Painstaking Care in Camp Better Than 
Parental Oversight for a Daughter. 
The words seem to jar. They do on 
me, 1 know ; perhaps they do on you. 
We parents think that we are all -in all 
to our offspring. But it needs only a 
second thought to suggest that along 
many lines others are more influential 
than we are. We recognize the fact 
when we employ a doctor or a music 
teacher or any other instructor. But 
when we consider personal care we 
like to think that we are the most im- 
portant persons in the world. 
This feeling is one of the greatest 
factors with parents, especially with 
mothers, when a vacation in a camp is 
suggested for their daughter. Camp- 
ing and camps are new things. The 
proposition is so novel that the mother 
is doubtful, although she may feel that 
she should send her daughter. Many 
mothers have said to me : “I feel that 
my daughter is not yet old enough to 
be away from my personal care. No- 
body could give her the care that I can 
give.” That is a mistake. You can 
care for your daughter when her life is 
uneventful and as usual, but when 
something new and important appears 
then we need a special set of workers 
trained to manage that particular in- 
fluence. Not a father nor a mother 
would think that they are able to re- 
move adenoids or to vaccinate but 
when it is a question of general physi- 
cal training and development then con- 
siderable thinking is necessary before 
we can arrive at a correct decision. It 
is for such parents that this article is 
intended. 
Last summer when I was in a camp 
to which I had taken a dozen girls, the 
mother of one of the girls came to visit 
us. She said, “Daddy Bigelow, I have 
something to tell you that will tickle 
your ears.” (1 quote her exact words.) 
“You are the first person to take my 
daughter away from me. When the 
train rolled out of the Grand Central 
Station I gave pretty liberal indications 
of my sorrow to the parents of the girls 
that went with you. Mr. ” (the 
father of one going on a second year’s 
trip) said, ‘Stop your crying. Daddy 
Bigelow will take better care of your 
daughter than you can.’ ” 
I recognized the fact that he was 
using the personal term only figura- 
tively. He meant that I was taking 
that daughter to an institution where 
the combined efforts of several skilled 
workers would accomplish far better 
residts than the care that could be 
given by parents at home. He knew 
that in case of sickness trained nurses 
and able assistants would give far bet- 
ter care ; he knew that the physical 
training in swimming, diving, setting 
up drill, the personal supervision of 
games by experts, the horseback riding 
in charge of a skilled man with a hun- 
dred other things would each be su- 
perior to anything the parent could do. 
He knew that the table fare would 
every day be as good as that in the 
home or in the best hotel in New York. 
In some respects it would be better be- 
cause the location is in farming terri- 
tory where really fresh vegetables, 
milk and eggs are available and the 
menu is especially adapted to growing 
girls. 
But aside from these details of fare 
and care the father probably had in 
mind the pleasing camp environment 
with hale, hearty girls as companions, 
and the clear atmosphere of Maine, pro- 
verbially the vacation ground of the 
country. Are not these conditions more 
agreeable to think about than the mul- 
