The Young Woman's Club is for those over fifteen years of age, while the Girl's Club has its membership between eight and fifteen, meets in its own Club House near the roque courts, and is enthusiastically sought by those no longer little girls, yet not quite young women.
Wherever one walks around Chautauqua he is sure to see plenty of boys in blue sweaters bearing on their bosoms the monogram in big letters C. B. C, initials of the Chautauqua Boys' Club. They too have their headquarters near the athletic field and find something doing there all day long.
Sherwood Memorial Studios
Traction Station
For the little ones, there is the kindergarten at Kellogg Hall, and out of doors beside it the playground, where the tots make cities out of sand and find other pleasures. And we must not forget the Children's Paradise, the completely equipped playground in the ravine at the northwestern part of the grounds. I remember hearing Jacob A. Riis, the father of the city playgrounds, say in one of his lectures: "They tell me that the boys play ball in the streets of New York and break windows when the ball goes out of the way. Good! I hope they will break more windows until the city fixes up playgrounds for them!" Jacob Riis lived long enough to see at Chautauqua one of the finest playgrounds, and to find in it one of the happiest crowds of children on the continent. One blessing for tired mothers at Chautauqua is that their children are in safekeeping. They may be turned loose, for they can't get outside the fence, and in the clubs and playgrounds they are under the wisest and most friendly care.
There are Modern Language Clubs in French and Spanish, with conversations, recitations, and songs in these languages. "No English Spoken Here," might be written over their doors, although nearly all their members elsewhere do their talking in the American patois. There was a German Club, but it was suspended during the war, when German was an unpopular language and has not yet been reëstablished.