r
in some place of sordid association when comfortable and convenient halls
in library or school are closed and unoccupied? Why should the local
debating club, the mothers' meeting--nay, why should the political ward
meeting be barred out? Side by side with this trend of public opinion
there has been an awakening realization on the part of many connected with
these institutions that they themselves might benefit by such extended
use.

Probably this realization has come earlier and more fully to the library,
because its educational function is directed so much more upon adults. The
library is coming to be our great continuation school--an institution of
learning with an infinity of purely optional courses. It may open its
doors to any form of adult social activity.

There are forms of activity proper to a social center that require special
apparatus or equipment. These may be furnished in a building erected for
the purpose, as are the Chicago fieldhouses. Here we have swimming-pools,
gymnasiums for men and for women, and all the rest of it. A branch library
is included and some would house the school also under the same roof. We
may have to wait long for the general adoption of such a composite social
center. Our immediate problem is to supply an immediate need by using
means directly at our disposal. And it is remarkable how many kinds of
neighborhood activity may take place in a room unprovided with any special
equipment. A brief glance over our own records for only a few months past
enables me to classify them roughly as athletic or outdoor, purely social,
educational, debating, political, labor, musical, religious, charitable or
civic, and expository, besides many that defy or elude classification.

The athletic or outdoor organizations include the various turning or
gymnastic clubs and the Boy and Girl Scouts; the social organizations
embrace dancing-classes, "welfare" associations, alumni and graduate clubs
of schools and colleges, and dramatic clubs; the educational, which are
very numerous, reading circles, literary clubs galore, free classes in
chemistry, French, psychology, philosophy, etc., and all such
organizations as the Jewish Culture Club, the Young People's Ethical
Society, the Longan Parliamentary Class, and the Industrial and Business
Women's Educational leagues. Religious bodies are parish meetings,
committees of mission boards, and such organizations as the Theosophical
Society; charitable or civic