, they provide avenues for intellectual understanding and activity
that neither school nor press can parallel. Recent mechanical
inventions, such as automatic musical instruments and moving pictures,
have added greatly to the range and effectiveness of music and the
drama, but they only intensify and popularize the appeal to the
senses. It is to be remembered that individual and social stimuli must
be varied enough to touch men at all points and call out a response
from every faculty of their nature. These arts, therefore, that make
life real and socialize it and cheer men and women on their way, play
a vital part in the education of society and deserve as serious
consideration as the other educational agencies and institutions that
find a place in the social economy of the community. Numerous amateur
musical and dramatic societies testify to the interest of the people
in these refined arts.

298. =The Need of Social Centres.=--Books and pictures, music and the
drama are so many mild stimulants to those who use and appreciate
them, but there are large numbers of people who rarely read anything
but the newspaper, and who attend only cheap entertainments. These
people need a spur to high thoughts and noble action, but they do not
move in the world of culture. They need a stronger stimulant, the tang
of virile debate about questions that touch closely their daily
concerns, discussions in which they can share if they feel disposed.
In large circles of the city's population there is a lack of
facilities for such public discussion, and for that reason the people
fall back on the prejudices of the newspapers for the formation of
their opinions on public questions. Disputes sometimes wax warm in the
saloon about the merits of a pugilist or baseball-player; questions of
the rights of labor are aired in the talk of the trade-union
headquarters; but the vital issues of city, state, and nation, and the
underlying principles that are at stake find few avenues to the minds
of the mass of the people. In the country the town meeting or the
gathering at the district schoolhouse provides an occasional
opportunity, or the grange meeting supplies a forum for its members,
but even there the rank and file of the people do not talk over large
questions often enough. In the city the need is great.

299. =The City Neighborhood.=--It is well understood that large cities
have most of their public buildings and business structures in one
quarter