Ralph had been to the Child Welfare Exhibit and come away with one important truth thoroughly impressed upon him. The exhibit was held during the second week in April. Everyone helped, and as their part the public and parochial schools offered their children as living demonstrations of Rochester school work. There were dances, drills, and games every afternoon and evening. Children sang together, and other children formed small classes of sewing, carpentry, electric wiring, cooking, rug weaving, drawing, etc., and worked steadily under the direction of teachers. The school children of Rochester were constantly in touch with the exhibit; they were given special holidays in which to see it; and their interest was keen. The following week those in the upper grades were asked to write letters telling about what they remembered.
Some 553 of these letters were examined for the purpose of ascertaining first, the most effective form of presentation for exhibit material, and second, the degree to which children understand and remember the lessons which different exhibits are designed to teach. In making the tabulation, only those letters were used which were written by the children themselves, without outside help. Several had to be discarded because they showed evidences of suggestions and corrections from the teacher. Every reference to an exhibit feature was counted, even where the child spoke of the same thing more than once.
The most popular feature among the children were the entertainments each afternoon and evening. These consisted of dances, drills, games, and chorus singing by the children themselves. Sarah, of the eighth grade, writes:
“Of all the good sights that I have seen and heard, I truly think the exhibit was one of the best. The one particular thing that interested me so much was the dancing which I don’t think could have been any better,”
while Charlotte ungrammatically adds,
“I think it was a splendid idea to have these entertainments, and I am sure it done the people good.”
The school children not only joined in dances and drills, but with the help of their teachers formed classes which worked and recited as living exhibits. All the children found the classes interesting. Says little Michael Ettiopia:
“I saw manual training. They were making desks to sell them. Many people bought them for their children to get learned to write and read. I saw some girls they were making candy, and I asked if they would sell the candy. They said ‘No, little boy, we don’t sell candy.’ So the people could see how to make candy.”
Particular attention was paid to the work of the boys from the “Shop School.” There was a class in electric wiring where the children loved to watch the work. Here is a paragraph from nine-year-old Raymond’s description:
“There was a boy with a electric light on the front of a box, to batteries in it, and a switch on the back. When I saw this I said to him, ‘I wired up a electric light down cellar and it turned on up by the cellar door.’ He said ‘Did you?’ and I said ‘Yes, sir.’”