It’s the beginning of March, and while that usually means at least one more winter flurry or storm before we’re done, it also means that spring is right around the corner. And coming up quick behind spring is that glorious, sun-shining season we call summer. Of course, most people love the summer months, regardless of age. With the warm sun and gentle breeze, who isn’t tempted to leave work early on one of those beautiful days? But as much as we all love the summer, it’s really best enjoyed by kids! With their time off from school, they get to have adventures, play games, go swimming, and learn new and exciting skills. And in today’s world, the opportunities for fun and learning over the summer have never been so plentiful. Nowadays, there are summer camps for seemingly every activity you can imagine, from summer camps focused on learning music, to building winter sport skills, like hockey or curling camps, to programs that look an awful lot like summer school. Hey, whatever you’re kids have fun doing, am I right? But when did we start sending our children off to summer camp? Where did this idea come from, that has lead us today to think of things like Summer Music Camp as the normal, popular thing for kids to do during the months off from school? It turns out, summer camps have always presented themselves as an alternate choice to the overwhelming day-to-day grind of society.
The First Summer Camps
The very first summer camp programs for kids started in the 1870s and ’80s. They were, unfortunately, only for boys, but they promised those boys a chance to get away from their ever increasingly urban modern life. The thought was that “roughing it” would build character, and, as one of the first camp founders put it do eloquently, these camps would save humanity from “dying of indoor-ness.” At first, there were only a hand full of these camps; less than 100 across the entire US in the year 1900, in fact. But camps like these would get the societal “seal of approval” in 1904, when a psychologist named G. Stanley Hall wrote and published his book, Adolescence. In it, he argued that child development is similar to, and in fact imitates, the formation of civilized societies throughout history. This meant, he explained, that children should spend time in nature, “in this wild undomesticated stage [of life] from which modern conditions have kidnapped him.” Hall said kids should learn to build fires and shelters, like the “pre-civilized” people that they were.
The 1900s and “Theme” Camps
Though there were less than 100 summer camps available for little boys at the turn of the century, Hall’s book would help an explosion of camps and popularity. By 1918, there were more than 1,000 camps across the country. But, interestingly, as the idea of summer camps became more popular, their connection to actual camping and “roughing it” became lost to a certain degree. Camps started featuring movies, radio programs, and even tennis lessons. The very idea of summer camps seemed to change so quickly and drastically, it caused one leader of the original camp movement to complain in the 1930s that “every activity we can find to fit into the daily program is put in, but there is a notable lack of camping – living out in the open – the very thing that gave the movement its birth.” The 1930s effectively became the birth of theme camps, which would lead to music themed camps.
Camps had moved away from “pre-civilized” living, and were actually creating a new vision of their purpose; rather than a vacation away from civilization into the wild of nature, camps started to be tiny societies all on their own. Children started to learn to balance their individual needs with those of the groups, and to be helpful to others.
Summer Camps & Canada
Once summer camps in the United States started to diversify, and offer a wider range of programs for students, the idea caught on around the world. With a significantly smaller population than the U.S., Canada only had a handful of summer camps active in the 1930s, but the leaders of many of those early Canadian camps, especially in Ontario, took it upon themselves to meet regularly to talk about common concerns. They all wanted to offer well-balanced programs, provide a good diet, keep their equipment and facilities properly maintained, and continue to teach kids a respect and appreciation for the environment and building character. These men shared a common vision for Canadian camps, and in 1932, the Ontario Camping Association (OCA) was formed.
Post-World War II to Today
With the outbreak of World War II, it was difficult for camps to remain as they were. Many camps advertised themselves as refuges from the horror of life in times of war, but they couldn’t really insulate their campers from the world at large. In fact, many camps even started making adolescent fitness for combat a major part of their recreational programs.
Following the end of the war, there was a shift in ideas about summer camps, with some leaders criticizing the value for kids in escaping from society into a more “authentic” setting. As a matter of fact, in 1947, child psychologist Fritz Redl argued that the natural world might be scary for city kids who were “used to the protective comforts of the mechanized urban environment.” He liked the idea of camps, believing they had therapeutic value, but he worried about the fact that kids would be returning to the modern world every fall; a modern world that the camps were, in his opinion, teaching the kids to distrust.
It was probably this argument, as well as the post-war baby boom, that really fueled the expansion of summer camps throughout the United States, Canada, and the world. The number of camps in Ontario, and Canada at large, multiplied quickly, and the OCA grew with them. If camps had enjoyed a fair amount of popularity before the war, that popularity erupted after it, and going to camp became an important and integral part of growing up for thousands of kids. The traditional, “roughing it” camps were still around, and still continue today, but in this post-war world camps started to branch out much more. Camps started to specialize in different areas with specific activity focuses, and music camps, among others, were born.
This diversifying of activities and camps in general saw a surge in popularity for activity specific camps, like sports or music camps, but it also saw more generic camps start to adopt more varied activities. Even today, most sleep away camps that still promote “roughing it” now include musical or artistic components throughout the time spent there.
Over the last 100+ or so, the diversity of summer camps has continued to expand. Camps are large and small, co-ed or single gendered, way out in the bush or in buildings in the downtown core. Now, there are sports camps, nature camps, art camps, drama camps, and of course, music camps, to name only a few popular themes.
For information on the summer camp programs offered by The Music Studio, please visit www.themusicstudio.ca/camps.html
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