It would be inconsistent with settlement theories if these country places did not express refinement and beauty,—the beauty that belongs to simplicity,—not only in the buildings, but also in the service and housekeeping. It has seemed to us, therefore, worth the additional expenditure of effort to have small, distinct household units wherever practicable. People who live in crowded homes, walk on crowded streets, ride on crowded cars, and as children attend crowded classrooms, must inevitably acquire distorted views of life; and the settlement is reluctant to add to these the experience of crowded country life. Valuable training in housekeeping is possible in a household even of from fifteen to twenty-five persons,—a small unit according to New York standards,—and tactful direction can often be given toward acquiring those manners generally recognized as “good.” Many of the children who come to us know only foreign customs and foreign table-manners; and the extreme difficulty of maintaining orderly home life in the tenement makes it important to supplement the home-training or to supply what it can never give. Indeed, we recognize in this desire to protect our children from being marked as peculiar or alien because of non-essential differences the same reason that urges the careful mother to insist on “manners,” that her children may not be discredited when they mingle with the fastidious. [Illustration] The ideal of limitation as to numbers cannot always be carried out, and naturally it does not apply to the camp, where a freer and less conventional life attracts and satisfies boys and young men. The older members of the settlement, who are earning money, use the camp and country places as clubs, paying for the privilege and conforming to the regulations which they have had a share in establishing. [Illustration] Those who have promoted the various Fresh-Air agencies throughout the country may not realize that physical benefit is not all that has been secured. We are persuaded that opportunity to know life away from the city is in part the explanation of the increasing number of city boys who elect training in agriculture and forestry. Formerly, when careers were discussed, the future held no happiness unless it promised a profession—law or medicine. If I appear to lay too much stress upon the importance of play and recreation, it may be well to point out that it is one way of recognizing the dignity of the child. The study of juvenile delinquency shows how often the young offender’s presence in the courts may be traced to a play-impulse for which there was no safe outlet.