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"I cannot thank you for that because no thanks are adequate and I know you feel words matter little until they are charged with the love that turns them into service. I have tried to render service to children as you would have your teachers do and in the effort I have found peace and strength. I imagine many teachers tell you that story but I felt that I must tell it for myself so that you might know that in one more pupil your work had borne its fruit."

The scientific value of the work of the summer school to its students has had recognition by many universities and colleges. The certificates issued to those who have completed the summer school courses entitle its holder to credits on their work for academic degrees.

The summer school brings strenuous days to the Village Elders, livelier times for the children, and a new and wholesome influence to both. In the classes the women of course far outnumber the men by about ten to one. Their experiences, gathered over a wide territory, our own and other lands, are mutually stimulating, on themselves and The Training School as well. They take part in all of the activities of the Village: school, shops, cottages, playgrounds, parties, assemblies, store days, picnics, pageants, everything. Daily schedules must be met, lectures, reading and studying, discussions. The educational staff of the School, headed by its Director, Professor Johnstone; Mrs. Nash, School Principal; Dr. Doll, Director of Research; Professor Nash, Superintendent; Miss Hill, Director of Extension, is augmented by specialists in the fields of public education, speech defects, psychiatry, psychology, biology, eugenics, public welfare. Lecturing to the summer school is at once a privilege and an opportunity for service. No fees are expected or given and traveling expenses are not infrequently refused.

The summer school is a missionary enterprise of The Village of Happiness designed wholly to spread the gospel of the understanding and happiness of children whose souls are made more or less inarticulate by mental or physical insufficiencies. The summer school students have seen how some of these superficial barriers may be lowered or penetrated and how the beauty of these souls may be revealed through their efforts.

The summer school students are a happy lot. Perhaps one reason for that might be found in this suggested motto, "We Get in Order to Give." Giving is the real source of happiness. There must be much joy in such getting. And think of the happiness of The Village of Happiness in such giving!

THE COLONY

It began as a great adventure. It had all of the elements; risk, uncertainty, hardship, possible success, possible failure. It was beyond the frontier, almost 'over back of beyond.' It was a vast stretch of flat country which might well have been called The Great Oak Scrub. It was the home of wild things; deer, foxes, 'possums, 'coons, skunks, squirrels, birds, mosquitoes, ticks and 'jiggers.' An occasional trail led into it and seemed to have no other object than to wander aimlessly about to end nowhere or on the swampy border of the creek with the Indian name, Menantico. This 'Oak Scrub' began just a few miles beyond the Village of Vineland. This is the picture in 1913; thousands of acres of uncleared waste and practically valueless land.

On the border of this 'Scrub' The Training School had carried on its self-appointed task of reclaiming and utilizing Society's human wastage, -- boys and girls who had been left behind, unable, through no fault of their own, to keep up with the procession. It had been at this salvage work for twenty-five years. During those years the School had grown in size and usefulness. It had created for these under-privileged children a world of their own in which they found understanding, usefulness, happiness; happiness because useful; useful because trained in a spirit of understanding of their limitations, possibilities, needs.

Many of the children had reached physical maturity but, still children, had the greater need of guidance and protection which only the School could give; must always give. Under these conditions there had grown up in the School a large group of boy-men, for whose physical energies it was becoming increasingly difficult to find an outlet. Unused, these energies would inevitably find outlets hurtful to them and to the School.

"Where there is no vision the people perish." The Supertendent -sic- of The Training School dreamed dreams and had visions. Out of these inspirations are born. Necessity, too, was driving. These olders -sic- boys could not be turned adrift to shift for themselves. They were the School's children. They belonged to the School, the School belonged to them. Primarily, their lives and work at the School had shown that they belonged to the soil. It was unthinkable to waste their strength and abilities in corrupting idleness. Out there, a few miles, is the Scrub. It, too, is wastage. Common labor will reclaim it, make it of value, useful. Here, close by, is labor which will soon be going to waste. Why not bring the two things together, create a mutual and positive blessing out of the two wastages? Thus ran his vision and his faith and he followed both with works.