ir midsummer meeting, the board passed
the following resolution:

_Be it resolved_, That the board of lady managers set apart, and
turn over, to the persons in charge of the Model Play Ground,
Nursery, and Lost Children work the sum of $5,000 to assist in
carrying on these projects on the exposition grounds.

Mrs. John M. Holcombe was made chairman of the committee having this
appropriation in charge, and her final report is as follows:

The members of the board of lady managers were from the
beginning of their organization deeply interested in the need of
caring for little children at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,
and various plans were under consideration at an early date.

To have a model creche was the desire of the president and
members of the board, and it was with great satisfaction that
arrangements were made for a very perfect equipment.

A practical philanthropy in full working order would prove also
an exhibit of the most approved and up-to-date methods--at once
a charity, an example, an inspiration.

The Exposition Company made a generous appropriation, the sum of
$35,000 being allowed for the building and furnishing, and very
beautiful designs were made and accepted. Here infants were to
be cared for by trained nurses, receiving attention and
consideration possible only to babies of the twentieth century,
and altogether in advance of the simple and natural conditions
of baby life prior to the closing years of the nineteenth
century. Special foods specially treated, specially constructed
bottles--in fact everything special and disinfected, from the
nurse and crib down to the smallest minutiae.

The charge was to be 50 cents a day, and estimates formed on
experience went to show that on this basis the creche would be
self-sustaining when once established and started in running
order.

Shortly before the opening of the fair, however, and at a moment
when the Exposition Company was passing through most trying
experiences and needed all possible funds, it was found that
unfavorable aspects had arisen. At the March meeting of the
board, 1904, and only a few weeks prior to the opening of the
exposition, it was learned that two concessions of a nature
similar to the creche had been made, where the charge for
children would be but 25 cents a day. Already the b