This answer may be regarded as not strictly to the point, yet it is certain that it holds the truth more nearly than any statement which might give New York or Philadelphia as the first cause. By this mysterious law, which from time to time we encounter in settling precisely such questions, minds entirely remote and with no kinship of faith or mutual purpose, felt the sudden moving toward action practically simultaneous. A hint of things to come had been given half a dozen years before, but full action waited for the Centennial year of 1876.
Up to this time summer rest, save for the rich, had been regarded as a needless luxury. Increased knowledge of sanitary laws had demonstrated that change of air might be as vital a necessity for poor as for rich. But that this applied also to the lowest and most helpless classes had no place save in the mind of a practical philanthropist here and there. Nor had it yet become a part of the creed of such workers, and, far less, a subject of common discussion among those who sought the most practical methods of help, that the children were the ones to whom such help would mean the most. Charity concerned itself chiefly with alleviation, and looked in more and more hopeless dismay on the ever-increasing numbers of this army of incapables. It was evident to all who walked through city streets as August sunshine blazed on squalid home and reeking gutter, and gaunt women and pale, unchildlike children came and went in noisome street and alley, that something must be done, but what? A good woman had opened a summer home for very young children on Staten Island, and in 1873 transferred its management to the Children’s Aid Society on the understanding that four thousand dollars should be collected to insure its success. The founder, Mr. A. P. Stokes, at once gave half the amount, and the rest was quickly made up, the headquarters for the new home being made at Bath, Long Island, where the work still goes on with largely increased facilities. Beginning with the rental of a private house, in which every inch of space was so utilized that the parlors became a sleeping room for twenty-four persons, and the carriage house was so made over as to contain nearly sixty beds, it has grown into one of the most efficient and beneficent of charities. A week is given to each detachment, chosen most generally from the members of the industrial schools under the direction of the Children’s Aid Society. The children are abundantly fed, the dietary including milk, bread, butter, oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, fish and meats. The salt water is almost at the door, while on the other side are woods and wild flowers, and the children change even in a week of such life, sometimes almost beyond recognition. But there are objections to these homes, beautiful as is their mission in many points, and a writer in the New York Evening Post, after faithful examination of this and other summer homes, writes: “Neither the excursions, which are only for a day, nor the seaside homes quite reach the best results. What the pinched sufferers in alley-ways and courts, garrets and basements need is to be sent to the country. It is not enough to give them a day on the river, though that is good as far as it goes. Even in seaside homes they are housed with children of their own sort; they have the same conversation, the same plays, the same depressing companionship with disease and want. What they need is to meet the healthy life of the country; to make acquaintance with nature, to learn the difference between a calf and a pig; to have a whole new set of objects before their eyes and mind. The country is a bit of heaven to such children. They catch a new life from it; they bring back into town a better tone of mind, body and morals.”
Such had long been the conviction of a woman whose name is synonymous with every advance that has been made in wise dealing with social problems, and who, as she came and went in the narrow streets and stifling heat of Philadelphia, yearned always more and more, to give the children some hint of what lay almost within their reach, yet inaccessible as the poles. At the meeting of Progressive Friends in 1876, one of the earliest addresses, and one of the most powerful in its effects, made an impassioned appeal for an end of dreaming and theorizing, and a life of action—action which should mean help to every human soul in need of help. There was a flutter of interest and excitement as the speaker ended, but no one made suggestion as to what form such action might take. Great issues were apparently ended. To a gathering made up in great part of veteran Abolitionists, any other struggle seemed weak and puerile, and they looked doubtfully at one another as the words ceased.
The wise woman saw her time, and when the afternoon meeting brought them together, rose in her place, and in few words told what her eyes had seen and her heart desired. A buzz of interest and of opposition was heard at once. One and another stated objections; objections made by many since then, but that have proved no obstacle to the progress of the work. Such children would bring in their train, dirt, disease, vermin, foul language and general demoralization for every child in the neighborhood who came in contact with them.
“Such things are all possible, and may all be anticipated,” said the wise woman, who had already in her own experience demonstrated that each and all could be overcome, “but I think you will find that there are ways of meeting them.”
Still objections were made, and a warm argument was under way, when a Quaker wife whose eyes flashed from the shade of the close bonnet, and whose voice held a ring not unknown even to Quaker gentleness, rose before the debating broad-brims:
“I’m going to have two of those children, if I have to tie my own to a tree,” she said, and said no more.
More was not needed. The tide had turned, and one and another volunteered to open the doors and at least make an experiment. And now, curiously enough, came a difficulty not even imagined; the difficulty of securing children for the offered and waiting places. Fathers and mothers looked with dark suspicion on the people who requested the loan of the children.
“Shure it’s none o’ mine ye’ll be gettin’,” said one of them. “Makin’ out it’s for play ye’s want ’em, an’ settin’ them to work soon as our eyes is off of ’em.”
“It’s not work I’ll have child o’ mine do, long’s I’ve hands that’ll earn the bit an’ sup she’ll be takin’,” said another, and the children themselves, hollow-eyed and haggard, watched the fracas with small interest. The first who went out had to be compelled, as it were, to come in to the feast, but never again were like measures necessary. The good work went on with courage, even with glee. Baths, clean clothes, plenty to eat, sweet air and sunshine did their work, and the dirty, forlorn little wretches chosen in the beginning returned home, imploring for longer time, and with a new sense of life born in them. Season after season the same doors opened, and as the work grew, funds poured in; a method formulated itself, and the management became a model for all similar work elsewhere.