California's First Vacation School [pp. 426-434]

CALIFORNIA'S FIRST VACATION SCHOOL
AN OAKLAND EXPERIMENT
Bv EVA V. CARLIN
E READ an account of the given over to great hives of helplessness
~hicago Vacation School one or wretchedness; it has no quarter which,
week5 and the next week we built originally for fine residences or busiopened oj~t school." ness blocks5 has been deserted by fashion
Such was the genesis of the first ~Taca~ and turned into tenement-houses; so that
tion School on this ~Vestern shore, where prohlem did not present itself. The genthe air so qniekcus the pulse and the step eral condition of the people from whose
and the brain that a generous impulse homes the cliildrcn came is not characterbecomes a deed at once. ized by extreme poverty; so it wa~ not the
The undertaking thus conceived was problem of pa1I~~erism; nor was it that
carried to a successful and profitable finish of unskilled labor. tbough there are to be
in the summer of 1S99, bv an association fonud in this district the odds and ends
of Oakland women, who thus identified of industrial life; but these exceptions
the~nsclves with one of the most notice- are the product, in general, of racial conable moven~cnts in the educational pro- ditions.
gre ss of recent years-the growing and The "lay of the land " comprises 1
intelligent interest which women arc tak- larg~ tract of "made soil" chiefly, the filling in educational affairs. In varions ing-in composed of all kinds of intractable
Eastern cities. as Boston, Baltimore, New ~natei~ials, so that tbe soil does not readily
York. Philadelphia, Chicago, Indianapolis, respond to cultivation. It is a district of
llartford. and Buffalo, this interest has great ugl~ness. On one side is the Oakland
found expression in tl~e cstabli4~ment of estuary, and near 4~e water's edge some
vacation schools, where the educationa~ l~ouscs are set up on poles, while there are
purpose is secondary to the intent to take many damp or flooded cellars. One side of
the children off the streets and reveal to the ward is contiguous to the business centhem a new and beautiful world. through ter of the city, while another boundary
~~ongs and dainty devices, through flowers reaches toward a residence portion of no
and play, which their child-hearts crave. special beauty. The locality is dissected
In tlie Eastern experiments, as here, iifto smaller strips by the railways leading
private philanthropy has preceded officiat from the Oakland pier to the outlying
action. which however, has followed in districts beyond. On the whole, it is a
ii~aJ~y of the cities named above. It is law-abiding, workingman's district, sethard for city authorities to learn the les- tlcd chiefly by hard-working foreigners,
on wl~ieh unofficial common sense grasps with a fair sprinkling of Americans, at that the public-school system l~as been tracted thither by the exigencies of their
an arn~y of ohservation. an army of ocen- occupation oi the cheapness of the rents.
~~ation lon~ enough; it must be made an I~l~e Italians aic scavengers and fruit and
armv ot invasion. fisl~ venders; the genial Iri4~ are em Tl~e intent of tl~is artie1e is to set forth ployces o~ the railroad company yardcertain re~ult attained bv tlie Oakland cx- mcii. ~iiacliinists, etc.; the thrifty Germans
perin~ent to indicate those more remote ore clerks, accountants, drivers, bakers,
and not definitely measurable as yet; also. and gr(ie(~rs. Ilere and ihere are to be
by a presentation of the coi~~litions nuder found tlic g~~od-natnred. pleasure-lovin~
which the experiment was tried. to ind?- 1~~grocs. clannish hy reason of past oppreseate tl~c value of vacation schools and kin- sions. Tl~e Irish, who perhaps predomidred undertakings in the civic and social nate in nu~nbers, arc opposed to both
regenciation of a community. negroes and Italians, the latter of whom
Thi cxI~eriment was not tried in a they call " Dagos." The Jews, with their
him " di trict. Oakland has no locality unswerving ~~iirpose to rise in the world,