New York Tribune, 1915 July (article)
“Let's play Indian!” said a grown-up boy to the children of America.
“Let's!” shouted the children, jumping around him in delight.
So Ernest Thompson Seton took them by the hand, this eager, skiping crown, and led them into the woods, to live in tents, to learn of birds and trees, to swim and jumo, and to be brave and reverent and truthful, as all good Indians are. And there in the woods they formed their Indian tribes, with ceremony and symbolism, the Indian braves with masculine intent, the Indian maids with womanly ideals.
It was thirteen years ago that Mr. Seton's Woodcraft movement was started in the United States with a small group of children on his own grounds. Now the movement is national, including hundreds of children, with a new organization for girls just afoot,[keny 1] and a Woodcraft school in the process of building. Woodcraft Indians we see everywhere, a parade of them escorting a public official somewhere, one here helping a frail old lady across the street, another running errands for a busy relief committee. Of the girls we see less, for they are busy at home and in school, but we read of them, and teachers and mothers know better than the public just what Mr. Seton's plan accomplishes for the American girl.
The recent plan for Woodcraft girls, an affair quite separate from the original Camp Fire, is new only on the organization side, for Woodcraft girls have been following the Seton trail all these years, and formally organized Camp Fire has been existent since 1912. But with the recent withdrawal of sixty-six active Camp Fire “guardians” on account of their objection to the methods of the business office, eight hundred girls followed, and the necessity was felt for supplying them with some substitute for their beloved Camp Fire activities. These girls, then, are to be reorganized, and the hundreds of unorganized Woodcraft girls in the Mississippi Valley who have never joined Camp Fire are to be gathered formally with them.
Girls and Boys.
To let the girls do what their brothers do — that is the feminist side. A “character-making movement, with a blue sky method, for all ages and both sexes,” the larger aspect.
Mr. Seton was found this week at the Fincherie, his summer home at Greenwich, Conn., deep in plans for Woodcraft girls and the new Woodcraft school, the Little School in the Woods. In his queer little study, a place of conglomerate books, hammers, animals’ heads and other strangely harmonious things, he sat, khaki-clad, bare throated, and talked about the development of his huge idea. There was no great elation or burning enthusiasm about this man’s explanation of his most beloved undertaking. Rather, he talked evenly and carefully. But he was talking to a reporter. He's a different Seton at the campfire, they say.
“Woodcraft as a movement,” he began, speaking very slowly, “sims to fix in the young person’s mind an ideal figure, physically strong, a trained athlete, dignified, courteous, self-controlled. This ideal figure is happy in helping, equipped for emergencies, wise in the way of the woods. He is in touch with the world of men and affairs; he makes himself needed, desired and helpful in this world as it is to-day. We emphasize the beauty of common things, and we try never to forget the power of poetry, ceremony, romance and the appeal to the imagination. This is what Woodcraft means, for both boys and girls.”
“There is a natural relation between this movement for the activities of girls and the movement for woman’s freedom, isn't there?” Mr. Seton was asked.
He made a gesture of distaste.
“Oh, we don't think about that,” he replied. “When Woodcraft first started with the boys, the girls came in and looked in at the edges and wanted to do it, too. So we let them. Really, I'm not interested in feminism and the marriage problem and all those things in connection with the Woodcraft girls. Our object in giving them Woodcraft training is to make them thoroughly rounded young women in three ways, — physically, socially and spiritually.[keny 2] If they are thus properly prepared they will solve the problems for themselves.”
And indeed, one might think long and hard to imagine a better antitoxin for “world problems” than the beautifully balanced life that these Indian maids are living.
“Woodcraft girls as an organization are going to have some features that are different from Camp Fire, though you understand that the general lines of the two bodies are the same,” went on Mr. Seton. “The civic side is to be greatly more emphasized, for example. Towncraft for the city girl will teach her some things she ought to know about the life of her city. We're going to have honors for streetcraft, which means proficiency in the sign language of public highways. Do you know what a wiggly line on a pole or fence or a bridge means? The Woodcraft girls will know that it means live wire. Do you know what F. P. 8 means? Fire plug eight feet out, of course. Do you know how to call a policeman, where the cars stop, how to ring a fire alarm, how to summon an ambulance? The Woodcraft girls will.
The Future Hostess.
“Then the Woodcraft girl under the new order is to be a charming hostess. She will know how to invite her guests, receive them, introduce them, entertain them, placate them, feed them, and all that sort of thing. We must have that ease and graciousness in our American girls, and there’s no way to achieve it but to encourage them to try. Woodcraft is not to make them at home only in the woods, you see.
“Town gardening is to be a new feature. Gardening in little roof plots will be given a special sort of honor. When the city girl can’t get to the country, then let her bring the country to the city. And, of course, the handicrafts will be handled in the old way.
“Woodcraft aims to complete the life of the American boy and girl to its fullest. It is for some of them purely recreative, outside the school and home. For others, the members of the Little School in the Woods, it is a much fuller experience. The ordinary school? Well, it does not do all that, does it? It even sometimes fails on the academic side. That’s why the Little School in the Woods was founded.”
The Little School’s History.
The history of the Little School — once upon a time not connected with the Woodcraft movement – is interesting. Five years ago, Charles Lanier, son of the poet Sidney Lanier, was looking for a particular kind of outdoor school for his own children. He didn’t find it, so he engaged Bernard Sexton, the Woodcraft movement, secretary to teach his children, the schoolroom to be a little cabin on the Lanier estate. Mr. Sexton, having strong ideas upon the Schoolmaster as is, set about teaching in a manner quite different from the schoolroom method, and the result was that the Lanier children began having the time of their lives. As Mrs. C. Tarbell Dudley, one of the school mothers and directors, says: “The children under Mr. Sexton are living; they are not preparing to live.” And gradually the little neighbors and friends of the Laniers were drawn into the circle, last year the school numbering thirty-two children.
Then came along a good fairy — a practical fairy, with money in pocket — saying: “Children, let us have a big Woodcraft school, where our families may live and our children may work and play and learn all year long.” So Mr. Sexton and Mrs. Dudley and Mr. Seton and all the other interested peoples set about it to make a school for their children and friends’ children, where outdoor life and study and association with rich minds might all blend to make the perfect atmosphere for the completest development of childhood. As a working expression of their idea Mr. Seton’s Woodcraft methods are to be taken over bodily. Even part of Mr. Seton’s Greenwich estate is to be the biding place of the new big Little School in the Woods, to be ready for use by early fall.
“It’s a thing I've long dreamed of,” said Mr. Seton, in his even way. “It’s the only enterprise I’d ever sell my land to.”
These people who stand for the Little School in the Woods are a group of friends who will make a settlement of their own right at and around the school.
“And we're to have the most superior talent for our children” exclaimed Mrs. Dudley, an earnest, spiritual little woman, whose two children are among the tribe’s stanchest, most charming Indians.[keny 3] “Mr. Seton and Mr. Sexton for the outdoor things, and specialists in every other field. When the children want to write poetry they will be taught by a poet, for we're going to have Mrs. Elsa Barker. For their dramatics Mrs. Josephine Clement, whe was with the Neighborhood Players this winter, you know, will have charge. We're going to do a great deal with dramatics. History will be taught largely through acting great scenes in history and impersonating notable historical characters. And Percy Mackaye says he’s coming over with his family. If he does won't we have the most wonderful pageants?”
Mrs. Dudley jumped into a waiting ear and dashed off then to some meeting or other, for what with lawyers and architects and engineers there is a great deal of business going on.
So while the Woodcraft Indians are playing the summer through their head chief and medicine man and all his nobles and councillors are making elaborate plans for the further glory and honor of the Woodcraft organisation, perfecting the new erced for the health, happiness and service of the children of America.
Aleš Kapica - Keny Otter commented:
