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LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C., March 29, 1912.

SIR: In our efforts to improve our schools in America and to adapt them to the varying needs of children many thoughtful people have felt the need of giving to city schools a better environment than they usually have on our crowded streets, with scant playgrounds, if any at all. Several years ago Dr. Preston W. Search, in his book An Ideal School, suggested that all the schools of the city should be brought together in one or more great school parks, with ample grounds for buildings, which should be only one story high, with playgrounds and space for grass and trees. He suggested that these school parks might be located away from the centers of the cities-probably in the suburbs, where land could be had at less cost than in the business and residence sections. Other similar suggestions have been made, but for the masses of the children in the crowded sections of our cities this problem still remains unsolved.

However, what the public at large has failed to accomplish for all the children private individuals have been able to accomplish for a few of the more fortunate. The idea of the country school for city children, supported by private tuition and private means, as worked out practically at Baltimore, has extended in some degree to all parts of the country and will probably become quite common. The story of this movement, as told by Dr. William Starr Myers in the accompanying manuscript, is both interesting and suggestive and should be known to all who are working for the betterment of the material conditions of schools for city children. I therefore recommend that this manuscript be published as a bulletin of this bureau and would call especial attention to the suggestions made by Dr. Myers as to the possibility of applying this principle to the public schools. It is quite easy to see how this might be done for the public high schools, at least of most cities, with little or no additional cost to the public for buildings, grounds, and equipment, or to individual parents and children for transportation.

It has frequently happened in the history of education in this and other countries that movements for the betterment of the public schools have begun in a small way with private schools as the result of the enthusiasm and earnestness of only a few individuals. It is sincerely hoped that this movement, begun at Baltimore in a private way and already extended to a dozen cities, may become a great national movement for the betterment of the public schools, in which the great masses of children are educated.

Very respectfully,

The SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.

P. P. CLAXTON,

Commissioner.

COUNTRY SCHOOLS FOR CITY BOYS.

BACK TO THE COUNTRY.

"Back to the country" is the cry of the advocates of one of our sanest philanthropic movements. To free thousands of our best citizens from the unwholesome and harmful influences of crowded houses, poor light, and bad air, and to restore them to the open fields, a freedom from unnatural restraints, and the blessings of God's sunshine, are objects worthy of the best efforts of the American people. The average city resident of comfortable means is accustomed to think that such a movement is merely a charity designed to help the poorer and more unfortunate elements of our population, but as a matter of fact it is of vital interest to every man, woman, and child that lives in a large city. Unhealthful conditions of life do not affect merely the inmates of small houses on alleys and back streets, but spread, through inevitable contact, to the handsome establishments of the more favored neighborhoods; sooner or later the whole city is affected.

Realizing this fact, philanthropists have made an effort to find some means by which our boys who live in the city may spend at least the day in the country, and at the same time have the advantages of an education in the best schools. Some of our people of means, those who can afford the money necessary for an experiment, have hit upon a plan which has solved the problem, it is believed, and that is the plan of founding "country day schools for city boys." And girls, too, are going to be included among those who share the benefits of this movement.

Up to 15 years ago the only two possible things for the city family, if a healthful outdoor life was desired for the children, were to live at a country home six months of the year and each day send the children in town to school, or else to break all home ties for a large part of the year by sending the boys and girls away to boarding school. A group of men and women of intelligence and enterprise in Baltimore had the vision to see and the faith to act, and the Gilman Country School for Boys, founded in 1897, is the result.

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