VACATION SCHOOLS

“Vacation schools, have also demonstrated their great usefulness in cities and large towns. The best ones offer manual training for both boys and girls, as well as book work, and are heartily welcomed by both parents and children. They combat effectively the mistaken policy of long vacations for children who can not escape from the crowded city streets and tenements. Indeed, the experience recently gained in city vacation schools and in the summer courses of colleges and universities proves that the long summer vacation of nine to thirteen weeks is by no means necessary to the health of either school-children or maturer students. The best method is to keep the pupil in vigor all the year by means of frequent recesses during school hours, free half-days twice a week, and occasional respites of a week.PBE 238.1

“Then the vacation school in summer should offer a distinct variety of work in subjects different from those pursued the rest of the year; for children and adults alike find great refreshment in mere change of work. For example, the competent college professor may indeed seek change of air and scene during the summer vacation, but it is for the purpose of doing under advantageous conditions a kind of intellectual work different from that which engrosses him in term-time, and not with the intention of keeping his mind vacant or inert.PBE 238.2

“Furthermore, vacation schools in the poor quarters of closely-built cities are downright refuges from the physical squalor and moral dangers of the streets. It is obvious that vacation schools on an adequate scale must cause a serious addition to school expenditure of a city or large town; for they require the services of an additional corps of teachers, and they need additional apparatus, materials, and service. It is equally obvious that these schools are urgently needed by a large proportion of the population on grounds which are simultaneously physical, mental, and moral.”PBE 239.1