Page 637

A NEW IDEA ABOUT VACATIONS
A NEW IDEA ABOUT VACA-
TIONS: BY RAYMOND RIOR-
DON
HERE is more harm done body and
        soul of the youth in this land dur-
        ing the so-called "vacation" months
        than the nine months of the school
year can ever hope to offset. It is too warm
for concentrated mental work in a school-
room during the summer, but the fact that
school today means, largely, book-learning,
is confessed when we idle during a third of
the year. If school going meant education,
each day, each minute of the twelve month
would have its lesson and its result. The
summer months are long and dreary ones.
The industrious lads-and there are many
-seek employment, generally to their great
moral disadvantage. Driving grocery wag-
ons, serving soda and like occupations
throw children into contact with an environ-
ment that is not desirable. The sons of the
well-to-do go to summer camps where idle-
ness is accentuated or useless sports are
given first place in the boys' minds. Some
camps add to the novelty of the sport by
giving prizes or letters or whatnot-the
whole basis of such effort but bringing the
individual into a stand of self-aggrandize-
ment.
  Why not utilize the boy's summer in the
application of his schoolroom instruction?
X¥hy not treat these months as a term de-
voted to the imorovement of the com-
  A LOG HOUSE BUILT BY THE BOYS AT INTERLAKEN.
munity? Why not make his vacation one
where self-effacement can be brought about
through honest delving into that unknown
sphere-the land of effort for others' good?
  Down in Berea, Kentucky, is Berea
College. It doesn't happen to be a college,
however, it is just a school with a fine pur-
pose guided by an unselfish band of men
and women. At Berea the mountain slopes
from five States, toboggans, figuratively, to
the school. Down the slopes pour nearly
two thousand boys and girls-almost men
and women. These people-of whom Dan-
iel Boone was one-get "schoolin'" for
various parts of each year, just such time as
they can spare. Fifty miles many come on
horseback, fording streams and undergoing
danger, to go to school. Berea wants to
make citizens of these Americans-the
straggling population so few in numbers in
this flooded land, who really are Americans.
Her field is broad for in these regions dwell
3,ooo,ooo not "blue bloods" but "red
bloods."
  Up in the mountains these souls live in
log huts, the women weave and dye and
farm, which is good; they also smoke and
drink, which is bad. The men hunt and
fish and kill big game, which is good; they
also drink, distil bad whisky and kill each
other once in a while, which is bad. Berea
intends that all that is best and right in their
lives that bespeaks the habits and customs,
the crafts and traditions of the people of
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