that is, understanding,
educative, guiding, and loving home life. The ideal
is, further, that this home life be offered to such boys
as, without schools of this type, would never know it.
Here the orphan boy, the boy from the broken home,
the boy whose “home” lacks most of the elements
which give the word its meaning, or the boy of a
widowed or over-burdened mother, may find comfort,
understanding, and shelter. This ideal of the Voorhis
School must be a part of the atmosphere of the place,
something taken entirely for granted by every mem-
ber of the community, old and young alike, a part
of the fabric of things about which no one will do
much talking, because its fulfillment is too funda-
mental and too sacred to be made a matter of any
evident effort.

The guiding principle of the community, on the
other hand, is its school, an agency which will domi-
nate its life and direct it at every turn toward the
development of happy, constructive, socially-minded
citizens. And because, as has been said, the home at-

mosphere must be a thing so fundamental as to be
assumed, boys will be encouraged to consider them-
selves students at a training school, and to liken their
own situation to that of any group of boys attending
a private secondary school.

It is obviously impossible in this brief word to set
forth in full the offering of the school. In all that it
teaches it will strive to encourage its boys to the attain-
ment of so thorough and complete a mastery of their
work and of themselves, as to set them at a premium in
the world of industrial and professional life. The
school will aim to draw boys out to express themselves
in some fine art, to read and care to read good books,
to love and understand nature, to appreciate the powers
and possibilities of their minds, bodies, and instinctive
urges, to build ideals on a foundation of hero-worship
for the great souls of the past, to understand and will
to labor at the problems of society, to appreciate the
give and take of group life, to find some work they
love to do and for which they can prepare as a life's
calling, and, above and through all these, to experi-
ence the presence of God in their lives. The school
plans to offer practical training in printing, carpentry
and drafting, in auto mechanics, electrical work, horti-
culture, small stock raising and gardening and also
in music and drawing. It will prepare for college
such boys as seem endowed with sufficient ability to

5

SAN DIMAS, CALIFORNIA

6

VOORHIS SCHOOL FOR BOYS

use further education as a preparation for professional
usefulness.

Unless it is definitely a means of making restitution
for his mistake or wrong action, a boy's work will not
be made his punishment, neither will the adminis-
tration seek to save money by excessive employment
of the boys at work which has no educative value for
them. There are but three right conceptions of work
so far as this school is concerned: either it is a boy's
training in his future vocation, or it is his willing con-
tribution to the life of the group to which he belongs,
or it is voluntarily undertaken by him for the purpose
of earning money.

Those who will guide the school believe that the
boy learns better from people than from precept, that
the best sermon to him is your own life, and that com-
panionship is a far better key to his heart than any
system of discipline or regimen of life. It is not in-
tended that companionships formed at the school shall
cease when the boy has reached a given age, or that
the time shall ever come when a member of the Voorhis
School for Boys will cease to consider this school his
home. No boy will leave the community until plans
for his immediate future are complete, and the help
and guidance of the directors will always be his for
the asking. Such of our boys as seem able to profit
by a college or professional education will be helped
to complete their course of training.

SAN DIMAS, CALIFORNIA

7

The enrollment of the Voorhis School will be lim-
ited to boys of ten years or over. The full orphan boy
will always be favored among those who make appli-
cation for admission. A thorough investigation will
be made to determine whether the home life and train-
ing which this school-home offers are the very best
possible arrangement for the applicant. A medical
examination will be required and the boy's mental
attitudes, emotional life, special talents, and general
intelligence will be looked into, since the school will,
as a general rule, require at least average mental
ability in the boys whom it accepts. A certain almost
indefinable but rather easily recognizable quality in
character will be looked for in our boys. And while
the school neither desires nor expects to limit its mem-
bership to the "perfectly-behaved boy who has never
made any trouble," it will always require promise in
the lad and evidence of the possibility of growth as
the condition of acceptance.

The fundamental reason for the establishment of
the Voorhis School is to provide a real home for a
limited number of boys who, by force of circumstance,
have not enjoyed this blessing. A second purpose
is to give those associated in the care and instruction
of these boys the opportunity and privilege of service.
During the first year of the school, beginning in Sep-
tember, 1928, we will be prepared to care for twenty-

8

VOORHIS SCHOOL FOR BOYS

five boys. With the addition of more buildings and equipment, the second year will find us ready for a total of fifty. By the beginning of the fourth year, it is planned to have the plant completed so that the full school of one hundred and fifty boys can be accommodated.

The land, the buildings, the equipment and a sufficient endowment for present needs have been provided. They represent a memorial to the mothers and fathers of the donors and a remembrance of the home life they in their youth enjoyed.

This word of the Voorhis School for Boys is set forth to give prospective boy citizens of the community, their friends and relatives, some idea of what this school-home will offer. It is also hoped that some may find within our group some particular boy whom they may wish to sponsor, not only by providing money for his scholarship, but by taking a personal interest in his development, his happiness, and his future success.