five thousand children who were habitually hungry,"
while "ten thousand others do not have sufficient nourishing food," you
will perhaps agree that the time has come for some action.

Among the liveliest educational movements of the day is that of
providing school children with a legitimate occupation and a convenient
place to be occupied outside of school hours. Chicago, with an unequaled
system of playgrounds, and Philadelphia, with a department devoted to
school gardens, are leaders in two fields which promise great things for
the future welfare of American city school children.

IX The School and the Community

Not content with doing those needful things involved in the education of
children of school age, the school is reaching far out into the
community. Night schools came first, as a means of education for those
who could not attend school during the daytime. Every progressive city
and town has a night school now, and the scholars who come after working
hours use the same expensive equipment that is furnished to the regular
classes. Machines, cooking apparatus, maps and blackboard all do double
duty. In the foreign quarters, particularly, the night schools attract a
large following of adults, eager to learn the language and ways of the
new land. Though many a one falls asleep over the tasks, who shall say
that the spirit is not willing?

Public lectures are being used more and more as a means of public
education. There is scarcely an up-to-date city that has not some public
lectures connected with its school or library system, while in a center
like New York, the Board of Education has established an elaborate
organization for the delivery of lectures in public school buildings
throughout the city. The lecture topics--widely advertised through the
schools and elsewhere--cover every field of thought.

Perhaps the whole movement of the schools to influence the community may
be summed up in the phrase, "A wider use of the school plant." Why
should not the schools be open, as they are in Gary, day and evening,
too? Why should the mothers and fathers not be organized into "Home and
School Leagues," meeting in the schools as they do on a large scale in
Philadelphia? Why should not the social sentiment of a community be
crystallized around its schoolhouse, as it has been in Rochester? Is it
better to have the children playing in the street in the summer time, or
in the school yards and playgrounds, as they do in M