How To Write Special Feature Articles Part 31

"O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!" said 27 little girls.

"Aw-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w, gos.h.!.+" said 30 little boys. "Say, Mis' Cronan, there wasn't no real dragon, was they?" A shock-headed youngster pushed his way to the platform where Mrs. Mary C. Cronan, professional story teller, stood smiling and wistfully looked up at her. "They wasn't no really dragon, was they?"

"'Course they was a dragon! Whadd'ye think the man wanted to paint the picture for if there wasn't a dragon? Certn'y there was a dragon. I leave it to Mis' Cronan if there wasn't."

Steering a narrow course between fiction and truth, Mrs. Cronan told her cla.s.s that she thought there certainly must have been a dragon or the picture wouldn't have been painted.

It was at one of the regular morning story hours at the Museum of Fine Arts, a department opened three years ago at the museum by Mrs. Cronan and Mrs. Laura Scales, a department which has become so popular that now hundreds of children a week are entertained, children from the public playgrounds and from the settlement houses.

On this particular day it was children from the Bickford street playground under the guidance of two teachers from the Lucretia Crocker School, Miss Roche and Miss Hayes, who had, in some mysterious manner, convoyed these 57 atoms to the museum by car without mishap and who apparently did not dread the necessity of getting them back again, although to the uninitiated it appeared a task beside which grasping a comet by the tail was a pleasant afternoon's amus.e.m.e.nt.

For the most part the story of St. George and the Dragon was a new thing to these children. They might stand for St. George, although his costume was a little out of the regular form at Jamaica Plain, but the Dragon was another thing.

"I don't believe it," insisted an 8-year-old. "I seen every animal in the Zoo in the park and I don't see any of them things." But the wistful little boy kept insisting that there must be such an animal or Mrs.

Cronan wouldn't say so.

"That is the way they nearly always take it at first," said Mrs. Cronan.

"Nearly all of these children are here for the first time. Later they will bring their fathers and mothers on Sunday and you might hear them explaining the pictures upstairs as if they were the docents of the museum.

"The object of the story hour is to familiarize the children with as many as possible of the pictures of the Museum and to get them into the way of coming here of themselves. When they go away they are given cards bearing a reproduction of the picture about which the story of the day has been told, and on these cards is always an invitation to them to bring their families to the Museum on Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, when there is no entrance fee."

The idea of the story hour was broached several years ago and at first it was taken up as an experiment. Stereopticon slides were made of several of the more famous pictures in the Museum, and Mrs. Cronan, who was at the time achieving a well earned success at the Public Library, was asked to take charge of the story telling. The plan became a success at once.

Later Mrs. Scales was called in to take afternoon cla.s.ses, and now more than 1000 children go to the Museum each week during July and August and hear stories told entertainingly that fix in their minds the best pictures of the world. Following the stories they are taken through the halls of the Museum and are given short talks on some art subject. One day it may be some interesting thing on Thibetan amulets, or on tapestries or on some picture, Stuart's Was.h.i.+ngton or Turner's Slave s.h.i.+p, or a colorful canvas of Claude Monet.

It is hoped that the movement may result in greater familiarity with and love for the Museum, for it is intended by the officials that these children shall come to love the Museum and to care for the collection and not to think of it, as many do, as a cold, unresponsive building containing dark mysteries, or haughty officials, or an atmosphere of "highbrow" iciness.

"I believe," says Mrs. Cronan, "that our little talks are doing just this thing. And although some of them, of course, can't get the idea quite all at once, most of these children will have a soft spot hereafter for Donatello's St. George."

At least some of them were not forgetting it, for as they filed out the wistful little boy was still talking about it.

"Ya," he said to the scoffer, "you mightn't a seen him at the Zoo.

That's all right, but you never went over to the 'quarium. Probably they got one over there. Gee! I wish I could see a dragon. What color are they?"

But the smallest boy of all, who had hold of Miss Hayes's hand and who had been an interested listener to all this, branched out mentally into other and further fields.

"Aw," said he, "I know a feller what's got a ginny pig wit' yeller spots on 'im and he--" And they all trailed out the door.

(_Christian Science Monitor_)

One ill.u.s.tration, a half-tone reproduction of a photograph showing the interior of the greenhouse with girls at work.

WHERE GIRLS LEARN TO WIELD SPADE AND HOE

To go to school in a potato patch; to say one's lessons to a farmer; to study in an orchard and do laboratory work in a greenhouse--this is the pleasant lot of the modern girl who goes to a school of horticulture instead of going to college, or perhaps after going to college.

If ever there was a vocation that seemed specially adapted to many women, gardening would at first glance be the one. From the time of

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?"

down to the busy city woman who to-day takes her recreation by digging in her flowerbeds, gardens have seemed a natural habitat for womankind, and garden activities have belonged to her by right.

In various parts of the country there have now been established schools where young women may learn the ways of trees and shrubs, vegetables and flowers, and may do experimental work among the growing things themselves. Some of these schools are merely adjuncts of the state agricultural colleges, with more or less limited courses of instruction; but, just out of Philadelphia, there is a school, to which women only are admitted, that is located on a real farm, and covers a wide range of outdoor study.

One begins to feel the homely charm of the place the moment instructions are given as to how to reach it.

"Out the old Lime-kiln road," you are told. And out the old Lime-kiln road you go, until you come to a farm which spells the perfection of care in every clump of trees and every row of vegetables. Some girls in broad-brimmed hats are working in the Strawberry bed--if you go in strawberry time--and farther on a group of women have gathered, with an overalled instructor, under an apple tree the needs of which are being studied.

Under some sedate shade trees, you are led to an old Pennsylvania stone farmhouse--the administration building, if you please. Beyond are the barns, poultry houses, nurseries and greenhouses, and a cottage which is used as a dormitory for the girls--as unlike the usual dormitory as the school is unlike the usual school. A bee colony has its own little white village near by.

Then the director, a trained woman landscape gardener, tells you all that this school of horticulture has accomplished since its founding five years ago.

"Women are naturally fitted for gardening, and for some years past there have been many calls for women to be teachers in school gardens, planners of private gardens, or landscape gardeners in inst.i.tutions for women. Very few women, however, have had the practical training to enable them to fill such positions, and five years ago there was little opportunity for them to obtain such training. At that time a number of women in and about Philadelphia, who realized the need for thorough teaching in all the branches of horticulture, not merely in theory but in practice, organized this school. The course is planned to equip women with the practical knowledge that will enable them to manage private and commercial gardens, greenhouses or orchards. Some women wish to learn how to care for their own well-loved gardens; some young girls study with the idea of establis.h.i.+ng their own greenhouses and raising flowers as a means of livelihood; still others want to go in for fruit farming, and even for poultry raising or bee culture.

"In other countries, schools of gardening for women are holding a recognized place in the educational world. In England, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Russia, such inst.i.tutions have long pa.s.sed the experimental stage; graduates from their schools are managing large estates or holding responsible positions as directors of public or private gardens, as managers of commercial greenhouses, or as consulting horticulturists and lecturers. In this country there is a growing demand for supervisors of home and school gardens, for work on plantations and model farms, and for landscape gardeners. Such positions command large salaries, and the comparatively few women available for them are almost certain to attain success."

Already one of the graduates has issued a modest brown circular stating that she is equipped to supply ideas for gardens and personally to plant them; to expend limited sums of money to the best advantage for beauty and service; to take entire charge of gardens and orchards for the season and personally to supervise gardens during the owners' absence; to spray ornamental trees and shrubs, and prune them; and to care for indoor plants and window boxes.

"She is making a success of it, too. She has all she can do," comments one of the women directors, who is standing by.

A smiling strawberry student, who is pa.s.sing, readily tells all that going to a garden school means.

"Each one of us has her own small plot of ground for which she is responsible. We have to plant it, care for it, and be marked on it. We all have special care of certain parts of the greenhouse, too, and each has a part of the nursery, the orchard and the vineyard. Even the work that is too heavy for us we have to study about, so that we can direct helpers when the time comes. We have to understand every detail of it all. We have to keep a daily record of our work. This is the way to learn how long it takes for different seeds to germinate, and thus we watch the development of the fruits and flowers and vegetables. You see, the attendance at the school is limited to a small number; so each one of us receives a great deal of individual attention and help.

"We learn simple carpentry, as part of the course, so that we shall be able to make window boxes, flats, cold frames and other articles that we need. We could even make a greenhouse, if we had to. We are taught the care and raising of poultry, we learn bee culture, and we have a course in landscape gardening. There is a course in canning and preserving, too, so that our fruits and berries can be disposed of in that way, if we should not be able to sell them outright, when we have the gardens of our own that we are all looking forward to."

In the cozy cottage that serves as a dormitory, there is a large cla.s.sroom, where the lectures in botany, entomology, soils and horticultural chemistry are given. There is a staff of instructors, all from well-known universities, and a master farmer to impart the practical everyday process of managing fields and orchards. Special lectures are given frequently by experts in various subjects. In the cottage is a big, homelike living-room, where the girls read and sing and dance in the evening. Each girl takes care of her own bedroom.

The costumes worn by these garden students are durable, appropriate and most becoming. The school colors are the woodsy ones of brown and green, and the working garb is carried out in these colors. Brown khaki or corduroy skirts, eight inches from the ground, with two large pockets, are worn under soft green smocks smocked in brown. The sweaters are brown or green, and there is a soft hat for winter and a large shade hat for summer. Heavy working gloves and boots are provided, and a large ap.r.o.n with pockets goes with the outfit.

All in all, you feel sure, as you go back down the "old Lime-Kiln road,"

that the motto of the school will be fulfilled in the life of each of its students: "So enter that daily thou mayst become more thoughtful and more learned. So depart that daily thou mayst become more useful to thyself and to all mankind."

(_Boston Transcript_)

BOYS IN SEARCH OF JOBS

BY RAYMOND G. FULLER

One morning lately, if you had stood on Kneeland street in sight of the entrance of the State Free Employment Office, you would have seen a long line of boys--a hundred of them--waiting for the doors to open. They were of all sorts of racial extraction and of ages ranging through most of the teens. Some you would have called ragam.u.f.fins, street urchins, but some were too well washed, combed and laundered for such a designation. Some were eagerly waiting, some anxiously, some indifferently. Some wore sober faces; some were standing soldierly stiff; but others were bubbling over with the spirits of their age, gossiping, shouting, indulging in colt-play. When they came out, some hustled away to prospective employers and others loitered in the street.

Disappointment was written all over some of them, from face to feet; on others the inscription was, "I don't care."

Two hundred boys applied for "jobs" at the employment office that day.

Half the number were looking for summer positions. Others were of the vast army of boys who quit school for keeps at the eighth or ninth grade or thereabouts. Several weeks before school closed the office had more than enough boy "jobs" to go around. With the coming of vacation time the ratio was reversed. The boy applicants were a hundred or two hundred daily. For the two hundred on the day mentioned there were fifty places.