It is an encouraging sign to see such items as this from a Washington
newspaper: "The Modern Dancing Club of the Margaret Wilson Social Center
gave a masquerade ball at the Grover Cleveland school last night, which
was attended by about 100 couples." Still more promising are such
institutions as the self-supporting Inkowa camp for young women, at
Greenwood Lake, N. J., conducted by a committee of which Miss Anne Morgan
is president, and directed by Miss Grace Parker. Near it is a similar
camp, Kechuka, for young men, and during the summer both are full of
young people from New York City. A newspaper account says:
There is no charity, no philanthropy, no subsidy connected with
Camp Inkowa. Its members are successful business women, who earn
from $15 to $25 a week. Board in the camp is $9 a week. So every
girl who goes there for a vacation has the comfortable feeling that
she pays her way fully. This rate includes all the activities of
camp life.
Architects, doctors, lawyers, bookkeepers, bank clerks, young
business men of many kinds are the guests of Kechuka. Next week 28
young men from the National City Bank will begin their vacations
there.
Inkowa includes young women teachers, stenographers, librarians,
private secretaries and girls doing clerical work for insurance
companies and other similar business institutions.
Saturday and Sunday are "at home" days at Camp Inkowa and the young
men from Kechuka may come to call on the Inkowa girls, participate
with them in the day's "hike" or go on the moonlight cruise around
the lake if there happens to be one.
"Young men and women need clean, healthy association with each
other," Miss Parker told me yesterday, when I spent the day at Camp
Inkowa. "Social workers in New York city ask me sometimes, 'How
dare you put young men and women in camps so near to each other?'
"How dare you not do it? No plan of recreation or out-of-door life
which does not include the healthy association of men and woman can
be a success. Young men and women need each other's society. And if
you get the right kind they won't abuse their freedom."
The churches have been important instruments in this connection, and the
worth of their services can hardly be over-estimated, as they tend to
bring together young people of similar tastes and, in general, of a
superior character. Such organizations as the Young People's Society of
Christian Endeavor serve the eugenic end in a satisfactory way; it is
almost the unanimous opinion of competent observers that matches "made
in the church" turn out well. Some idea of the importance of the
churches may be gathered from a census which F. O. George of the
University of Pittsburgh made of 75 married couples of his acquaintance,
asking them where they first met each other. The answers were:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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