of the city government and of the expected revenue from the taxes which they think it expedient to levy. The money once appropriated is controlled by the board of education, who buy sites, build and repair schoolhouses, purchase supplies, and pay the necessary officers and teachers. They make regulations for the management of the system and employ as their executive officers a secretary and a superintendent, the former to look after the details of their business affairs and the latter to have special care of all matters relating to instruction. 1

New York City, adopting the principle that education should not be limited merely to the young, but should be extended throughout the whole period of life, has established a system of free night lectures in the public school buildings and at other available centres. These lectures are conducted under a supervisor, acting in conjunction with the board of education. The system has been quite properly called "the people's university," for the courses of lectures offered cover every important subject in science, art, literature, history, and political economy which can be of interest, utility, and entertainment to the great body of citizens who desire to improve their intellectual attainments while pursuing their daily vocations. A special effort is made to reach the foreign population of the metropolis by lectures on American history and institutions given in their native tongues.2 Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Milwaukee have followed the example of New York, though not on so large a scale; and if the system is extended, as it promises to be, the public schools will become not only institutions for the diffusion of knowledge among the people of all ages and conditions, but they will become social centres in which community interest and fraternal feeling will be developed.

Popular education in the United States is further facilitated by the establishment of public libraries. It seems that Boston led the way in this regard, for as early as 1847 the city council at the suggestion of Mayor Quincy passed a resolution asking the

1 Report of Commissioner of Education (1895-96), Vol. I, p. 33. Quoted in Fairlie, op. cit., p. 204.

There are regular night schools in many cities for those otherwise engaged in the daytime.

3 Rochester, New York, is probably one of the most advanced cities in the matter of the use of schools as civic centres.

state legislature for permission to open a free library supported by taxation. Nearly every northern state has followed the precedent set by Massachusetts, and with the exception of Connecticut and New York all of them have library legislation of a progressive type. Our great cities not only have public libraries well stocked with books for general reading and research work, but they have been steadily developing the system of branch libraries which makes the books available to the inhabitants of every district. Until 1902, Chicago led in the number of branch libraries and the circulation of books, but in that year Philadelphia took the lead.

Quite recently, however, New York City has made a marked advance. In the great public library in the process of building at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue will be stored the valuable collections of the Astor, Lenox, and Tilden foundations, which will give the metropolis one among the first libraries in the country. A large gift by Andrew Carnegie has made it possible for the city to erect and maintain at well-selected points no less than sixty-five branches. It is estimated that nearly two million books are freely at the disposal of the citizens of New York and that the annual circulation amounts to more than four million volumes. An ever increasing attention is given to the needs of children through the school libraries and through the special collections now to be found in the public libraries.1

Our cities are coming slowly to realize that the provision for healthful recreation for the great mass of the population is a collective function which must be undertaken by the municipality at public expense. In the provision of parks and boulevards, the cities of the United States have made giant strides within the last quarter of a century. Perhaps Boston takes first place, for, besides the famous Common and Public Garden, that city has more than seventy small parks and playgrounds, in addition to the local parks and the reservations in the environs. New York City has also given some attention to the problem of reserving breathing spaces. Almost in the heart of the city there is the famous Central Park; Brooklyn has the scarcely less beautiful Prospect Park; and to the northward New York has reserved Riverside, Washington, and the Bronx parks. Never

1 Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, pp. 173-188; A Decade of Civic Development, p. 120.

theless, there is still a lamentable lack of suitable provisions, it being estimated that there is only one square foot of playground for each child in the metropolis; and the large parks are nearly out of reach of those who need them most.

Every city of importance has now one or more great open spaces, but in making these provisions city governments have too often overlooked the fact that many small parks, conveniently scattered through the congested areas, are of far greater utility than wide areas on the outskirts of the city, or at best so situated that they can be reached only by the payment of car fare - an important matter for the children of the poor. Chicago, for example, recently had 700,000 people living more than a mile from any large park. The chief parks of Los Angeles and Kansas City are entirely without the city limits; and in St. Louis the large parks are all in one side of the city. It must be admitted, however, that the evils of such a distribution of parks are being recognized, and some cities that have been the worst offenders in this respect have attempted to make amends within the last decade.

Cities are also endeavoring to make the parks especially attractive by providing athletic sports, such as baseball, tennis, golf, and dancing. Many give band concerts in the parks in summer time and public fêtes on holidays, that are widely advertised to attract adults as well as children. Cleveland, Ohio, for example, gave thirty-seven Sunday and twenty-six evening band concerts during the summer of 1906 in the parks, so distributed as to give equal benefits to all parts of the city. May Day, Turners' Day, Old Settlers' Day, and Orphans' Day, were the occasions of special celebrations; twenty baseball diamonds were laid out in the parks and thirty on vacant lots; and eight public playgrounds equipped with swings, sand piles, horizontal bars, and other apparatus, in the charge of athletic directors, were maintained.2

The physical and social value of healthful play for children is being recognized more and more by the establishment of playgrounds, not only in parks, but in connection with the public schools and at special points in the congested areas. Boston has equipped the school yards as playgrounds for children and pro1 Zueblin, American Municipal Progress, pp. 241-274.

2 See Readings, p. 546.

vided teachers to take charge of the games and gymnastic exercises. New York has followed this example, and now has a law requiring the provision of a playground with every new school building. In the winter time, Chicago, New York, Boston, and some other cities flood the playgrounds and turn them into skating rinks. Chicago recently provided no less than two hundred of these rinks, lighted by electricity and open day and night.

Some indication of what an enterprising city can do is afforded by the recent experiments of the South Park Board in Chicago.1 That board secured in 1903 from the state legislature the power to create a number of new small parks, and thereupon made a careful investigation of the recreational needs of the great congested area under its jurisdiction. Within three years the board had established fourteen parks ranging in area from six to seventy acres at an expense of over $6,000,000. Combining all of the recent devices of social settlements, kindergartens, and other recreational centres, the board sought to make these new parks as attractive as possible to children and adults, and at the same time to develop healthful recreation to the fullest extent. It accordingly provided ball fields, tennis courts, swimming pools, sand piles, swings, lagoons for rowing and skating, stands for band concerts, and outdoor gymnasiums for girls and women and boys and men. It furthermore established indoor recreation buildings equipped with shower and plunge baths and lockers, and lunch, reading, club, and assembly rooms. In the winter time, lectures, dancing, and musical entertainments are given in the assembly halls. The various recreational features are under capable athletic directors."

1 E. Poole, "Chicago's Public Playgrounds," Outlook, Vol. LXXXVII, Dec. 7, 1907.

The spirit of this new movement in Chicago in behalf of physical welfare is revealed in these extracts from the private directions issued to the instructors in the South Park gymnasiums:

"Whether we wish it or not, the gymnasium and the athletic field are schools of character, but the kind of character formed in these schools will depend in great measure upon the instructor in charge. On the athletic field, and in the practice of games in the gymnasium, the instructor should praise every tendency of a boy or girl to sacrifice himself or herself for the good of the team. Show them that this is the only way to succeed - by unity of action. If you can develop this spirit, you have laid the foundation of coöperation, politeness, and good morals. You have taught the funda

Unfortunately the splendid example set by the South Park Board of Chicago has not been followed very extensively by other cities. Unquestionably, however, all our cities will soon recognize play as an essential part of an educational system, and healthful recreation for adults as indispensable to the maintenance of a high standard of physical comfort and efficiency.

Cities are also recognizing to some extent the place of personal cleanliness in the general scheme of things and are making provision for public baths. The law of the state of New York makes the construction of free baths obligatory upon cities with over 50,000 inhabitants and permissible for others. In 1908, the investment of the city of New York in municipal baths amounted to $3,000,000, and eight large bathing places were in operation in the borough of Manhattan alone. Boston also has an extensive system of public baths and provides instruction in swimming;

mental lesson of thoughtfulness for others. Keep in mind that we are public servants, employed to serve the public as experts in all that our profession implies, and that we are engaged in a work which, if properly conducted, is perhaps better calculated to raise the standard of good citizenship than any other single agency in the hands of public servants.

"It is of the greatest importance that all work be undertaken in the light of the objects sought, as follows:

"First, to take children from the streets and alleys and give them a better environment and safer place in which to play. This will relieve the parents of care and anxiety — -as well as truck drivers, street car men, policemen, and others who are involved in the care of children.

"Second, to encourage working boys and girls and adults to spend the idle hours in a wholesome environment and away from questionable amusements.

"Third, to encourage both children and adults to give attention to personal hygiene — exercise and bathing chiefly.

"Fourth, to furnish wholesome amusement for adults and others who do not participate in the activities of the gymnasium, athletic and play fields. "Plan your work, then, and carry it forward with the well-defined idea that you are striving, first, to attract both children and adults to your gymnasium, play and athletic fields; second, that after you get them there you must interest and hold them until the habit of frequenting your gymnasium is established; third, that you do all you can by means of your gymnasium programme, athletics, plays, and games, to 'set up' the frame, encourage bathing, teach skill, courage, and a wholesome respect for the rights of others." From The American City, October, 1909.

1 New York City has endeavored to attract the people to the water front by building recreational piers above the regular docks so as not to interfere with traffic, and by providing music at these places on summer evenings.