munity houses, separate dormitories for the unmarried
men and for the single women, a dining-hall, a chapel, one or two
schoolhouses, a recreation-hall, a house of detention for refractory
persons, one hospital for general cases, and another for infectious
diseases. It was all built of wood, simple and primitive, but as
comfortable as could be expected under the conditions. The chief danger
of the camps was idleness. In providing work to combat this peril the
Rockefeller Foundation and the committee of the English "Society of
Friends" were of great assistance. Each of these camps had accommodation
for about 10,000 people.

The fourth camp was at the ancient city of Gouda, famed for its great
old church with stained-glass windows and for its excellent cheese and
clay pipes. This camp was the earliest and one of the most interesting
that I visited. It was established in a series of exceptionally large
and fine greenhouses, which happened to be empty when the emergency
came. Somebody--I think it was the clever Burgomaster Yssel de Scheppe
and his admirable wife--had the good idea of utilizing them for the
refugees. It seemed a curious notion, to raise human plants under glass.
But it worked finely. The houses were long and lofty; they had concrete
floors and broad concrete platforms where the "cubicles" for the
separate families could easily be erected; steam heat, electric light,
hot and cold water were already "laid on"; it was quite palatial in its
way. A few wooden houses, a laundry, a kitchen, a carpenter-shop for the
men, and so on, were quickly run up. There was a bowling-alley and a
playground and a schoolhouse. The people could go to church in the town.
Soon twenty-five hundred exiles were living in this queer but
comfortable camp.

But it was evident that this refugee life, even under the best
conditions that could be devised, was abnormal. There was not room in
the industrial life of Holland for all these people to stay there
permanently. Besides, they did not want to stay, and that counts for
something in human affairs. The question arose whether it might not be
wise to let them go home. Not to send them home, you understand. That
was never even contemplated. But simply to allow them to return to their
own country, at least in the regions where the fury of war had already
passed by. I suggested to Mr. Stuart that before you allow poor folks to
"go home," you ought to know whether they have a "home" to go to. S