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CHAMPION OF AMERICA'S CHILDREN
for all P.-T. A.'s in the United States — explains them this way:
"Physically sound and mentally healthy children are not reared in unwholesome surroundings. Therefore, we campaign for good housing.
"Education isn't dispensed without financial resources. Accordingly; we do our part in working for federal aid.
"Spiritual strength and emotional security cannot be applied to our children from the outside. As a re suit, we work from within — through parent education, home and school co' operation, consultation with the clergy and the force of good example."
Fittingly enough, the P.-T. A. was started back in 1895 by an American
mother — Mrs. Alice Birney of Washington, D. C. After the birth of her third daughter, Mrs. Birney was inspired by the idea of a national organization to promote the welfare of children. Together with the wealthy widow of a United States senator, Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, she contacted thousands of women's clubs all over the country. Like a powerful magnet, Mrs. Birney 's "National Congress of Mothers" began to draw the sympathies and support of women everywhere— including the First Lady of the Land, Mrs. Grover Cleveland.
Two years later, however, when Mrs. Birney called the first convention in Washington, the Congress' future was still in doubt. "I'd be satisfied," she told co-v^orkers, "if only fifty mothers come — or even twenty-five."
On February 15, 1897, the convention began in the ballroom of the Arlington Hotel. But instead of 25 or even 5 0 mothers, there were women crowded into every corner of the ballroom, sitting on Vv'indow ledges, overflowing the aisles and standing in the doorways — more than 2,000 eager converts to Mrs. Birney 's crusade for children.
After that, state branches of the Mothers' Congress began to mushroom in all parts of the country. First New York, then Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa and New Jersey joined the parade. Within a few years, every state was in the field.
IT WAS not long before the mothers rediscovered an important point: The School and the Home are partners in shaping the lives of children. As a result, they invited teachers