Experience in Citizenship Camp Fire Girls find out for themselves what recreational opportunities are being provided for them and for other young people in their communities, and make suggestions on what is needed. HE SCENE is a dinner attended Tby the mayor and three mem bers of the City Council. The hostesses are eighteen Camp Fire By C. FRANCES LOOMIS Editor Department of Publications Girls, average ageseventeen; members of Towanka, the club of the older Camp Fire Girls in Reading, Pennsylvania. There were sixty-five guests at this dinner, among them the head of the recreation department, the president of the school board, the head of the community chest, and other members of these organizations, library officials, the editor of the newspaper, the curator of the museum, representatives of service clubs, members of the Camp Fire Girls Local Council, and representative business men and women. These guests not only honored the occasion with their presence, but with true community spirit they paid for their own dinners! Why were they there? To hear the reports of the girls who had been making a survey of the recreational opportunities of the town, and their recommendations as to what was needed. The president of the Local Council of Camp Fire Girls introduced the president of Towanka and from then on the meeting was in the hands of the girls. The girl president explained that the girls had been looking for the answer to the question "What does my community do for me in the way of recreation?" Six committees had been at work on schools, playgrounds and recreational centers, parks, libraries, museums, and special projects. The chairman of each committee then made her report. She gave information about the recreational opportunities in the area her committee had investigated, whom they served, who paid for them, how they were managed, who had been responsible for their establishment and development. She concluded by pointing out needs for further development in her particular field. Some facts were brought out that were new to many of the people present and the newspaper editor, feeling that this information would be of interest to the public, asked for copies of the reports, which were printed as a series of six articles in The Reading Times. Each committee felt that there were special needs in its particular field but the girls all agreed on one need to present to the mayor on this occasion. This need was for more recreational centers and they told the mayor where they felt these were most needed and what schools might be used. Mayor Stump asked Betty Glaes, the chairman of the committee making that report, some very pertinent questions about how this might be managed and she gave him thoughtful and practical answers. Some of the guests thought, because of Betty's poise and the soundness of her answers, that these questions had been rehearsed beforehand, but they were entirely impromptu. Betty was able to answer the mayor's questions because she had, with the other girls on her committee, personally gathered the necessary information and given the subject careful thought. The mayor took the reports with him for further consideration and the girls, of course, will be very proud if their recommendations bear fruit. The activity has already borne fruit as far as the girls and the community are concerned. The community is better informed about its recreational opportunities and needs. The girls are not All around the world the only better informed but have a deeper feeling of interest and responsibility as citizens. Each committee had an adviser in its particular field and the girls' contact with these men and women in responsible positions was an enlightening and enriching experience. Mr. Thomas Lantz, Director of the Reading Recreation Depart 28 EXPERIENCE IN CITIZENSHIP ment, acted as adviser for the whole project and the girls are most grateful to him for his help and guidance. There was another question that the girls were asking themselves-not just what does my community do for me, but what can I do for my community? In answer to this they made out a service calendar, setting down the ways in which Camp Fire Girls have been of service to their communities and suggestions for other ways in which they could be helpful. They planned and carried out a service project which, because they had started out on their undertaking just before Christmas, took the form of toy collecting and mending. They asked the Boy Scouts to help them with this and gave a dance for them afterwards. We've sketched the story of this informal survey of recreation made by the Camp Fire Girls in Reading, but in other towns all over the country the girls were doing the same thing. The same, only different, because each group of older girls took the survey suggestions as sent them from National Headquarters and did what they pleased with them. These "older girls" in Camp Fire are girls who different cities. It is interesting to note the needs they discovered and the recommendations they made. The Spokane, Washington, girls asked that the swimming pools closed during the depression be reopened, and pointed out that a civic auditorium where large public meetings could be held was much needed. The report was made by the girls at a luncheon meeting of the Chamber of Commerce attended by two hundred and twentyfive prominent men and women of Spokane. This program was broadcast over a local station. In Sherman, Texas, they also felt the need for a community house where meetings could be held, with club rooms, swimming pool, and tennis courts. This report was made to the Sherman Civic Club. In Denver, the girls invited people Dr. Harry A. Overstreet, commenting on the reports of community needs made by the Camp Fire Girls said: "I think you have hit upon a great idea in these projects. You are taking the dullness out of citizenship. These reports all have a zest to them. The girls enjoyed doing what they did. They saw with their own eyes and interpreted with their own brains, and they had a happy time doing it. . . . I think of no greater service to our nation than to get young people enthusiastic about opening their eyes and their minds to what their communities do and need." have been members for several years, who have enjoyed earning Honors and Ranks, who want to continue their connection with Camp Fire, and are particularly interested in service and citizenship. They like projects of their own, and this one was outlined at the request of the older girls' groups. We sent it out to all of them to do with as they wished. Some of the groups did not undertake it because of other activities they were more interested in at the time, and that was quite all right because there was no pressure on the girls to participate. Others went at it with a will, each group adapting it to meet their special interests and local situations. Their reports show variation in methods and results, though all followed the general plan of dividing into committees to gather information and pooling this information in the final report. Their findings, of course, are quite different for prominent in the recreation field to a luncheon meeting. The fathers of the girls were also guests. At this meeting the girls reported that “a park in the heart of lower down-town is badly needed for the benefit of the Negroes and foreigners living in that section. They have nowhere to go in their leisure time and since that part of town is very over-crowded it would be a blessing to have a park." Those present agreed strongly with the suggestion and a committee was formed to discuss this with the board of managers of the city parks. The same feeling of need for recreational facilities in underprivileged sections of town was expressed in the Dallas, Texas, report. "Dallas has a great need for more schools, a park, and other places of interest and amusement in this section where the percentage of juvenile delinquency is high. There is a social center there but it is too small to meet the demands on it and badly in need of repair." Other recommendations made were for a library on wheels to service the outskirts of town, music for the city orchestra, a new wing for a crowded museum, more people to supervise recreation in city parks. field houses for indoor recreation, and housing. equipment. The reports themselves were very attractively presented in book form with interestingly deco EXPERIENCE IN CITIZENSHIP rated covers and accompanied by photographs, news clippings, and folders gathered by the various committees during the course of the investigation. Probably the significant feature of this activity was that it was carried on entirely by the girls out of their own interest, without adult pressure but under the guidance of their chosen adult advisers. The average age of all the girls taking part in the project was fifteen and a half. It is particularly fitting that the girls who have had experience in Camp Fire should be carrying out this project this year, the twenty-fifth anni versary of the founding of Camp Fire Girls. Dr. Luther Gulick, leading spirit among the founders of Camp Fire Girls and our first president, was a pioneer in the field of recreation and a lasting influence in its development. He was president of the National Recreation Association (then the Playground Association) from 1906 to 1910, and during those years gave inspirational impetus and practical guidance to the movement which has advanced steadily until today our large cities and many of our smaller towns have parks, playgrounds and recreation centers. Most of the recreation centers and playgrounds that the girls visited in connection with this project owe their very existence to the continuing influence of the Playground Association. Dr. Gulick believed in practical training for citizenship through experience and this philosophy of education and character building was embodied in the earliest plans for the Camp Fire Girls program. He said: "The sciences that may be taught in school do not equip the child with the social attitudes. that are demanded of the adult in a modern community. She must have opportunity for experience and responsibility." And that opportunity was provided for in the community service activities included in the first program. It is interesting to read in a book published this year and sponsored by the Progressive Education Association, "Youth Serves the Community," statements of today's educators which embody the same thought. Dr. William Kilpatrick says in his introduction: "We wish then an education, if possi 29 It is sometimes difficult, however, to find opportunities for cooperative community activities. Dr. Caroline Zachry, speaking at our Executives' Conference, said that one of the stumbling blocks in the way of making the social studies vital in the schools was this difficulty in giving young people actual experience in community life. This project, just completed by the older Camp Fire Girls, is such an experience in citizenship, carrying forward in 1937 the philosophy of education incorporated in the Camp Fire Girls program by Dr. Gulick and his fellow-planners twenty-five years ago. CAMP FIRE GIRLS Courtesy Atlanta, Ga., Girl Scouts Saving Pennies You may think they're just worthless old baseball bats you're throwing away, but you're really discarding hand looms, forks camp, and legs for Cinderella stools! for pieces of equipment and handcraft articles made recently in the workshop of the Houston Recreation Department. By ZORA JOY GIFFORD Though at the time no one saw the value of it, nevertheless the broken baseball bats returned from the playgrounds were thrown into a corner of the workshop and saved. It was a happy “hunch," for when requisitions for hand looms on which to make purses, table mats and other small woven articles began to flood the offices of the Recreation Department "necessity became the mother of invention," according to Mrs. Fred Browne under whose supervision the miracle was performed, and old bats suddenly changed into hand looms! The wood in baseball bats is carefully selected for durability and straightness, making it serviceable in the construction of the looms. And so it was that the same old bat with which little Billy knocked home runs last summer on the playground became, under the skilled workmanship of the artisans in the Department's workshop, an efficient hand loom for sister Susie. After the workers had discovered the possibilities which the bats offered they began casting about for other projects in which they might be used. Long lengths of wood, it was discovered, were adapted to the making of camp forks, while shorter lengths worked up nicely for the legs of little Cinderella stools. The Cinderella "pick up" stool is made from a piece of wood 161⁄2" x 131⁄2" x 11⁄2" and an old worn, but not broken, bat or parts of two bats. The large piece of wood is cut in the shape indicated in the diagram to form the seat. The small tab is the "pick up" handle. The bat is cut into three pieces of equal length which are whittled or turned on a lathe until they are 2 inches in diameter. Three holes I inch in diameter are bored at a slight angle through the seat and are so placed that they are equally distant from each other. One end of each leg piece is then cut as in the diagram. The peg is 134 inches high and 1 inch in diameter and just fits into the holes bored into the seat. The legs are glued or nailed into the holes, and the stool is sandpapered, stained and waxed. And More Followed Out of the same workshop which turned out these novel looms, stools and forks have come many other interesting articles. Game boards for checkers, Chinese chess and many other table games, puzzles, box hockey equipment, hat racks for community centers, file cases, attractive posters, and even novel musical instruments pour out in an unending stream. It has become almost axiomatic for the playground director, not possessing a piece of equipment he needs, to ask if it can't be made in the workshop. A very good example was the recent need for small blockprinting presses with which to print the blocks used in the annual report. A pattern was brought in and very shortly thereafter three little presses modeled after it were busily hammering away at the annual report. For pieces too large to be cut from baseball bats, Old baseball bats have a part in the con- Leg Top Stool especially large flat pieces, the workshop carpenters have resorted in most cases to prune boxes, orange crates and scraps of lumber discarded from larger pieces of con struction. Utilizing scrap material found around the workshop, Mr. Charles Corbin, who has had considerable training and ex SAVING PENNIES perience in constructing and repairing musical instruments, deftly creates banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, guitars and even one-stringed Japanese fiddles. The only parts of the instruments not made in the workshop are the strings. In addition to these instruments, which were made at small cost, Mr. Corbin has repaired ukuleles, violins, victrolas and pianos which have been given to the department, making possible music clubs which might not otherwise have come into being. Something Else for Nothing! Another example of "something made of nothing" is the equipment in the pottery shop built by Mr. S. J. Hart. The kiln is of beehive style with a down draft which burns gas and is one of the few kilns in the vicinity of Houston. It was built of bricks taken from an old building which was being dismantled. The three kick wheels used in the pottery shop were assembled from pieces of old automobileswheels, cranks, bolts and nuts. The pottery shop has filled a very. 31 In common pottery, Mr. Hart, creator of the kiln, points out, there are two kinds of clay: fat clay, which is sticky and plastic, with a high shrinkage which may be reduced by mixing with clean white sand, and open clay, which is sandy and in some cases has to be mixed with fat clay to make it plastic enough to work easily. To mix clay, water should be added until it is about as thick as cream. Mix with the hands and break up all lumps. Then strain through a fine cloth to remove any gravel or lime rock, as glaze will not stick to lime rock and in damp weather the rock will expand and crack the glaze. Pour A glimpse at the contents of the workshop shows how varied are the articles made from waste materials clay into a heavy canvas bag and put through a press if one is available. If not, pour the liquid clay onto a table and let it stand until it is dry enough to use. If an old electric coffee grinder can be secured, clay may be dried as it comes from the ground by grinding it. It can be ground as finely as necessary, then mixed with water to the right working condition. By this method the lime becomes so fine that it gives no trouble. Pottery should be dried in a closed room. Don't dry it in the sun, in wind or direct draft. Drying near a stove will cause uneven shrinkage, cracking or warping. Don't try to rush the drying pro(Continued on page 51) |