The problem is a vast one, even in its bulk; every
year seats must be found on the school benches for twenty thousand
additional children. In spite of all we have done, there are to-day in
the greater city nearly thirty thousand children in half-day or
part-time classes, waiting their chance. But that it can and will be
solved no one can doubt. We have just _got_ to, that is all.

In the solution the women of New York will have had no mean share. In
the struggle for school reform they struck the telling blows, and the
credit of the victory was justly theirs. The Public Education
Association, originally a woman's auxiliary to Good Government Club E,
has worked as energetically with the school authorities in the new plan
as it fought to break down the old and secure decency. It has opened
many windows for little souls by hanging schoolrooms with beautiful
casts and pictures, and forged at the same time new and strong links in
the chain that bound the boy all too feebly to the school. At a time
when the demand of the boys of the East Side for club room, which was in
itself one of the healthiest signs of the day, had reached an
exceedingly dangerous pass, the Public Education Association broke
ground that will yet prove the most fertile field of all. The Raines law
saloon, quick to discern in the new demand the gap that would divorce it
by and by from the man, attempted to bridge it by inviting the boy in
under its roof. Occasionally the girl went along. A typical instance of
how the scheme worked was brought to my attention at the time by the
head worker of the college settlement. The back room of the saloon was
given to the club free of charge, with the understanding that the boy
members should "treat." As a means of raising the needed funds, the club
hit upon the plan of fining members ten cents when they "got funny."

To defeat this device of the devil some way must be found; but club room
was scarce among the tenements. The Good Government Clubs proposed to
the Board of Education that it open the empty classrooms at night for
the children's use. It was my privilege to plead their cause before the
School Board, and to obtain from it the necessary permission, after some
hesitation and doubt as to whether "it was educational." The Public
Education Association assumed the responsibility for "the property,"
and the Hester Street school was opened. The property was not molested;
only one window was broken that winter by a s