MODERN FACILITIES ARE NEEDED IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AS WELL AS IN HIGH SCHOOLS.

The survey commission was told repeatedly of the desire of Brunswick to increase the high-school enrollment, a desire which resulted in the determination to devote $175,000 of the $250,000 to the erection of a high-school building with vocational and industrial facilities. The survey commission, however, is impressed with the need not merely for enriched high-school equipment but also for modern up-to-date elementary school facilities, which will result in keeping children in school longer, and in arousing such an interest in what the school has to offer that they will want to go on to high school. Education is a matter of growth. No community can house children in old, inadequate buildings, keeping them in school seats all day, giving them no opportunity for play, no chance to express themselves in wholesome activity, or to satisfy their natural scientific instinct to experiment with the world about them during all the early, most formative, period of their lives, and then reasonably expect them to have any interest in staying in school beyond the minimum time required. The percentage of children in high school (17.6 per cent) will not increase greatly until the 82.4 per cent of the children who are in the elementary schools have modern educational advantages in elementary schools. If Brunswick wants increased interest in high-school work, she must start with a reorganization of her elementary schools to meet the modern requirements of such schools.

But how is the city of Brunswick to relieve congestion and provide modern school facilities for both elementary and high-school children, and at the same time keep within the limits of the proposed bond issue of $250,000?

A study of the situation makes it obvious that these ends can not be obtained under the traditional type of school organization. That is, according to the traditional school program a school seat is reserved for the exclusive use of every child. That means that there must be a classroom for every class. As we have pointed out, there are 13 classes in excess of the number of classrooms in Brunswick. While the cost of building varies in different communities, yet in the country at large it is found that the cost per classroom unit is approximately $16,000 at the present time. This means that in order to relieve congestion merely, without providing for future growth, it will be necessary to provide 13 additional classrooms at an approximate cost of $208,000-nearly the total appropriation available. But this sum would provide for classrooms only, and each of the elementary schools ought to have at least four special rooms, making 12 in all. This would mean an additional cost of $192,000, making a total of $400,000. But the situation is not so simple as this, for many

of the present rooms in existing buildings are not fit for classroom use, and consequently the cost would be even greater than the amount just given. Moreover, in putting up buildings or additions, the playground space would be lessened and therefore it would be necessary to buy additional playground space. And, finally, the estimate just given does not provide for future growth, so that at the end of a year or two the schools would be in as bad a situation as they are

now.

Obviously, it is impossible to meet the needs of the children of Brunswick on the basis of this traditional type of school organization. Brunswick is not peculiar in this respect; on the contrary, it is in the same situation as the large majority of cities all over the country. It is becoming increasingly evident that if the erection of new buildings on the usual basis of a reserved seat for every child were the only solution of the school congestion problem, cities all over the country would be facing an almost hopeless situation. Fortunately, however, there is another alternative which has already been adopted by some 30 or 40 cities in different parts of the country, by which not only can congestion be.relieved but also modern school facilities given to the children.

HOW THE WORK-STUDY-PLAY PLAN WOULD RELIEVE CONGESTION AND PROVIDE MODERN FACILITIES FOR THE CHILDREN.

This second method is known as the work-study-play plan. Its chief advantages for Brunswick are (1) that it would relieve the school congestion, and do so within the financial limits of the city; and (2) it would also enable the school authorities to give to the children modern educational facilities such as auditoriums, shops, and laboratories.

The work-study-play plan is an attempt, not only to solve the school congestion problem, but also to give children a richer and fuller education. It grew out of a recognition of the fact that the rapid growth of cities makes the educational problem far more difficult than formerly; in fact, has created a new school problem.

CITY SCHOOLS MUST PROVIDE OPPORTUNITY FOR WORK AND PLAY AS WELL AS STUDY.

The education of all children has, of course, always consisted of work and study and play, but formerly the farm and small shop supplied the opportunity for work and play, and the school needed to make provision only for academic study. In those days the environment of the average boy and girl furnished an education in wholesome activities that developed intelligence, initiative, and industrious habits. But during the past 50 years has come the growth of modern cities, until now half the population of the country

is concentrated in them. And the city, with its overcrowding, its factories, its office buildings, and apartment houses which go up on all available vacant lots, is depriving children of the opportunity for the healthy, wholesome work and play which are essential elements in their education. The city home or apartment, unlike the farm with its many necessities of "learning by doing," can offer few educational opportunities in the way of healthful work which develops the ability to think by attacking problems to be solved. There is no planting and harvesting to be done; few, if any, animals are to be taken care of; and it is a rare city home that has a workshop or laboratory. Yet the children until recently have received much of their education through the opportunity to handle tools, to take care of animals, and to experiment in making and using things. The city not only fails to educate children in the right direction; it educates them in the wrong direction, for the street, with its dangers to the physical and moral life of children, too often becomes their only playground; and street play means education, not in health and strength and wholesome living, but precocious education in all the vicious side of a city's life.

For these reasons it has come to be recognized that the city school must not only supply the opportunity for study in good classrooms under wholesome conditions, but it must also return to the children the opportunity for healthful work and play which the home no longer provides. Play, an opportunity to develop mechanical ability and initiative, a practical knowledge of science, a wholesome social life and recreation-these have always been part and parcel of an all-round education; and these are the things which Brunswick, like many other cities, is not giving to her children.

The work-study-play plan represents an attempt to meet these new problems in education, and to make it practicable, both administratively and financially, for school administrators to provide not only classroom accommodations, but also such modern educational facilities as gymnasiums, auditoriums, shops, and laboratories where children may be kept wholesomely occupied in study and work and play.

HOW THE PLAN WORKS.

Briefly, the plan is this: A school is divided into two parts, each having the same number of classes, and each containing all the eight or nine grades. The first part, which we will call the "A School, comes to school in the morning, say, at 8.30, and goes to classroom for academic work. While this school is in the classrooms, it obviously can not use any of the special facilities; therefore the other school, "B School," goes to the special activities, one-third to the auditorium, one-third to the playground, and one-third is divided

among such activities as the shops, laboratories, drawing and music studios. At the end of one or two periods; that is, when the first group of children has remained, according to the judgment of the school authorities, in school seats as long as is good for them at one time the "A School" goes to the playground, auditorium, and other special facilities, while the "B School" goes to the classrooms.

The following table gives a possible program for the "A and B Schools" of say 12 classes. These classes are divided into three divisions of 4 classes each: Division 1, upper grades; Division 2, intermediate grades; Division 3, primary grades.

Under this reorganization on the work-study-play plan all the children would have not only the same amount of time for reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history as formerly-210 minutes but also 50 minutes of play every day, 50 minutes a day of auditorium, and 50 minutes a day of shopwork every day in the week for a third of the year; science every day for a third of the year; and drawing or music every day for a third of the year.

This program represents a change in the traditional method in several important points. In the first place, it breaks up the custom of having all children in classrooms at the same time and letting the classrooms lie idle when the children go to the auditorium, shops,

and playground. In other words, it applies to the public school the principle on which all other public-service institutions are runthat is, the multiple use of all facilities all the time. For example, it is evident that our transportation system is made possible because of the fact that all people do not wish to ride at exactly the same time; concerts and theaters are made available to many people because one person can use another's seat when he does not want to use it; hotels can accommodate thousands of people because they are not run on the principle of reserving each room for the exclusive use of a single individual during the whole year. On the other hand, the public-school system has been run on the prin iple of reserving a seat for each child during the whole year. All children have to be in school seats from 9 to 12 a. m., and from 1 to 3 p. m.; all have to go home to lunch at the same time; and at 3 o'clock all are dismissed and turned out to play.

There would, after all, seem to be no good reason why the principle of other public-service institutions, i. e., multiple use of facilities all the time, should not apply to the school, nor any reason why all children should be in classrooms at the same time, nor why the special facilities should be used only a fraction of the day, provided, of course, that the children receive during the day the required amount of academic work. In fact, it is difficult to see how the problem of providing enough classrooms, or playgrounds, or auditoriums for the mass of children is ever to be met if all children have to be in classrooms at the same time, and if all children have to play at once. Moreover, there seems to be no good reason from an educational standpoint why children should all have to do the same thing at the same time.

PRINCIPLE OF MULTIPLE USE MAKES MODERN EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FINANCIALLY PRACTICABLE.

Fortunately, however, if the principle of multiple use is applied to public-school facilities, it is possible to provide not only adequate classroom accommodations but also auditoriums, gymnasiums, and shops for the mass of children. In fact, accommodations may be provided in all facilities, if they are in use constantly by alternating groups, at less cost than regular classrooms alone may be provided on the basis of a reserved seat for every child. For example, in a 24-class school, under the traditional plan 24 classrooms are needed in addition to all the other special facilities. Under the workstudy-play plan only 12 classrooms are needed. The classroom, however, is the most expensive unit in the school, therefore since only half the usual number of classrooms is needed, i. e., 12 classrooms in a 24-class school, the cost of the remainder is released for all the other special facilities.