CHAPTER XXVIII 



SUMMER COLONIES FOR CITY PEOPLE 



(Condensed from the Annual Report of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of the Interior of the Commissioner of Educa- 

 tion. Vol. 2, now out of print.) 



BERLIN has not been boastful of a new sociological feature 

 which it has developed within the last fifteen years, a feature 

 so revolutionary in its bearing upon education and upon the 

 general health of future generations, that it should be made 

 known to the world. As yet little has been said about this 

 new agency. It may be because it is not a governmental in- 

 stitution, but the result of self-help and of the recognition of 

 a plain necessity. It may be assumed that if the summer 

 colonies had been instituted by the government for the 

 great majority who are poor it would not have succeeded so 

 well as it has. 



The teachers, seeing that the horizon of their pupils was 

 limited by brick and mortar (for open park spaces are rare 

 in Berlin), came to the conclusion that only by giving their 

 pupils opportunity to live in the open air could they lay a 

 sound foundation of knowledge of natural objects and pro- 

 cesses as a basis for school studies. The teachers of them- 

 selves, however, could apply only palliative remedies, such 

 as having sent to them, from the botanical gardens, thousands 

 of specimens of plants, twigs, flowers, fruit, etc., for nature 

 study in the schoolroom; planting flower beds around the 



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