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clothes, as well as to sponge and press them. Attendance is entirely voluntary, and the class meets after the regular school work is over. Knowing how to keep themselves tidy has resulted in a very marked improvement in the appearance and habits of the boys in the class, and has had an influence not only on the whole school, but on the neighborhood as well. The boys no longer resent the attempts of the teachers to influence them towards cleanliness and neatness, for they have become conscious of the advantages of these habits.
The cooking and domestic science classes are taught in one of the tenements turned over to the school without having been repaired, although the cooking equipment was supplied by the city. All the other work on the building—cleaning, painting, repairing, furnishing, and decorating—was done and paid for by the pupils of the school with help from the neighborhood clubs that use the building. There is a large cooking room, a demonstration dining and sitting room, and two bedrooms. The girls not only learn to cook real meals, but they learn how to serve them, and then how to take care of the demonstration house. The domestic science classes include lessons in buying, the comparative costs and values of food, something of food chemistry and values, and large quantity cooking. This work is done in connection with the soup kitchen. A group of girls have charge of the kitchen long enough to really learn about the work. They plan the menu and do the buying, cooking and serving of the soup, selling it for three cents a bowl to the pupils of the school and to neighbors. They keep all the accounts and not only have to make all their expenses, but are expected to make some profit for the use of the school as well. They have made enough profit in one year to furnish most of the demonstration house. Aside from teaching how to do housework thoroughly and easily, the purpose of the house is to furnish an example of what can be done to make one of the regular frame tenements of the district comfortable and attractive, without more expense than most of the people now put into their homes. The house is very simply furnished, with cheap and strong things, in plain colors that are easily kept clean; the painting and papering was done by the pupils. The sewing class has made all the curtains and linen for the house, and made furniture by covering boxes, etc. Besides the class work that goes on in the building, the rooms are also used as a social center for the girls of the school.
The third building left standing on the ground purchased by the school authorities has been turned into a boys’ club house. There is a gymnasium, two club rooms, and a shower bath room. This house was in exceedingly bad condition when it became part of the school property, and there was no money and not much lumber available to repair it. But the boys of the school wanted the club house, and were not discouraged because it was not given to them all finished. They started out, as they had done in the manual training and domestic science buildings, to do the work themselves. Under the direction of the manual training teacher, they pulled off old paper and broken plaster, tore up uneven floors and took out partitions. Then they laid floors, put in woodwork and painted it, rehung doors, mended windows, and made furniture and gymnastic apparatus. When there was a job they could not do, such as the plastering and plumbing, they went among their friends and asked for money or help in work. Plumbers and plasterers who lived near the school came in and gave their time and work to help the boys get their building in order, and other friends gave enough money to finish the work. Men in the neighborhood dug a long ditch through the school grounds for sewerage connections. Gradually they are adding to the gymnasium apparatus and to the simple bathing facilities, while cleaning and keeping up the painting continue to supply opportunities for useful work.
As already indicated, the reflex effect upon homes in the vicinity has been marked. The school board had intended to wreck the three tenement houses when they bought the land; but Mr. Valentine saw the opportunity to give the community something which they needed, and at the same time to arouse a spirit of coöperation and interest among both parents and pupils in place of the old spirit of distrust and antagonism, when he persuaded the board to turn the buildings over to the school. He told the pupils what could be done with them and asked for their help in doing it. He got a hearty response at once, and so went out into the district with the children and told their parents what he proposed to do and asked for help. He got the same generous response for the first building, the manual training shops, as for the boys’ club. Besides the time and material which the skilled workers of the community have contributed, the community has given $350 in cash, no small sum for people as poor as they are. The value of the work being done in these buildings and of the training the boys have had in making them over, is proved by the fact that the community and the boys themselves wanted the work badly enough to pay for getting it in money and work. While it has undoubtedly been a struggle for the school and the district to contribute so much, the benefit to the school and to the community has been greater just because of these sacrifices and struggles. The work has made over the relations between the school and 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