“The ideal life for a boy is not in the city.  He should know of animals, rivers, plants, and that great out-of-door life that lays for him the foundation of his later years.”  —­G.  Stanley.

[Illustration:  Camp Becket]

CHAPTER III—­LOCATION AND SANITATION

Dirty dirt vs.  Clean dirt
avoid swamps
selecting A site
laying out the camp ground
the latrines
garbage
dish water
waste barrels
water supply
an Indian method
individual drinking cupboard of health
maxims

Dirt

Clean camps are most easily kept by not allowing them to become dirty.

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness.  Godliness means a right relation to things spiritual, cleanliness a right relation to things material.  An old definition says that ‘Dirt is merely misplaced matter.’  Of all the vehicles of disease, the most important perhaps is dirt.  The word dirt in its strict sense comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘drit,’ or excrement.  ‘Dirt,’ then, is not earth or clean sand—­not clean dirt, but dirty dirt, that is, matter soiled by some of the excreta of the human or animal body.  Cleanliness must be insisted upon in a boys’ Camp—­not the cleanliness that makes a boy squeamish about working with his hands upon some necessary job, but cleanliness that makes him afraid of sharing his tooth brush or table utensils or his clothes.

Cleanliness is not the shunning of good, clean dirt, but a recognition of the fact that to pass anything from one mouth to another is a possible source of death and destruction.” [1] “Death to dirt” should be the watchword of the camp.  The camp should be a model of cleanliness.  Every boy should be taught the value of good sanitation and encouraged to cooperate in making proper sanitation effective.

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Chas. E. A. Winslow—­“Camp Conference,” p. 58.]

Avoid Swamps

The location chosen for a camp should be away from swamps.  Avoid swampy and low places as you would a plague.  Damp places where there are mosquitoes, should be well drained, and open to an abundance of sunshine.  Mosquitoes breed only in water, but a very little water is sufficient if it is dirty and stagnant.  Two inches of water standing in an old tin can will breed an innumerable horde.  These “diminutive musicians” are not only a nuisance, but dangerous, as malaria and typhoid spreaders by their poisonous stings.

The Site