In the department of health thirty-six doctors, sixteen
nurses, and a squad of sanitary inspectors are employed. The department
of social science covers education, welfare, and horticulture. To me the
work of these departments was a revelation. Each camp has a first-rate
hospital, each has its schools and guildhall, and everything is run as
only an efficiently managed corporation can run things.
The Docena Village is less like one's idea of a coal "camp" than of a
pretty suburban development, or a military post, with officers' houses
built around a parade. The grounds are well kept; there is a tennis
court with vine-clad trellises about it, a fine playground for children,
pretty brick walks, with splendid trees to shade them; and there is a
brick schoolhouse which is a better building, better equipped, better
lighted, and, above all, better ventilated than the schools I attended
in my boyhood.
Near the school is the guildhall, which is used for religious services,
meetings, and entertainments. And best of all, perhaps, the houses are
not the rows of sad, unpainted cabins one remembers having seen in
western mining camps, but are pretty cottages, touched with a slight
architectural variety, and with little variations of color, so that each
home has individuality.
The schools are financed partly by the company and partly by the parents
of the three thousand scholars.
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