the pupils. The children like to go to school now, where before they had to be forced to go with threats of the truant officer, and their behavior is better when they get to school. The children’s parents have changed their attitude in the same way. They not only see that the children go to school, but they want them to go because they appreciate that the school is giving them things they need to make them self-supporting; but they also see that they have their own share to do if the work is to be successful. The school has been the cause of the growth of community spirit in increased civic and social activities of the district. With improved attendance and discipline, the number of cases sent to the juvenile court has decreased one-half in proportion to the number of pupils in school. Meanwhile the educational value of the work done has undoubtedly been greater than that of work done in disconnected shops and kitchens.
(1) The boys like cooking more than the girls do.
(2) Mending their own shoes, to learn cobbling.
(Public School 26, Indianapolis.)
The school is also carrying on definite work to arouse the pupils to a sense of responsibility for their community and neighbors. Giving the pupils as much liberty and responsibility as possible around the school buildings is an important factor. Each pupil in the higher grades is given some small child in one of the lower grades to look out for. On the playground they see to it that the charge has a fair chance to play, and that he behaves himself; they see that the little boy or girl comes to school clean and tidy, if necessary doing the washing or mending themselves. This work has proved especially successful in doing away with bullying and in arousing personal pride and a sense of responsibility in the older children; the younger ones are better looked after than before and have many opportunities to learn things from the older and more advanced pupils. The older pupils are also encouraged in every way to help in carrying on the outside activities of the school. They make calls and write notes to keep up the attendance at the night school; they see to the order of the principal’s office and keep the boys’ club house in order. All the teachers of the school are agreed upon a policy of frank discussion of the poverty of the district, and of urging the pupils to earn money to help their parents by becoming as nearly self-supporting as possible. Each grade keeps track of what its members earn and how they earn it, and the grade with the largest sum to its credit feels that it has accomplished something worth while during the year.
There is a savings bank in the school to teach the children habits of thrift and economy; here a pupil may deposit any sum from a penny up. The pupil receives a bank book in which stamps are pasted for his deposits, the money being kept in a city savings bank. The school also has a branch library, and the pupils are taught how to use it. Part of the playground has been made into a school garden, and here every pupil in the higher grades has a garden plot, also instruction which enables him to grow successfully some of the commoner fruits and flowers. This work is made very practical; the children have the sort of garden that would be useful and ornamental if it were in their own back yard. The school carries on a neighborhood campaign for home gardens, and the pupils with school gardens do much of this work, telling the people who want gardens what to plant, and giving them practical help with their plot until it is well established. In all these ways the teachers are trying to make ambitious, responsible citizens out of the student body. Inside the school pupils are taught higher standards of living than prevail in their homes, and they are taught as well trades and processes which will at least give them a start towards prosperity, and then, too, they are aroused to a feeling of responsibility for the welfare of the whole community.
All these things are done as part of the regular work of the school, and to a large extent during regular school hours. But there are many other activities which, while not contributing so directly to the education of the children, are important for the general welfare of the whole community. There is a night school for the adults of the neighborhood who want to go on learning, the shops being used as well as the schoolrooms. A group of people especially interested in the school have formed a club to promote the interest of the night school, and to see that the men of the community understand the opportunities it offers for them to perfect themselves in a trade or in their knowledge and use of English. This club is made up of men who live near the school and who are sufficiently alive to the needs of the school and the community to work very hard to let all the district know what the school is already doing for its welfare and what it can do as the people come to demand more and more from it. Besides keeping up the attendance at the night school, the club has done much for the general welfare of the school, like helping raise money for remodeling the buildings and giving an expensive phonograph to the school. The success of the school as a social center and the need for such a center are realized when we remember that this club is made up of men who live in the district, whose children are using the school, and who are perhaps themselves going to the night school.
There is also a vacation school during the summer time for the children of the neighborhood, with some classroom work and a great deal of time spent on the playground and in the workshops. The school has an active alumni association which uses the school building for social purposes and keeps track of the pupils that leave. A parents’ club has been started as an aid in gaining the coöperation of the pupils’ parents in the work of the school and as a means of finding out the real needs of the neighborhood. The parents are brought in even closer contact with the school through the series of teas given by the grades for their parents during the year. Each grade serves tea once a year in the domestic science house for the mothers of its pupils. The children do the work for the teas as part of their domestic science work, and write the invitations in their English class. The teachers use these teas as an opportunity for visiting the children’s homes and getting acquainted with their mothers. The teacher who knows the home conditions of each child is much better able to adjust the work to the child, being aware of his weak and strong points. To poverty-stricken, overworked mothers these social gatherings come as a real event.
The pupils of the school are given social as well as educational opportunities through their school life. The boys’ club house is opened nearly every night to local boys’ clubs, some of them being school organizations and some independent ones. There are rooms for the boys to hold meetings and to play games, and a well-equipped gymnasium. The teachers of the school take turns supervising these evening gatherings. The attendance is large for the size of the building. Giving the boys a place for wholesome activities has done much to break up the habits of street loafing and the gangs which were so common in the district. The girls of the school use the domestic science house for social purposes. Two chapters of the Camp Fire girls hold regular meetings in the building and get help and advice from the teachers. Each domestic science class aims to teach the girls how to live a comfortable and self-respecting life, as well as how to do housework, and so becomes a social center of its own. The girls learn to cook and serve good cheap meals, and then they sit down together and eat what they have cooked. They talk over their individual problems with the teacher and with each other, and give each other much practical help. The domestic science teacher helps the girls who have some skill find work to do after school hours so that they can help their families by helping themselves; she helps the pupils find steady work as they leave school and then keeps track of them, encouraging them to go on fitting themselves for better work.
The success of the settlement work the school has done points strongly to the fact that the schoolhouse is the natural and logical social center in a neighborhood, the teachers coming into closer and more natural contact with both children and parents than is possible in the case of other district workers.
There are large economies combining the school and the settlement in districts where the social and economic standards of living are so low that the people are not especially successful citizens. Both the school and settlement facilities are enlarged by using the same group of buildings for both purposes. The settlement has the use of better and larger shops and classrooms than most settlements can command, and the school
