CHILDREN'S COUNTRY HOLIDAYS FUND.
[TO FEE EDITOR OF SHE "SrECTsTes.'l Ssn,—We ask you to-day to make known the need for an army of new workers to carry on one of London's most happily inspired charities. The Children's Country Holidays Fund requires a dozen honorary secretaries, and perhaps a hundred voluntary workers, in addition to those already engaged, and needs them in every part of the London area The Fund, more necessary year by year to this vast and ever-growing city, sees its development arrested, and even its present usefulness threatened, by the increasing difficulty in filling the gaps in the body of workers whom the late Canon Barnett gathered around him, and whom he seemed able to call from the four quarters of the city in numbers that grew always larger as the work developed. In spite of the increasing competition of paid social work, and the attraction which its apparently more serious character has for those who are desirous of helping their fellows, we believe that there are very many, both men and women, who would willingly come forward to fill the vacancies amongst our honorary secretaries and in the ranks of our visitors to the London schools and parents' homes, if once they understood the extent of our need and the opportunities offered by work for this Fund to train oneself in and to render social service.
The object of the Fund is not only to give holidays to the children of the very poorest, but also to supplement the efforts of that vast number of self-respecting and hard-working citizens whose budget does not offer sufficient margin to cover the whole cost of a holiday for their little ones. The children we are helping may be ailing; they may have recently recovered from some opera- tion or illness, or it may be that they have never seen the blue sky arching over a green field, or wild flowers growing freely by the wayside. Their parents contribute according to their means to promote the children's health and happiness, and the relation thus brought about between them and the Children's Country Holidays Fund affords an unrivalled opportunity for those who have some leisure to bestow in helping those about them to get naturally and easily into touch with the poorer wage-earners. The nature of the gift—a child's holiday—is such that it can be accepted with no loss of dignity, and the intercourse is rendered all the pleasanter by the fact that any money that actually passes is paid by the parent and received by the visitor. The work amalgamates admirably with that of the Care Committees, the pressure of the latter being at its hmtviest in the winter, and of the former in the summer, the children dealt with being in many cases the same. The honorary secretaries of Children's Country Holidays Fund Committees in any part of London will find work to call out and develop all their powers of organization ; will acquire as wide a knowledge of conditions in the district as they can hope by any means to obtain; and will find themselves admir- ably placed for entering upon further social service if desirous of so doing. We shall be glad if anyone who wishes to learn more of the opportunities of social service indicated in this letter will com- municate with the Secretary, Mr. Geoffrey Marchand, Children's Country Holidays Fund, 18 Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.- We are, Sir, &a, ALEXANDER OF TECN, President.
Agnew, Treasurer.
HULBLEDIN
Trustees.
LOREBORN
Fuescis Monate, Chairman Executive Committee. J. BATFIELD Chamr, Vice-Chairman.
18 Buckingham Street, Strand, W.C.
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