In a recent address delivered in Concord, an out-of-town speaker declared that this city had the most unusual Y.M.C.A. He had ever visited, remarkable in that it took the children when they were still tiny tots and began training them.
The statement was altogether true. The local Y does begin working with the children at the age of four, gives them physical and mental training in the kindergarten, and watches as they grow older until the time when they go to college.
This year is the first in which the children have been taken at the age four. The kindergarten was begun only last fall but was so successful that plans are being made to continue it next year.
To take over the work of starting the kindergarten, Y officials considered a number of applicants and finally selected Miss Berta Hallem of Richmond Hill, N.Y., to fill the place. In this work, she has been very successful. “There are none better,” was the way H.W. Blanks, secretary of the Y, succinctly put it when asked how Miss Hallem had done.
Miss Hallem gives her entire morning to the work, doing regular kindergarten work in teaching the children to play, to draw, and preparing them for primary school work. Her day does not end with this, however. In the afternoon, she trains girls’ classes in the mill sections. This consists largely of holding Bible study for them, teaching them to act in little plays she stages, trying to build up school spirit among them and giving them names of different sorts with which to amuse themselves.
There are two of these classes. One meets at Number 2 School and the other at the Brown-Norcott Mill School. The enrollment in the two is nearly 50. Each class meets once a week. In addition to the regular work, Miss Hallem is now training one group in a May-Day dance, showing them how to make their own costumes. The other groups is learning to do a Cinderella Pantomime for the festival.
Miss Hallen’s work is altogether with the girls. To do club work with the younger boys, a local boy has been chosen, Harry Lee Johnson. His position as boy’s secretary enables him to keep in touch with the majority of the youths of the city. Several hundred of them come in touch with him during the course of the week.
Mr. Johnson’s club work is at the following places: Number 2 School, where he has a club of 25 boys; Brown-Norcott Mill, where his club numbers 20 boys; Hartsell Mill club with 12 members; Winecoff School with 25 members; Harrisburg where two clubs are held, each having around 20 members; and Rocky River with 30 members. It will be noted that the work of Mr. Johnson is not altogether in the city. On the contrary, he carries the U.M.C.A. to the country districts.
These clubs hold organized meetings in which they take up Bible study and have talks on character building. They are also taught the value of Sunday School and church attendance. In addition to the religious work, they are taken on hikes where they are given lessons in nature study. One club, the Wildfires of No. 2 School, are ow building a hut several miles out from Concord and are having the time of their lives in doing so.
The clubs now have a baseball league, each team playing two games a week. Clean sportsmanship is stressed and the excellent manner in which the boys deport themselves on the field has occasioned much comment, one of the school principals stating at one of the games recently that he had never seen such a change in any group of boys as had come over his boys since clean sportsmanship had been taught by the Y there. There are approximately 210 members in the 12 organized clubs.
Another work into which the Y has branched during the last year is the teaching of expression. Miss Ethel M. King of the Queens College faculty at Charlotte has come to Concord and trained her class of 15 pupils several times during the week. In a recent recital, the pupils performed in a very creditable manner and entertained a large audience.
In giving an account of the work which the Y does for the children, it is impossible to leave out the May-Day Festival which trains over100 children. In this celebration little folk dances and elaborate pageantry are taught by volunteer leaders. A work of this sort is training in the aesthetic and cannot be underestimated.
Negro children are also given a small amount of training. No very extensive training id sone at the present because of a lack of leaders to take charge of this work, but it is probably, according to Y officials, that in the near future, a Negro Y secretary will be secured who will devote his entire time to the work among the members of his race, under the supervision of Mr. Blanks, the general secretary.
One club is at present conducted by Prof. Logan who directs their religious work and helps them in their games. During the summer of 1924, the negro boys had a baseball league which occasioned much interest. It is likely that another league will be started later in the spring.
From the front page of The Concord Daily Tribune, Tuesday, April 14, 1925
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073201/1925-04-14/ed-1/seq-1/#words=APRIL+14%2C+1925
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