Children's Corner.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 November 1895, Page 8

Children's Corner.

I have jlist read, with a grmt deal of pleasure, about a New York gentleman’s plan, this summer, for a number of poor children from tin* crowded districts of that great city. This good, kind man rented a large farm of nearly fifty acres, on top of a high hill, near Fr*H*ville, N.Y. Then he invited 120 boys and 80 girls, l>etw-eeu twelve and fifteen years of age, choosing the wildest and roughest that he could find, to go to this farm for the summer. Now this is something which is often done, you will say, and think there is nothing very remarkable alnmt it, perhaps. The notable part is this: Having gotten his company all wifely landed at the farm, Mr George (for that is his name) <livid**l them into six classes, and proceeded to organise a “ general government” -n the camp by the children, and I for tho children. Wasn’t tluit a splendid idea ? 110 himself was president, of course, and the members of tho cabinet wore his assistants. They had a secretary of the ■ treasury, a secretary of police and correction, a commissarygeneral, and a }K>st master-general. The first thing the children did was to hold a “ congressional election,” and organise a senate and house of representatives. Each one of the six classes had a momlier in the senate, and for every twelve members of a class there was a member in the ' house. The children had their own money, of variously coloured paper, And were paid regular wages in this money—ninety 1 cents a day for tho best labour, seventy cents for medium, and fifty cents for unskilled work. It co9t forty-three cents a day to live; so in this way they were given an idea of the use of money and how to earn it. Don’t you think that when these little “ roughs ” returned to tin* city that they realised more clearly just what the community was to them, and they to it ? Having been given police power themselves, they were more ready to I serve the interests of law’ and order in the great city, and to become good, law-abiding citizens. I think Mr George’s idea a capital one, and am glad to learn that it will probably become a regular institution. There certainly would be fewer children in houses of correction if there were more interested people to teach them “self-government."—Aunt Jane, in “ Union Signal.”