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EMIL MUNSTERBERG 



Although the movement to establish these colonies in 

 America reaches back to the first third of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, it found its first important expression in the work of a 

 public school teacher, Miss E. Very, in 1879, who established, 

 with the support of a woman's educational society, the first 

 vacation school in Boston, whose purpose it was by instruction 

 and play to act upon the children in their time out of school 

 and withdraw them from the vicious influences of the street; 

 a thought which found imitation and extension throughout 

 the whole country. Originally the vacation schools were de- 

 signed for children between the ages of two and twenty years, 

 and the program, in order to win as many children as possible, 

 laid emphasis upon amusement. After longer experience, the 

 necessity of separating children according to age, work, and 

 play became apparent ; so that now, in addition to the vacation 

 schools proper, there are also play schools and open spaces, 

 while for the smallest children school takes the character of a 

 kindergarten. Children between the ages of ten and fifteen 

 receive training in sloyd, instruction in drawing, and in natural 

 history by means of holiday trips into the country or parks for 

 the observation of animal and plant nature ; singing and indus- 

 trial occupation, as tailoring, cooking, etc., always so far as 

 possible adapted to the individual needs of the pupil or his 

 home life. Not seldom the instruction in the vacation school 

 helps to determine the choice of future vocations. The length 

 of a course is from four to eight, as a rule six, weeks, the daily 

 instruction usually of three hours ; two courses a day are given 

 either successively, or in the forenoon and afternoon. The 

 place of teaching is in a room of a pubfic building; the direction 

 of the affairs is in the hands of trained teachers; the daily 

 average cost per child varies between 5 and 25 cents. 



As in England, so also in America, private charities 

 develop in a high degree. This corresponds not only to the 

 peculiarities of American beneficence already indicated, but 

 also to the fact that the pubfic poor authority is rather averse 

 to outdoor relief, and limits itself, especially in the greater 

 cities, to indoor relief, in poorhouses and other institutions. 



American charity has to contend in a higher measure than 

 is true on the continent with the evils of division and absence 



