Seven girls from Smith, Vassar and Wellesley colleges have established a series of clubs in New York which meet in a building on Rivington street. Four of these clubs are for girls and another is for small children. Originally there was no intention of starting a club for boys, but the boys themselves demanded recognition, and the first club was such a success that two more were started and all are doing earnest work. The children are taught cooking, sewing, hygiene, etc., but there is no distinct religious instruction. The settlement also discharges the functions of the penny provident fund, which receives deposits of one cent or more. The basement of the building is fitted with bath rooms which do not nearly supply the demands made upon them, although at first the Rivington street natives hardly knew for what they were meant.
The influence exerted by the two hundred young club members is already making itself felt upon the parents who are rapidly coming under the influence of the settlement.
Toynbee Hall, in London, conducted by Cambridge and Oxford students and intended to help the poor of the Whitechapel district is undoubtedly the model of this new college settlement in New York, which is already on the way to outdo its original in honest usefulness.
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