nursery. The chairman of the
committee on woman's work remained with the president of the
board in St. Louis for ten days after the adjournment of the
board, meeting the executive committee of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition, endeavoring to arrange for the construction and
equipment of a day nursery. The Exposition Company assured this
committee that they would construct for the lady managers a
building that would cost $30,000, and give $5,000 toward
equipment, and that the day nursery would be self-sustaining
with the possibility of an income above the expense payable to
the Exposition Company.

It now became evident that if the board of lady managers was to
have a day nursery, they must give up the idea of a purely
philanthropic institution and enter the field as money makers.

After two weeks of patient labor, it was made apparent that if a
day nursery was built, all expenses for furnishing and
maintaining it must be paid for out of the funds appropriated by
Congress for the use of the board of lady managers in their
various works. The president of the board of lady managers
offered to contribute $15,000 for the furnishing and maintenance
of this day nursery out of the $100,000 set aside for the use of
the lady managers, if the Exposition Company would free them
from any further financial liability. This the Exposition
Company refused to do.

The Exposition Company further informed us they had already let
a concession for a model playground which would practically
cover the work to be performed by the day nursery, and that this
concession had agreed to care for each child at the rate of 25
cents per day, and that the board of lady managers could not
conduct a day nursery without charging a fee for the care of
each child. Thus the day nursery was taken out of the hands of
the committee on woman's work.

As chairman of this committee, I can not bring this report to a
close without expressing the very deep and heartfelt
disappointment of the committee on woman's work, and I may add
the president and every member of the board of lady managers,
that circumstances over which we had no control forced us to
abandon this cherished project of a model day nursery.

As the duties of the board of lady managers became more apparent
and diversified, and the work evolved