Show t tl W 7 t > I t < < lie SpSS i tii MRS CLEVELAND YORK How the First Lady of the Land Does Good to the Poor f rretty Ways and Plenty ot Tactthe Char 4 ncterlstics or Mrs Clevelands Undertakings Under-takings Her Charities Correspondence ot THE HERALD NEW YORK March 28In no country in the world has the first lady of the knd identified herself with more beautiful charities than has the first of cbaritie frst lady our own United States I Madame Carnot does a world of good by interesting herself privately in poor people peo-ple who come to her notice Mrs Gladstone Glad-stone has a multitude of charitable multtude charitbie occupations occu-pations Queen Victoria and the Princess of Wales do a great deal of good in their stately way The Empress of Germany is well known for her loveliness to the tI 1tr 1 f 1 r MRS CLEVELANDS VISIT poor mothers of her kingdom and the I Empress Frederick abounds in good i works But Mrs Cleveland has chosen a line of char which is second to none in its far reaching blessings Moreover Mrs Clevelands beneficences are oi the sort which appeal to all young and old They are peculiarly sweet and interesting interest-ing No matter how pressing may be the social demands upon her time nor how urgent may be the occasion for the wife of the president to he present there is always an hour to spare for her poorHER I HER BABY SCHOOLS IN THE SLUMS The most prominent of all Mrs Cleve lands charities and the one in which she is mostly deeply interested is the scheme of founding free kindergartens through cut the poorer parts of New York for the purpose of teaching poor and neglected children how to live The idea originated with Mrs Cleveland four years ago before ever Baby Ruth came into her life I has grown and blossomed until now there is no more permanent and healthy organization in i New York than the Kindergarten association I as-sociation of which Mrs Cleveland is I vicepresident and Richard Watson i Gilder the editor of the Century Jajricinc i is president I The first kindergarten opened by the I association was up on First avenue in one of the most wretched quarters of the city and here a little corns of teachers went to work under Sirs Clevelands guidance to show the miserable little ones who gathered gath-ered round them daily the first steps toward to-ward becoming good men and women Teach the children that thereareother words just as good a swear words was Mrs Clevelands first direction to her teacher and then show them the beautiful beau-tiful things which God has put into the world for them just a much as for others So working patiently day by day ragged little creatures ware taught bits of J plant life the colors of the ralubow the names of the stars the motions oi the earth and a whole host of very practical things When Mrs Cleveland saw the work succeeding she urged tue association to I start more kindergartens aud now there I are nearly a dozen of these free 1 by schools in the slums of the city 1 Jd money has been provided for the establishment estab-lishment of eight more this spring and probably ten additional ones in the fall HER LAKEWOOD ENTERTAINMENTS NET 2500 During the entire winter at Lakewood Iv in spit oi the duties of the nursery and the throngs of people that flocked t the home of tee presidentelect Mrs Cleveland Cleve-land has conducted a very attractive series ser-ies of entertainments the funds from which will all go to kindergarten work Fully 2500 has been realized this winter alone CHRISTMAS TREES HUNG WITH LOVE APPLES Every winter at Christmas time Mrs Cleveland herself goes personally to her kindergarten schools and inquires into the needs ofethe children Do you not think that a Christmas 1 tree all hung with little red apples would be a very pretty sight she asked last Christmas of one of the teachers and then 4Jo you not think we might place fifty pairs of little shoes around the base of the tree so a t give each child something some-thing practical as ela pretty I will kj send you 400 rosy cheeked loveapples tomorrow 1 to-morrow and a quantity of bright candy to make the tree look attractive Then the sweet benefactress drove away t leave orders for the fruit and candy and many many other things which she had not mentioned The day before Christmas when everybody every-body was a busy a could be buying presents for those they loved Mrs Cleveland Cleve-land snatched an hour from her home shopping t drive up to one of her kindergartens and take the teacher down to gartens tke tlcher t one of the stores to buy forty sets of flannels ior the mothers of the little ones who I wet t enjoy the Christmas feasts nest day T Every Christmas for the past lew years Mrs Cleveland has purchased trimmed hats gloves underclothes and shoes for i the mothers as well us sweets and gifts r for the children ILls one of the principles princi-ples otM Clevelands giving that noth c 0 0 < h I ing shall be given away untrimmed or 1 unmade for she wissly reasons that poor women have neither time nor taste to make up neatly and well the articles of clothing even i they had the necessary I material for doing so MRS CLEVELANDS OWN VISIT To go up to one of her free kindergartens kindergar-tens and see Mrs Cleveland busy among her poor little waifs is a sight well worth the hour which it takes to reach a locality where a school is located But unfortunately unfor-tunately Mrs Cleveland objects to publicity pub-licity and notoriety and when she is at work the door is barred to visitors j The work is really nothing she sweetly said one day to a poor scribbler I who besought her permission to bring a camera to the school and 1 would not like to pose as doing a great deal when I am only amusing myself with the chil dren 1 you were to take my picture here it migut lay me open to criticism mid you would not like that Would you I I MIMIC PIANO PLAYING One of the pretty things which Mrs thing lrs Cleveland does one which shows her I thoughtful is to invariably wear rich clothing when she visits her kindergartens kinder-gartens The poor she reasons love to look upou heavy velvets and glossy I satins just as more fortunate people love to look at fine painting I is a real treat to them to see good clothes and for that reason Mrs Cleveland always selects the I richest street gowns in her wardrobe when she is going to call upon her poor people It does not make them envious I she ha found and it does educate the I sight and the artistic taste besides giving giv-ing real pleasure When Mrs Cleveland goes to her schools she is apparently very careful to preserve a very pleasant demeanor Surely no White House levee ever sees her in more gracious smiles No matter how forbidding forbid-ding may be the bare little room where the schools are sometimes forced to beheld sometmes held nor how ragged may be the babies there Mrs Cleveland smiles and smiles nodding approval upon every effort to do THE MOTHERS MEETING well She has placed a piano in every little school and there is a nurse 5lrl in I attendance to carry home unfortunate little ones who may be sbund asleep when school is over or who may be too sick to be sent home To try to tell onehalf of the gentle things done by Mrs Cleveland in tho kindergarten work which is avowedly her tavorite charity would be hopeless Her tact shines forth in this just as it does when she is in the midst of one of her White House levees On one occasion there was a little fel ow who must have been five years old 1 id net know his age nor was his i mo T ce tin of it who had never lenro to hold up his head and keep his ronjue in his mouth He was bright enoagh but he had been utterly I ueglectel IthnkI can help him said Mrs Clevela id smiling pityingly as she lookdd at the little fellow Fritzie JMa she sweet to him will you not hold up your head so that you can see all of the pretty things that are in this room There are such beautiful pictures on the walls and oh such lovely plants in the windows Fritzie lifted up his head interested by this description of the beauties around him and all the rest of the day he kept it held up looking about and of course kept his tongue in his mouth Mrs Cleveland had many perplexing little problems to solve in her kindergarten kinder-garten work Among them was a supply of baby food for the luckless infants who are abandoned each morning on tho doorstep of the kindergarten schools and must be cared for until their shamed day fired mothers call for them later in the I it was another perplexing question t know what to do abput the childrens lunches Often the little ones come to school faint from lack of food beeause they couldnt relish the awful chuck of dark bread given to them for breakfast break-fast lunch and dinner In some quarters of the city the wretched babies come to school drowsy with beer or munching an awful handful of spoiled fruit The attempt t work reform with the children themselves was of coarse useless for the little ones were the victims of home mismanagement But by talking with the mothers on the subject of lunches and assuring them that the child would be fed in school at lunch time even though he bronght no lunch with him the change for good has been brought about The mothers have had it demonstrated demon-strated to them that 0 clean loaf of bread I costs no more than a muddy one and tastes much better and that lthe teacher that infallible manager thinks spoiled fruit dear at any price BABY RUTH AND TH KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN Baby Ruth is very fond of the kindergarten kinder-garten children for she has been told all about thentmany a time But dear little 1i 1 lj r Ruth is a delicate blossom and i is not I thought wise to subject her to so great a i chance of catching the childish diseases I which are always prevalent among Eastside I I East-side children Even fiveyearold Dorothy j i Doro-thy Whitney who was at Lakewood for some mild childish trouble at the time of her mothers death was rarely allowed Ito ito I i-to visit her baby friend for fear of making I her sick But Ruth loves to hear kindergarten kinder-garten stores and kindergarten songs and her most restless moments can be by tales of what thelittle quieted the1ttJe kinder i I I garten boys and girls say and do IlIR CLEVELANDS MOTHEPS BIEET LEGS Next tc her interest in children comes Mrs Clevelands solicitude for poor mothers and this is a distinct branch of her charitable work On certain afternoons of the week twenty or more of the poorest mothers in New York are gathered in little groups in half a dozeu different partsof the city to talk about helpful household topics over a cup of tea and a piece of cake Young ladies specially trainedfor tho I work preside at these meetings and it is they who lead tho talk into the right channels Teach them how to live Tell them that there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things and make them realize re-alize that the children which are sent to them are straight from the hand of God I I t r 1 l 1 j j I I j GodH H I f 1 I c c 1c 2 H 1S t < fs I y I 1 I jj = Ik I of nu C TilfiS M 1I 1 l r ir I UNDER THE BRIDGE and must be trained to go back to him said Mrs Cleveland one day while giving directions to the teacher of one of her mothers meetings Praise freely and see i you cannot do your work in j i that way instead of by lecturing them I I Mrs Clevelands advice Acting upon Cevelands I I the teacher tried the next day the experiment experi-ment of adapting this rule to a very ob stina case which she had in hand It was that of a woman who was apparently I appar-ently of a brutal nature without a particle parti-cle of anything loveable or motherly about her She came it is true to the mothers meetings But she always came late just before the tea and cake was served and went away directly afterwards after-wards Sometimes she brought a wretched little dirtyfaced boy hanging to her skirts whom she threw off roughly often with a bad word as she entered the door The teacher remembered Mrs Cleve lands words about praising freely and she laid for the woman Next day was mothers meeting and the teacher stood by the door to receive her guests Last of all came the woman who was to be experimented upon and to her skirts was hanging the dirty little baby boy crying as hard as he could Let go 0 thim skirts ye dirty little baste snapped the woman aa she reached the doorstep Let go or Ill But the teachers voice interrupted her as in silvery notes exclaimed I Oh what a dear little boy you have I with you Will you not bring him in to the meeting He will like to have a piece of cake with UR Surely he goes to the kindergarten every day No mum He do not Its not me that would be after dressing the like of him good enough to go to wan o thim But he is such a pretty child insisted in-sisted the teacner and how much he looks like his mother1 The womans face softened a little She even smiled She brought the child into the meeting And next day there was another threeyearold boy added to the neighboring kindergarten After awhile a-while the woman stopped swearing and drinking so much and before spring her little boy could come to school without body bearing cruel bruises upon his little So much for Mrs Clevelands method of dealing with very bad cases HER KITCHEN DIET SCHOOLS All of Mrs Clevelandis charities are ex iremely domestic ones She thinks that if the women and the children are properly prop-erly cared for and taught the men of the family will be in the language of the street all right too v One of the things in whicn she is greatly interested is the kitchen diet schools This is a charitable work which teaches I the poor densely ignorant untidy women of the slums how to do housework Like all others of Mrs Clevelands charities it is very practical and of direct benefit The mode of procedure in the kitchen diet schools is this Twelve or fifteen women young and oTd gather round a big table at the head of which sits a teacher who by the way is usually a young society girl who has kindly offered her services for the work In front of each of the women is a small tin dishpan dish-pan and by the side of the pan there is apiece piece of soap and a dish mop At the other side of the pan there is a plate a knifes a fork and a cup and saucer As in her other charitable workings Mrs Cleveland believes in feeding the body before attempting to train the mind or the spirit Very palatable plain cake is passed around with little biscuit and everyone is given a choice of tea or coffee After this is eaten then comes the work of instruction The teacher begins it I think says she that it is a good plana very good plan always to wash dishes after you lave eaten off of them To my mind I washing dishes once a day is not enough I believe continues she that dishes should be washed in soapy water and then rinsed in clear hot water Suiting the action to the word she washes her own plate and cup and saucer and her admiring pupils do likewise And then all adjourn to the kitchen sink for clear hot water for the finishing process Practical lessons are given upon all I kinds of housework and often positions i are obtained for those who become very skillful at their work M CLEVELANDS IDEA OF GIVING Mrs Cleveland interests herself comparatively com-paratively little in private charities She rarely sees those who apply for aid and she never gives alms from the door She believes in organized charity So aside I from paying her servants and her seamstress seam-stress very big wages and paying full I I price for everything sno buys she does ittle individual giving But to organized work whether it be for working girls clubs news boys lodging houses or church fairs her purse strings are ever untied Is it not a very delightful thing to have the first lady of the land interested in I w even the humblest of her husbands I people And does it not make one all the more glad on this account to read of the elegance of Mrs Clevelands entertainments r entertain-ments and the beauties ofher dresses I One does begrudge them to her at all AlthouglOlrs Cleveland has gone to Washington to live for four years she retains re-tains her interest in uer New York work And her very last act before leaving in her special car for the inauguration was to read with delight in the morning papers of the very successful lecture given by Toseph Jefferson the night before to help on the kindergarten schools And while the inauguration guns were being fred and the inauguration quadrille quad-rille was being danced Mrs Clevelands coworkers in New York were counting the goodly proceeds of the fund which she I had so lately swelledAUGUSTA PREScOTT |