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The Florida Review

1911

"Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; Do thou, but thine!"

Mrs. Emmons Crocker, of Fitchburg, Mass., chairman of the Conservation Department of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, is sending out the following circular letter to all federated clubs:

Streams:—Are beautiful and should not be made otherwise by throwing rubbish into them or upon their banks.

Pure Water:—Is necessary to all human and animal life.

Rivers and Brooks:—Are the natural purveyors of water. Respect them. Throw nothing into them. Prevent all foul waters from reaching them.

Running Waters:—Are life givers. Make them not life takers by allowing foreign matter to render them poisonous to man, beast, bird and fish.

Picnickers:—Leave no refuse in on near the springs, brooks, rivers, ponds or lakes which have contributed to your day's pleasure. The baskets which brought all are large enough to carry away the fragments.

Fishermen:—Do not put fish cleanings back into the water.

Housewives:—Empty no dish water or other slops where it can find its way into a stream.

Farmers:—Do not let your vault or barn yard drainage seep away into nearby streams.

Campers:—Bury or burn all rubbish. Select carefully and judiciously the spot on which to build a fire. Watch constantly a fire while burning. Extinguish every spark before leaving the site of the fire. Do not contaminate the streams by washing soiled clothes in them. Carry the water for this purpose in pail or tub to a place at some little distance from the shore.

Manufacturers:—Poison not the stream with chemicals, refuse or dross of any kind.

Cities and Towns:—Send your sewerage commissioners to Croydon, England (ten miles from London), to study the oldest and most successful sewerage filtration plant and sewerage farm. If this is impossible, at least write for information. Polute not the streams with your sewerage. Let the purity of streams be jealously and sacredly guarded from their sources to their mouths by young and old that they may be the blessings which God intended.

At a recent meeting of the Club of Current Events in Tampa the following school platform was adopted and the club notes with pleasure that various other women's organizations have adopted this. Upon such a platform all the clubs of the state will probably take similar stand, and the opinion of noted educators with be quoted largely, showing the plan to be thoroughly feasible and successful wherever tried. The plan is as follows:

1. The centralization of authority and responsibility by means of: (a) Placing all educational affairs in the hands of a professional expert, namely, a superintendent of city schools; such affairs to include the appointment, promotion of teachers, the selection of text books, the regulation of the course of study, and a general supervision of the schools. (b) Placing all business affairs in the hands of a professional expert, namely, a business manager, such affairs to include the appointment of janitors, construction, repairs, care of buildings and purchase of supplies. (c) A board of trustees elected without limitation of ward, whose duties shall consist in the determination of educational policy, appointment of superintendent and business manager, and such control of their actions as shall accord with inducement of initiative on the part of subordinates. (d) Placing competent, suitable women on the board with men.
2. Simplifying the course of study so that reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling receive the amount of attention bestowed on them twenty-five years ago.
3. Limiting to thirty-five the number of pupils assigned to any one teacher.
4. Substituting hygiene and sanitation for physiology in the school room.
5. Placing in all schools drinking fountains and modern toilet facilities.
6. The building of neighborhood schools for the primary grades, instead of massing small children in large schools.
7. Paying expert teachers not less than $800 a year.

(Signed) "Club of Current Events,
"American Woman's League.
Women's Christian Temperance Union
and the Tampa Civic Federation."

Source:
Excerpt from "Woman's Club Briefs" The Florida Review, June, 1911, pgs 511-512.