Girls and a Camp
Now it is that Many Coveys of Students are Headed toward Lake and Mountain—Just How it Pays
With the sudden plunge into a muggy heat, more suggestive of July than of the rare June weather of poets, there has begun the exodus of summer camp folk, those men and women who add to the slender salary of the teaching profession the additional income made by running camps for boys and girls during the long vacation. They stretch, these camps, in rapidly extending area from Canada through Maine and northern New England, into the Adirondacks and the Alleghenies, and then across toward the Northwest and the Rockies. It is quite safe to assert that there is not a private school of importance that does not take under its protection and support at least one such institution, while large numbers of teachers either own camps or assist in their management as instructors.
One group, unmistakably the advance guard of a girls’ camp, assembled at the Grand Central Station on Wednesday. There were two alert, dignified women, evidently the co-principals; a younger woman, who, at least so the tired suburban shopper decided, was probably the athletic instructor; two neat colored women, and a small girl of twelve, on tiptoe with excitement, talking volubly about the fun she would have when they got to the lake and when all the other girls arrived. Her excited chatter also revealed the fact that father and mother had just sailed for Europe, and, while she thought of them with regret, there was only pleasure in prospect as she started northward. There was much baggage to be attended to, and consultation over express and freight bills, with interesting references to tents, canoes, and tennis nets.
Success is an excellent testimonial, and there is no longer any need to point out the advantages of such camps for boys and girls. They fill a real place for the delicate, the lazy, or the backward, who must needs do extra work to keep up with their school grade, for those who otherwise would be condemned to hotel life, or for the children whose parents, because of circumstances, are compelled to spend the summer in cities. Even the most jealously anxious of mothers are among the converts to the movement. As one said the other day of her only son, “Yes, David will go to Mr. D.’s camp again this summer. It will be his third year. I thought the first time that I simply could not part with him. I pictured him drowned or ill from poor food or severe colds. Indeed, there wasn’t a single terror I didn’t imagine. But he enjoyed it so, and came home so well and happy, that I’ve never worried since.”
From the child’s point of view, summer camps are a blessing, and, as such, they have come to stay. But there are those who doubt their benefits, even the financial ones, for the teachers, who mortgage their vacations to conduct them. Unfortunately, as every one knows, almost every teacher has to mortgage her spare time in one way or another in order to make a more than bare living. Call the roll of those whom you may know, and you will be surprised—no, scarcely surprised; merely interested—to find that nine-tenths of them do some additional work. It may be extra tutoring, hack writing, translating, the editing of school texts or the writing of text-books, taking agencies for this, that, or the other commodity, conducting travel parties, lecturing at educational institutes, running women’s clubs, or organizing nature classes. Some outside vocation is necessary if the teacher is to enjoy the advantages her training makes almost imperative, or the comforts her tired, nervous organism demands. So, as one philosopher was heard to remark, it is perhaps best to run a summer camp, since in the doing of it there is at least the advantage of being in the open and of leading a wholesomely sane existence.
Two good friends and fellow-teachers who have conducted a camp in northern Maine for the last five years have been extremely frank in setting forth their experiences for the benefit of those who are standing on the brink of a similar venture. And their story is worth while, because from every point of view they have been successful. Any pessimistic touches in their narrative cannot be laid at the door of failure. Indeed, in their first year they cleared expenses, and that is rare; and their clientèle has steadily increased until now they have a camp of forty or more girls, at the very topmost of camp prices. Again, as there were two of them and they are both versatile, they have needed little assistance; the mother of one has been house mother and general camp counsellor. With all this as optimistic preamble, let us hear their story.
Perhaps their first doubt arises with regard to the wear and tear of camp life upon those most directly responsible for its conduct. “For years we even refused to consider it,” said the senior partner, “although urged by friends and would-be patrons, because we realized the unwisdom of working the year around and living continuously with school girls—but the inevitable happened. Our income did not keep pace with our expenses, and it was start a camp or do something less agreeable. Just at the psychological moment one of our insistent friends found the right spot, we concluded negotiations, and, behold, we are camp proprietors, not altogether sure, in our most uncompromisingly frank moments, that we have done the best thing.”
That a girls’ camp is a far more difficult proposition than one for boys is evident on the face of it. Mother may shed tears over parting with Johnny, but, after all, he’s a boy, and sooner or later must depend upon himself. But Sister Sue is another matter. Can she trust any one else to watch over her in the matter of flannels and dry stockings? Do these well-meaning but spinster teachers know the symptoms of tonsilitis, the first signs of a bilious attack, or the peculiarities of a spoiled girl’s diet? And will not Sue lose, possibly, some of the gentle manners and dainty ways inculcated at home, by close contact with divers other ways and manners? She is inclined to be skeptical, is mother. “And so,” acknowledged the senior partner, “the first summer we were deluged by visits long and short from anxious ladies who could not believe on hearsay evidence that we knew how to care for their delicate daughters. They not only came, but they stayed, and as the nearest hotel was distant many devious miles of mountain road, we were forced to put them up; finally the maids had to sleep in the old barn, and we were camping on cots in the hall of the farmhouse which is our headquarters. Naturally we had to be polite, for we were under the necessity of making a good impression that first year, but it was most distracting, for while they stayed they were unconsciously but selfishly demanding a little more than a fair share of time and attention for their daughters.”
And, indeed, all this maternal anxiety is not entirely misplaced. Sue is a good deal harder to take care of than Johnny. She needs a few more comforts, although camp life aims at eliminating all but the essentials of simple living. Her clothes, even at a minimum, are more elaborate, which increases the difficulty of laundering, always a problem in camping. She is infinitely more dependent upon her elders for direction in the veriest A B C’s of daily existence. “Even the matter of tying a hair-ribbon or cleaning a pair of white canvas shoes is a mountain to a good many of my girls,” said the successful camp counsellor.
Homesickness is “a malady most incident to maids.” Boys may suffer from it, but they suffer alone. If tears are shed they are shed in secret, lest the other fellows find it out. Except in the case of the very little chaps, the masters are not disturbed. But girls have no such reserves; and the teachers in charge of twenty-five strange girls, many in the throes of this really distressing ailment, are not to be envied. “Frankly speaking,” went on the confession, “there isn’t a moment of the day when we can dismiss them from our thoughts. Are they swimming in charge of the director of athletics, a most capable girl, one of us must be there, too, because, should anything happen, we, and not she, are directly responsible. When the lesson hour is on, we not only teach, but must see that each girl’s work is adapted to her needs, as they come from a dozen different schools. There are disputes to settle, plans for outings and entertainments to be made, games to direct, letters to the home folks to be superintended, or half the girls would never write at all, to say nothing of the marketing and housekeeping, and our own business correspondence, that has to be tucked into the siesta hour after luncheon. Indeed, in the nine weeks of camp last summer I never once had an hour that I could call my very own.”
“And that is only the day’s anxiety,” sighed her colleague reflectively. “My specialty is prowling about at night to see that everybody is properly covered. Not a girl among them would have sense enough to get up and close windows in case of rain, so I sleep with one ear pricked for the first patter on the roof. Occasionally there are two or three who walk in their sleep, and I’m on pins and needles lest harm come to them, so I make my rounds to see that they’re safe. Oh, it is a peacefully placid existence, I assure you, having charge of forty darling daughters. Some of them have done nothing for themselves in their entire lives, and what a splendid place camp is for such girls. But while they’re learning we must be looking out for their sins of omission, such, for instance, as throwing a soaking wet bathing suit upon a bed instead of hanging it upon the line.”
These are some of the few worries that attach to the care of sensitive and delicately brought up girls that the boys’ camp never knows. But if the financial return is adequate there will naturally be some compensation for all these pinpricks. Here again the Senior Partner is inclined to hem and haw. “Given a popular head of camp,” says she, “who has been fortunate enough to secure a desirable site and a paying clientèle, and she will certainly not lose money. Her summer will be paid for. However, that is not enough to reward her for the additional work and worry. Camp work does not confine itself to the nine weeks of residence. There are the hours and days spent in planning and purchasing equipment, the getting out of circulars, the correspondence entailed and the subsequent keeping in touch with patrons.”
Her own venture has so far paid its own way, and after the first year has left a neat margin of profit. But this profit, because of expansion, has immediately been invested in new equipment. This year, for example, there has been erected a bungalow for general living purposes. A dozen new tents and four canoes were bought, and two dirt tennis courts made. Then each year there must be a general replenishing of dishes, table and bed linen, athletic goods, and furniture. The garden has been so enlarged that the semi-occasional man-of-all-work has been replaced by a permanent gardener.
Naturally, such extension does mean ultimate profit, and, given a few more years of continued prosperity, the summer will yield a goodly additional income. But the teacher who undertakes a camp with the idea that such money is easily made, is mistaken. One successful woman has cleared large sums, so large, indeed, that she has about decided to sever her direct connection with the private school where she has taught for years, and trust to her camp for a living. She has been so fortunate, it is but fair to explain, because her camp is upon a government reserve tract in Canada, and she has had to make no large investment in land; nor does she pay taxes. Desirable locations are harder to find nowadays and much more expensive to purchase. A fortunate pioneer in the movement bought seven acres, with five hundred feet of lake frontage, for three hundred dollars six years ago. That same land is worth ten times as much to-day.
And the kind of woman who should attempt the summer camp for girls as a means of additional income? First of all, the one who really loves outdoor life, who can find in woods and water compensation for the wear and tear of summering with schoolgirls. Again, she who can minimize the petty worries of existence to the vanishing point. And, last of all, she who has business acumen. For what does it profit a tired teacher if she fill her camp list and have no margin of profit for her weeks of hard labor?
(Saturday Evening Post)
Two half-tone reproductions of wash-drawings by a staff artist.