s as are not used at night
to boys' clubs that can show a responsible management, for their meetings?
In England the Recreative Evening Schools Association has accomplished
something very like this by simply demonstrating its justice and
usefulness. "Its object," says Robert Archey Woods, in his work on English
social movements, "is to carry on through voluntary workers evening
classes in the board schools, combining instruction and recreation for
boys and girls who have passed through the elementary required course. Its
plan includes also the use of the schools for social clubs, and the use of
school play-grounds for gymnastics and out-door games. This simple
programme, as carried out, has shown how much may be accomplished through
means which are close at hand. There are in London three hundred and
forty-five such classes, combining manual training with entertainment, and
their average attendance is ten thousand. Schools of the same kind are
carried on in a hundred other places outside of London. Beside their
immediate success under private efforts, these schools are bringing
Parliament to see the importance of their object. Of late the Government
has been assuming the care of recreative evening classes, little by
little, and it looks as if ultimately all the work of the Evening Schools
Association would be undertaken by the school boards." I am not advocating
the surrender of the boys' club to our New York School Board. I am afraid
it would gain little by it and lose too much. But they might be trusted as
landlords, if not as managers. The rent is always the heaviest item in the
expense account of a boys' club, for the lads must have room. If cramped,
they will boil over and make trouble. If this item were eliminated, the
cause might experience a boom that would more than repay the community for
the wear and tear of the school-rooms, by a reduction in the outlay for
jails and police courts. There would be another advantage in the
introduction of the school to the boy in the _role_ of a friend, which
might speed the work of the truant officer. I cannot see any serious
objection to such a proposition. I have no doubt there are school trustees
who can see a whole string of them; but I should not be surprised if they
all came to this, that the schools are not for any such purpose. To this
it would be a sufficient answer that the schools belong to the people.

[Illustration: LINING UP FOR THE GYMNASIUM.]

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