uares away, who bent
over her problems in a quiet room, could scarcely appreciate the
difficulties attached to homework, when the family lives in three rooms
and does everything possible to reduce the bill for kerosene.

There is just one place in every neighborhood where the child can find
light, air and quiet--that place is the school. Why then should the
school not be open for the child? "Why, indeed," asked the schoolmen of
Newark, N. J. Passing from thought to deed, they opened schools in the
crowded neighborhoods four nights a week from 7 to 9.

Into these evening study classes, in charge of advisory teachers, any
child might come at all. The city librarian, generous in co-operation,
lent library books in batches of forty, for two months at a time.
Evening after evening, the boys and girls assemble and with text-books
or library books, do those things in the school which are impossible in
the home. For what other purpose should the school exist?

XIII Thwarting Satan in the Summer Time

Another project, equally effective, involves the opening of schools
during the summer time. The farmer needed his boy for the harvest, so
summer vacations became the established rule, but the city street needs
neither the boy nor the girl at any time of the year. Idleness and
mischief link hands with street children and dance away toward
delinquency. Then why not have school in the summer time? Why not?

The answer takes the form of vacation schools. In most cases the work of
the vacation school is designed primarily to interest the child. Games,
stories, gardening, manual work of various sorts, excursions and similar
devices are relied upon to maintain interest.

A few cities, like Indianapolis, Worcester and Gary, on the other hand,
have established vacation schools in which children may make up back
work, or pursue studies in which they are especially interested.

As a means of bringing below-grade children up to the standard of
affording an opportunity for the able children to advance more rapidly
in school, and, in general, as a means of keeping city children usefully
occupied during the summer months, the vacation school has won its
place.

Newark, making an even more radical departure from tradition, runs some
schools twelve months in the year. Edgar G. Pitkin, principal of a
school in an immigrant district, first put the idea into practice. At
the end of the regular session in June, he announced to his children
t