6. The child's scientific inheritance, according to the author, is that the child should love nature, know nature, and understand nature in the light of modern science. He should know and understand how we have come to see a different world from that known to the heroes of ages past. The author emphasizes the aesthetic side. This is in harmony with his definition of education. The remaining question is a personal one.

7. "Language is the crystalization of past thought." "It contains in itself . . . a record of the progress of the thought of the race. Literature develops the imagination, cultivates the emotions, introduces us into the company of the great, the good and the wise of all ages and times. Languages, our own and foreign, ever have been, cught to be, and perhaps ever will be a large factor in a broad and liberal education. For beauty and resources for mental development language and literature have untold resources. Remaining question personal.

8. With regard to the aesthetic inheritance the author is clear, definite, easily understood and right. He or she who neglects the cultivation of the aesthetic nature is not, it seems to us, fully educated. He who can not appreciate good music, a beautiful poem, a master work of art, a great song, or a magnificent piece of architecture is not wholly educated and will never feel at ease in the company of the truly educated. A lack of the love and appreciation of the beautiful, a lack of aesthetic culture invariably marks one as coarse, unrefined, and unqualified to teach and associate with refined children of the best of mankind. We agree with the author and think the subject would bear greater emphasis. Remaining question personal.

9. By institutional inheritance is meant, the child should inherit certain institutional knowledge, practices, customs, beliefs, etc. By institutions is meant those systems of beliefs and practices which have developed with and as a part of civilization-the church, the State, schools, religious beliefs, etc. With regard to these, two extreme views have been held-one which would do away with all human institutions. This would lead us back to anarchy, back to savagery. The ether, that the individual exists for the State alone, gives up personal liberty to the State, hence leads to despotism. Both have failed in the past. According to the author (he is right) the middle course is the wisest. This regards each individual as a free unit, yet a part of a larger unit, subject to law and the State. An institution means a system of beliefs, customs, practices formed by or developed along with man as a part of civilization. The church, State, schools, political organizations, etc., are institutions. Remaining question a personal

one.

10. Religious inheritance means that the child has a right to receive from its parents and from its generation training in those religious principles, customs, practices and beliefs common to its age and It has a right to an education based upon religious principles. In a republic, like ours, made up of many religious sects, many of

race.

which sects are so hampered by uncompromising bigotry it seems impossible for the public schools to exercise more than a general influence. Hence, the home, Sunday school and the church must especially be looked to for this training. Remaining questions personal.

Educational Development Community Problem

J. I. Sowers, Director of Vocational Education, Vincennes, Indiana. N the article of last month we took occasion to say that the school owes a duty to the whole community, and not alone to the school community, as the school community is commonly considered consisting of the children and youth between certain prescribed ages. Since that article appeared in the Journal we have had several letters from forward looking teachers in the State. Some heartily agreeing with the premises taken, but others disposed to debate the value and propriety of certain lines of extension of the work of the public schools.

It is difficult to conceive the school community as a part from the community life as a whole. The community in all its parts, relations and activities must be clearly admitted as the real school which children attend. Not only children but adults as well are in attendance daily in the great school presented by the community life, of which the public school life forms but a small part.

Children just as truly go to school in the barber shop, the alley, on the playground, in the church, and in the home as in the school room. In these places they come in contact with life and learn lessons of conduct and the way things are done. They reflect in the school room what they are learning in these other schools they are attending. This being true it is the duty of the school officials and teachers to assist in every way possible, and to do their utmost to extend the advantages of the public schools to the community as a whole and to assist in making the community what it ought to be. This it will be seen is done not only in the interest of the community, but in the interests of the schools themselves. The ideal task for society is to build a community good enough to raise a child in.

Professor Peabody has said: "The discovery of the community was the greatest achievement of the nineteenth century." We are just discovering that what we formerly boasted of as towns, cities, and localities were not complete until they develop that spirit within them which dissolves them into communities, with kindred relations, aims, and obligations. Nothing can take a town and make it into a community so quickly and so surely as activities which can be made to center around the public schools.

Communities have often in a splendid burst of civic zeal been led to build palatial school plants, with wonderful equipment, turn them over to school boards and be denied the privilege of using their own property for community betterment, and social and civic purposes.

School property idle except for thirty or thirty-six hours weekly is ́a clear waste of the tax payer's money. The community's school buildings ought to be so furnished and designed as to be fit for use and open for public use twelve to fourteen hours a day for twelve months in the year.

It is not our purpose here to launch into an argument for the ideal use of the school plant, this matter has been much written upon in the last few years in educational journals, and debated before teacher's conventions, until perhaps nothing new remains to be said upon the subject. For a further discussion of this subject, and some very helpful matter relative to after school activities, the teacher is referred to Bulletin No. 28, "Extension of Public Education," by C. A. Perry, published by the Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

The Vincennes schools are committed to widest use by all the people. It may be of interest here to take the liberty of quoting from a bulletin of the 1916-'17 course of study published by the Vincennes Board of Education. Under the head of, "Wider use of the school buildings" the policy of the Board is outlined in the following man

ner:

"The policy of the schools of this city is strongly committed to the largest legitimate use of the school plant. That school buildings and equipment have only been used five to six hours each day and closed three months in the year is to be regarded as a serious curtailment of the use of our greatest institutions of democracy. The teaching staff and other machinery of our schools is unutterably dedicated to a betterment of the service it can render to society, and to the rendering of that service along any avenue of educational expression or experience.

"Some lines along which it has been demonstrated that the schools can properly extend their work, might be mentioned as vacation schools, evening schools, part-time schools, supervision of public playgrounds, social center activities, a twelve-month course in practical agriculture, school gardens. These things stand for attempts on the part of the educator to bring the schools in closer touch with all the people and make their opportunities of larger use. Those who have been responsible for giving direction to the activities of the public schools in the past have too often been a pedestaled professional class hampered by lack of knowledge of the problems presenting themselves to the modern educator, and while striving to solve the educational enigma seemed helpless at its solution.

"It is not hoped that we will be able to develop our schools along the lines of extension indicated during the present year, nor is it desirable that we should undertake more than we can hope to successfully accomplish. Mention of them is made here rather to indicate lines of future growth.

"It is our purpose, however, during the present year to offer evening and part time vocational and recreational classes, announcement of which is made elsewhere, and also through our Parent Teachers'

organizations and under their direction and management we hope to introduce social center work into all of our school during the coming year. We believe that our schools should be the scene of frequent mass meetings, lectures, banquets and neighborhood gatherings, so that our people may reach a completeness of socialization that is not now felt.

"In order that the public may get from the school plant a wider community use we recommend that the Parent Teachers' Organizations of the several schools take such steps in cooperation with the school officials as will open the school buildings to:

1. Adult clubs or organizations for the discussion of civic or community problems.

2. Club work mong young people, literary, musical, social, dramatic.

3. Public lectures, entertainments, or indoor recreational or edu

cational activities.

After the exactions of the labor of the day individuals do not in these days seek seclusion. They join with others in some mutually satisfying activity. It is this social disposition that the center movement tends to divert to higher uses and to capitalize. A meeting of a civic association, an audience listening to a lecture, a regular night school class in mechanical drawing, social gatherings, a crowd at an athletic event, all these things meet a real civic need and give a direction and guidance to community development. Time often spent in questionable or unprofitable environment is devoted to higher and more profitable uses.

As a result of this stand and position taken by the school officials toward the development of lines of social and civic, educational and recreational activities within the public schools of our city, the drift of popular sentiment toward community welfare, education and enterprise has been fostered during the past year to a remarkable extent. Practically all the activities mentioned have been taken up and carried on successfully. Credit for this revival and development of community spirit among our people was not due to the schools alone. An active Chamber of Commerce contributed its share, the newspapers gladly opened their columns and freely gave space to any matter pertaining to this movement, addresses were made in the churches of the city and the ministers with one accord joined in the movement, merchants and business houses assisted by their prestige, with their money when needed and by their encouragement at all times, individual citizens assisted; until the problem became one not of directing the social and educational interests of the community to the schools, but how best to take care of the growing demand for what the schools had to offer. This seems to effectively prove that community spirit and social efficiency must come, and be developed from within the community itself and not from without. Salvation by imported talk is as futile in the civic and educational development of a community, as it is in religion; in all its forms it remains to be worked out by united local effort. We have come to believe that social progress is wholly a lo

cal product. The foundation of any community's welfare is laid when all the folk begin to try to make the community a good place to live in, and in so doing get together on a basis of mutual understanding and helpfulness to work out plans for the welfare of the whole community.

Evening Schools.

One of the prominent community developments in connection with carrying on an educational program which shall reach the people is the establishment of evening schools for the persons of the community out of school or over the school age. In undertaking the establishment of evening schools in order to avoid the common faults and mistakes often made in the conducting of such schools it will prove valuable to make a careful investigation of the whole evening school problem. How the matter is presented to the public so as best to win their approval of the plan, and their cooperation with and participation in the advantages offered. Simply an announcement that evening courses are to be offered has too often met with but little success, and evening schools begun without the proper foundation of community interest have too often proven failures, to suppose that the development of such schools does not present a distinct problem in education.

The first thing necessary is to make some one responsible for the success and management of the evening schools. This should be done whether the community is large or small, whether one class is to be conducted or scores of classes. The person having the development of the evening schools in charge, will likely in most cases also take charge of the part-time day schools, or as they are sometimes called continuation schools. The person upon whom the management of these schools rests must have sufficient time for their study and development, he should also have supervision of all that pertains to the development of these schools; the study of the evening school problem, survey of the needs of the community, conducting a campaign for educating the community as to what the evening schools are, what is ordered, and what is to be gained by attending, employing of teachers, developing courses of study, planning the methods of giving instruction, a system of credits for work accomplished, etc., etc. The director must be certain that the courses given are such that the product of the schools will fit into the local needs. In this connection a plan for vocational guidance and giving of vocational information, is a very necessary part of the evening school movement.

The demands for evening school work has arisen from the needs of (1) Young people who from economic necessity or other causes have dropped out of school in the early years of the elementary schools, entered some line of employment with low wages and now, feel that it is imperative for them to have more training to compete in the struggle for existence, (2) Adults who want to acquire greater skill in chosen lines of work, enlarge their capacity for appreciation and to increase their fitness as members of a social group. The demands of different classes of persons for evening school work has given rise to three general classes of instruction offered in the evening schools;