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THE COMMONS 

B flDontblv 1Rccor:> Elovotet* to Hspccta of life ant* "labor from tbe Social Settlement point of Uiew. 



Whole Number 46. 



CHICAGO. 



MAY 31, J900. 




NEW RESIDENCE OK MANSFIELD HOUSE, LOMmN. 



AN IDEAL COMMONWEALTH. 



BY PROF. ISAAC A. LOOS. 
University of Iowa. 



THE Kepublic of Plato is one of those master- 
pieces in classical philosophy and litera- 
ture that remains perennially fresh and mod- 
ern. In the study of social problems the geo- 
logical time sense is very important. When 
we take a large view of modern philosophy, 
Plato and Aristotle may be classed as among 



the first of the modern philosophers. One 
large advantage which they have over more 
recent writers lies in the fact that they came to 
the study of the problems of society more at 
first hand. The contemporary student for that 
reason will be benefited by getting their point 
of view. 

What we now call the Kepublic of Plato 
passed during the Middle Ages under the title: 
Concerning Justice. The opening books of the 
Republic are really devoted to an inquiry con- 



99165 



THE COMMONS. 



[No. 46 



cerning the nature of justice. Modern political 
philosophy has not gotten so very far beyond 
the definitions proposed and defended by vari- 
ous exponents of Greek schools of philosophy. 
Whether justice is something wider or deeper 
than might was seriously considered by the 
Socratic school and the conviction that it was 
more seems ^o have been deeply rooted in 
. Greek thought. 

.TUSTICK THE PRINCIPLE OP SOCIAL OKDER. 

Plato set himself the task of defining justice 
by describing its exhibition in human society, 
lie recognizes the difficulty of giving an 
abstract definition without reference !to social 
conditions. In the first book of the Republic 
there is an attempt to define justice as a prin- 
ciple. This effort is provisionally abandoned 
and what Plato calls a method of reading its 
character in the state where it is written in 
larger letters, is substituted. His conclusion 
is that justice is the principle of order in 
society and that its essential characteristic 
consists in attending to one's own business and 
permitting all others to do the same. This 
conclusion is not unlike the view which is 
expressed by Herbert Spencer in his Law of 
Equal Freedom, but it involves the assump- 
tion not only that every man, woman and child 
has his place in society, but also that this 
place can be discovered and appropriated by 
each individual. As an exercise in reasoning 
and dialectical skill, the analysis of Plato com- 
pares favorably with the reasonings of our pro- 
foundest philosophers, and in its practical 
results it is on a level with that form of ethical 
teaching in our time which urges upon every 
man the duty of making the most of himself 
ad of his opportunities. 

THE BOLE OF THE PHILOSOPHER. 

Any attempt to describe the conditions of an 
ideal state of society, if seriously undertaken, 
must be an essay in philosophy of the highest 
order, and the result of Plato's effort was an 
exposition of principles upon which law and 
order in society'must be based. Plato saw first 
of all that there was in human society inequali- 
ties, and he seemed to recognize that certain 
inequalities of condition' were inevitable. His 
hope for the amelioration of the conditions of 
human existence seems to lie in a correct order- 
ing of the members of society through the 
institutions of government. Consequently the 
second part of his Kepublic is devoted to a 
discussion of government under the title, The 
Kule of the Philosopher or Government by 
Philosophers. The philosopher in Plato's con- 
ception is the strong, wise and good man. 

Education is a necessary means both for the 



development of the philosopher and for the 
guidance of the state; that is to say, education 
is necessary for ruler and subject alike. The 
appreciation of this fact brings Plato to a 
study of education, and this forms another 
constituent element of his picture of the ideal 
commonwealth. Education is considered in its 
elementary and in its higher aspect. 

EDUCATION FOB CITIZENSHIP. 

To Plato, education signified not simply the 
art of reading and writing, but it had the wider 
significance of character building. The course 
in primary education was begun before the art 
of reading was attempted. " You know," Soc- 
rates is made to say, alluding to the customary 
beginnings of education in his time, "that we 
begin the education of our children by telling 
them stories ( which, though not wholly destitute 
of truth, are, in the main, fictitious; and these 
stories are told them when they are not of an 
age to learn music and gymnastics. The 
beginning of education is recognized as its 
most important part.'' Plato would probably 
subscribe to the doctrine that environment is 
more important than heredity and that sub- 
jective environment is of the very greatest 
importance. His purpose to secure a proper 
atmosphere for the child leads him to lay down 
certain definite rules to be followed in the 
development of the story or myth that is to be 
repeated to children of the kindergarten age. 
In his utterances elsewhere established, he 
held these same rules to be important also in 
passing judgment upon what may be allowed 
in the literature for children of a larger growth. 
The positive rules which Plato would desire 
the poets to follow in the production of the 
story may be roughly summarized as follows : 
(1.) Whether in epic, lyric or tragic verse, 
the Deity must always be represented as he 
truly is. He must be represented as the author 
of good only. A high value must be set upon 
truth. 

(2.) Temperance and courage must be incul- 
cated. 

(3.) High mindedness must be cultivated. 
He excludes from his school room all recital 
of the gift motived actions in which the 
Homeric poems abound, as founded on too low 
a plane of moral action. In a similar spirit he 
favors only those harmonies in song and 
melody which foster the traits of character 
which he would develop. He rejects the 
Lydian harmony as too sorrowful and the 
Ionian as too soft. He approves the Dorian 
and Phrygian as inculcating courage and tem- 
perance. Of mv"' instruments, he favors 
the lyre and the >r use in the city, and 



No. 46 J 



THE COMMONS. - 



[11] 3 



the shepherd's pipe for use in the country. 
Plato sets a high value on the place of art and 
nature studies in education. These must form 
a part of a perfected curriculum. Succeeding 
to the use of the story, careful training in gym- 
nastics and music follow. The usual training 
of athletes, we are told, is too gross. Training 
for citizenship should have in view not the 
performance of particular feats of the body, 
but the discharge with efficiency and prompti- 
tude of such duties as may present themselves 
in the business of life. 

Plato held that professional education should 
be governed by rules suited to the several pro- 
fessions. The judge and the physician were 
not to be required to secure their skill in the 
same manner. The latter might possibly be 
improved by personal experience of disease, 
but the former can never profit by making a 
personal trial of evil. " The cunning and 
suspicious juryman, who has been guilty him- 
self of many crimes, and fancies himself know- 
ing and clever, so long as he has to deal with 
men like himself, betrays astonishing wari- 
ness, thanks to those inward examples which 
he has ever in sight, but when be comes into 
communication with men of years and of vir- 
tue, he shows himself to be no better than a 
fool, with his mistimed suspicions and igno- 
rance of a healthy character; he cannot recog- 
nize an honest man because he has no pattern 
of honesty in himself," Bk. III.* 

CLASSES VERSUS CASTES. 

In his description of the correct method of 
selecting rulers, Plato gives a sketch of the 
classes of society in the Greek state of his 
time, and makes provision for effacing the lines 
of division and separation. Classes are per- 
missible, but they must not be replaced by 
caste. There must always be opportunity for 
those of exceptional ability to rise into the 
classes higher than the one in which they were 
born, while demotion awaits those who fail to 
meet the responsibilities of their station. 
There is recognition of the importance of pro- 
viding for a transportation of classes; and from 
this the consequent importance of universal 
education is deduced. 

There is probably not much that is particu- 
larly characteristic in bjs description of the 
life of the ruler and of the soldier class except 

PLATO'S COMMUNISM. 

his doctrine of communism. It is this feature 
of the teaching of The Republic which, in the 
minds of many who know of The Republic only 
by hearsay, has come to be accepte*d as its sole 
and only teaching. No better reason can be 
"State University of Iowa. 



urged for the fresh reading of Plato's Republic 
than this false traditional opinion concerning 
its teaching. Community of property and com- 
munity of family life is urged upon the rulers, 
but joined with utterances which assert the 
equality of the sexes and regulate the family 
relation. It is the one portion of The Republic 
which has failed to stand the test of time and 
of criticism. Almost in Plato's own day 
appeared an answer to communism in the 
writings of his contemporary and successor, 
Aristotle. Aristotle's answer has not been 
much improved upon, and is still regarded as 
a satisfactory refutation of this phase of Plato's 
teaching. But it should not be forgotten that 
it forms but an incidental feature of Plato's 
ideal state, and apparently it applies to only 
one class in the state, a class expected to con- 
trol their appetites and passions for the bene- 
fit of the state. 

SUGGESTIONS TOR CONTEMPORARY STUDIES. 

In the popular conception of Plato's ideal 
commonwealth, the place of philosophy has 
fallen out of notice. It is only when we come 
to the study of Plato equipped with broad 
social concepts and profound social sympathies 
that we find ourselves capable of appreciating 
Plato's fine eulogy of Philosophy and the Rule 
of the Philosopher, in the middle books of The 
Republic. His analysis of the power of public 
opinion and its reaction on character ; his 
sketch of the higher courses of education and 
the best methods for the training of rulers 
capable of guiding society to wise courses are' 
the parts of the Republic rich in suggestion 
for the contemporary student of social laws 
and the means of social amelioration. 

The Platonic sketch of the Ideal Common- 
wealth closes with a criticism of existing 
states, in which the forms of government and 
the corresponding types of human character 
are set forth. This last effort represents a 
phase of social philosophy to the heights of 
which contemporary students seldom rise, and 
while some of Plato's conceits may be fanciful 
and thoughtful, reader will find also in this 
latter part of the Republic fruitful suggestions 
for the current study of society in its reaction 
upon the individual. 

We conclude with the refutation of Thransy- 
machus. Justice is something more than 
might, and if there is no such city on earth as 
that which we have been describing, " there is 
laid up a pattern of it in Heaven which he who 
desires may behold, and, beholding, may set 
his own house in order. Each one in his 
own life may live after the manner of that city, 
having nothing to do with any other," Bk. X. 



4 [12J 



THE COMMONS. 



[No. 46 



Cburcb Social 



[UMIEU THIS TITLE we hope to chronicle distinctively 
suggestive movements in the churches for the specific 
application of the Christian ideal and spirit to the social 
conditions of the common life. There is unquestionably to 
be discerned a new dawning of the old Pentecostal social 
consciousness all round the horizon, which is the presage 
of progress toward the Kingdom of God on earth. This new 
consciousness of each other is begotten by the growing 
recognition of God as the Father of us all. Human brother- 
hood is the inevitable corollary to the divine Fatherhood. 
In this column we hope to reflect streaks of the dawn and 
the glow of the daybreak. EDITOR OF THE COMMONS.] 

Opportunity of the Churches. < 

BIRD S. COLER, Comptroller of the City of 
New York, in his new and practically 
raluable little volume on " Municipal Govern- 
ment " (D.Appleton & Co.) thus "charges" the 
churches, in his chapter on " The Church in 
Politics " : " The individual who holds that 
the church has no place in politics would con- 
fine within narrow and selfish bounds the 
greatest civilizing force in the world. 
Experience in politics and public life has con- 
vinced me that the church influence in New 
York City has never been brought to bear on 
civic and political conditions in a proper and 
helpful way. . . . Let the churches begin 
at the bottom and work up. When they con- 
demn a social or political condition, they must 
be able to lead the way to something better. 
The men of the church and the Christian asso- 
ciations who have attempted to reach the 
masses and arouse their civic pride have as a 
rule made the mistake of beginning at the top. 
Political organizations have found the small 
and inexpensive social club, where the work- 
ingman is made to feel at ease and enabled to 
enjoy certain privileges and advantages too 
often denied to him in his own home, the surest 
way of reaching the masses 

" If every church in New York should estab- 
lish a small club or reading room, to be gradu- 
ally converted into a school for instruction in 
public affairs and the cultivation of civic 
pride, the way would be paved for direct com- 
munication between the two classes of citizens 
that would in the end be beneficial to both. 
Such places should not be cold, cheerless, con- 
ventional lecture halls where superior knowl- 
edge is exhibited on a pedestal of pride and 
superiority. There the man of the Church and 
the man of large affairs should meet the 
laborer in overalls as man and man, each inter- 
ested in the promotion of conditions of mutual 
benefit. Every light and shade of such a club- 
room should spell a broad and generous wel- 
come to humanity, and every man who crossed 



the threshold should be made to feel that, no 
matter how humble his station in life, the pub- 
lic welfare is in some small measure committed 
to his keeping, and that he can do something 
toward the making of a better city." 

THE serious and sensible patriotism of Mr. 
Coler's advice is the more significant as coming 
from the able and fearless man whom Tammany 
Hall, strangely enough, placed in the pomp- 
trollership, where he proves to be the greatest 
obstacle to its plunder of the city treasury, and 
upon whom more than upon any other man the 
hopes of a renewed effort for municipal reform 
seem to be centering. William T. Stead long 
ago said that " a converted Tammany Hall " is 
the only agency for rescuing our cities from 
the tyranny and corruption of "the machine 
gangs." Mr. Color is speaking " in light " what 
he has learned "in darkness." What he heard 
"in the ear" he is preaching "upon the house- 
tops." "The children of light " still need to 
heed their great Leader's injunction to learn 
from " the children of this world " how to be 
wiser in their generation. 

A YOUNG Colorado pastor in a mining town 
finds the spiritual quickening and the 
social development of his church work to be 
identical. The opening of a church club house 
has not only elicited the co-operation of all 
classes in the community sufficiently to sup- 
port the work centering there, but has also 
been so tributary to the distinctively spiritual 
and evangelistic work of the church as to 
crowd its religious services with interested at- 
tendants, and to tax the pastor's time in meet- 
ing the many inquirers who come to talk with 
him of a higher life, while some of the saloon 
keepers bitterly oppose the movement, which 
threatens the ruin of the social and gambling 
features of their business, others have con- 
tributed generously toward the equipment of 
games for the club room. The boys' fraternal 
organization, bearing the aspiring name of 
" The Coming Men," has for its purpose " to 
train members for true citizens, to promote 
manliness among us, to settle disputes peacea- 
bly rather than by fighting, by the brain 
rather than by the fist, to create a greater re- 
spect for those in authority over us." 

Hiram House Life, the bi-monthly organ of 
the Settlement, reports fully, in its issue of 
January-March, the house-warming in its new 
building. A "winter picnic" was a recent 
event of novel ir at Hiram House. The 

present address it settlement is at 345 

Orange street, C ;' id, O. 



No. 4f,J 



THE COMMONS. - 



[13] 5 



k 



Cbicaoo Commons 



I 
J* - 



Appeal for Our Commons Playground. ^ ^ Jt 
In sorry contrast stand the twenty feet of 
yard space all around the Commons residence, 
and the streets full of boys and girls without 
place to play. We who live here, despite our 
need of quiet, can no longer keep the children 
out of the only space where they might have 
right to be and room to play. We, therefore, 
ask our friends to join us in turning our yard 
into a playground for the children of the 
streets by furnishing us with means to equip 
the scanty space with swings, see-saws, and a 
hand-ball court. At the close of our winter 
club work sixty boys came back to make us all 
sorts of promises to "be good," if we would let 
them in to play. And they are only the ad- 
vance guard of the boy and girl infantry that 
will be clamoring at our gates, now that the 
hope of coming in to play has gone abroad 
among them. Who will lend these little folks 
a friendly hand all summer by supplying us 
right away with $10(1 or more for the equipment 
and director of oar playground? 



Chicago Commons Items. J* J* J* J* & J* 

CHICAGO COMMONS highly appreciates the 
part Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner had in the In- 
ternational Kindergarten Union last month. 
She spoke before the training teachers confer- 
ence on " The Use of Material," emphasizing 
the development of heart life and social 
quality. On the general program she discussed 
" Games," claiming the liberty for the kinder- 
garten teacher to develop and adapt methods 
other than those for which there is traditional 
authority. Her personal acquaintance with 
the late Frau Schrader of Berlin, of whom she 
was a pupil, was the occasion of a lively de- 
mand for her recollections of the personality 
and work of the distinguished head of the 
Pestalozzi-Froebel House. 

AFTER these five years of struggle to initiate 
the movement among our heterogeneous and 
more or less transient population for their so- 
cial unification and self-help, we seem to be 
just crossing the threshold of the perma- 
nency and larger efficiency of our effort. 
Among the signs of this are the self-originated, 
self-supporting, and self-governing Young 
Men's Club, and Neighborhood Men's League 
for older men. They are preparing to take 
possession of their part of the new building by 
raising money for gymnasium apparatus and 
the furnishing of their club rooms. Another 
sign of the rally of neighborhood resources 
is the gift by one of the Tabernacle families of a 
handsome and complete set of solid oak platform 
furniture for the large hall in the new building, 
which will be used for church and general as- 
sembly purposes. It is given as a memorial to 



their son, Walter Stockwell, who was identified 
from early boyhood to manly prime, in which 
he was cut off, with the Sunday-school and 
church organizations. 

WE HAVE just issued a circular of informa- 
tion concerning the distinctive features of the 
Commons and Tabernacle work, and contain- 
ing the completed design and revised floor 
plans of the new building. It can be secured 
in quantities for distribution by our friends, 
and may prove to be the most helpful printed 
matter we have issued for eliciting interest 
and co-operation in our movement. If those 
who share with us the burden of the common 
life would enclose this circular with a personal 
note to those who may be willing and able to 
lend us a hand, it will be the best service the 
real friends of the Commons can render. 

To SAVE the lives of little children and stay 
the hearts of their mothers, we desire to join 
with the Northwestern University Settlement 
in supplying sterilized milk during the sum- 
mer months at as nearly cost as possible. We 
appeal, therefore, for $100 with which to pro- 
vide ourselves with the sterilizer, bottles, and 
the expense necessarily involved in advertising 
and management. Who will lend us heart and 
hand in helping to stop the unnecessary 
slaughter of the innocents ? 



SOCIALISM IN JAPANESE. 



Tomoyoshi Miinii Prepares a Handbook for the 
Rising Little Nation in the Orient. 

Mr. Tomoyoshi Murai, a well-remembered 
Japanese visitor to American settlements, 
whose work we have from time to time referred 
to, sends us a quaint little volume in Japanese 
which would be good to read, no doubt, but 
which none within the editorial command of 
THE COMMONS can compass. It is explained by 
manuscript notes on the cover to ,be a volume 
in the Japanese language on "Socialism" by 
T. Murai. The contents include introductory 
chapters by Professor Wadagaki, Rev. T. Yokoi 
and Mr. K. Matsumura, a preface by the 
author, and the general discussion : " Social 
Problems in Modern Europe and America," 
"Definition of Socialism," " Essence of Social- 
ism," " Socialism and Morality," " Socialism 
and Education," "Socialism and Art," " Socfal- 
ism and Woman," " Socialism and Labor 
Unions," " Socialism and Christianity," "Ideal 
Society." For obvious reasons we cannot 
attempt a review of the work, but Mr. Murai 
has been a constant and sacrificing worker for 
his cause since his return to Japan. His pres- 
ent address is 7 Takehaya cho, Koishikawa, 
Tokyo. 

"Miss K. W. Hardy, lately of Louisville, Ky., 
has begun a work of a settlement sort in New 
Orleans, in the neighborhood where the Dio- 
cesan Free Kindergarten has been working for 
the last six years. 



6 [14J 



THE COMMONS. 



[No. 46 



literature ant> 



t 



Better- World Philosophy; a Sociological Synthe- 
sis, by J. HOWARD MOORE. Chicago, the 
Ward Waugh Co. *75 pp. Cloth, 12mo, $1.00. 



IT is quite in keeping with the mere facts to 
say that this is one of the really remarkable 
books of the period. A treatise wliich arrives 
at pure altruism from a basis of pure egoistic 
materialism and by a process as merciless as 
mathematics concludes in the attitude of 
"Live and help live," must necessarily be out 
of the ordinary. 

Mr. Moore scorns the idea of a ruling Mind 
outside of nature, to which latter, however, he 
attributes sentience in itself. Within the 
<< sentient Cosmos," as he calls it, Man is the 
highest form, and as highest is called upon to 
be servant of all the rest. Our author ': has 
little patience with the idea that man has a 
right to prey upon the rest of the universe, and 
his tlings at the'.barbarities of flesh-eating, for 
instance, and of hunting, especially for sport, 
are even venomous. The physical and spiritual 
kinship of all living things is one of Mr. 
Moore's fundamental theses. 

Social self-culture is what this " Philoso- 
phy " appeals ^for. From the] pure egoism 
which has grown out of the conflict of indi. 
viduals, he appeals through the altruisrrfthat 
has arisen from the struggle of aggregates, for 
a race-consciousness which will hold the task 
of providing for a good future for mankind as 
the highest possible for man. Conscious envi- 
ronmental selection is the means by which the 
race will be improved and sent on toward its 
mighty destiny. " The new social function," 
says the author, " is the displacement of the 
rude and ruthless discriminations of the ani- 
mate and inanimate environments by conscious 
self-culture^of the race." The task of individ- 
ual culture is the inculcation of true altruism, 
as a means to which the preponderant egoism 
must be eliminated. 

The most urgent individualist could not ask 
a more insistent emphasis upon the responsi- 
bility of those who have to deal with children 
and individual souls. " Parenthood," says Mr. 
Moore, "is the gravest of all responsibilities. 
The act of generation is a momentous act. It 
should be illuminated. It should be more se- 
rious, and deliberate, and conscious. It should 
be far more frequently neglected. Human be- 
ings should know, that it is a grave conspiracy 
to bring into the universe a living being." 



The truest answer to the book is that it recog- 
nizes only by inference that the forces now at 
work, instead of making society more truly 
self-conscious and purposeful, are disintegrat- 
ing in their effect, and save as one may be con- 
tent to look upon the ages and aeons for the 
steps of progress, the outlook for anything in 
the nature of rational stirpiculture is bleak in- 
deed. It is well enough to talk about restraints 
upon procreation, but who is going to impose 
the restraints? The machinery of government, 
for instance, which should provide the officials 
to supervise the act of reproduction, is in the 
hands of the very folks whose reproduction it 
is most desirable, seemingly, to restrict, and 
the titular heads of the race are hardly the 
human beings whom we should select as most 
desirable slips from which to propagate ! Let 
it be granted that we should put a stop to the 
begetting of monstrous offspring, it is still to 
be decided who, in the last and truest analysis, 
is to define what constitutes monstrosity. 

There may come the time which Mr. Moore, 
with stupendous optimism, foresees, when 
" Human beings will forego the apparent natu- 
ralness of contributing to the future genera- 
tions, when they become really conscious that 
it is philanthropy to do so," but the prospects 
are hardly bright as yet. For the motive 
that begets most children is the ceaseless 
urge of the universe. The same instinct 
to which we owe the procreation of cats or tad- 
poles or plant-lice or pusley is that which 
keeps up the race of men, and the average man 
has no more conscience about it than an oyster 
or a goat. And not only that even supposing, 
as our author insists, that "the sun will yet 
pour his flre upon an age, fanciful as it may 
seem, when it will be a crime for malf ectives to 
beget," it yet remains, and will remain to be 
decided, who is the " malfective?" Thus far 
we have pretty well agreed among ourselves 
that he is surely somebody else! If all the 
physically deficient had been killed at birth, 
we should have lost aborning some of our price- 
less jewels of poetry, science and art, and some 
of the most beautiful physical offspring of the 
race have been apparently haters and banners 
of their kind. 

After all, the problem narrows itself down at 
last, as every problem in sociology thus far has 
narrowed itself down, and must, to the ques- 
tion most on men's lips to-day the question of 
fair play for each to make the most of what has 
come down to him and with him out of the 
womb of the All-M"* 1 - As long as the act of 
procreation is aboi oily form of diversion 

which the over- wo in has time or enthu- 



No. 46] 



THE COMMONS. 



[15] 7 



siasm for after his exhausting day ; as long as 
women are forced to compete for their living 
by vulgar ostentation of their physical peculi- 
arities in appeal to the brutal senses of men, 
the question of limiting the increase of the 
race will be rather remote, and must wait, as 
before and as now, upon the greater and all-in- 
clusive question of social justice and equality 
of opportunity. J. P. G. j 



The Social Incarnation Studies in the Faith 
of Practice (second edition), by REV. BALPH 
AL.BERTSON. Published by the Christian 
Commonwealth, Commonwealth, Ga. Paper, 
lOc; $1.00 per dozen. 



Society of Brothers, by GEOEGE HOWARD 
GiiiSON, Editor of the Social Gospel, Pub- 
lished by the Christian Commonwealth. Leaf- 
let, '2c each; 100 copies $1.00. 



The sweet spirit of unreserving love in social 
relationship saturates these booklets, by the 
two men who have been recognized chiefly as 
the leaders and promoters of the Christian 
Commonwealth. The matter is for the most 
part from the columns of the Social Gospel. 
Mr. Albertson gathers a sheaf of pithy articles, 
essays, " sermonlets," presenting the point of 
view of fearless Christian communism. Mr. 
Gibson proposes a recognized " brotherhood of 
lovers," whose only rule shall be obedience to 
the law of uttermost service; whose only 
method shall be love in action. These are re- 
freshing things to read. 



The Straight EdgeA, weekly News-letter. 
Published by the "School of Methods," 224 
Sixth Avenue, New York. $1.00 a year. 



The School of Methods, " for the application 
of the teachings of Jesus to business and so- 
ciety," is almost unique, in that it vaunts no 
names, exploits no money-making scheme, and 
tells the truth without malice, straight from 
the shoulder. It has won a brisk fight with 
the postofflce department for entry as second- 
class matter, and affords the freshest, briskest, 
least self-advertising material that we know of 
in the field of social rejuvenation. Send five 
cents to the Straight Edge for a copy of its 
" Practical Creed for Practical People." 



Christian Teachings (arranged for convenient 
use in the instruction of the young), by 
WILLIAM JAMES MUTCH, Ph. U., 366 Howard 
Avenue, New Haven. Cloth, 25c; paper, 15c. 



Christian Teachings is a practical text- book 
for young people, designed to prepare them 
for the Christian life and for membership in 



the church. It contains what are ordinarily in 
Protestant evangelical churches held to be the 
fundamental truths of religion, stated in a 
simple every-day English, with questions so 
framed. as to awaken thought, conscience, and 
the spiritual life. 

It is suitable for use in a pastor's class, a 
children's meeting, and especially in the 
school of the church for children 'not younger 
than ten, and from that age up to the adult. 
It has had a remarkable sale, within a few 
months entering a third edition, and it de- 
serves its popularity. 



THE COMMONS. 

S flDontbl? 1Rcot6 Devotes to Bspects of Xlfe ano labor 
from tbc Social Settlement point of I'iov. 



GRAHAM TAYLOK, 



EDITOR. 




THE COMMONS is under the editorial management of 
Professor GRAHAM TAYLOR, Resident Warden of 
Chicago Commons, to whom all communications re- 
lating to this publication should be addressed. 

The Editor assumes responsibility for all unsigned 
articles published in THK COMMONS. Signed articles 
are upon the responsibility of their writers, and their 
publication in THE COMMONS is not to be understood 
as implying necessarily that the Etlitor concurs in all 
or any of the views expressed in tin-in. 



School of 
Oratory 

Summer Term, July 3-28 

TEACHER'S COURSE 

PUBLIC SPEAKER'S COURSE 
PUBLIC READER'S COURSE 
SPECIAL BIBLE CLASSES 

Fall Term Opens September 19 

Saturday and Evening Classes 
Daily Sessions 
Private Lessons 

Visitors Welcome 

Send for Large Illustrated Catalogue 

Columbia School of Oratory 



Principals: 

MARY A. BLOOD 
IDA MOREY RILEY 



STEINWAY.HALL 

CHICAGO 



8 [16] 



THE COMMONS. 



[No. 46 



THE COMMONS 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It Is published monthly, at Chicago Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street. Chicago, 
111., and is entered at the Chicago Postotlice as mail 
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using the enclosed subscription blank to-rfay for re 
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postage would cost, and that might better bemused '.in 
the direct extension of our work. 



j 




Often in the morning there comes a feeling 
of weariness, indescribable ; not exactly ill, nor 
fit to work, but too near well to remain idle. 

A Ripans Tabule taken at night, before 
retiring, or just after dinner, has been known 
to drive away that weariness for months. 

WA NTJSD. A caw of bad health that R-IT-A-H* will not beneflt. They banish pain and prolonc Ufa. 
One glres relief. Not* the word HTP-A'N'Bon the, ukage and accept no urxntuio. X-I^l-- 
tt for 5 oanta or twain packeta for 48 cents, may ba had at any drug store. Ten samples and on* t 
sand testlmonlsJs will be mailed to any address for 5 cents, forwarded to the Rlpan- *: ileal Oo, 
M Spruce Bt., Haw York. 



A LABOR MUSEUM BY JANE ADDAMS. 

THE COMMONS 

H flDontblv IRecoro IDeroteS to Hepecta of life ano labor from the Social Settlement point of View. 



Whole Number 47. 



CHICAGO. 



30 JUNE, J900. 



THE GOSPEL OF LABOR. 



This is the gospel of labor ririg it. ye bells of the kirk; 
The Lord of Love came ilowu from above to live with the 

men who work. 
This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-cursed 

soil; 
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of earth 

is toil. 

HKMIY VAN DYKE, in " The Tatting of F> -lu ." 



THE GENIUS OF HULL HOUSE. 



BY HORACE SPENCER FISKE. 



Ill 



The Ballad of Manila Bay," and other verses. Univer- 
sity of Chicago Press. 

Girt round with misery careless of the light, 
A motley mass si ill needing to be on 
In civic hope and happier life begun, 
Her guiding spirit guides from out the night. 

She knows the wortli of comfort and delight 
To win the soul to sit beneath the sun 
And strive for tilings that onlyshould be won, 

Forever leading with a clearer sight. 

For always to her aid she calls sweet art 
That loves the temple of the human soul, 
To free the mind and bless the wearied heart; 

And by a human hand-touch her- control 
Becomes of e'en the humblest life a part, 
And helps through one the purpose of the whole. 



SOCIAL EDUCATION OF THE IN- 
DUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY. 



Settlement Problems in Educational Work 
With Adults. 



LABOR MUSEUM AT HULL HOUSE. 



BU JANE ADDAMS. 

After ten years of educational experience at 
Hull House, several distinct conclusions have 
been forced upon the residents. It has been 
found in offering classes in an industrial com- 
munity certain concessions must be made. 
Working people cannot be held to regularity ol 
hours and effort as children can. Many things 
conspire to make this impossible, they are 
delayed by long hours of work or by "over- 
time " which may make attendance on a given 
evening utterly out of the question, by family 
cares, a delayed supper, a sick child, the neces- 
sity for shopping in the evening; and last, they 
are often waylaid by an irresistible desire for 
recreation and distraction which is almost the 
inevitable reaction from the long hours of dull 
factory work. 



.ADAPTATION NEEDED MORE THAN DISCIPLINE. 

The discipline which a child gets from regu- 
larity of attendance at school and being held 
to a given piece of work whether it is tasteful 
or not, is of course more than supplied to work- 
ing people by the inerorable necessity of 
punctuality and regularity at work, which is 
often enforced by a system of fines, and by the 
fact that many of them are continually held to 
distasteful tasks. 

To insist too rigidly upon the disciplinary 
aspect of education is simply to fail to recog- 
nize the situation. If the settlement holds 
that there must be regularity of attendance or no 
attendance at all, the result is a class in litera- 
ture or history, composed of people who come 
regularly and study faithfully, but who repre- 
sent the transfigured few in the vicinity, those 
who are capable of abstract mental effort, and 
who have more or less of the scholar's mental 
instinct. Hull House can point to flourishing 
classes of this kind, which have sustained an 
interest in a given subject for six and eight 
years, and from which the members have 
derived a very good imitation of college 
culture. 

We would by no means advocate the abandon- 
ment of these classes, but rather the enlarge- 
ment and progressive development of them. 
Certainly the people who are capable of sus- 
tained mental effort should be fed and helped, 
as indeed they are by every "popular lecture," 
every reading room and "Extension" class in 
the city. In addition to these classes the resi- 
dents are convinced that there is a distinct 
need for educational methods adapted to the 
situation, in which the majority of working 
people are placed. The present methods are 
either copied from those employed .in teaching 
children and totally ignore a vast amount of 
experience which life is continually bringing 
to the usefully employed adult, or are copied 
from the colleges, which presuppose a previous 
training and a desire for persistent study on 
the part of the young people, whose very pres- 
ence in the college is, to a certain extent, a 
guarantee of both. 



'2 [18] 



THE COMMONS. 



[June, 



THE WORKERS' EXPERIENCE AND INTEREST 
AVAILABLE. 

A settlement should certainly be able to use 
both methods -when they are available, but 
should not be caught by a slavish imitation of 
either, simply because they are successful 
under other circumstances. The residents of a 
settlement should be able to utilize many facts 
and forces lying quite outside the range of 
books, should be able to seize affections and 
memories which are not available in schools 
for children or inynature youth. 

In the Italian colony immediately west of 
Hull House, for instance, may be found peasant 
women, who in Italy spun, wove and dyed and 
made the clothing for their families. Some of 
the older women still use the primitive form of 
distaff. 

It will be possible by their help to illustrate 
the history of textile manufacture, to reveal 
the long human effort which it represents, to 
put into sequence and historic order the skill 
which the Italian colony contains, but which 
is now lost or despised. 

It may easily be observed that the spot which 
attracts most people at any exhibition- or fair 
is the one where something is being done, so 
trivial a thing as a girl cleaning gloves or a 
man polishing metal almost inevitably attracts 
a crowd who look on with absorbed interest. 
The same thing is true of shop windows. 

It is hoped that by utilizing this feature of 
interest, the actual carrying forward of the 
industrial processes, and by the fact that the 
explanation of each process or period will be 
complete in itself, may in a measure tend to 
make the teaching dramatic and so overcome 
the disadvantage of irregular attendance. It 
is also believed that when educational process 
is connected with the materials of daily life, 
it will hold his interest and feed his thought 
as the present abstract and unconnected study 
utterly fails to do. At least an effort will be 
made to minister to the needs of people as they 
present themselves and to develop the life of 
cultivation from "things as they are." 

EDUCATIVE INTERPRETATION OP INDUSTRIES. 

Educators have failed to adjust themselves 
to the fact that cities have become great cen- 
ters of production and manufacture, and 
manual labor has been left without historic 
interpretation or imaginative uplift. It has 
almost inevitably become dull and uninter- 
esting. 

There is no doubt that the life of the average 
laborer tends to be flat and monotonous, with 
nothing in his work to feed his mind or hold 
his interest. Little is done either in the 



schools or elsewhere to make him really intelli- 
gent in regard to the processes involved in his 
work or in regard to the material which he 
daily handles. 

Workmen are brought in contact with existing 
machinery quite as abruptly as if the present 
set of industrial implements had beeu newly 
created. They handle the machinery day by 
day without any notion that each generation 
works with the gifts of the last and transmits 
this increased gift to the next. Few of the 
men who perform the mechanical work in the 
great factories have any apprehension of the 
fact that the inventions upon which the fac- 
tory depends, the instruments which they use, 
have been slowly worked out by the necessities 
of the race, have been added to and modified 
until they have become a social possession and 
have an aggregate value which time and society 
alone can give them. 

A machine really represents the "seasoned 
life of man " preserved and treasured up within 
itself, quite as much as does a parish church 
or a market cross. 

If the people who use machinery do not get a 
consciousness of historic continuity and 
human interest through that machinery, these 
same people will probably never get it at all 
it is indeed their only chance. 

To put all historic significance upon city 
walls and triumphal arches, is to teach history 
from the political and governmental side, 
which too often presents solely the records of 
wars and restrictive legislation, emphasizing 
that which destroys life and property rather 
than the processes of labor, which really cre- 
ate and conserve civilization. Fame and 
honor still largely cling to war and non-pro- 
ductive occupations, and there seems to be no 
way of changing this, unless we can make the 
materials and processes which form the daily 
experience of the workmen more interesting 
and increase their picturesqueness. 

It is also believed that a study of industry 
arid the material foundations of life will be the 
most natural mode of approach to the larger 
life of cultivation and learning. 

CREDIT DUE TO LABOR FROM LEARNING. 

The business college man, or the man who* 
goes through an academic course in order to 
prepare for a profession, comes to look on 
learning too much as an investment from 
which he will later reap the benefits in earning 
money. He does not connect learning with 
industrial pursuits, nor does he in the least 
lighten or illuminate those pursuits for those 
of his friends who have not "risen in life." 

"It is as though nets were laid at the 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[19] 3 



entrances to education, in which those who, by 
some means or other, escape from the masses 
bowed down by labor are inevitably caught " 
and held from substantial service to their 
fellows. 

Our civilization is more than anything an 
industrial civilization, but we admire the men 
who accumulate riches and gather to them- 
selves the results of industry, rather than the 
men who reully carry forward industrial pro- 
cesses. 

Apparently our dpinocratic sentiment has 
not yet recovered industrial occupations from 
the deep distrust which slavery and the feudal 
organization of society have cast upon them. 

Democracy claims for the workman the free 
right of citizenship, but does not yet insist 
that he shall be a cultivated member of society 
with a consciousness of his social and indus- 
trial value. 

We fail to appreciate the patient performance 
of painful duty, the resignation in misfortune, 
forgiveness under injury, and quiet courage 
which goes to show the creative virtue there is 
in action itself. The manual worker in spite 
of all his drawbacks gets a great solace and 
comfort from the labor itself, but to that should 
be added the interest and stimulus which comes 
to the individual when ho is able to see him- 
self " in connection and co-operation with the 
whole." 

EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM OP LABOR. 

The word "Museum" is purposely used in 
preference to "School," both because the latter 
is distasteful to grown-up people from its as- 
sociation with childish tasks, and because the 
former still retains some of the fascinations of 
the show. 

The museum will be opened with five de- 
partments, which will present human progress 
as developed thro the laborer's efforts, and will 
be connected as closely as possible with the 
growth and history of Chicago and the devel- 
opment of its industries. 

1. Metals with the copper of the Lake 
Superior region. 

2. Wood with the lumber region of Wiscon- 
sin and Michigan. 

3. Grain with the wheat and corn of Illinois 
and Indians. 

4 and 5. The books and textiles will be 
treated from the history of their own develop- 
ment, but connected so far as possible with the 
local conditions. 

These five departments will contain speci- 
mens of the raw material and actual presenta- 
tion of the processes to which that material is 
subjected. A history of the effect of the process 






upon the laborer will be given by informal 
lectures. Much stress will be laid upon the 
pictures and diagrams. So far as possible the 
historic presentation of the process will con- 
nect with the activities which have already 
centered about Hull House. 

The department of wood will terminate in 
the shop for the carpentry and wood carving 
of Hull House Guild. The history of book- 
making will terminate in Miss Starr's own 



bindery, to which will be added a printing 
shop. The history of textiles will correlate 
with the Hull House sewing, dressmaking and 
embroidery classes. 

The grains will lead up to the Hull House 
bakery and cooking classes. A small blast 
furnace and forge will make possible a shop 
for metal work. 

As four Hull House shops already exist, not 
merely for the sake of teaching, but primarily 
for the sake of producing, and include the ac- 
tivities of many people beside the Directors, 
so the shops will be enlarged upon these lines, 
and the historic background will be pre- 
sented thro the people of the vicinity, whose 
training represents more primitive methods. 
These primitive methods in turn will be traced 
to the factories of the neighborhood, and the 
enlarged and developed tools rediscovered 
there, i. e. copper in the Western Electric, 
wood in the Box Factory, bread in the Brem- 
ner Bakery, textiles in the sweat shops, rug 
weaving, etc. 

In illustration of the educational method in 
mind the first outlines of the departments of 
Metals and Textiles may be cited to show how 
it is hoped to correlate general history and lit- 
erature with industrial processes. 
METALS. 

Maps of lakes and surrounding regions as 
known to the Indians. Indian methods of 
working copper compared with those of the 
mound builders. Maps of North America and 
the world, showing copper regions. Early dis- 
coveries of the lake regions French explor- 
ers. Complete maps of the routes of Conti, La 
Salle, Marquette, and Joliet, including the 
Mississippi valley. Establishment of Fort 
Dearborn. 

Methods of mining copper employed by the 
first white man. Nationality of early emigrants 
and settlements which followed. Methods of 
transportation. Population of Chicago during 
this period. Map .showing the development of 
the copper industry. 

Specimens of crude ore actual presentation 
of the processes. The ore submitted to a small 
blast furnace, smelted, rolled into sheet, 



4 [20] 



THE COMMONS. 



[June, 



shaped, annealed, etc. Maps showing districts 
in which metal has been discovered and 
worked. History of metal working and the 
effects of this craft upon civilization. Com- 
munities based upon metal industries. 

Outline of Phoenician history as affected by 
metals, leading to explorations. Etruscans 
and their development of metals on the artistic 
Bide. Specimens of bronze coins, collections 
of copper and bronze ornaments and house- 
hold utensils. 

Medieval workers in metals, guilds, crafts- 
men and artists, such as Cellini. Product of 
guild spirit. Nurenberg. Peter Vischer. 

Improvement of trade routes causing in- 
crease of trade. Workers become more scat- 
tered. Keunited under exploiting methods. 
Black country of England. Women and chil- 
dren used in mines, also for work at smithies 
and forges. Slow reform through labor legis- 
lation. Emergence from this state. Trades 
unions of metal workers in England and 
America. Pictures of modern mines and con- 
ditions of life in mining settlements. 
Legends connected with metal workers: 

The Nibelungen Lied and St. Dunstan. 

In music Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith, 
or Wagner's Siegfried. 

In sculpture Giotto's Tower. Music repre- 
sented by a blacksmith striking metal on an 
anvil. 

TEXTILES. 

Gradual development and preparation. Spin- 
ning and weaving of animal and vegetable 
fibres; soil and general climatic conditions 
necessary for their cultivation; effect of textile 
industries upon social organization. 

Earliest weaving of branches and woody 
fibres in making of baskets, mats for sides of 
huts, etc. Method of lining baskets with clay 
and afterwards burning away the basket, lead- 
ing to development of pottery and its earliest 
decorations, from impressions of baskets left. 
Use of various fibres in Pacific islands. 

History and development of wool, linen and 
silk industries. 

Woo!. Map showing early wool-raising sec- 
tions and general character of wool-raising 
countries. 

Earliest wool-raising on grassy slopes and 
plains, first hand spinning rough distaff and 
spindle, primitive looms, first crude scouring 
and dyeing, suggested reproduction of the 
processes and a comparison of the methods 
still employed by primitive peoples, such as 
the Navajo Indians, etc. 

The effect of pastoral life, both in its nomad 
and more settled forms upon primitive culture; 



illustrated by pictures and related literature. 
Early Greek and Hebrew development taken as 
examples. 

Medieval wool culture the flocks of Spain 
and of England, the invention of the spinning 
wheel, the development of looms, the domestic 
system, the growth of organization among the 
weavers, traced to modern times. 

Effect of the eighteenth century industrial 
revolution in England upon the weavers; first 
application of steam power to textile industry; 
the weavers hastily gather in large towns and 
factories; children prematurely put to work; 
persistence of many of the weavers in their 
homes, until driven out by starvation. Simi- 
lar conditions now in the first application of 
steam sewing, much the same persistence 
among the "home workers" who sew in their 
own houses. 

Linen. Map showing early districts. Culti- 
vation of flax along the banks of the Nile. 
Early Egyptian pictures of flax spinning with 
distaff. 

Medieval flax culture. American colonial 
period specially emphasized, with its spinning 
wheels, processes of bleaching and dyeing, 
looms and embroideries. 

Modern preparation of flar in Belgium, the 
outdoor retting in the river Lys, invention of 
retting tanks, controlling conditions. Irish 
culture and manufacture. Belgian and Irish 
lace-making and embroideries. Revival in 
Ireland of cottage industries. 

.Relation of the Hull House embroidery 
classes and the weaving and spinning of the 
Italian women in the neighborhood to general 
textile industries. 

Silk. Earliest silk culture in the Orient. 
Silk trade of merchant caravans between India 
and southern Europe. Kelation of silk carry- 
ing trade to discovery of America. Successful 
introduction and cultivation of silk worms in 
southern Europe. 

Chinese and French silk manufactures and 
embroideries. 

Literature in relation to textile industries. 
Proverbs Penelope. In music Pastoral songs 
and symphonies. 



A SONG OF LABOR. 



r.v jiou.u K SPRNCKB FISKE. 



A song for the builders of beauty. 

The rearers of temple and spire; 
A song to the strung men of duty 

Who shape the world's future In ftre. 

Sine, sing to the women, the mothers, 
The weavers of life and of fate; 

The sisters who toil for the brothers, 
And open to hope the white gate. 

A song to the brain that devises, 
And bends nature's will into law: 

A song to the brain that suffices 
Its purpose from many to draw. 

Sing, sing to the thinkers and hewers, 
To brothers of brain and of brawn ; 

A song to the world's mighty doers 
Who work for a hastening dawn. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[21] 5 



HULL HOUSE BOOKBINDERY. 

So many questions are asked about Miss 
Ellen G. Starr's Bookbindery at Hull House that 
she has printed a "Note of Explanation" 
accompanying the last issue of the Hull House 
Bulletin, which we republisli because it bears 
so vitally upon the educational problem of the 
settlements to which this issue of THE COM- 
MONS is BO largely devoted. Miss Starr and 
her pupils have transferred their shop for the 
summer to a cottage at Lake Bluff. 

A NOTE OF EXPLANATION. 

People wonder, I suppose, why a resident of 
Hull House chose to bind books and what con- 
nection it has with the work or life of the 
House. I shall try to make this personal 
explanation as simply as possible. 

Before I came to Hull House to live, and for 
sojne time afterward, I used to have classes and 
give lectures on the history of art. I partly 
earned my living in this way and partly did it 
for the pleasure of it. I used to enjoy inter- 
preting to others, as far as I was able, the 
beautiful things which have been made in the 
past, and to think it did good. But after a 
time, living amidst a great deal that is ugly 
and ill-made in the present, and feeling how- 
many people are forced to do so, even more 
than I, it began to seem to me not enough to 
talk about and explain beautiful and well-made 
things which have been done long ago. I 
began to feel that instead of talking, it would 
be a great deal better to make something 
myself, ever so little, thoroughly well, and 
beautiful of its kind. The influence of any- 
thing I could make would, to be sure, be very 
small, as I had no special talent for anything. 
But then, suppose that all the people who had 
no genius, in the ages when the most beautiful 
buildings, carving, books, silver and gold- 
smith's work, etc., was done, had fallen to talk- 
ing about the work of past ages, and refused to 
do any work themselves, how much less we 
should have now to talk about or to enjoy. 

Another thing' I used to reflect upon was this : 
All modern life has been tending to separate 
the work of the mind and the work of the 
hands. One set of people work with their 
heads but produce nothing whatever with their 
hands. Another vast body work with their 
hands at very mechanical and uninteresting 
work, which does not in any way engage or 
develop the mind in its higher faculties. 
Both sets of people are living partial lives, not 
using all the powers God gave us, who certainly 
did not make half humanity with hands alone, 
and the other with only minds. To account 



for this tendency would require much space 
and much cleverness - more than I have. Suf- 
fice it to say that I believe it to be a wrong one, 
and that I do not think it necessary to submit 
to it. So then it became necessary for me, if I 
were to act as I believed, to learn to make 
something worth making, and to do it as thor- 
oughly well as I was able. I thought of various 
things, and selected books, being interested in 
them from several points of view. I went to 
the man who, in my judgment, does the most 
beautiful bookbinding in ttie world at this 
time, was so fortunate as to be received as his 
pupil, and worked under him* for fifteen 
months, six hours or more every day, excepting 
a half holiday on Saturday. It is no light mat- 
ter to learn a craft thoroughly, and if it is not 
thoroughly learned it does more harm than 
good. I promised my master that I would not 
teach or sell my work until he thought I 
might rightly do so. This was only sensible, 
since I had undertaken to set an example of 
good workmanship, in so far as I was able, and 
to produce something of a kind worth making. 
I had thought, when I formed the intention 
of learning a craft, that I should teach it here 
at Hull House on the basis of the extension 
classes and the manual training, I have not 
been able to do this for several reasons : the 
implements and material are expensive ; the 
time required to accomplish anything is too 
long for those who only give an evening or two 
or three evenings a week, and the amount of 
personal attention required by beginners pre- 
cludes the possibility of anything but a small 
class. I still hope to be able to instruct, thor- 
oughly, a few who care to undertake the work 
in earnest, if there be any such, and who can 
arrange to give the necessary time. Mean- 
while I earn my living, not by talking about 
other people's work- that 1 still do for pleasure 
but by binding and ornamenting a few books 
as well as I can do it, and by teaching three 
private pupils as well as I can teach them. I 
cannot take a pupil for less than a year, nor 
more than three pupils at a time, tho more 
would like to learn. Indeed, the number of 
people who ask to be instructed shows that 
there is much thought of this question of 
learning to work with the hands, and seems to 
me a very good sign. It takes me a long time, 
sometimes two or three weeks, to bind a book 
as I have been taught to do it. Naturally, I 
only bind books which seem to me worthy to 
last. They are necessarily very expensive, and 
the people who most deserve to have choice 
books, choicely bound, cannot always or 



*Mr. Colxleri-Sanclerson. in London. 



[22] 



THE COMMONS. 



[June, 



usually have them. That is to be regretted, 
but it is not the main question in doing any 
piece of work. The chief question is whether 
the piece of work itself is worth doing. Nobody 
cares very much for whom a guildsman of the 
middle ages did a bit of carving or smith's 
work, or for whom one of the Venetian binders 
bound a book. One sees these things in a 
museum and learns from each the lesson of its 
perfection in its degree and after its kind. 

Please do not think that this means that I 
believe my modest little books will be put into 
museums for future ages to wonder at. It only 
means that whatever good any handiwork of 
today can do must be done by showing forth 
the same pleasure in the well-doing of it 
which makes these things give pleasure to us 
now. ELLEN G. STAKE. 



LITERATURE OF INTEREST TO SOCIAL 
WORKERS. 



Mr. A. Konchin of Moscow, a university man 
of high social intelligence and spirit, is about 
to edit a weekly journal, aimed " to relate the 
events and occasions which evince the growth 
of international unity, universal brotherhood, 
and humau equality." Among the friends who 
are joining in this effort are Serge Tolstoy. 

Among recent publications of special social 
significance we note " The Regeneration of 
Rural Iowa," by N. H. Weeks, formerly of Chi- 
cago Commons, in the Outlook for June y, giv- 
ing account of a practical application of Rolin 
Lsynde Hartt's suggestions on the " Regenera- 
tion of Rural New England;" C. Handford 
Henderson's article in the May Atlantic Monthly 
on " The Experimental Life; " Miss Jane H. 
Findlater's estimate in the National Review for 
May of "The Slum Movement in Fiction;" 
The Edinburgh Review article on " Fiction and 
Philanthropy" in the April number; Horace 
Spencer Fiske's " The Ballad of Manila Bay 
and Other Verses " (the University of Chicago 
Press), contains some ringing verses on the 
common life, especially as he has lived in 
Chicago; Prof. Henry Van Dyke sings of the 
gospel of labor in "The Toiling of Felix" 
(Ohas. Scribners' Sons); "A Country Without 
Strikes," by Henry D. Lloyd (Doubleday, Page 
& Co.); " History and Functions of Central 
Labor Unions," by William Maxwell Burke, 
Ph.D., (Macmillan Co.); and " The Labor An- 
nual and Reformers' Year-Book for 1900," by 
Joseph Edwards (New York, Leonard D. Ab- 
bott, 336 W. Seventy-first street), are timely 
reading at most centers of the disturbed indus- 
trial life in America. 



* 

* a 



<Tommon0 






- All the arrangements have been satisfac- 
torily made with the Northwestern University 
Settlement to supply our neighborhood with 
sterilized milk. The poor mothers who need 
it to save the lives of their infant children can 
pay no more than the cost of the milk. We 
need help at once to pay for toe bottles, the expert 
labor involved and the advertising, and, when 
the trade starts up, to purchase the additional 
sterilizer that will be needed. All told, this 
merciful work will cost but $100. 

- .Our Outing work has begun early this 
summer. Many happy parties of children and 
mothers have been sent for to come to the 
suburbs. A business man telephoned for three 

.children to accompany him on "a trip of three 
or four hours in the country." An Evanston 
mother sends for " seven neediest children to 
celebrate a seventh birthday of her little boy." 
A suburban school teacher and her scholars 
gave our whole kindergarten a charming day 
in their little town. And so the sweet reci- 
procities go on under summer skies. 

Our Camp Good Will will be pitched 
again at Elgin this month, under the charge of 
Mr. Henry F. Burt. The garden is growing, as 
is the interest of the Sunday-schools of Elgin 
and many other good folks in that hospitable 
town. The transformation of our side and 
rear yard into a playground is partly assured 
by the first few gifts toward its equipment. 
The sand-pile is the first to arrive but we need 
$100 in "cool" cash thoroughly to equip and man- 
age the grounds for the five months' play of 
hundreds of our little folks. Who will help 
lend them this heart and hand ? 

- In the prospectof an early resumption of 
work upon our new building, we appeal for the 
co-operation of our friends in raising the $3, 500 
still needed to complete the interior of the 
two upper floors of the wing, which can be fin- 
ished and ready for occupancy in September, 
if we are not further delayed by the lack of 
this small balance. Meanwhile, we are still 
struggling, only with partial success, to pre- 
vent the deficit of $800 in current accounts 
from growing to still more embarrassing pro- 
portions. To wipe it out and maintain the 
whole settlement work to the first of October, 
including the entire expense of the Camp for 
boys and girls at Elgin and shorter outings for 
hundreds of others, we need $2,200. 



Weeks-Coggswell. At Chicago Commons, 
June 20, by Prof. Graham Taylor, the Rev. 
Nathan H. Weeks of Fairport, Iowa, and Miss 
Alice B. Coggswell of Butler, Ind. Congratu- 
lations to our fellow residents upon their years 
of social service with us and upon their happy 
prospects in their rural settlement home in 
Fairport, Iowa! Their wedding bells were the 
first to ring within our settlement homestead. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



1 2:5 1 7 



THE COMMONS. 

H flDontbls 1Recor.o E>cvot!> to aspects of life ano labor 
from tbe Social Settlement point of View. 



(IKAIIAM TAYLOR, 



EDITOR, 



I'nblishPcl monthly from Cmr.UiO COMMONS, a Social 
Settlement at 140 North Union Street. C'lilca^o, III. 



For particulars as to rates, terms or advertising, etc. 
see " Publisher's Corner " on last page. 



EDITORIAL. 



THE salutation of our residents and of many 
readers of THE COMMONS are extended to 
our former associates, Mr. and Mrs. John P. 
Gavit, as they enter upon their new work and 
home life among the employes of the Westing- 
house Air-Brake Company at Wilmerding, Pa. 



THE hope of bringing the contractors and 
unions in the Building Trades of Chicago 
face to face for the settlement of the disastrous 
lockout -was realized in the conference between 
them, which is still pending as we go to press. 
It opened ill a conciliatory spirit with good 
prospect of leading to the elimination of the 
sympathetic strike and the reorganization of 
the Building Trades Council. We cannot 
believe that the contractors will imperil the 
immediate accomplishment of these gfeat gains 
by insisting upon the only point now at issue, 
viz.: the denial of the unions' right to affiliate 
in a central body of any kind, however unlike 
the Building Trades Council, against which 
they have many just grievances. We hope to 
give the pact of peace in our next issue. 



NO MORE puzzling problem than that of 
adult education confronts the settlement 
and those in every community, who are trying 
to promote the social progress of our American 
democracy. It is not more certain that a de- 
mand for it exists than that the persistent 
offer of the supply is often required to create 
the demand. To co-ordinate the teaching 
with the toil, the learning with the actual life 
is really the test of success in every attempted 
solution. 

The highly original and suggestive contribu- 
tions to the practical literature of this subject 
more than warrants the devotion of most of our 
limited space to them in this issue of THE 
COMMONS. Not only our regular readers, but 
many more interested in the popular advance- 
ment of education will file these articles for 
reference, with many thanks to the writers, 



and will watch with eager anticipation the 
progress of this educational experimentation 
at Hull House, which, most of all American 
settlements, is proving itself to be an odupa- 
tional center of scientific significance and of 
the greatest practical value. THB COMMONS 
deeply appreciates the privilege, generously 
afforded it, of rendering a public service by 
publishing what we regard to be an original 
contribution to the literature of popular edu- 
cation. In our next issue Mr. Charles Sprague 
will give an interesting description of the very 
different, but highly successful educational 
work of the People's Institute in New York 
city. 

The settlements are again honored in the 
choice of Miss Jane Addams, not only as oue 
of the American judges of award at the Paris 
Exposition, but also as the only woman of any 
nationality elected to be vice-president of a 
"Class Jury." She thus becomes a member of 
a group jury, and is eligible to appointment to 
the Superior Jury. The Record's statf corre- 
spondent reports the Frenchmen to have kept 
repeating: "But she is a woman, and it never 
will do to have a woman in a group jury. 
That is unheard of." For all the clamor, how- 
ever, Dr. Gore remained firm, in spite of all 
the inducements held out to him not to press 
the matter. " We really can't do this," said 
the eiposition authorities. " We are ready to 
let the honor go to another American a man. 
We would even give America the vice-presi- 
dency of still another great class, but really it 
would be impossible to have a woman serving 
on a superior jury." 

Finally, however, the French weakened, and 
they were the first to congratulate Miss Addams. 



The Death of Mrs. A. P. Stevens, j* j* j* 

Not only Hull House, but all the Chicago 
settlements, and the Woman's clubs in this and 
other cities, the Typographical Union here, 
and the Woman's Trades Unions everywhere, 
the juvenile court, and the hundreds of fami- 
lies for whose delinquent children she has 
stood so wisely and so well all these and 
many more besides, are in mourning for Mrs. 
Stevens. 

It is left to another's true and tender touch 
to characterize her personal and public worth 
in a later issue of this paper. For ourselves 
we can only thus intimate the homage we 
share with all for her " heroism in common 
life " which, in commenting on her removal, 
one of Chicago's great dailies affirms "is at 
least comparable in fineness and value to that 
which characterizes the field of war, tho it is 
sometimes mistakenly lamented as not to be 
realized under conditions of peace." In the 
phrase of Kobert Louis Stevenson's prayer, 
" folk of many families and nations gathered 
together in the peace of this roof " by their 
silent, sorrowful presences, filling and over- 
flowing the spacious halls of Hull House, paid 
their most impressive tribute to a noble life 
and the works that follow. 



8 [24] 



THE COMMONS. 



[June, 1900.J 



OUR KINDERGARTEN COMMENCEMENT. 



With a veritable festival of flowers, song, 
speech, and fellowship, the " Pestalozzi Froe- 
bel Kindergarten Training School" at Chicago 
Commons has closed its third year, graduating 
a class of eight, thus enrolling twenty-two 
Alumnee. Col. F. W. Parker of Chicago Insti- 
tute, spoke as he only can to as many as could 
be crowded into our kindergarten hall, on 
" The Letter Which Killeth and the Spirit 
Which Maketh Alive" in education. His plea 
was for faith in the possibilities of human 
growth; in God as the supply for human demand 
who helps all those who would be helpful; in 
teaching as the mediation between divine help, 
fulness and human needs, and in method only 
as the way personality takes to work out one's 
own ideals. Prof. Taylor charged the gradu- 
ates to be " interpreters of child-life " to 
parents, and to the people, for the unity and 
development of family and community life. 
Mrs. Hegner's farewell words to her devoted 
pupil-friends bade them to cling to their set- 
tlement ideals of service and live the life of 
the spirit. The exhibition of "occupation" 
handiwork was most creditable. Inquiries for 
next year are coming in earlier and more 
numerously than ever. 

FOURTH YEAS OPENS OCTOBER 2d, 1900 

PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons, 

J40 N. UNION STREET, Chicago. 



Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice, including Home-making with Emphasis upon 
Industrial and Social Development and opportunity 
for Personal Contact with Settlement Work. Six In- 
structors in Theory, Gifts and Mother Play. Psy- 
chology and History of Education; Music and 
Physical Culture; Drawing, Color Work and Design; 
Occupations and Games; Nature Study; Home-making 
and Social Ideals and Methods in Education. Two 
years' practice in Morning Kindergartens at Settlements 
and elsewhere. Elective Courses for Teachers in 
Graduate Work. 

For requirements and further information address. 

BERTHA HOFER-HEGNER, 

363 N. Winchester Avenue, CHICAGO. 



MONON ROUTE 



The MONON ROUTE offers a choice 
of a dozen different routes to the N. E. A. 
Convention at Charleston, S. C, July 7-J3, 
good returning to July 10, for one fare for 
the round trip, plus membership fee of $2.00. 
This offers a fine opportunity for a delight- 
ful trip through the picturesque and historic 
Alpine region of the South. Tourists may 
return, if desired, via Washington, D. C. 

Address, SIDNEY B. JONES, 

City Pass. Agt. Monon Route, 

232 S. Clark St., CHICAGO. 



One fare to Cincinnati and return via 
Mo ion Route, for the B. Y. P. U. Con- 
vention, July J2-J5. Four trains daily. 
City ticket office, 232 S. Clark St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology 

A syllabul of lectures on the social teachings of Hie Bible. 
BY GKABAM TAYLOR. 

Printed for use in the class-room. A limited number can be 
obtained for Fifty Cents of THE COMMONS. 

be Cburcb in Social IReforms, 

BY GKABAM TAYLOR. 

An Address and Discussion at the International Congrega- 
tional Council in Boston, 1899. 25c per copy. 

THE COMMONS 



GRAHAM TAYLOR, 



KlUTOIi. 



Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social 
Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 



SUBSCRIPTION PRICE 

Fifty cents a year. (Two shillings, English; 2.50 francs 
French foreign stamps accepted.) 

Postpaid to any State or Country. 

Six copies to one address for $2.50. 

Send check, draft, P. O. money order, cash or stamps, 
not abm'e i-cent denomination* AT OUR RISK. 

Renewals In accordance with custom, and the ex- 
pressed wish of many subscribers, we continue THE COM- 
MONS to each address until notified to the contrary. 

Changes of Address Please notify the publishers 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to receive 
th paper within a reasonable interval after it is due. 

Advertisements First-class advertisements desired 
at reasonable rates, which will be furnished upon applica- 
tion. 



THE COMMONS 

ontbl -Rccorfc Devotes to Hapecte of Xlfe ano Sabot fvom the Social Settlement point of Wlew. 



Whole Number 48. 



CHICAGO. 



15 JULY, J9CO. 



THE THREE WORLD-SEASONS. 



The WINTKK season of the world has gone, 
Those arctic ages when tin- tro/.en brain 
I.i't no gray atom melt and How to thought; 
When every hidden root lay cold and dxrk. 
I llCODSCiOUS of Its life, beneath I lie snow; 
When every seed, with summer instincts, slept 
And shuddered in its v|,., T , : ,,id dreamed of leaves; 
When every tlirob of life was sternly cheeked 
I'.y chill Repression, procuress to Death. 

i-Ki MiTi.Mi-; season of the world Is here, 

laysot strife :ind turbulence, 
\\ hen blows the March wind in rebellious glee. 
They who love peace must seek a younger star; 
I Icr'c all things clash, and break and change and grow; 
The snowdrifts melt Into one common stream. 
Until the sn ift Hood hurls the Ice ashore. 
The glacier slips and floats to warmer seas: 
The white grass struggles underneath the stone. 

The srMMKi: season of the world shall come, 
That final ago of verdure, bloom, and fruit, 
( n which the rivers lisped and robins sang; 
When every acorn bursts into the oak 
Of its ideal', and clasps the genial soil; 
When every seed beneath the kindly sun 
I'nfolds the fulness of its inner self; 
When winter's frost and springtime's broil are past, 
And all the purpose of the year made plain. 
Herbert ff. Castmn in Sofiali.it 



list lifvtew. 



THE MORALS OF THE CROWD. 



1!Y EDWIN BURBITT SMITH. 



Degrees of goodness and badness relate to 
noral standard. That standard for us is Chris- 
;ian. It has long been fairly realized by indi- 
viduals acting for themselves. It has rarely 
been approached by crowds. A high sense of 
honor is common among men. It can as yet 
scarcely be said to exist in the crowd. Indeed 
if the crowd is not unmoral, its morals are still 
rudimentary. * * * 

INDIVIDUAL VERSUS CORPORATE MORALITY. 

The distinction between the individual as 
a responsible being and the crowd as an irre- 
sponsible aggregation, the one as a moral 
creature and the other an unmoral thing, 
throws a flood of light upon some events of our 
time. It explains why men do in crowds what 
none of them would do alone, why associ- 
ated producers demand as a right to share with 
the state the power of taxation, why corpora- 
tions and trades unions so easily become crimi- 
nal conspiracies, why combinations of capital 
purchase legislation to foster special privilege, 
why Christian nations wage wars of aggression 
against the weak. 



ETHICAL PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY. 

The individual in the great matter of morals 
is far in advance of the crowd. * . * * This 
view of the rudimentary character of the 
morals of the crowd may seem unduly dis- 
couraging. It is not so. "When the crowd was 
under authority, its morals were immaterial. 
The question was upon the morals of him who 
had the authority over it. The average results 
were not satisfactory. The king, demoralized 
by power, was too seldom himself under an 
effective moral restraint. It is the method of 
democracy to reject authority and appeal to the 
people. The task is to bring the crowd to the 
plane of moral responsibility. This task is 
more difficult than that of the past. The 
response of free men is more difficult to win 
than was that of men who blindly obeyed 
authority. That response when obtained will 
rest on a broad and safe base, the moral char- 
acter of a free and Christian people. 

The way of progress is the regeneration of 
the crowd. This adds enormously to the func- 
tion of the preacher. The time was when his 
vision embraced only individuals; when he was 
happy if he might snatch some as brands from 
the burning. In the days that are to come he 
will not preach less to individual men ; he will 
preach more to the crowd. Its own conduct, 
as well as that of its units, must conform to 
moral standards. 

SOCIAL ACTION NECESSAHY TO INDIVIDUAL 
MORALITY. 

The tendency is not to isolate individual 
action. A crowd we are, and a crowd we shall 
remain. Democracy means government by the 
crowd and the largest liberty of voluntary com- 
bination of its units into lesser groups within 
the greater. Nothing short of the complete 
regeneration of the crowd can be the goal of 
social evolution. This view should not cause 
us to despair or render us impatient. God 
works and waits. Time is a prime factor in His 
processes. Signs multiply that the crowd is 
becoming conscious of the existence of a moral 
law. In time it will accept and act upon it. 

The man who would raise the morals of the 



2 1 261 



THE COMMONS. 



[July, 



crowd must sternly decline to participate in its 
immoral action, even when that action is pro- 
fessedly lor moral ends. He must persist in 
refusing to share in its illicit gains. The citi- 
zen who would effectively contribute to 
national morality must refuse to seal with his 
approval the immoral use of the public 
authority to accomplish whatever professed 
ends. Indeed, the need of the hour is to with- 
draw men's gaze from the professed purposes 
of false leaders of the crowd to a sharp scrutiny 
of its every step. When each step taken is 
moral, the journey will end on the high plane 
of moral achievements. 

He who would preserve individual morality 
must strive for the regeneration of the crowd. 
He must resist its intolerance of criticism, and 
always and everywhere insist upon the indi- 
vidual liberty of its members. 

ONE MORAL STANDARD. 

The wrong- doing of the nation, the corpora- 
tion, the trades-union, the crowd, is to-day a 
mighty menace to morals among us. Theneed of 
our time is the great awakening of the crowd to 
moral action. This is prerequisite to furthest 
progress in individual morality. If the citizens 
are to observe moral laws, the nation, which is 
after all but an expression of their ideals, must 
not be immoral. Morals spring from the rela- 
tions of men in society. What is true of one, 
or of two acting together, in relation to others, 
is true of the nation. There is but one moral 
law. It is of like obligation upon the crowd 
and its units. 



THE PEOPLE'S INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK. 



BY CHARLES SPRAGUE. 



The People's Institute of New York city was 
incorporated in June, 1897, and began its edu- 
cational work in March of the following year, 
offering a course of ten weekly addresses on 
the comparative study of democracies, four 
discussions of the important problems con- 
fronting our own democracy. 

During the year just closing the Institute 
has given some 275 evenings of instruction. 
Its audiences, composed almost entirely of 
workingmen, have aggregated 125,000. Many 
of the ablest representatives of the professions 
and of active life have appeared ,on its plat- 
form. It enjoys the full confidence of the 
working people as well as of the other classes 
of the community. 

The Institute Club, recently founded, is in- 
tended to be the first of a series of self-sup- 
porting and self-governing clubs. When the 



Institute was organized adult wage-earner 
lacked opportunities of ordered instruction ii 
those branches of knowledge which bes 
qualify the individual to meet his civic re 
sponsibilities. 

No platform nor existing educational bod; 
could suitably meet that demand. The cit; 
colleges represented, in the opinion of th 
workingmen, for the most part the spirit am 
ideals of a section of society, the men who oc 
cupied the chairs of instruction being usuall; 
without understanding of or sympathy wit! 
the people. 

The Board of Education, being under politi 
cal control, its platform could not permit ful 
liberty of speech. 

The organizers of this Institute called int< 
council representatives of all sections. Thi 
advisory council and the board of trustee; 
have had, from the first, representatives o 
labor side by side with men eminent in educa 
tion and finance. 

The Institute is strictly non-partisan. Edu 
cationally, the chief emphasis is laid upoi 
history, social science, and ethics, tho the fine 
arts, literature, and natural science are no 
neglected. Its educational system recognizes 
the unity of human experience, all historief 
and literatures being part records of one anc 
the same people, and each of chief value as 
contributing to the understanding of ourselves 
and the laws of our development. 

Socially, the Institute proclaims no theories 
at the same time it accepts the brotherhood ol 
man as the only basis upo n which society cai] 
be either righteously or firmly ordered. Ab- 
solute freedom of thought and speech obtains 
on its platform and in its audience, limited 
only by mutual respect. The Institute, how- 
ever, has no place for the demagogue, the 
shallow or insincere student, or the preacher 
of revolution. All who enter its meetings are 
impressed by the spirit of brotherhood, unit- 
ing men and women of every political and 
religious creed. Its influence is permeating 
the entire life of the city. 

A WEEK AT THE INSTITUTE. 

The record of one week will give a clearer 
presentation of what the Institute is doing. 

It is Sunday evening. The old Cooper Union 
is nearly filled. There are few women in the 
audience numbering 1,500 (not more than one in 
twenty-five), and few persons who are not wage- 
earners. All sections of the social movement, 
and all religious creeds are represented. The 
exercises open with a violin solo by one of the 
city's most talented musicians. He is enthusi- 
astically recalled. 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[27] 3 



While announcements are being made tlie 
baskets are passed round and the weekly col- 
lection taken. Then one of the leading clergy- 
men of the city speaks, taking care to avoid 
sectarian affirmations. Music follows, and 
then from one-half to three-quarters of an 
hour, sometimes an hour, is given to free ques- 
tion and discussion. The questions show 
close thought and eager desire to learn, are 
rarely trivial, often keen and searching. A 
good answer is the signal for hearty applause. 
The questions ended, and the audience dis- 
missed, groups gather outside the hall to 
discuss further the points raised. Meanwhile 
the speaker of the evening goes to the club and 
there meets its members, on a social footing. 
The same scenes repeat themselves every 
evening in the week, save that the audiences 
vary in size, and there is music on Sunday 
only. 

Monday has been devoted, during this last 
year, to the history of the United States since 
1776; Tuesday to a supplementary course on 
general history given in a smaller hall; Wednes- 
day to literature, and Saturday to ethics and 
sociology. 

The Friday evening work is notable, for then 
the questions of the day are discussed, some- 
times by one speaker, at other times by a 
group. Mayor Jones, Mayor Quincy, Governor 
Pingree, Booker Washington, and many of the 
leading men of New York and vicinity have 
taken pa'rt in these debates. This Friday 
forum of the Institute is recognized as the 
place where active, earnest men of the city 
and country can meet the people both to in- 
struct and be instructed. During the past 
year five evenings of one week were devoted to 
the discussion of trusts, drawing audiences 
that numbered about 7,000. Kailroad presi- 
dents, trust lawyers, college professors, clergy- 
men, and labor leaders took part in the debates. 

Thursday evening is reserved for the club, 
and is devoted to an address, discussion or en- 
tainment. Dancing is in order on Saturday 
evenings and after every monthly entertain- 
ment. 

All persons of good character and repute, 
above the age of 18, are eligible for member- 
ship. Applicants unknown to members must 
furnish references. The dues are 25 cents a 
month. 

A club for deaf mutes is projected for the 
near future. An interpreter in the sign lan- 
guage will be on the platform at the public 
addresses in the Cooper Union, and a place 
will be reserved in the hall for the club mem- 
bers. 



The latest experiment of the Institute has 
been Sunday afternoon excursions, under 
suitable guidance, to places of historic inter- 
est, following class instruction in the history 
and government of the city of New York. The 
success of this attempt has decided the board 
of trustees to add next year visits to the 
museums^and scientific outings. 

Thus, as its resources and opportunities per- 
mit, the Institute is striving to remove class 
misunderstanding, and to unite all in the 
effort to purify and humanize our democracy. 
It is helping, also, to enrich and gladden the 
lives of the working men and women of New 
York. 

CHICAGO LOCKOUT EVENTS. 

No personal communication had been held 
between the parties at issue from April 30, 
when the Contractors' Council issued its " ulti- 
matum," until June 4, when it consented to 
meet representatives of the building trades 
who were not delegates to their central coun- 
cil. The unions conceded this proviso, altho 
the contractors were represented by the. execu- 
tive officers of their central council. When, 
therefore, the fifth month of the lockout opened 
with the principals to the long controversy 
face to face in conciliatory mood, the beginning 
of the end was hailed by most of the working- 
men, by some of tbe contractors and by the 
public. All propositions for the mediation of 
third parties were held in abeyance, and every 
effort to arbitrate gladly made way for the 
shorter and more satisfactory cut to a perma- 
nent solution afforded by the conference of con- 
ciliation. The contractors at the session of 
this conference, June 12, only explained and 
reiterated their " ultimatum." The representa- 
tives of the unions at the next session, June 19, 
brought in a counter proposition, wholly con- 
ceding many of the contractors' demands and 
partially meeting others by greatly restricting 
the power of the walking delegate and elimi- 
nating the use of the sympathetic strike, except 
as a last resort, when the arbitration, fully pro- 
vided for and strongly urged, might fail. These 
concessions were not accepted by the contrac- 
tors as sufficient, who on June 25 issued their 
final decision << unqualifiedly " reiterating their 
determination to enter into working agreement 
with any union only when it withdraws from 
the Building Trades Council. This entire 
abandonment of a central council the labor con- 
ferees declared their unions could not consent 
to, and as a last hope for the conciliation pro- 
posed the reference of the points still at issue 
to a joint conference of one representative from 
each side in every trade involved. Upon the 
failure of the contractors to accede to this, the 
conference delegates of the unions adjourned 
sine die June 26, after issuing an address to the 
public disclaiming responsibility for the failure 
of the effort to conciliate the difficulty and wel- 
coming " an impartial, honest investigation of 
the proceedings of this conference." 



4 [28] 



THE COMMONS. 



[July, 



Cburcb Social flDovements. 



Social Work in a Small City. < ^ 

A PASTOR of a family church in a small, 
town-like city thus describes the social 
development of his ministry: " There was a 
demand put upon me by the boys and young 
men for a gymnasium, which became a great 
success. Classes in French and Science were 
formed by the young people, the result being 
that those who were not members of the church 
were thus led into its communion. There was 
a demand for a kindergarten, and we success- 
fully carried out a summer school. The young 
boys had organized a military company, and 
from the war spirit we were able to turn their 
minds to civics and the arts of peace by secur- 
ing models from the Patent Office and patterns 
from the wood-working department of the State 
Technical School for their study. 



"I AM convinced that idleness is one of the 
worst foes to the church, and believe that as 
churches we have a duty to perform in the way 
of aiding in the establishment of industries for 
the employment of those whose lives are wast- 
ing for the lack of something to do. Our small 
towns are dreadful in their waste of the best 
energies of young men. The carelessness of 
the community in regard to this problem is 
dreadful. Two industries for the employment 
of the boys and men were started and today are 
successful. Our boys' clubs caused waste- paper 
boxes to be placed on the street cornets, for 
which the city at last paid us, with a vote of 
thanks besides. We put a gang of boys to 
work on sweeping streets, until the city be- 
came ashamed of their neglect and purchased 
a street sweeper, and again we were rewarded 
by the most kindly expression from the coun- 
cil, and our outlay in the way of tools and 
expense was provided for. We also organized 
prayer meetings in different parts of the city, 
which in some instances were very successful. 
The business men have always felt very kindly 
to my work because I have an instinct for the 
working world." 

"WE GOT the young men together for the 
purpose of studying social economics, and pre- 
pared a brief catechism, some of the more sig- 
nificant parts of which are as follows : 

'How did the religion of Jesus find you? By 
showing me my need of forgiveness and reveal- 
ing to me the beauty and possibilities of life 
when swayed by His spirit. 



'What is your chief aim now? To do good in 
the spirit of Jesus Christ, my Lord. 

'What are your civic duties? It is the duty 
of every Christian to see that the principle of 
righteousness is embodied in just laws, to see 
that these are justly executed and to foster all 
those agencies of prevention that aim at our 
sane living. 

'What are your social duties? Recognizing 
that all men are brethren, it is the duty of 
every Christian to endeavor to establish a uni- 
versal brotherhood, the Kingdom of God on 
earth, by making our lives conform to the 
principle of love. 

'What are your commercial and industrial 
duties? It is the duty of every man to live by 
his own efforts, to seek to grant the same 
privilege to others, and in all matters of labor 
and exchange to seek to do to others as He 
would have them do to Himself. 

'How do you expect to maintain these profes- 
sions? ny maintaining a sane religious life. 

'How do you expect to maintain this religious 
life? By keeping my pledge. 

'What is your pledge? Relying on God 
Almighty, I promise to do whatever I think He 
would like me to do; to follow Jesus just so far 
as by His grace I am able, and by all means, by 
prayer, by example, and by effort to seek to 
advance the Kingdom of God on earth.' " 



Two closely related volumes of the most 
fundamental and practical importance to both 
the pedagogical and sociological application of 
Christianity are " The Psychology of Religion, 
An Empirical Study of the Growth of Relig- 
ious Consciousness," by Edwin Diller Starbuck, 
Ph.D. (Chas. Scribners' Sons), and "The Spir- 
itual Life, Studies in the Science of Religion," 
by George A. Coe, Ph.D. (Curts A Jenning). 
For both pedagogy and sociology are resolving 
themselves more and more into psychology as 
a last analysis. The Church can hold and in- 
crease her foothold on the earth only by 
returning to the educational work by which 
she lodged Christianity in the heart and life 
of the race. We will present in a later issue 
a comparative view of these volumes. 



The Christian Social Movement has had two 
fine historical interpretations contributed to 
its literature in Prof. Thomas C. Hall's Ely 
Lectures for 1899, " The Social Meaning of 
Modern Religious Movements in England " 
(Chas. Scribners' Sons), and Dean Stubbs' 
" Charles Kingsley and the Christian Social 
Movement" (Herbert S. Stone & Co.). 



" The Relation of Religious Classes to Social 
Regeneration," by the Rev. Gustavus Tucker- 
mann of St. Louis, Mo., published in The Com- 
ing Age for March, 1900, and reprinted by the 
author, from whom it possibly may be ob- 
tained, is well worth the reading of the min 
istry and the membership of the churches. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[29] 5 



THE COMMONS. 

H /Bontbl? tRecoro >evote to aspects of life an labor 
from tbc Social Settlement point of IDfew. 



GRAHAM TAYLOli. 



EDITOR. 



1'iiblished inouthly from CHICACO COMMONS, a Social 
Settlement at no North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., 
see " Publisher's Corner " on last pap 1 . 



EDITORIAL. 

THE broadside on the Social education of 
the industrial democracy in our last issue 
is happily followed up by Mr. Sprague's inter- 
esting account of his successful institute work 
at Cooper Union in New York and in our 
August number will be most valuably supple- 
mented by Prof. Henry W. Thurston's account 
of and comment upon his remarkable inquiry 
at the Chicago Normal School into some 
tendencies of education upon the social status 
of the family. 



WHEN well-meaning people, with an eye to 
social trend, point out that the ever- 
encroaching presence or the Trust is the fore- 
runner of the people's control of production as 
against private control through single corpor- 
ations, keep it in your mind that the purpose 
of the Trust is not primarily to cheapen or 
systematize production, but to limit and pre- 
vent it. Thejnterplay of supply and demand 
still fixes prices, the purpose of the Trust is to 
limit supply in the face of demand, so that 
price can be arbitrarily fixed. And practical 
monopoly does the rest. At the root of all the 
industrial injustice and aggression of our day, 
and of all past days, has been some form of 
monopoly either natural, as when private in- 
dividuals, with consent of government, own the 
exclusive privileges involved, or artificial, as 
when industrial combination for private profit 
"holds up" the people by stifling production, 
throwing out of employment those who should 
be supplying the people's wants, and shutting 
off with artificial contiol of prices, the neces- 
saries of life from those who need them. This 
is the milk in the Trust cocoanut, and the 
people are slowly coming to understand it. 



POLITICAL economy, says one of our 
Japanese exchanges, is the science of ex- 
tracting the honey without alarming the hive. 



WE AKE happy to chronicle very substan- 
tial evidence that Chicago's first Tene- 
ment House Exhibit and Conference on the 
Improvment of Housing Conditions are bear- 
ing early and valuable fruits. The City Homes 
Association, which grew out of that occasion, 
and the long and lonesome preceding effort to 
arouse public sentiment upon this most serious 
and vital problem, has already gathered a 
strong and influential constituency, and has 
gone intelligently and effectively to work. 
Conferences of the agents of the Associated 
Charity Bureaus, the District Visiting Nurses' 
Association, and the settlement workers have 
supplied preliminary surveys of the appalling 
conditions existing well-nigh throughout the 
city. Thoro investigation will follow of one 
or more typical districts as a basis for secur- 
ing private and public action for the destruc- 
tion of houses unfit for dwellings, and the bet- 
terment of housing conditions. The city coun- 
cil has taken most intelligently and admirably 
advised action " Tuat the present situation of 
the city with regard to parks and other recrea- 
tion grounds should be systematically studied, 
so that a consistent plan may be outlined, to 
be followed as opportunity may serve, that the 
public may become informed as to the oppor- 
tunities in this city and the present accom- 
plishment in other cities, and that waste of 
labor and cost in spasmodic, separate and 
unrelated movements, which must of necessity 
be imperfect and insufficient, may be saved." 
To this end the Mayor -was authorized to 
appoint a Special Park Commission, consisting 
of aldermen, a lawyer, a civil engineer, a land- 
scape gardener, a physician or sanitary en- 
gineer, members of the Park Board and six 
others, who "shall prepare recommendations 
for a systematic and concerted plan for the 
satisfaction of such needs by the addition of 
parks or other improvements" in the crowded 
central wards, including "breathing places of 
various sorts, small parks, playgrounds for 
children, swimming pools and public baths, 
parkways and the like." The Mayor's commis- 
sion is in co-operation with the small parks 
committee of the City Homes Association, on 
both of which the editor of THE COMMONS is 
privileged to serve. The building department 
is still proceeding to condemn and demolish 
some of the more intolerable pest-holes. The 
new social consciousness, the birth and growth 
of which are thus betokened, is the most auspi- 
cious sign of social progress on the horizon of 
Chicago. 

"Labor is the house that love dwells in." 
Russian Proverb. 



() [30] 



THE COMMONS. 



[July, 



literature an& ^ ^ ^t 

jt ^ ^ Btblioorapbg f 

f ' ' ' ' 



QUESTION OF MONOPOLY. 



Recent Books which deal with the Scientific Aspects 
of the Matter. 



Prof. Richard T. Ely Analyzes the Trugt from Historic 

ami Economic Points of View Prof. Bemis's 

Work on ' Municipal Monopolies 1 * 



The greatest public question of our time is 
being approached by the mass of the people, as 
a whole, with great intensity of feeling and 
comparatively little knowledge or thought. 
The encroaching tides of economic disaster 
swallow or threaten successively higher classes 
of society and render economic security more 
and more precarious as it becomes more and 
more essential, x and the average man, identify- 
ing the encroachment with the visible forms of 
economic power in the trusts and great mon- 
opolistic corporations, stops neither to analyze 
nor to observe, but prepares to strike at the 
head nearest. It is probably too late for dis- 
passionate study of the trust question. The 
next Presidential campaign in this country, 
under whatever names or with whatever plat- 
forms it may be waged, will in the last analysis 
be a battle for the life of the great industrial 
concentrations of the time. The outcome of 
that battle, whether in peaceful modifications 
of economic organization and relationship, or 
in violent struggles to turn back the progress 
of economic development and restore the former 
private competition, no man is wise enough to 
foresee. 

Whether or not too late for practical effect 
upon the battle, three books recently at hand 
are significant of the trend of attention. 



MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS. By Richard T. Ely. 
New York: The Macmillan Co. 12 mo. $1.25. 

Clear thinking in economics was never more 
needed than now. The man who sees no eco- 
nomic difference between farming and rail- 
roading is a pessimist and a blind leader of 
the blind. The way in which the State shall 
successfully deal with trusts cannot be 
answered until we know what creates trusts. 
To assume that all trusts are alike and all 
should therefore be treated alike is ignorance 
or dogmatism. The striking value of Professor 
Ely's book is exactly this careful and searching 
analysis of industries with reference to the 



monopoly factor in each. He discusses fully 
the so-called inevitable tendency to monopoly 
and shows wherein it is true, and wherein it is 
only superficial. His definitions of monopoly 
and his distinctions between monopoly profits 
and rents throw a clear light on the ultimate 
nature of the problem. His classification of 
monopolies is a valuable guide to the study of 
the subject. Students will not agree with him 
at all points, but his book compels them at 
least to study closely the differences as well as 
the likenesses of trusts and monopolies, and to 
cease both the wholesale optimism and the 
wholesale pessimism which marks too much 
of the discussion. 

The book is both theoretical and practical. 
Professor Ely's literary ideal is that of Adam 
Smith, scientific precision for every-day peo- 
ple. JOHN E. COMMONS, 
Bureau of Economic Research, New York City. 



MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. By Edward W.Bemis, 

John R. Commons, Frank Parsons, M. N. 

Baker, F. A. C. Perrine, Max West. One vol., 

691 pp., appendices, index. Cloth, $2.00. 

(Vol. XVI. Crowell's Library of Economics 

and Politics.) 

A subordinate branch of the same subject is 
usefully treated in this work supervised by 
Professor Bemis. If the book had no other 
value than that accruing from the array of 
statistics relating to the city supplies of water, 
electric light, illuminating and fuel gas, tele- 
phones and street railways, it would have earned 
its right to a place in the list of useful books 
of the hour. With these commodities in pri- 
vate hands, whose present interest lies obvi- 
ously in concealing the facts of cost, income and 
profits, it is exceedingly difficult to secure re- 
liable facts and figures for public information, 
and it is likely that, under the circumstances, 
the accuracy of the figures set forth in these 
essays cannot be improved upon. As might be 
expected, the bias of the work is strongly in 
favor of municipal ownership and control, but 
the fair-minded and good-tempered treatment 
of the subject, leaving anyone free to interpret 
as he will, is unexceptionable. 

M. N. Baker, of the Engineering News of New 
York City, writes upon water-works; Prof. John 
K. Commons, of Syracuse University, and Prof . 
P. A. C. Perrine, of the Engineering Depart- 
ment of Leland Stanford University, discuss 
electric lighting; Dr. Max West, of the Agri- 
cultural Department at Washington, describes 
New York City franchises; and Prof. Frank 
Parsons, of the Boston School of Law and the 
Kansas State Agricultural College, treats of the 
telephone, and the legal aspects of municipal 
problems. Professor Bemis supplies informa- 
tion on various phases of the electric light, gas 
and street railway questions. The work is 
amply provided with statistical appendices and 
I has an excellent index. 



lyooj 



THE COMMONS. 



[31] 7 



NOTES OF THE SETTLEMENTS. 

Cambridge House, Cainberwell, London, S. 
., has branched out with a new set of clubs, 
etc., in Lambeth. The work grew out of a call 
published in the September issue of the Cam- 
bridge House Magazine. A prompt response 
ensued, and a good work is now in progress. 

Mr. Archibald A. Hill, formerly of the Louis- 
ville Neighborhood House, has nearly com- 
pleted the plans for the fine new settlement 
building, to be under his charge at 7:i7 Tenth 
avenue, New York city. It is to take the place 
of the tenement house in which he has been 
residing for the past year with three hundred 
other tenants. 

Miss Mary E. McDowell of the University of 
Chicago Settlement, was on the docket of the 
National Federation of Women's Clubs at Mil- 
waukee for a ten-minute descriptive definition 
of a settlement, which, by her courtesy, the 
readers of the August number of THE COMMONS 
will have the privilege of sharing with her ap- 
preciative auditors. 

The settlement movement is progressing 
surely if slowly in the South. We are glad to 
note the development of the Diocesan Free 
Kindergarten of New Orleans last winter into 
a settlement with five residents, and that it is 
hereafter to be known as " Kingsley House," 
at 1202 Annunciation street, with Miss Kather- 
ine W. Hardy in charge. 

One of the most successful and altogether 
enjoyable occasions ever given at Hull House 
was the Greek Play, " The Return of Odysseus," 
performed in the new auditorium by native 
Greek residents of Chicago under the direction 
of Miss Barrows. The tt-xt was that of Homer, 
the pronunciation, and the local coloring, 
dances, etc., that of modern Greece. As one 
commentator said, " it showed the modern 
Greek idea of what ancient Greece was like." 

The whole Chicago Settlement fellowship 
deeply regrets the withdrawal of Mr. and Mrs. 
Harry F. Ward from the Northwestern Univer- 
sity settlement this month. They have proven 
themselves not only to be thoroughly imbued 
with the settlement spirit, but also to have 
rare efficiency in social service. Mr. Ward is 
minister of The Open Church " on Wabash 
avenue, and is already recognized in the 
Methodist fellowship, to which he belongs, 
and far beyond as an effective interpreter of 
the Christian social spirit, and of institutional 
methods of church work, which he is success- 
fully seeking to introduce to Chicago. 

Nothing of greater value has lately been con- 
tributed to the literature of the settlement 
movement than two articles by Kobert A. 
Woods of South End House. Some of the 
little-known facts of the early history of the 
settlement movement he has compiled in an 
unusually readable article which opened the 
November issue of the Pratt Institute Monthly, 
devoted in that issue to the interests of the 
Neighborship settlement in Greenpoint, Brook- 
lyn, founded under the auspices of the Insti- 
tute and its friends. The article is entitled 



" Settlement Antecedents and Consequents," 
and students of the settlement movement will 
find in it facts not elsewhere accessible. 

The other article, on " University Settle- 
ments : their Point and Drift" was contributed 
by Mr. Woods to the Quarterly Journal of Econ- 
omics and has been printed in pamphlet form. 
The price of single copies is not given, but we 
presume twenty-five cents sent to the pub- 
lisher, George H. Ellis, 272 Congress street, 
Boston, would secure at least one copy. 



WAYMARKS. 



The Right Relationship League reports in its 
first annual statement that its propaganda 
work to promote the study, teaching, and prac- 
tice of industrial and commercial co-operation 
has been nearly self-supporting. So far its 
members have not been asked to remit the an- 
nual dues of $1.00, as the office room at head- 
quarters (Room 903, 237 Fifth avenue, Chicago) 
has been donated, and no one connected with 
the League has received compensation for 
service. Its booklets and leaflets are issued in 
a form, and at a cost which make them very 
serviceable in popularizing the ethics and 
methods of co-operation. The most widely cir- 
culated and perhaps the most stirring of them 
all is Mayor Jones' sixteen-page pamphlet, 
"Equal Opportunities for All, Special Priv- 
ileges for None." From the proceeds of the sale 
of its publications the League hopes to pro- 
mote its cause " without adding one more to 
the already large list of ' charities.' " 

Mayor Jones of Toledo, Ohio, is issuing a 
series of "weekly letters addressed and de- 
livered to the workingmen of the Acme Sucker 
Rod Co.," dealing in his own inimitably 
straightforward, brotherly way, on such sub- 
jects as "Equality," "The Place of Music in 
the Social Movement," " The Sober Man's Ad- 
vantage Over the Drinking Man." Here is a 
sample paragraph: " To make conditions in 
and about a shop that will make life so attrac- 
tive and beautiful to men as to lead beautiful 
lives for their own sake and for the sake of the 
world about them is a task that I have volun- 
tarily undertaken because of my faith in my 
fellowmen, because of my belief in equality, 
and a realization of it as a practical living 
reality, as the hope of the race. It is not a 
question of how to save the Acme Sucker Rod 
Company, but rather to furnish a practical ex- 
ample that will hold aloft the standard of a 
higher and holier humanity, and help lift our 
industries out of the degradation into which 
the money-making spirit has sunk them. An 
injury to one is the concern of all." 



[82] 



THE COMMONS. 



[July, 1900.] 



CHICAGO COMMONS ITEMS. 



Miss Louise Bock, who graduated from our 
kindergarten training school, becomes a resi- 
dent of Welcome Hall Settlement, Buffalo, 
N. Y., in the autumn, and director of its kinder- 
garten work. 

Our Girls' Progressive Club have bravely 
undertaken the responsibility of renting and 
furnishing a nice, new little cottage at Michi- 
gan City, Ind., on the lake shore, where the 
members can take their vacations by turn and 
keep house co-operatively. 

Among the visits received from the delegates 
to the National Federation of Women's Clubs, 
recently held at Milwaukee, were Miss Brad- 
ford of Whittier House, Jersey City, and the 
head-worker of the National Cash Register 
House at Dayton, Ohio, with the delegation of 
its Woman's Club. 

Miss M. Emerett Colman, for three years a 
resident at the Commons, has taken residence 
as head-worker in The Working Girls' Club 
House, 7 Armington avenue, Alt. Pleasant, 
Providence, K. I., where there is a fine oppor- 
tunity of developing the effective building 
equipment and the club-work centering there 
into a wider social work for the entire neigh- 
borhood. , 

Enough responses have come in answer to 
our appeal for the equipment of our rear yard 
playground at the Commons to warrant us in 
setting up the apparatus and opening the yard. 
The delight which so many of our little folks 
will take in the sand-pile, swings, see-saws, 
parallel bars, quoits, shuffle board and other 
games will amply repay anyone who invests 
the little money they cost, as it does us for the 
invasion of our scant quiet and for all the 
additional toil it involves. 

The closing social of our Domestic Science 
classes still further demonstrates the demand 
for the equipment which our new building will 
provide for this most important branch of set- 
tlement service. Not only the pupils, younger 
and older, but friends and parents manifested 
the keenest interest in the year's work, and 
tested by taste " the proof of the pudding in 
the eating thereof." Good cooking of whole- 
some food and hygienic house-keeping are the 
physical basis of happy home life, and of 
strong, sane character building, which are the 
best preventives of intemperance and inconti- 
nence. 

_^~- 

Good Will Camp at Elgin was opened June 
26 and the first detachment of boys fifty each 
will have had their fortnight's outing when 
this note is being read. The camp is so for- 
tunate as to secure the services of Mr. Vance 
llawson, a senior medical student and long 
one of our best non-resident workers. He not 
only greatly reinforces our general manage- 
ment and recreative and musical resources, 
but gives the children and their parents the 
value of his expert medical examination and 
care in checking deteriorative tendencies and 
inculcating the principles of hygiene and 
x self-development. 



PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL 

Kindergarten Training School at 

CHICAGO COMMONS. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and Practice. 
A course in Home-making. Industrial and Social Develop- 
ment emphasized. Opportunity for Social Settlement 
Work. Address 

BERTHA HOFER HEGNER. 
363 N. Winchester Ave., Chicago, III. 



THE COMMONS 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It is published monthly, at Chicago Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 
111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofflce as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a year. (Two 
shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six 
copies to one address for $2.50. . Send check, draft, 
P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-ceni 
dcnominatitms, AT OUR KISK. 

Changes of Address Please notify the publisher 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to 
receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it 
is due. 

Discontinuances Please notify us at once if for 
any reason you desire your subscription discontinued. 
In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish 
of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to 
each address until notified to the contrary. 



MDNDN ROUTE 



g)) Qimoo.|iDiiiiAiioiis f- [iiusm it PAUWAV ( 



DIRECT 



Chicago 

Indianapolis 

Cincinnati 
Lafayette AND ALL po|NTS 

Louisville SOUTH. 

THROUGH SLEEPERS TO CINCINNATI AND WASHINGTON DAILY. 



FRANK J. REED, G. P. A. 
CITY TICKET OFFICE, 232 CLARK ST. 
CHICAGO. 

CHURCH BELL FOR SALE. 

The east steel bell of our Tabernacle Church (2,'joo Ibs. 
weight, 5 feet diameter by 5 feet height). 

Write for terms to <!KOK<;K STKVKNSOX, l.rfi \.May ' 
street, Chicago. Apply personally to R. E. TOUD, 140 N. j 
Union street, where the bell may be seen. 



THE COMMONS 

H flContbls tRccort Bevoteo to lUpects of life airt labor from the Social Settlement point of Wiew. 



Whole Number 49. 



CHICAGO. 



15 AUGUST, 1900. 



A SONG AND A CURSE. 

Quoted liy ARTHUR SHEKWKM., in " Life in Kast London . 
I heard an angel singing 
When the day was springing, 
" Mercy, pity and peace 
Are the world's release." 

So he sang all day 

Over the new mown hay 

'Pill the sun went down 

Aud the haycocks looked brown. 

[ heard a devil curse 
Over the heatli and the furse. 
" Mercy could be no more 
If there were nobody poor. 

And pity no more could be 

If all were as happy as ye; 

Aud mutual fear brings peace, 
Misery's increase 
Are mercy, pity and peace." 

At his curse the sun went down 
And the heavens gave a frown. 



FAMILY SOCIAL STATUS AND SECONDARY 
EDUCATION. 



OXE ASPECT OF THIS RELATION. 



By HENKY W. THURSTON, Chicago Normal School. 



During the last year, at the Chicago Normal 
School, sociological questions about many 
typical occupations were answered by mem- 
bers of the Training Class. Each answer was 
in narrative form and in the first person, as if 
the pupil were describing his own occupation. 
It was especially urged that every one should 
describe an occupation about which he had 
accurate knowledge. Of many narratives that 
were suggestive and interesting, two were 
unique and are here printed just as they were 
written except for necessary abridgment by 
omission. 



TWO NORMAL SCHOOL SOCIAL SCIENCE 
RKI'ORTS. 



A TEAMSTER'S EXPERIENCE IN EDUCATING HIS 
DAUGHTER. 

I am a teamster at the Union Stock Yards. 
When the meat is ready for delivery I drive it 
to the wholesale and retail houses in different 
parts of the city. I usually work thirteen 
hours each day, beginning at five o'clock in 



the morning and quitting at six in the evening, 
but I am often obliged to work overtime, some- 
times as late as twelve o'clock. I am paid $1.50 
per day and receive 50 cents an hour for all 
overtime. I work overtime two or three nights 
each week. I reside on the North Side, but my 
hours being so unusually long, I find it neces- 
sary to board near the Stock Yards. My board 
costs me $4.00 each week. I do not move to the 
South Side because I do not know how long I 
shall keep my present place, and, besides, I 
have a daughter who teaches on the North Side 
and I can put up in cheaper lodgings than she 
could. I have been working with horses ever 
since I was a boy and this was the only experi- 
ence needed for my present place. As I am 
obliged to be out in all sorts of weather, I am 
often afflicted with very severe colds which 
often hang on all through the winter months, 
as I can't afford to stay home long enough to 
recover. As I am home but a few hours on 
Sunday, 1 do not see much of my family. I have 
eight children, of whom three are now working. 
My oldest daughter was considered very bright 
by all her teachers in the grammar school, and 
when she finished this course I was advised to 
send her through high school and make a 
teacher of her. This I undertook to do, but 
before she was fairly started in the course, I 
was 'compelled to send her two younger sisters 
to work in order that she might be kept in 
high school. As these girls were not nearly as 
bright nor as far advanced in school as the eld- 
est, neither having had much more than a pri- 
mary school education, they were unable to 
obtain any but menial positions which paid 
very little. However, I should never have 
been able to keep my eldest daughter in school 
had it not been for their help. The year spent 
at the Chicago Normal School was another year 
of great struggle for us, as car-fare had to be 
furnished each day for her. 

DISAPPOINTMENT OF HOPES FOR THE HOME. 

During her high school and normal course 
my eldest daughter seemed very much occu- 
pied with her work and had very little in com- 
mon with her two younger sisters. However, I 



2 [34] 



THE COMMONS. 



[August, 



thought this as well as my financial difficulties 
would roll away as soon as she got settled in a 
position in the Chicago public schools. I ftnd 
that my financial difficulties have diminished 
but slightly, as a great part of my daughter's 
month's salary is spent for her clothes, as her 
position seems to require her to dress quite 
well. We had heretofore been living in a 
neighborhood composed of working people. 
To be sure, we lived in what might be called 
the basement of a two-story house. This place, 
of course, had a very bad effect on the health 
of my family. Shortly after my daughter began 
teaching, we found ourselves in the third flat 
of what is considered a much more respectable 
neighborhood. This elevation in life was of 
great benefit both to my daughter's spirits and 
the health of the family. This is the neigh- 
borhood in which we are now living. It is 
composed of working people drawing large 
wages and clerks drawing small salaries. As I 
am home only once a week, I do not know any 
of my neighbors. The people I associate with 
are men employed in the same kind of work as 
myself. The parlor, too, my daughter dis- 
covered needed new furnishing before she would 
invite any of her friends to visit her, so in 
order to furnish it in a manner suitable to her 
taste, I went into debt. This debt, it seems, 
was contracted solely for my daughter, as no 
one else seems to derive any benefit from it. 
My daughter's friends now visit her three or 
four nights each week, but she does not seem 
to care to have the rest of the family meet 
them. We are obliged to humor my daughter, 
as she is drawing the largest salary, and 
besides, when dissatisfied, she threatens to 
leave home and board elsewhere. 

A I'AINFUL DOBBT. 

I have often wondered lately whether I have 
done well in educating my eldest daughter at 
the expense of the other girls' education. It 
seems to me as if neither the family nor her- 
self has benefited by it. The younger girls 
seem very jealous of her and she herself, I am 
sure, finds very little comfort in her home rela- 
tions and has to leave the family for com- 
panionship. My experience with her educa- 
tion has made me undecided as to what to do in 
that line for my younger children. 



A BOLT-MAKER'S STORY. 

I am a bolt-maker. Since I make bolts for 
cars and large buildings, the prosperity of my 
business depends upon the general prosperity 
of the country. I spent no time in learning 
my trade, nor was an education necessary. As 



a boy I worked in the shop, carrying iron and 
heating it for the bolt-makers. By watching 
them make bolts, I was able to do so long 
before I was given a chance. In time I was 
myself advanced to the position of bolt-maker. 
This had been my ambition from the first. We 
bolt-makers worked piece-work, and to a hard 
worker like myself the prospect looked bright. 
I have since then discovered that to a poor man 
piece-work is a method of suicide which the 
law should keep out of his reach. 

It combines the bodily strain with the men- 
tal strain. The forced vacations, averaging 
one month a year, are the cause of much worry. 
Debts accumulate, and in order to make up for 
lost time when I go back, I work so hard that it 
usually results in a sick spell. This is an 
expensive kind of a vacation to have. The 
worry over not being able to work helps to pro- 
long that period, and I usually go back before 
I am able. 

SHOP CONDITIONS. 

In the winter we work nine hours, while in 
the summer, when the work is almost unendur- 
able, we work ten. The machine at which I 
work is about two feet from the red-hot 
open furnace at which my iron is 
heated. Of course, our furnaces are kept 
as lively in summer as in winter. This 
gives us a temperature often of 115 degrees F. 
in summer. Besides the excessive heat, we 
are treated all the year round to sulphuric and 
other gases that arise from the furnace. The 
effect of these gases and the constant bending 
over at the work is very injurious to the lungs 
and manifests itself in frequent coughs and 
colds. These colds also come from being over- 
heated. A man usually keeps on working until 
he is about to drop from the heat when he 
betakes himself outside or to some place of 
draught and coolness in the shop until he 
recovers sufficiently to return to his work 
The very plentiful use of ice water often helps 
me to put in a day's work when I otherwise 
could not have done so. This drinking of ice 
water by our men when overheated has been 
the cause of much sickness. After a day's 
work our clothes are wringing wet from per- 
spiration and the ride home in the open cars 
has resulted fatally with some of the men. 

I find the red-hot glare of the iron and the 
gas-light in which I work very injurious to tbe 
eyes. When I first commenced to make bolts 
twelve years ago I had very strong eyes. 
In a few years I could not see to read a word 
without glasses. Now, with the aid of glasses, 
I can hardly read the markings on my ruler 
which I use in measuring. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[35] 3 



No, I see no chance of a remedy from a 
change of employment, but a great deal could 
be done in the way of improving the condi- 
tions under which we work. It would be 
transformed into a new trade. I am a good 
bolt-maker, and have no fear of losing my posi- 
tion thro politics, or on account of being of a 
different religion from my employer. We are . 
not supposed to have anything to do with 
either, but are not much bothered by any in- 
terference in these matters. My employer 
contents himself with cracking rude jokes 
about the opposite party on election day; edu- 
cation hasn't refined him. 

DISPLACEMENT EXPECTED. 

There are only two things that can prevent me 
from ending my days as a bolt-maker; the for- 
eigners rapidly learning the work, and as they 
work much cheaper than we do, we expect to be 
replaced by them as soon as they become pro- 
ficient a period of probably four years; 
again, machinery may step in quicker than 
the foreigners. And why we should care how 
soon invention takes our place, I fail to see. 
Sooner or later it will; if not in my time, then 
in some other man's time, and whenever it 
does it will make idle men. The end of in- 
vention is to take us back slowly and surely 
to the common store-house and restore equality 
between the rich and the poor. I, for one, will 
welcome the march of invention into any field. 

When I first started to make bolts, by very 
hard and steady work, 1 could make thirty-two 
dollars per week. My employer soon began to 
think that this was a great deal too much to 
pay to a common workman of no education 
he thinks that one cannot get an education 
without going to school for turning out his 
mechanical piece of work. As a result of his 
wise conclusion I received a cut of ten cents 
on the dollar. Since no limit was placed on 
the quantity of work I was to turn out I 
worked even harder after the cut, and at the 
end of the week, after straining every muscle, 
I turned out my thirty-two dollars only to re- 
ceive another cut of twenty cents on the dol- 
lar. And so things continued until the present 
time I am working as hard for my fifteen dol- 
lars as I did for my thirty-two dollars. 

THE FAMILY TRAGEDY. 

My family increased at the same rate as my 
salary decreased, until now I have seven chil- 
dren. I began my married life by taking a 
comfortable little house among neighbors en- 
gaged in a similar occupation to my own. I 
intended from the first to give my children a 
high school education, and so they were kept 



at school with very few cares outside of their 
books. From the time the first of them en- 
tered high school, which he did at a very 
early age, I saw a change in my family rela- 
tions. My children seemed to grow ashamed 
of me, to have no desire for me to meet their 
companions, or in any way make manifest that 
I was alive when their friends were around. 
This revelation dawned upon me as a sudden 
shock. Their estrangement from me I knew 
arose from nothing but an idea that my work 
was degrading. Upon finding that their friends' 
fathers' were all business men, I was surer of 
this than before. They looked disgusted when 
I sat down to table, clean, but in my working 
suit sometimes it was the only suit I had. 
A few years ago they refused to live in a work- 
ing neighborhood, but removed to what they 
called a respectable neighborhood a settle- 
ment of book-keepers and clerks. Here my 
life is not worth living. More than ever am I 
desired to keep out of the way, and no one in 
the neighborhood has deigned to recognize 
me in all the time I've been living here, tho 
I meet them every day coming home or going 
to work. Often have I ridden home with my 
next-door neighbor without a word of recogni- 
tion. Of course I do not wear a stiff cravat as 
he does, but I am clean and -respectable look- 
ing, and I guess my envelope on pay-day would 
match well with his. 

They look kindly upon my family. To my 
children they are quite friendly, and seem in- 
clined to pity them for having such a father. 
My wife, they say, seems to be a decent sort of 
a woman. I alone am the sinner. In fact, 
everyone seems to be so ashamed of me that 
at times I forget that I've nothing to be 
ashamed of and find myself sneaking around 
the alley to and from work. But how can I 
expect from my neighbors what I cannot get 
from my own family? 

As my family's respect for me decreases, 
their desire for my money increases. My 
money will in no way meet the expenses at 
present. The furniture is mortgaged, and the 
other debts accumulated by living above their 
station can never be paid in my life-time. 
They are increasing, but in spite of this fact, 
they invested in new parlor furniture. 

All these debts were contracted in my name, 
and all these comforts purchased with the 
money I am not to be a sharer in. In the 
evening, the only time I'm home, I find the 
parlors filled with company, and of course I 
am barred from them. The kitchen, or the 
bed-room off from it; seems to be the only part 
of the house open to me. 



4 [36] 



THE COMMONS. 



[August, 



Yet, my family is no worse than other fami- 
lies. It is their wish that I be happy, and 
they acknowledge to themselves that I have 
done no wrong for which I should be banished 
from society, but that I have been a good 
father. They regret that the laws of society 
prevent them from owning me as such to the 
world. Were a socialistic movement put on 
foot by some one of their acquaintances, they 
might join it after it had been well started 
and stood approved. 

How they wish I could be happy living in 
my own quiet little world the kitchen. They 
know my lot is unjust, but they hope I'm too 
stupid to know it. They know I'm not stupid. 
If I were there might be some reason why they 
could not enjoy my society. No, in my young 
ambitious day, with the help of night schools 
and colleges, paid for by my hard-earned sav- 
ings, I educated myself until I compare favora- 
bly with the high school graduate of to-day. 
All this I did for myself, it seems, only tbat I 
might appreciate how hard and unjust my lot 
truly is. Had my children obtained their edu- 
cation in the manner I did it would have been 
better for them. 

I had hoped to obtain some help from them 
when they graduated from high school, but it 
seems I'm not to have any. The eldest son 
thought he was called to the ministry, and 
heeded the divine call. The second has spent 
two years in looking for something genteel 
enough. Upon actual trial it was found that 
working in a shop was too hard for him. So 
as yet I'm the sole support of the family. 
Some of the others will respond to the mar- 
riage bells I guess, leaving the debts contracted 
by them as a wedding present to me. 

No, education in its existing form is not for the 
poor. It cultivates the mind at the expense of 
the heart; it estranges parents from their chil- 
dren their one source of happiness. It has 
been the cause of many a misery in the poor 
man's home. It has broken up families. It 
displaces love in the poor man's home circle. 

BASIS FOR THE STORIES IN OBSERVED FACTS. 

A serious charge was thus so definitely laid 
at the door of the secondary school that the 
papers were read to the whole Training Class. 
Two questions were then asked: 

1. Have you personally known of cases 
whers an education has been gained at the cost 
of such sacrifices by other members of the 
family as in these cases? 

2. Are these two accounts of the disintegrat- 
ing effect of secondary education upon such 
homes substantially correct? 



Of three hundred and eighteen answers to 
the first question, two hundred and fifty-six, 
80.5 per cent, were in the affirmative, and of 
three hundred and two answers to the second 
question, one hundred and eighty-three, 60.5 
per cent, were in the affirmative. 

As those who made these answers were nearly 
all graduated from the fourteen different high 
schools of Chicago, the answers were fairly 
representative for a large city. The evidence 
of these opinions, therefore, even after making 
liberal allowance for error and exaggeration, is 
apparently a strong indictment of existing 
secondary education, so far as it affects toe 
social status of a certain class of homes. To 
all of us who are directly concerned with such 
education such papers, backed up by such 
opinions, are a challenge to further observa- 
tion, study, and comparison, and the end that 
the indictment, even if true now, may not long 
stand against us. 

PROPOSED QUESTIONAIBE. 

For this purpose answers are needed to some 
such questions as the following: 

1. How far are the effects upon the homes 
due to a false education, and how far to a divine 
discontent without which there cannot be the 
human development necessary in a democracy? 

2. Of the bad effects described how much is 
due respectively to something wrong in the 
individual home, in the school, in society in 
general? 

3. What is the relation between the facts 
given in the papers above and the recurring 
attacks by citizens and press upon the public 
high school? 

4. How will the general introduction of 
manual training, domestic science, and com- 
mercial schools change the atmosphere of our 
secondary education respecting so-called men- 
ial occupations? 

5. AVhat is the social effect and tendency 
upon poor homes of our elaborate and expen- 
sive graduation exercises? 

8. In comparison with children who go 
thro our high schools, how do children from 
poor homes, in any business or occupation by 
which they gain pecuniary and social success 
beyond that of their parents, affect the social 
life of the home? 

7. How many of us can honestly say that 
our own attitude toward persons engaged in 
various occupations is determined by inde- 
pendent sanity of judgment and a sympathetic 
appreciation of their true worth to society in- 
stead of by inherited class opinion and preju- 
dice? 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[37] 5 



SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS. 



A DESCRIPTIVE DEFINITION. 



l!y .M \m K. M< 'I><>\v KU., University of Chicago Settlement. 



Read liefore the National Federation nf Women's Clubs 
at Milwaukee. 

Miss Scudder in her "Social Ideals in Eng- 
lish Letters" tells of the "new intuition" 
that is deeper than reasoning and has nothing 
to do with opinions ; a social force, a mighty 
instinct that is working for social justice, and 
using the hearts that are ready to receive it. 
A type of persons in every class, in every coun- 
try, are consciously or unconsciously prepar- 
ing the way for the spiritual democracy on 
which their hearts are set. In Marcella we find 
this new intuition, this new conscience in its 
adolescent period ; in real life Tolstoi and Jane 
Addams are fine types of it, matured and 
active. 

RISE OF THE NEW INTUITION. 

This social consciousness was awakened at 
Oxford and Cambridge, England, by the teach- 
ing and preaching of Maurice, Robertson, 
Kingsley, Kuskin and Greene. Edward Denni- 
son and Arnold Toynbee, of whom we hear 
most, were inspired by this teaching to go and 
live in East London. 

To be sure the scientific spirit had much to 
do with their emigration from one side of life 
to that other where the great majority are 
struggling for a physical existence. 

It was dawning upon the thoughtful that the 
" dismal science " could not be scientific until 
it was humanized by the basic facts gained 
from the experience of the workers them- 
selves. 

Fundamentally their motive was religious,' 
was a desire for human fellowship on the larg- 
est basis. 

This same longing for recognition by the 
larger social circle this new social conscious- 
ness is showing itself in many ways, the social 
settlement being only one of many expressions. 
Since Toynbee Hall was opened in 18K5 the 
idea has crystallized into about one hundred 
groups of men and women in England and 
America, each working out its own method 
with freedom and individuality. 

WHAT THE SETTLEMENT IS AND DOES. 

Generally speaking, a social settlement is a 
group of persons who go to live in an industrial 
community in a large city " where the fact of 
machinery," as Dean Hodges puts it, "and the 
love of liberty have created the problem of 
labor, and this problem of labor includes the 



problem of the city and the problem of moral 
reform." These residents have stepped over 
the line that marked the social circle they were 
born into and have asked for entrance into that 
larger social circle which includes all the chil- 
dren of the Father. Sometimes the social set- 
tlement is a home of tener a kind of club-house 
of men or women. The house, because of its 
broad, genial hospitality, becomes the social 
center, the common meeting-place of the neigh- 
borhood. Social, educational, philanthropic 
and sometimes religious activities organize 
themselves as desire directs, into clubs or 
classes. The settlement endeavors to respond 
to the demands of the community. It becomes 
a center for co-operative work for the good of 
the community. The settlement initiates move- 
ments for the higher civic and social life. In 
some places the settlement and the neighbor- 
hood have improved political conditions, have 
secured kindergarten and manual training in 
the public schools, have been able to get the 
eityto build freepublic baths and furnish play- 
grounds. They have provided a place for 
labor unions and kindred organizations, have 
improved sanitary conditions and have co- 
operated with many philanthropic institutions. 
Settlement residents do not go to people with 
a plan, a policy or a proposition ; they go as 
friends, as neighbors with a keen sense of the 
commonness of all that is best in all. Theirs 
can not be a handing down of culture or a going 
down to live with the poor. Keal culture, as 
Matthew Arnold says, seeks to do away with 
classes ; to make the best that has been thought 
and known in this world current everywhere 
to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweet- 
ness and light where they may use ideas as it 
uses them itself, freely nourished not bound 
by them. This is the social idea, and men of 
culture are the true apostles of equality. 

SOME ELEMENTS OP A DEFINITION. 

Jane Addams says a social settlement is an 
effort towards social democracy. Kobert Woods 
calls it an attitude of mind. Canon Barnett 
says Toynbee Hall seems to be a center of edu- 
cation, a mission, a polytechnic school, another 
example of philanthropic machinery; it is really 
a club-house, and the residents are citizens 
(men) doing citizen's duty, and the various 
activities have their root and life in the indi- 
viduality of its members. Dean Hodges calls 
it a level bridge over a social chasm, perfectly 
level, not tipped at one end for the well-to-do 
and the learned to come down to the poor, but 
a level bridge where the igorant rich and igno- 
rant poor, the learned and unlearned, cau 



6 F38] 



THE COMMONS. 



[August, 



meet and know each other, each having some- 
thing to give and something to receive. It is 
objective Christianity, says another. It is one 
of the many expressions of the social con- 
science that is slowly but surely feeling its 
way into action. It is the feeble but honest 
outward sign of an inner necessity urging the 
religious soul to find a way of making real the 
social ideals given by Jesus to the world. All 
of these definitions are unsatisfactory because 
they are trying to define life, friendship and 
human sympathy they either say too much or 
too little. It is not the works of a settlement 
that define it, it is the attitude of mind, the 
spirit of teachableness, enthusiasm for human- 
ity, for democracy, that tells in the living with, 
not for, people, yet any true settlement is glad 
to have much fruit to offer to those who may 
think the philosophy vague and idealistic. 

WHAT GROWS OUT OP LIVING WITH FOLKS. 

Out of this living with folks grows the most 
delightful social relationships. First, the chil- 
dren who ask for no credentials seek the settle- 
ment. Then the boys who run in gangs and 
need to have the gang instinct organized into 
self-governing clubs ; the active adolescent 
period needs many interests and many activ- 
ities. So the boys and the girls put their en- 
ergy into constructive work or play, manual 
training or the gymnasium. Libraries, reading 
circles, games, sports, sewing, cooking, sing- 
ing, drawing, painting, wood carving, all of 
these are found on the settlement program. 
No side of life and no interests are forgotten. 

SETTLEMENT WOMEN'S CliUliS. 

The Women's Clubs of the social settlement 
are perhaps as valuable a result of the effort 
towards democracy that the settlement can 
show. Hull House Woman's Club is nine years 
old, and has nearly 260 members. Seven Chi- 
cago settlements can show strong organiza- 
tions of women. These are organized generally 
from the mothers of the kindergarten children, 
and the more able women of the community. 
Four or five are federated clubs, in the state 
federation. At the University of Chicago Set- 
tlement the Bohemian women who cannot 
speak English have their own club of 30 mem- 
bers, and is a section of the English-speaking 
club of 150 members of the same settlement. 
A dim idea an intuitive feeling is held by 
these women that in their home work and often 
as the wage-earner of a family, -they have 
earned a light to be something more than 
breeders of a race; they feel feebly at first that 
it is their duty to be a part of this onward 
movement of womankind. 



The Settlement Woman's Club offers to wo- 
men of all creeds and nationalities a common 
meeting-place where womanhood is the basis 
of fellowship, the common possession, the com- 
mon need. At a meeting of the Illinois state 
Federation the reports from the Settlement 
Women's Clubs were said to be the most 
suggestive. They co-operated with the 
settlement residents, and kindergartens and 
manual training have been established 
in the public schools. At the University 
of Chicago Settlement, a quiet Bohemian 
woman member of the Woman's Club 
suggested the need of a public bath in the 
Stock Yards neighborhood, and it was this 
very club of women who sent in a large petition 
to the City Council asking for the bath-house. 
This has been built at a cost of $9,000.00, 
and was opened in May. They have done much 
for vacation schools, and are always counted 
on to co-operate with other clubs for the 
advancement of any idea that is for the good of 
all the people. This sense of their social 
responsibility has been developed to the point 
of activity by social contact and thro the for- 
mal program. A conscious faith in the organic 
unity of womankind, then of humankind, is 
awakened ; individuality is developed, and 
many a hidden talent discovered in some tired 
mother, an ability nearly lost in the hard 
grind of daily routine. At a meeting of one of 
these clubs a lady a professor from the Uni- 
versity and a Ph. D tried to quote and forgot 
that Shaksperean sonnet beginning, "Let the 
marriage of true souls," etc., when a retiring 
little woman with a sleeping baby in her lap 
and a little child in the chair at her side, con- 
tinued the quotation, much to the surprise of 
the scholarly lady from the University, and 
greatly to the delight and pride of the club. 
Here was a hidden treasure in their midst, and 
she belonged to them. Again, when discussing 
some question with a specialist, a doctor, 
nurse or lawyer, the observation of some 
woman with mother-wit lifts the whole club up 
to the plane of the specialist, and a sense of 
common congratulation is felt because of the 
wit of one of its members. 

PERSONAL GROWTH. 

A member's faith in herself is strengthened 
because the club believes in her and she will do 
surprising things as one of the wdole club of 
which, alone, she never would have dreamed. 
She is no longer the overburdened, tired, un- 
awakened woman, who did not know her neigh- 
bors, nor herself, nor her children. not even 
her husband, until she saw them all in the light 
of their social relationships. In this new light 
natural differences, which make for individu- 
ality, are now interesting, and women are no 
longer looked upon in the class sense alone, 
but as women working together for the com- 
mon good. 



1900 J 



THE COMMONS. 



[39] 7 



THE COMMONS. 

H /Bontblv IRccoro StevoteS to Bspecta of life ano labor 
from tbc Social Settlement point of IPiew. 



GRAHAM TAYLOK, 



EDITOR. 



Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social 
Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 



For particulars as to rates, terras ol advertising, etc., 
see " Publisher's Corner" on last page. 



EDITORIAL. 

IT IS a hopeful sign of the awakening of the 
social consciousness of the > western 
churches, that the " Open and Institutional 
Church League " for the first time holds its 
convention as far west as Chicago, on Oct. 31. 



THE implication is not to be drawn from 
Prof. Thurston's statement of certain 
effects of secondary education upon families 
of limited means, that high school advantages 
are not for their children. But the inference 
is inevitable that our secondary educational 
system should be broad and practical enough 
to adjust the pupil more happily and effect- 
ively to the conditions of work-a-day life. Is 
there not a profound suggestion of better pur- 
pose and method to this end in Miss Addam's 
article which we published in June ? 



SETTLEMENT LIFE. 



THESE realistic impressions of settlements 
may have a tendency to keep residents 
lowly even under the inspiration of Miss Mc- 
Dowell's definition: " Where did you say you 

are living now, Mr. ? " " At a settlement," 

he replied. "A settlement; what's that?" 
" Oh, it is a place where a fellow goes to lire 
in the slums and people think him to be a great 
deal better than he is." 

Shopper: "Send the purchase to 
House." Clerk: "That is a hospital, is it 
not?" Shopper: "No, it is a settlement." 
Clerk : " Oh, well, it is the same as a hospital, 
for they nurse strange opinions there ! " 

THE Chicago building trades lockout is still 
on, as hard as ever in theory, not quite 
so strict in fact. While the contractors' coun- 
cil try more rigidly to exclude individual 
union workmen from employment, the unions 
permit their members to work with non-union 
men. Our new building is at last roofed in. 



It was a creditably prompt, yet pre-emi- 
nently deserved, recognition of personal worth 
and public service which the Chicago Board 
of Education registered in giving to the new 
parental school the name of the late Mrs. A. P. 
Stevens of Hull House, who did so much to lift 
public sentiment to the ideal it stands for in 
the treatment of juvenile delinquency, and to 
realize so much, of the ideal as is incorporated 
in the school by the legislation providing for 
its erection and administration. 

It is a unique settlement which has grown 
out of Miss Mary E. Kemington's tenement 
house enterprise at the corner of Erie and 
Canal streets, Buffalo, N. Y. Two years ago 
she assumed the responsibility for the purchase 
and management of one of the most run-down 
and unprofitable pieces of tenement house 
property in the city. Accompanied by a friend 
she took up her residence in the block, grad- 
ually improved its sanitary conditions and its 
appearance, and brought the building at once 
to more than a self-sustaining financial basis. 
The tenants are Italian families, and are living 
in friendliest relationship with the three set- 
tlement residents in the house. While contri- 
butions from friends of the work are still 
relied upon for its maintenance, there is a 
good chance, as the indebtedness of the build- 
ing is gradually paid off, of its rentals becom- 
ing a sound economic basis for a self-support- 
ing settlement a consummation devoutly to 
be wished. 

An article on " Court Concerts " in Mansfield 
House Magazine for July, 1900, gives an idea of 
what may be accomplished by good music in 
the streets of the so-called " slums." The con- 
certs given in the streets of the neighborhood 
supply musie to people who cannot go to the 
parks, or other places where music is to be 
heard. It is said in speaking of the results of 
the work: ' The immediate moral effect is 
seen prior to each concert when the people of 
the court chosen, and vicinity without hint 
or suggestion begin to busy themselves with 
preparations for the great event. The court is 
always cleaned out, and generally ornamented 
with red ruddle and pipe clay by willing work- 
ers, and tastefully and often profusely deco- 
rated with paper buntings and designs of all 
sorts which must cost hours of labor and many 
ill-spared pence, and the good running thro it 
it all is its infectiousness, for the different 
court dwellers all thro the slums vie with each 
other in an effort to make their surroundings 
bright." The idea has spread to other English 
cities, notably Liverpool and Birmingham. 



8 [40] 



THE COMMONS. 



[August, 1900. J 



* < 



Cbicago Commons 



1 



OUR SETTLEMENT SUMMER. 



Our somewhat depleted group of permanent 
residents has been happily and ably re-enforced 
by summer residents who have dropped into 
the life and work of the house and neighbor- 
hood with rare rapidity and efficiency. 

The summer kindergarten has been as suc- 
cessful as ever this season, perhaps more so in 
point of numbers. 

The kitchen garden, altho inaugurated when 
most of the clubs and classes were closing 
their season's sessions, has been successfully 
maintained throughout the summer. 

The domestic science classes had no sooner 
closed for the season than a demand for sum- 
mer cooking classes came from the neighbor 1 
hood, which we have been glad to be able* to 
meet. 

A little group of Italian children have been 
coming to one of our residents all summer to 
learn to read and write English. One of our 
neighbors of German descent, 15 years old, is 
working away almost every evening with two 
Italian boys of his own age to teach them 
English. 

Our single bath-tub for public use has been 
in requisition more than ever this summer. 
Groups of children come together to beg a 
bath, and others are brought by their mothers. 

Those who have made it possible to turn our 
side and back yards into "The Chicago Com- 
mons Playground " should be glad to have had 
something to do with affording so much 
pleasure and profit to so many children and 
young people. Its use has been regulated 
only by its space and the number of turns the 
children can take at the swings and see-saws, 
sand-pile and parallel bar. Some of the older 
boys, approaching manhood, who could not go 
to camp, declare they have almost as good 
times in the playground. Even the young 
women enjoy what, by their poetic license, they 
call their "lawn party." We never have 
invested our time or any of our friends' money 
to better purpose. 

For six weeks over one hundred boys, by 
turns have been enjoying our camp at Elgin. 
During August as many girls will have their 
turn. In its new site, better equipment and 
more diverse management by three residents, 
one of whom is a senior medical student, the 
camp has rendered a far more fundamental ser- 



vice than ever, not only to the boys and girls 
individually, but to the home life of the 
neighborhood. The same generous co-opera- 
tion of Elgin and Chicago friends, which has 
made the camp possible for the past two years, 
is making its continuance and improvement 
this season so satisfactory. The boys are 
greatly indebted to the superintendent of 
Lord's Park for his kind-hearted interest and 
energetic effort in rallying enough friends of 
like mind to give them a picnic, supper and 
band concert at the park, which is to be 
repeated for the girls. 

Noteworthy in the annals of Chicago Com- 
mons is the success of the first initiative taken 
by any of our clubs to secure their own outing 
equipment. The Girls' Progressive Club cot- 
tage on the lake shore at Michigan City is the 
result. On their own responsibility its mem- 
bers secured the erection of the cottage, leased 
it for the season, furnished it mostly them- 
selves, with a little help from outside friends 
there and here, and have it in largest use. If 
now, they could only get an encouraging start 
in purchasing the property at about $700, they 
would work away to pay the balance as long as 
any of it remained unpaid. No group of 
neighbors who come to the house have a better 
right to the rest, quiet, recreation and fellow- 
ship which this cottage will afford them than 
the hard-working, high-spirited. and unselfish 
young women whose club honors the neighbor- 
hood and the settlement. 

PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL 

Kindergarten Training School at 

CHICAGO COMMONS. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and Practice. 
A course in Home-making. Industrial and Social Develop- 
ment emphasized. Opportunity for Social Settlement 
Work. Address 

BERTHA HOFER HEGNER, 
363 N. Winchester Ave.. Chicago. III. 

THE COMMONS 

Is devoted to Aspects cif Life and Labor from thu 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It is published monthly, at Chicago 'Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 
111 . and Is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a year. (Two 
shillings, English; L'.SO francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six 
copies to one address for $2.00. Send check, draft, 
P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above s-ccnt 
denominations. AT ouit KJSK. 

Changreii of Address Please notify the publisher 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to 
receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it 
is due. 

Discontinuances Please notify us at once if for 
any reason yon desire your subscription discontinued. 
In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish 
of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS in 
each address until notified to the contrary. 



OUTING NUMBER 



THE COMMONS 

H flContblv TRecoro Devote!) to Hspecta of life anb Sabot (com tbe Social Settlement point of View'. 



Whole Number 50. 



CHICAGO. 



15 SEPTEMBER, J900. 



A GENERAL VIEW OF OUR SUMMER'S 
CAMP AT ELGIN. 



One of the greatest problems that has always 
presented itself to the public in every large 
city, is: "What 
shall we do with 
our boys and 
girls ? " This 
problem varies 
according to the 
environment. 
In our great 
cities the pub- 
lic school helps 
during the win- 
ter, but when 
vacation comes 
the child of the 
poor is "turned 
loose" upon the 
streets to care 
for himself, 
while the moth- 
er goes out into 
the world of 
cold competi- 
tion to win 
bread. The 
child is then 



just as essential to the formation of character 
and the growth of the body as the sun is to the 
vegetation of the earth. The natural child is 
like an engine. His life is so full of vigor that 
he cannot use all his energy. He must have a 




THE COMMONS SUMMER CAMP, KLGIN, ILL. 



left, like Topsy, "to grow up." From his birth 
he never sees the natural world. For a land- 
scape of beautiful trees, grasses and flowers, 
he has great stone buildings. His canopy of 
blue sky is beclouded with smoke. His play- 
ground is the hard pavement, with the garbage 
box as a playhouse and a policeman as a stop- 
cock to the safety valve. The boy cannot be a 
boy, the girl cannot be a girl, under these 
conditions. But their bodies must be dwarfed, 
warped, starved. 

What can we expect of a child under these 
conditions? The great wonder is, not that 
there are so many shiftless and worthless men 
and women, but that there are so few. The 
child became what heis because he was deprived 
of his rightful playground and contact with 
nature. To give the boy and girl a chance 
only two things are necessary, and they are 



safety valve. First, then, rightly direct that 
overflow, that surplus energy. Give him 
room. Let the boy be a boy, the girl a girl. 
In the city they are crushed. It is too true, as 
one of our girls said after giving our yell: 

"Camp Good Will, 
Camp Good Will, 
We are in Elgin 
And can't keep still.' 

" When we get back to Chicago it will be: 

' Camp Good Will, 
Camp Good Will, 
We are in Chicago 
And must keep still.'" 

Second, love the child. One], little fellow 
said as he nestled on the doctor's lap, and as the 
doctor caressed him, " My mama don't do this." 
"Why not?" "She works.' 1 These two princi- 
ples we made the basis of our summer's work. 



2 [421 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 




WASH-DAV AT CAMP. 

We took out 191 children for two weeks each, 
in groups of forty. Located as we were on the 
Penney Farm, two miles north of Elgin, we 
were free to live, to live. Our children were 
from eight to eighteen years of age, taken from 
the boys and girls of our winter clubs. 

The problem of government, so hard to meet 
in the city, solves itself, and with its solution 
in camp, we are better able to meet the prob- 
lem in the city. For in camp the child, 
because of our 
close contact in 
eating, sleeping, 
playing and workr 
ing, learns to 
know and love us. 
The camp thus 
forms a basis for 
future work. 

What do we do 
to pass away the 
time? The ques- 
tion is, rather, 
How can we find 
time for what we 
have to do? The 
one thing above 
all others the 
children delight 
in is the bathing. 
The first thing in 
the morning we 
take a "dash" in 
the water and 
again just before 
going to bed. 
Then we have two 



good swims during the day. 
Most of the children learn to 
swim and many to float and 
dive. The girls enjoy this 
part of life just as much as 
the boys. 

Excursions were conducted 
into the country, where we ob- 
served and studied the stones, 
grasses, trees, flowers, birds. 
A large number of botany 
specimens were collected, 
pressed and mounted by the 
children, which are preserved 
at the Commons Library. On 
one of our excursions, in try-, 
ing to explain the growth of 
fungi and lichens, I asked the 
boys what we called people 
who lived off of other 
people. A little fellow an- 
swered quickly, ''suburbans." 

A delightful part of the day was our vesper 
service, when, just at dusk, we gathered on the 
grass in front of our tents and had onr little 
service varied with song, prayer, stories, and 
talks by the doctor on the care of the body. 

The children helped with the camp work, 
each child having his share of dish-washing, 
laundry work, making beds, cleaning up the 
camp, working in the garden and running 




ONE GROUI' OF BOYS AT CAMP. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[49] 8 



errands. As a general thing the children were 
very willing to do tbeir part. 

The play of the children was characteristic 
of their life. On a rainy day they would gather 
in a tent and play theater, their little souls 
bubbling over with delight and seriousness at 
" Cliing Ching, the Chinaman," " Diamond 
Dick," " The Two Orphans." 

Their favorite songs were: "The Blue and 
The Gray," " I'd Leave My Happy Home For 
You," "Just One Girl," and other popular 
songs. 

Space forbids to tell of the " sun-burned 




many special camp gifts were received as we 
had hoped. ]t depends on our friends whether 
this feature of our work is made permanent or 
not. The cost per child for two weeks was 
only two dollars, besides the fifty cents each 
child pays when able. Next year we need 
seventy-five dollars for additional equipment. 
One of the most necessary, things is a large 
dining tent for rainy weather. 

We who have seen this part of the work are 
convinced that it brings the best and quickest 
results, not excepting anything we can do, for 
the salvation of our boys and girls in the 

great cities. 

To see the val- 
ue of this work, 
you need but to 
see how even 
two weeks of 
camp life brings 
the color to the 
pale face and a 
flash to the eye, 
a smile to the 
face that was so 
care-worn. Old 
women, twelve 
years old, be- 
came girls 
sweet and 
happy. Boys, 
rough and un- 
couth, became 
kind and gentle. 
Let us save the 
boys and girls 
to save the 

; world. 

HENBYF. BUBT. 



THE OPEN SPACE IS A MUCH-USED PLAYGROUND WITHIN ONE BLOCK OP THE COMMONS. 



backs " from bathing, of our trip to Lord's 
Park in Elgin, of the results from eating too 
many green apples, of the feast on the craw- 
fishes and clams, of the loss of " sky-pieces," 
in other words, hats, of " snitchers, " . e., 
tattle-tales, of all the other " sweet " times we 
had, or even of the punishment of cutting 
Canada thistles, or of depriving the careless 
children of their baths. It may be of interest 
to know that no corporal punishment was 
used. 

Our living fare was simple, but good and 
plenty. We used eight gallons of milk a day 
and from twenty-four to thirty loaves of bread, 
besides eggs, vegetables and oatmeal. We had 
meat only three times during the summer. 

Our camp this year was largely supported by 
the general fund of the Commons. Not so 



THE GIRLS' LIFE AT CAMP. 



OBSERVATIONS OF THE BESIDENT IN CHAKGE. 



Less homesickness was manifested by the 
girls as a whole than boys. 

More acute homesickness was suffered by the 
Italians than any other nationality. 

The ability of girls to entertain and amuse 
themselves was marked, especially through 
rainy weather. 

The strong influence of the theater in the 
girls' lives was shown by their amateur theat- 
ricals, in imitation of the poor plays to which 
they have access, such as " Diamond Dick," 
" Ching Ching Chinaman," " The Irish Washer- 
woman," and the like. For these plays they 
had simply the elements of love and murder as 



4 [44] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 



foundation, and filled in the details to suit 
themselves, but these two elements were always 
present. 

Their stories included the goody-goody type, 
the "Daily News" story, many good myths and 
fairy tales, the preference being for Grimm's. 

One very impressive thing was the way in 
which they would respond to reason when a 
case was put fairly before them. 

Much could be said about their sweet voices 
and the need for good chorus work to direct 
their tastes from the popular street song. 

Living with girls in the close relationship of 




GIRLS' PROGRESSIVE CLUB COTTAGE, MICHIGAN CITY, IND. 

camp life made it possible to have serious talks 
on the most sacred things of life, the opportu- 
nity for which a whole winter of club life, one 
or two nights a week, could not possibly give. 
The appreciation shown in the radiant faces 
that looked into mine and said, " Thank you, 
Miss M , for telling me," convinced me of the 
value of our friendship. 



FAR-VIEW COTTAGE. 



This year, at the Commons, there was initi- 
ated by the Girls' Progressive Club a new phase 
of its outing work that of a summer home for 



the use of the members of the club and their 
friends. First, of course, came the question of 
location. After many weeks of inquiry and 
consultation, through the co-operation of 
friends, a beautiful site was selected on the 
east shore of Lake Michigan, about a mile from 
Michigan City, Ind., on one of the sand-hills 
of that part of the country. 

During the winter the Club had held a very 
successful bazaar and had in the bank $78.00, 
which was to be devoted to the furnishing of 
our club room in the new Commons building. 
By diverting part of this sum from the purpose 
for which it was intended, the 
Club felt warranted in renting 
the cottage which the agent of 
the selected site agreed to erect. 
So the order to build was given, 
and the 23rd of July the first 
group of girls went by boat to 
take possession. At the sum- 
mit of this hill 100 feet above 
the lake, where we always had 
a fine breeze, even on hottest 
days we have for two months 
had our summer home, our fam- 
ily ranging in number from five 
to twenty persons. A man and 
his wife were secured, not only 
to insure protection the cot- 
tage being the only one on the 
beach and some distance from 
any neighbor but also to add 
to the cottage the dignity of a 
home. 

From the moment of the de- 
cision that ..-we were actually 
to have a cottage the girls 
worked with a will to obtain the 
necessary furnishings, and as 
a result two of the most un- 
ique affairs at the Commons 
during the summer were our 
"Furnishing" and "Trolley" 
parties. In addition to what the Club itself 
was able to contribute, many articles of fur- 
niture and several gifts of money were received 
from outside friends, and with the balance of 
the bazaar money, pictures from the loan col- 
lection of the settlement and books from the 
library our vacation home was made not only 
comfortable, but beautiful and attractive. 

Forty-two girls have been at the house for 
periods varying from one day to three weeks, 
and many have been the guests. 

The co-operation in the household work, with 
careful supervision, has been successful, and, 
by reducing expenses to a minimum, has made 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[45] 5 




GIRLS' PROGRESSIVE CLUB COTTAGE SITTING-ROOM. 



it possible for 
many of the girls, 
who would other- 
wise have been 
unable, to take 
this rest and 
change. 

For several 
years there has 
been a desire 
among the girls 
of the Club for a 
place where they 
could spend their 
vacation time in 
quiet, and free 
from the conven- 
tions of a summer 
resort, and at the 
close of this two 
months' experi- 
ment, we feel we 
have found the 
way to accomp- 
lish this result. 
It is the unani- 
mous opinion of 
all who have 
shared the advan- 
tages thus afford- 
ed that we should 
attempt to own 
our summer home. 



This would be 
impossible, 
however, with- 
out the co-oper- 
ation of friends. 
The outlay 
would not ex- 
ceed seven or 
eight hundred 
dollars. 

The fine woods 
and hills, afford- 
ing any number 
of tramps ; the 
lake advantages, 
bathing and 
boating; the 
quiet of the re- 
mote spot, and 
the magnificent 
views of the lake 
and surrounding 
country all 
have been con- 
tributory to the 
enjoyment ex- 
pressed by each, 
and all, and have 
left impressions 
and wielded in- 
fluences not to 
be estimated. 

CARRIE CLAWSON, 

President 

Girls' Procresslve 

Club. 





GIRLS" PROGRESSIVE CLUB COTTAGE BED-ROOM. 



6 [46] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 




evenings ol spring and fall 
would prove a most valuable 
adjunct to the club and class- 
work inside the settlement 
walls. 



COMMONS DAY OUTINGS. 



HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE YOUR CHILD, NOT PLAY, BUT LIVE HEKE? 



Over a thousand of our neigh- 
bors have enjoyed a longer or 
shorter outing this summer 
thro the direct instrumentality 
of the Commons residents and 
the co-operation of its friends. 
Thirteen park parties rallied 
669 guests, and seven lake pic- 
nics took 102 along. Of those 
sent into the country, 15 spent 
one day, 4 two days, 11 three 
days, 48 one week, 230 two 
weeks, 4 three weeks or more, 
and 2 all summer a total of 
1,285. 



OUR PLAYGROUND. 

(Illustration, page 11.) 

The use that is being made of the Commons' 
playground more than justifies the outlay for 
It. The space available, being merely a sec- 
tion of the margin around the old mansion that 
is the settlement home, is meager indeed, when 
compared with the needs of the neighbor- 
hood. Yet in this space, eighty by twenty 
feet, it has been possible, through the gifts of 
friends, to establish the modest equipment of 
four swings, three see-saws, an octagon sand 
box, a horizontal bar, and a tan-bark tumbling 
spot. Located, as it is, immediately under the 
settlement windows, the work of supervision is 
lessened; tho having a public playground un- 
der the windows of one's only home necessarily 
constitutes a problem. The playground is 
open from 7:30 A. M. to 7:30 p. M.; and the ages 
of those who use it increase as the day wears 
on. The groups, ranging from kindergarten 
children up to young teamsters and shop girls, 
manifest much enjoyment, one evidence of 
which is the cheer that the young girls origin- 
ated and use, as they swing: "We like candy. 
We like gum. Chicago Commons is full of 
fun. Rah! Kah! Rah! " Use during the early 
evening hour is given over to the older boys and 
girls, and has to be apportioned, one evening 
to one group, the next to another. Could an 
electric light be erected, and a buck and a 
pair of parallel bars be substituted for the 
three see-saws, the playground during the 



CAMP FROM A MEDICAL STANDPOINT. 



BY VANCE BAWSON. 
Medical Director of the Commons Camp. 

Recognizing the need of a wider and more 
vital education along physiological lines, real- 
izing that sin is ignorance, that physical right- 
ness Is necessary for the perfect expression of 
spiritual rightness, we this year endeavored to 
make a start in that direction. 

From a knowledge of the neighborhood born 
of residence in it, with a keen appreciation of 
its great congestion, of its unhygienic sur- 
roundings, with a knowledge of the many who 
work long and hard for barely enough on which 
to exist, it seemed only reasonable to suppose 
that the bodies of the boys and girls about us 
were not developing as they should, and as 
God intended them to. 

On arrival at camp each child was given a 
careful examination of heart, lungs, back and 
the body in general. One hundred and nine 
boys and seventy-eight girls were thus exam- 
ined, a record being kept of each one's condi- 
tion. 

The spirit with which both boys and girls 
entered into this was extremely gratifying, 
since it was a matter of considerable doubt as 
to just how it would be received. A little talk 
the first evening at camp put the matter to 
them so that nearly every boy and girl was not 
only willing that the examination should be 
made, but was desirous of it. Not one was com- 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[47] 7 



polled to be examined, and only two out of the 
whole number refused it; one was a girl of 
about eleven years who had an extreme fear of 
doctors, and was almost terrified at the mere 
suggestion of the examination; the other was a 
little girl of seven years. 

The ages of the boys and girls ranged from 
eight to eighteen years, the average being 
twelve years. 

It must not be forgotten that these boys and 
girls were taken indiscriminately from the 
neighborhood, and the conditions found are 
therefore probably representative of those 
common to the hundreds of other boys and 
girls whom we do not touch. 

The following methods were used in the ex- 
amination of the boys: The boy being stripped, 
the general condition of the body, the nutri- 
tion, and body-contour were noted; then the 
forced expiration and inspiration were care- 
fully taken, giving the forced expansion of the 
chest. 

With the stethoscope, the lungs and heart 
were carefully examined, note being made of 
any deviation from normal; the back was then 
looked over for curvature, and the condition of 
the genital organs noted. 

The first thing observed was that the contour 
of the chest, in a large number of boys, was 
abnormal, the chest being flat and in too many 
cases the shoulders " rounded;" with this, the 
expansion proved to be below normal for the 
age and size of the individual. The incorrect 
position of the shoulders was probably the 
cause of the deficient expansion, though very 
few knew how to breathe. The stethoscope re- 
vealed some impairment of the normal lung 
sounds in a number of cases, one naturally 
thinking of the tendency to tuberculosis, but 
it was impossible to obtain any positive signs, 
since this disease rarely manifests itself before 
puberty. The condition of the hearts was not 
worse than one would find anywhere among 
this number of individuals. 

Much of interest and importance was noted 
regarding the genital organs. 

Each group of boys was given a talk at the 
vesper hour, on " The Heart and Circulation," 
" The Lungs and Respiration," " The Aliment- 
ary Canal," and "The Sex-Function," "Personal 
Purity" and "Temperance." The effort was made 
to present simply and plainly the anatomical 
and physiological truth which one ought to 
understand in order to know how to properly 
care for his body. I am satisfied, from after- 
talks with the boys and from observation, that 
they grasped the truth in a right, pure way, 
and will be cleaner and stronger for it. 



After vespers each night that the weather 
permitted, the boys and girls were given a 
series of exercises to develop the chest, to 
teach them how to breathe and to increase the 
lung capacity. 

Each one's expansion was again taken just 
before he went home, and the increase which 
the two weeks of regular, systematic exercise 
gave was amazing, ranging for the individual 
from one-eighth inch to one and one- half 
inches, which seems almost incredible; yet it 
must be remembered that it is much easier for 
such a gain to be made by one who has uot 
carried himself properly, and did not know 
how to breathe, than for one who has always 
observed these things. 

Owing to the inability to procure a pair of 
scales, we could not, as we had planned, weigh 
each boy and girl, and so get the absolute in- 
crease in body-weight. 

The examinations of the girls revealed a 
somewhat different state of things, tho they, 
too, knew as little about correct carriage and 
breathing as the boys. Their expansion aver- 
aged somewhat better. There were a number 
of cases of chlorosis, an anemia most often 
found among those who lack fresh air, sun- 
shine and -hygienic surroundings and proper 
food, which showed appreciable improvement 
from the two weeks' outing. The condition of 
the heart and lungs among the girls was about 
the same as that of the boys. About fifty per 
cent of the girls had curvature of the spine, 
due, in most cases, to standing on one foot 
more than on the other, the resulting curvature 
being lateral; this, in nearly every case, may 
be corrected by proper standing, by special 
exercises, or by a raised heel. 

Many minor and several major operative 
cases were discovered, and this fall the writer 
will follow up the summer's work by calling on 
the parents of these children, talking with 
them about the conditions found, laying stress 
upon the need of correcting those conditions 
and offering his assistance. 

The girls were also given talks at the vesper 
service the same as the boys, except that it 
was not deemed practicable nor wise to talk to 
them on the sex-function now, it being hoped 
that a closer acquaintance will bring the 
opportunity later. 

Two weeks was the usual length of each one's 
stay in camp, and, short as it is in comparison 
with the fifty weeks' neighborhood life, it 
accomplished for our boys and girls much that 
was obvious; many who had been weak and 
sickly and easily susceptible to changes of 
weather and disease became much stronger 



8 [48] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 



and more hardy. Pale faces took on a health- 
ful glow, thin faces filled out, and the prema- 
turely old, hungry, even starved, expression 
common to so many, vanished. 

I am convinced, from the experiences of this 
summer, that we must begin now to educate 
and train the boys and girls for fatherhood and 
motherhood and citizenship, thus laying the 
basis for a strong, intelligent and useful adult 
life. 

" As the twig Is bent, so the tree is inclined," 
and it is appalling to realize how great a num- 
ber of our boys and girls are already bent and 
warped, and also to realize that it might be 
prevented. 

They should early be taught in the schools, 
since but few parents are able to teach their 
children the whole truth about the body and 
themselves, purely and simply, and thus much 
of the disease and impurity eating away our 
individual, family and social life will be pre- 
vented. 

From contact with many boys, I am satisfied 
that the average boy of nine years knows far 
more than his parents have any idea of, and 
that it is not the truth, but the most injurious 
kind of falsehood that he has been given to 
satisfy his natural desire to know about him- 
self. 

We must, as a city, provide playgrounds for 
the boys and girls; they must have a place to 
express their energies; repression, by not giv- 
ing them adequate and legitimate channels for 
this expression, means that those energies will 
be diverted and expressed illegitimately, for 
expressed they must, and will, be. The way in 
which they are expressed makes the difference 
between a " good " and a " bad " citizen. 

At camp, those who had reputations in the 
city as "hard" cases and mischief makers were 
the cause of practically no trouble, simply 
because they had room and opportunity to 
express themselves, without the law or their 
environment saying continually, " don't." 

We must also provide physical training to 
develop the body and make it strong and 
symmetrical, to make it a tit dwelling-place for 
the spirit, and teach the youth how to 
properly care for that body. 

We would do well to remember Oliver Wen- 
dell Holmes' wise remark that to reform a man 
you must begin with his grandfather. 



OUR STERILIZED MILK VENTURE. 



Encouraged by the success of the Northwest- 
ern University Settlement's enterprise a year 
ago, to introduce sterilized milk to its neigh- 
borhood, Chicago Commons ventured to offer 
the same service to its neighbors. By the kind 
co-operation of the neighboring settlement we 
were saved the expense of the sterilizing ap- 
paratus and were able to supply the homes of 
our vicinity with the milk at two cents for a 
seven-ounce bottle, or three cents for two bot- 
tles. This charge a little more than covered 
the cost of the milk, leaving us to raise the ex- 
pense for the bottles and the labor involved. 
The demand averaged about 100 bottles per 
week, and our agency in supplying the milk 
was greatly appreciated, especially by the 
mothers of sick children, who had neither 



means nor conveniences for protecting their 
milk supply from contamination, or even for 
keeping it cool enough to be sweet. It is in- 
teresting to note that this practically helpful 
settlement enterprise was personally promoted 
and supported from the start by Dr. Reilly, 
who has so long and efficiently served the city 
of Chicago in its health department. 



THE SUMMER DEFICIT NEXT SEASON'S 
DEVELOPMENT. 



APPEAL FOB CHICAGO COMMONS OUTING WOKK. 



While our fresh-air service at Chicago Com- 
mons has never been as thorough and effective 
as this summer, we regret to report the re- 
ceipt of fewer contributions than usual for this 
special branch of our work, and a deficit in our 
outing account of $250. While a large service 
has been rendered, it has been at less expense 
this year than last. The Commons Camp at 
Elgin, for instance, was served not only by as 
many residents as last year, but had the addi- 
tional advantage of the expert work of a medi- 
cal director. The value of his service to the 
childhood and home life of our community 
will be evident to anyone who reads the inter- 
esting report of his observations, which ap- 
pears in another column, and more still to those 
of us who are having the opportunity to ob- 
serve the way in which he is following up his 
camp work by interviewing and counselling 
the parents in their homes. The insight given 
into the social, educational, and religious life 
of our neighborhood boys and girls, thro the 
description of camp experiences, also shows at 
a glance the inestimable value of the inti- 
mately personal influence acquired by our resi- 
dents in the close and consecutive fellowships 
of camp life. 

These facts, and all the others so vividly 
portrayed in these columns, point our appeal 
for the prompt co operation of the friends of 
Chicago Commons in raising this deficit of 
$250. Surely none of them who have enjoyed 
an outing themselves, will begrudge the ex- 
penditure of less than $600 in keeping 190 chil- 
dren at camp for a fortnight each, and giving 
an outing to no less than 1,285 of our neigh- 
bors all told. 

A PLEA FOB OUTING EQUIPMENT. 

We need the early assurance of an additional 
camping equipment, costing not less than $150, 
before pitching our tents for another season's 
work. 

We need the gift of a few acres of land, in- 
cluding forest and stream, and if possible a 
small farm-house and barn as the permanent 
center of the Commons encampment. 

We need the generous co-operation of our 
friends with the Girls' Progressive Club in 
their brave and promising effort, not only to 
occupy, but purchase a cottage of their own. 
The owner of "Farview Cottage" at Michigan 
City, who erected it for their use, otters the 
club the house and lot for $700, which covers 
only the very reasonable price of the land and 
the bare cost of building the cottage. Some 
of our readers may have a more favorable offer 
to suggest. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[49] 




ONE OF THE SWIMMING HOLES AT CAMP. 



j Suburban Camps an& Summer j* j* 5 
j* .* activities ot tbe Settlements, fc 



CAMP GOOD WILL. 



And Other Slimmer Outings Conducted by the 
Chicago Bureau of Charities. 



BY CHARLES FREDERICK WELI.ER. 

Supt. West Side District. 

"This here milk," said a lad at Evanston 
Camp Good Will this summer, "ain't very 
good, because it 
isn't blue." 

Another sug- 
gestive story is 
that of a tired 
mother, thirty- 
seven years old, 
who confessed 
that she had 
never in her en- 
tire lifetime 
been outside 
Chicago. ><I 
never realized 
there were such 
trees and grass 
and bathing 
places. And I 
never imagined, 
even, that there 
were such people 
as you folks here 
who spend all 
this money and 
do all these kind 



things for poor people wh 
have no claim upon you and 
are not at all important." She 
actually believed she hud dis- 
covered, in the Evanstonians 
who supported Camp Good 
Will, an unfamiliar, new 
species of human beings. " I 
tell you," she said, on the re- 
turn trip to Chicago, "it has 
been a great lesson to me and 
I am going back to do all the 
little acts of kindness I can 
around my own neighborhood. 
For," she added, somewhat 
diffidently, " I'd like myself to 
be you kind of folks." 

One hundred and twenty 
children and mothers from 
among Chicago's "reconcen- 
trados" were taken to Evanston 
every Wednesday afternoon for five weeks dur- 
ing last July and August. Each party remained 
for seven days, privileged guests of the entire 
town, whose every citizen was zealous to lend 
a helping hand. There were seventeen living 
tents, each having four cots, two double- 
deckers; this made each tent accommodate six 
children and one adult, with a baby sometimes 
added, sleeping in the cot bed with its mother. 
These sleeping tents had raised wooden floors, 
curtains before the beds, camp stools and 
canvas flies which became awnings, fore and 




DINNER TIME AT THE COMMONS CAMP. 



10 [50J 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 




A NEIGHBORHOOD GAME" DUCK ON THE BOCK. 

aft, in daytime, and doors at night. There 
were two mammoth tents for a kitchen and 
dining-room, respectively, and other tents 
providing a wash room, two toilet rooms with 
modern plumbing, and a superintendent's 
quarters where a long-distance telephone had 
been provided. A large " assembly tent " 
seemed to the boys like a circus of their very 
own, and here the best amateur talent of 
Evanston and of the Northwestern University 
contributed to frequent programs, music, reci- 
tations, stories and stereopticon views. Upon 
the lake shore, beneath the wooded bluff on 
which the camp 
stood, there was 
bathing daily in 
suits provided by 
some anonymous 
friend of the chil- 
dren and there 
was a great bon- 
fire also every 
Saturday even- 
ing, when young 
men and ladies 
brought out their 
mandolins and 
guitars, told stor- 
ies and distribut- 
ed fresh-roasted 
peanuts. " Good- 
ness! " said one of 
the Chicago 
guests, who wor- 
ried about her 
family's fuel for 
the winter, "I 
wish't I had that 



pile of kindling at my 
house." 

Now, this marvelous 
white city of tents at 
Evanston, with its 600 
beneficiaries, was mere- 
ly a counterpart of the 
original Camp Good Will 
in Oak Park which has 
given summer outings 
for four years to children 
and mothers from the 
West Side river wards. 
Here, too, 600 reconcen- 
trados were entertained, 
for a week each, during 
July and August. Both 
camps were supported 
and officered by the 
churches and citizens, 

respectively, of each suburb. Each cost about 
$1,500.00 for the season, if one estimates the 
value of all materials donated and food pro- 
vided by the church committees. Each church 
co-operating took full charge of the camp for 
a week, or half a week, depending on the 
church's strength. During their allotted time, 
the ladies of each congregation solicited pro- 
visions according to the regular menu adopted 
by the camp committee for an entire season. 
These ladies also waited at table upon the needy 
little ones and mothers who had never, all their 
lives, done aught but wait on others. 




WATERMELON PARTY AT CAMP. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[51] 11 



In addition to these two camps, to 
which the 1,200 guests were all taken 
thro the Bureau's west side office at 
181 West Madison street, there was a fine 
camp at Buena Park, corner of Graceland 
and Pine Grove avenues, established and 
conducted by the Northwest District of 
the Bureau. Here fifty children and 
women were entertained weekly for six 
weeks. An amusing peculiarity of this 
summer settlement was that " Brownie 
suits " of blue jean overalls were pro- 
Tided for both boys and girls during 
their outing. 

The Bureau's General Office took charge 
of a private residence near Piano, 111., 
and sent thirty children there each week. 
The groups remained two weeks each, 
and one entire party was composed 
exclusively of crippled children who 
dragged misshapen limbs about among 
the trees and Sowers and got some 
warm, brown color from the sun into 
their waxen faces. There were" also 
other parties " consignments " accord- 
ing to order which were sent by the General 
Office to towns and farming communities 
throughout the State. Two parties of sixty 
children each were also given a week's outing 
in Saugatuck, Mich., at the summer camp of 





PLAYING IX CLO"SE QUARTKKS A FEW BLOCKS FROM THK SKTTLKMKN'T. 



THE COMMONS PLAYGROUND. 

the " Forward Movement," which was taken 
temporarily under the Bureau's charge. 

Every Friday during July and August, 100 1 
children, selected by the Bureau's eleven 
offices throughout Chicago, have been given a 

lake trip with a day's 
outing in Michigan 
City by the transpor- 
tation company. A 
Chicago judge also 
donated 1,000 steam- 
ship tickets good for 
a ride from the foot 
of Harrison street to 
Lincoln Park and 
back. These, with 
2,000 street car tick- 
ets, provided jointly 
by Judge Horton and 
the Bureau, were 
used in giving to en- 
tire families and 
small parties a day's 
picnic in the park. 

Over 4,000 children 
and mothers alto- 
gether have been af- 
forded outings this 
summer thro the 
Chicago Bureau of 
Charities. This in- 
volved a great deal 



12 [52] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 







A CONGESTED NEIGHBORHOOD IN THE POLISH QUAKTEK. 



so immediate that 
$1,050.00 were sub- 
scribed in less than 
fifteen minutes for 
an " Evanston Camp 
Good Will." Illus- 
trated lectures for 
which churches, 
schools, clubs or in- 
dividuals desire to 
arrange, will be glad- 
ly furnished without 
charge whenever 
possible. Readers of 
TIM; COMMONS are 
invited to assist, by 
these means, in 
spreading an appre- 
ciation of " Social 
Conditions and 
Social Service in the 
Poorest Quarters of 
Chicago." Tho dis- 
tinct in aim and me- 
thod the Bureau and 
the Settlements sup- 
plement each other. 



of labor and expense, for pains were taken to 
search out, thro hidden corners of the entire 
city, the neediest, most friendless little folk, 
and no family was recommended for an outing 
anywhere until one of the Bureau's workers 
visited the home and made tactful inquiries 
into each family's circumstances. As one in- 
direct result of these in- 
vestigations, medical 
-service, employment, 
material alms, the con- 
tin u ed service of a 
Friendly Visitor, or 
some other permanent 
benefit was made to fol- 
low, in the case of es- 
pecially destitute fami- 
lies, the week or two of 
country life. 

Last spring at a union 
meeting of Evanston 
churches stereopticon 
pictures of the surround- 
ings, homes and condi- 
tion of children who 
needed outings were [ex- I 
hibited, in contrast with 
which views of Oak Park 
Camp Good Will were 
shown. The effect of 
these photographs was 



SUMMER SETTLEMENT ACTIVITIES. 



University of Chicago Settlement. J* J* J* 

A notable feature of the playground this 
summer has been the indoor work of the older 
children. The boys have evolved a bird house, 
a rude cabinet for their tools, a doll house for 




VKSPER SERVICE AT THE COMMONS CAMP. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[53] 13 



the kindergarten, the girls furnishing the ward- 
robe for the doll family, and also dressing 
other dolls to be presented to children of some 
hospital ward. A deepening sense of the fit- 
ness of things found expression when some 
little strangers came into the shelter of the 
playground to eat their luncheon, the remains 
of which were found scattered about the floor 
in a once all too familiar way. They respond- 
ed with due politeness to the resident's request 
for neatness by gathering up the fragments 
and tossing them over the fence into the alley. 



otherwise have been turned away. The expense 
of the public bath is about $400 per month. 

One of the problems of the summer play- 
ground is to substitute in the children's games 
something of real value that will make for the 
amenities of life in place of the often meaning- 
less and sometimes vulgar play engaged in. 
Some new singing games were introduced, 
which, in addition to the thought behind 
them to satisfy the educator, possessed that 
indefinable something which makes them go. 
The children are paying them the compliment 




CAMP GOOD WILL, EVANSTON, QUADRANGLE AND SLEEPING TENTS. 



Thereupon a hoot of derision aroso from the 
inner circle of the enlightened. The visitors 
looked bewildered, but were speedily made 
aware of their transgressions by the assurance, 
That ain't the way," That ain't what we do," 
" We burn "em." 

It is to be hoped that the City Fathers are 
no longer dubious as to the value of Public 
Bath No. 3. The demand for soap and water 
far exceeds the supply. Altho nearly 12,000 
baths were given in July and 500 or more a 
day during August, long lines of applicants 
were kept waiting their turn at the door, so 
that the settlement gymnasium opened its 
shower-baths to accommodate those who would 



of voluntary and eager practice among them- 
selves in addition to their hour once a week 
for directed play. The children's attitude 
toward the nature study excursions, and an 
unconscious criticism of the average school- 
room as well, was thus expressed; "I like it; 
you see you're learning something, and it's fun 
besides." Shorter or longer outings were 
given to 800 women and children. 



Neighborhood House. J* J* Jt 

The excursion of the boys of this settlement 
to see the Glenwood Industrial Farm School is 
a suggestive example. The people of our 
settlement neighborhoods and of many others 



14 [54] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 



besides, see little and know less of our great 
public institutions. 



Helen Heath Settlement, jt jt J* 

When the kindergarten children were at 
Lincoln Park, it was interesting to note that a 
familiar animal, a stray rooster, duck or sheep, 
elicited as much excited shouting as the less 
known lions, tiger or elephant. The lively 
curving, darting fish of the lily pond were fas- 
cinating, and the man who waded in the water 



free bus connects the Sixty-third street car* 
with the Sanitarium, where trained nurses and 
physicians are in charge. 



Northwestern University Settlement, Jt Jt jt 

The outings of this settlement are chiefly 
under the auspices of the several clubs and 
classes, whose members share their pleasure 
together. The picnics were especially pleasur- 
able and profitable, in which dinner and a 
drive and other recreations were provided by 



r 




CAMP GOOD WILL, EVANSTON THE BATHERS. 



to cut away the superfluous leaves was an 
object of respectful envy. Lake Michigan was 
at its best and roughest when visited. For a 
while the children were quite quiet with awe, 
really being very much impressed with the 
picture of resistless power. When they finally 
fell to digging in the sand, all were found to 
be making sewers. The sight of a gentleman 
assisting a lady to her saddle and then spring- 
to his own converted many of the children 
into galloping horses. 

The Jackson Park Sanitarium for children 
is greatly valued by the residents of this set- 
tlement, who call attention to the fact that a 



the women's clubs of two of Chicago's most 
attractive suburbs. 



Gad's Hill Settlement. J* J* J* 

" The City Encampment " was established by, 
the residents and friends of this settlement at 
a point in Glencoe on the bluff of the lake, 
known as Beck's Kavine, surrounded by fifteen 
acres of open meadow on one side and 200 
acres of wild woods on another, while Lake 
Michigan bounded the eastern horizon. Seven- 
teen tents, during five weeks, accommodated 
554 guests for one week each. In addition to the 
delights of the outing, entertainments and 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[55] 15 



educational occasions were held in the 
assembly tent, which had a seating cap- 
acity of 300. A miniature Chautauqua 
was thus provided. The co-operation 
of the suburban residents in the immed- 
iate vicinity of the encampment and all 
along the north shore was most gener- 
ous and cordial. 



Mutual Benefit Settlement. J* J* J* 

Both the grown people's and the child- 
ren's libraries have been kept open and 
msed to their fullest capacities all sum- 
mer. The girls of the Mutual Benefit 
Club rented a cottage in Wisconsin for 
a month, and about forty of them were 
entertained there during that time. 
The Bible Study Circle of about twenty- 
Jive members also had a house in Rogers 
Park for a month. 



Association House. J* J* 

A very large playground, extending 
one block in one direction and half a 
block in another, was put to the fullest 
use. A trained kindergartner with as- 
sistants met the little children five 
mornings in the week, who gave them 
something to think about while they played. 
In the intermission of their games they heard 
nature talks under the large awning and sang 
together, enjoying also a little lunch. The 
afternoons are shared alternately by the girls 
and the older boys. The evenings are devoted 
to the basket ball, tennis and croquet of the 
young women, with whom the physical direc- 
tor worked. Two concerts were given on the 




OUTDOOB SPORTS. 

ground, one by the Daily News Band and 
another by a glee club. A lantern march, 
given by the young women, was a unique 
evening occasion. The daily attendance on 
the playground averaged about 150. 




COMMONS CAMP TURTLE-CATOHKRS. 



Hull House. J* Jt J* 
In addition to the round of numerous club 

picnics and individual outings, the Hull House 
playground has been unusu- 
ally attractive this summer. 
The willow trees at last cast 
actual shadows. A glorious 
field-day of summer sports 
closed the season with great 
eclat. A little band of kinder- 
gartners who visit and teach 
crippled children in their 
own homes arranged for twelve 
of them to spend the summer 
at Lakeside, 111. The Visiting 
Nurses' Association supplied 
a nurse to care for them. The 
Hull House Summer School 
at Rockford, 111., held its ninth 
successful session with an 
average attendance of eighty- 
five. Tho initiated by and 
under the auspices of Hull 



16 [56] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 




CAMP GOOD WILL, OAK PARK, DINING TENT. 



House, the school meets its own expenses and 
has its own independent life. Its curriculum 
included out-door study of birds, botany, 
astronomy and physics, household sanitation, 
studies in Shakespeare, reading parties in 
Browning and modern fiction, theme writing, 
studies in Victorian literature, lectures on 
English poets, French and French literature, 
German readings, choral classes, drawing and 
sketching, blackboard drawing, needlework, 
gymnastics, lectures on social subjects. 



Elm Street Settlement, j* j* j* 

The summer kindergarten has had the most 
marked success. Outings were given to one 
hundred and fifty women and children. 



Forward Movement jt J* jt 

This settlement has a fine outing park at 
Saugatuck, Mich., seven or eight hours distant 
across the lake. A commodious building pro- 
vides adequate dining-room and kitchen facili- 
ties with considerable space for dormitory and 
assembly purposes. Eight parties, numbering 
sixty or seventy each, speu't a fortnight at the 



park during the summer. In addition to the 
rest and play enjoyed nature studies were pur- 
sued under competent direction and religious 
and other meetings were held each week. For 
a fortnight the Chicago Bureau of Charities 
used the park for their outing work. A large 
Sunday-school Teachers' Convention, number- 
ing over 500 attendance, was also held there. 
It is the purpose of the management of the 
Forward Movement to lease ground for cot- 
tages and tenting, the revenue from which, it 
is hoped, will ultimately make the outing 
work of the settlement self-supporting. In- 
cluding the outings given elsewhere, the For- 
ward movement sent about a thousand people 
out of the city this summer. 



The Hiram House (Cleveland) New Playground. 

A new feature of settlement work at Hiram 
House has been the open-air gymnasium and 
playground. The land is boot shaped, 90 feet 
by 220 feet one way and 159 feet by 78 feet 
another. About half of the grounds is used 
for games, while the other half is filled with 
apparatus. There are 24 rope swings, 12 baby 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[57] 17 



swings in a shady nook with benches for the 
mothers to sit upon while swinging their 
babes, 12 see-saws, 6 sand-boxes, a basket-ball 
court, a merry-go-round, and a large iron 
frame-work 84 feet long and 18 feet high. In 
this frame-work are rope swings, flying rings, 
climbing ropes and poles, traveling rings, 
sliding poles, inclined and perpendicular, 
parallel bars and a turning pole. Trained 
instructors have been in charge. The play 
idea, with its psychological and sociological 
value, has been kept paramount. Every morn- 
ing at fifteen minutes of twelve the children 
gathered in a group and listened to a story. 
Basket weaving and raffia work are taught in 
the morning to the younger children. At 
evening time the grounds are lighted by elec- 
tric lamps and are open until half-past nine 
o'clock. The testimony of our neighbors is 
that the playground has caused less lying, 
less stealing, less gambling "shooting craps" 
and fewer arrests. It has surely tilled the 
lives of a great many young people with 
healthful recreation, making them struggle to 
be master in the games, and developing their 
constructive powers. This is in direct con- 
trast to the destructive, shiftless life of the 
street. The first page of " Hiram House Life" 
for May gives a scene in Hiram House play- 
ground. The July number of the same in- 
teresting bi-monthly contains illustrations 
of groups of children at play in the grounds. 
Fifteen hundred dollars have been expended 
in fitting up the grounds. 



The Cambridge House Magazine for August 
contains an interesting account of the House 
Flower Show and Exhibition held at Cam- 
bridge House recently. The work began with 
the giving to the children in May last plants, 
with instructions as to the method of caring 
for them. The flower show was reported a 
great success, the children of the neighbor- 
hood evidencing great pleasure and interest in 
the work. 

Welcome Hall, Buffalo, has added to its fine 
building equipment a spacious and well- 
equipped playground, immediately adjoining 
the settlement building. 

Cambridge House has established a " Home 
of Kest" for the tired mothers of the neighbor- 
hood. The " home " looks out on the sea, and 
here the mothers are given a vacation of from 
two to three weeks where they may be free 
from the cares of the city home-life. Books, 
games, and music are provided for the enter- 
tainment of the visitors. A very successful 
summer's work is reported. 



< Camps and Weather," in the Cambridge 
House Magazine for August, deals with the 
outing work of Cambridge House. Despite 
many drawbacks the camping work has been 
very successful, and is now a permanent 
feature of the settlement work. 

The July issuq of the Kingsley House Record 
contains an account of the distribution of gar- 
den seeds among the children of the neighbor- 
hood. The work -was initiated by the Home 
Gardening Association of Cleveland, and over 
fifty thousand penny packages of seeds were 
purchased by the children of the city. 

Mansfield House is maintaining Boys' Camps 
near London, where the boys of the House 
neighborhood are given a country outing. The 
work has been very successful. 

Mansfield House Magazine for August notices 
the visit of Miss Jane Addams of Hull House 
at Mansfield House Settlement on her return 
from Paris. 

The great event at Mansfield House for Au- 
gust was the opening of the Boys' Club build- 
ing. The building is equipped with all con- 
veniences for carrying on the work of the club, 
and is said to be one of the best of its kind in 
London. One very satisfactory feature is that 
it is absolutely free from debt. 

The July- August issue of The Christodora 
celebrates the third anniversary of the estab- 
lishment of the Young Woman's Settlement of 
New York, which is doing a very large and use- 
ful work. 

Hattie Tyng Griswold writes sympathetically 
of the work of Chicago Commons in the Uni- 
versalist Leader for August 25, 1900, under the 
title, " Do You Know About This? " 

The Chicago Northwestern University Set- 
tlement coffee-house has been renovated and 
preparation made for a year of increased ac- 
tiuity. Courses of training in waiting on 
table are given, and places secured for those 
thus trained. 

An attractive leaflet describing the activities 
of the Roadside Settlement in Des Moines just 
at hand shows that settlement to be carrying 
on a quiet and far-reaching service without 
fuss or display. 

" Salvanization of Colonization " is an inter- 
esting account of the Salvation Army camp at 
Fort Amity, Colorado. The residents of Fort 
Amity have been taken from the slums of the 
great cities and are taught agriculture and 
kindred sciences and brought to a realizing 
sense of the value of labor on the soil. The 
results accomplished so far are very gratifying. 



18 [58] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 



CHICAGO VACATION SCHOOLS. 



BY H. W. THUBSTON, SUPEBINTENDENT. 



Three vacation schools were opened July 2. 
The schools were in session for six weeks and 
hnndreds of children were turned away, as not 
more than four to five hundred could be 
accommodated in each school. It was long 
ago demonstrated that children will attend 
these schools with gratifying regularity. The 
average attendance for the sir weeks was 88% 
of the average membership. Another striking 
thing about the attendance was that it included 
more boys than girls. The work done in the 
schools was nature study, music, drawing 
(water colors, charcoal and crayon), physical 
training (mostly games), sewing for the 
girls and wood-working for the boys, and 
kindergarten for- the little children. Nearly 
all the work gave an opportunity for motor as 
well as mental activity of the children, and it 
was a striking fact that whenever this chance 
for motor activity was lacking, the interest was 
less intense. 

The "discipline" was almost nothing. The 
chance to co-operate in the doing of things, 
worth while from the child's point of view, 
controlled, inhibited unsocial action as a rule. 
An excursion into the country, to the lake- 
side or to the natatorium w$s taken by each 
school every week, affording no less than 7,200 
people an outing. The schools were visited by 
hundreds of teachers representing nearly every 
State in the Onion. The instructors were 
enthusiastic experts in their various subjects 
and without such the work would be a failure. 
Only the best teachers, filled with a devoted 
love for the work, are adequate to the task. 

The expense of the schools was from $1,300 to 
$1,100 each, and was wholly borne by the 
women's clubs of Chicago and suburbs. 

Altho few in number, the schools are of 
great pedagogical importance. For their inde- 
pendent management has allowed them freedom 
to try new methods, some of which are proving 
so successful that they are gradually coming 
into the regular Chicago schools. 

From this point of view, in these days of 
child-study and normal schools, the Board of 
Education could well afford to maintain several 
vacation schools as a sort of pedagogical 
laboratory for the whole system. Of course, 
from another point of view, namely, that of the 
overwhelming need of the children in all of 
the crowded districts, only municipal effort 
can begin to be adequate to the task of furnish- 
ing the number of vacation schools necessary. 



The need of all the people must be met by the 
efforts of all the people. 

An exhibit of some of the work of the schools 
of this summer will be made this fall in some 
central place, possibly at the board rooms in 
the Schiller building. 



SPECIAL PARK COMMISSION'S PROGRESS. 
BY A. w. O'NEIL, SECBKTABT. 



The Special Park Commission, since its 
organization under the present city council 
May 19, 1900, has been engaged in the work of 
studying the conditions and examining many 
proposed sites for small parks and playgrounds 
in the congested districts of the city. 

The Commission would have been in a 
position to recommend the purchase of a park 
site or two to the city council, if it felt sure of 
having the $100,000 appropriation, but the city 
comptroller has given the Commission to 
understand that the fund, less $2,500 for 
expenses, would have to be cut off this year on 
account of the low condition of the city's 
finances. However, the Commission is pro- 
ceeding with earnestness and zeal as if the 
whole appropriation would be at the disposal 
of the members. It is realized that one small 
park or playground in a densely populated dis- 
trict, where the people are removed from the 
parks and have not the time or means to reach 
the breathing spots, would prove an object les- 
son and example which would be of lasting 
benefit and lead to the establishment of many 
other sadly needed recreation grounds. 

In their desire to do something, altho facing 
an empty treasury, the Commission has 
obtained from the University of Chicago the 
free lease of ten lots and the City Homes Asso- 
ciation will equip and maintain this first city 
playground until such time as the city is able 
to undertake the work. 



CHICAGO PUBLIC PLAYGROUNDS. 



For the third summer the demand for play- 
grounds in the school yards of the crowded 
districts lias been successfully altho very par- 
tially met. Six were kept open from 9 to 5 
o'clock daily, under the care of custodians, the 
most efficient of whom were kindergartners. 
There was an average weekly attendance of 
nearly 10,000 children. 

Besides enjoying the play and organized 
games and sports, the children learned basket- 
weaving and sewing. The quilts they made 
were given to some needy family. The prizes 
in the athletic contests were received by the 
winners upon their written promise to form a 
group to use the pieces of apparatus awarded. 
The demand for books to be used on the play 
grounds increased. No damages to property or 
injuries to persons were reported. The cost 
was met by private subscription, supplemented 
by an appropriation of only $1,000 from the City 
Council. 

Mr. Dwight H. Perkins, representing the 
Architects on the Small Park Commission, has 
gone abroad to investigate the provision made 
for playgrounds and small parks in European 
cities. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[59] 19 



SUMMER IDYL OF CITY LIFE. 



A Chicago daily paper recently reported this 
idyllic story of good neighborship upon the 
part of one who has modestly made his little 
home and its garden the social center of his 
neighborhood: 

The one-quarter acre lawn around his mod- 
est cottage in South Troy street he has con- 
verted into a garden spot of roses and pansies. 
From the monotonous routine of his labors as 
a bookkeeper he finds time to tend and culti- 
vate all his own flowers. That the children of 
the neighborhood may not have to look in vain 
longing upon the fragrant buds and blossoms 
that his three children pluck daily on leaving 
for their school, he is circulating as a "dodger" 
among the little ones for five blocks around a 
unique Invitation. 

The letter runs as follows : 
To the Children of Troy Street and Vicinity: 

Every child loves flowers there is always a 
refining influence about their delicate beauty 
that is especially appreciable in our city 
homes. It will be my pleasure every pleasant 
Wednesday evening this summer to invite you 
to Joslyn's Golden Rule Park and distribute 
my flowers among you, so far as they will go, 
and try in my way to carry out the golden rule, 
" Do unto others as ye would they should do 
unto you." Very truly your friend, 

CHARLES A.. JOSLYX, JB., 
351 South Troy Street. 

These invitations brought to the " park " last 
night some fifty-seven neighborhood children, 
who were unable to see that there was any good 
reason why they should be asked to wait until 
Wednesday for their quota of flowers if it was 
fated that the blossoms were to come into their 
hands "sooner or later." 

There was a logic all its own in the infantile 
argument and the upholder of the "golden 
rule " forthwith " did unto others as he would 
that others should do unto him." He dis- 
tributed the flowers that the children appealed 
for the first distribution of the season and he 
told his little visitors that next Wednesday 
they could come for more. In bevies he 
showed them into his library and lent them 
suitable books from among the treasures of 
literary lore in his possession. He had his 
little daughter sing for them and play on the 
piano. Fairy stories were told and pretty 
fables prattled. 

As the juvenile visitors left for their homes 
Joslyn and his wife handed them specially 
prepared invitations for the grown members of 
their families to call. 



They were entitled "A Card to My Friends." 
It has Mr. Joslyn's name appended and reads 
as follows: 

CHICAGO, June 16. I beg to inform yon that 
Joslyn's Golden Rule Park is open for the sea- 
son to my friends; seats are in shady spots, the 
flowers are in bloom, the grass is green, my 
library is well stocked with good reading, and 
I extend a cordial invitation to my friends to 
come and enjoy the fruits of my labor. The 
latch-string is on the outside and I would be 
pleased to have you come at any time. 

I only desire to say that this invitation is 
bona fide and without any feeling of bragga- 
docio on my part; that I have only a humble 
cottage home, but my heart has been in the 
work of making it as pleasing to the eye as 
possible, and in 'seeking to do my share in 
bringing about " peace and good will toward 
men on earth." In such spirit is the invitation 
tendered. 

PUBLIC COMFORT STATIONS IN SMALL 
TOWNS. 



Hillsdale County, Mich., has set a notable 
example to the small towns and villages as 
well as to the large cities by providing for free 
public " Ladies' Parlors " in the new court- 
house. The reservation of the fine suite of 
rooms and their equipment for rest, social pur- 
poses and toilet use were suggested by the 
Woman's Club and are provided and main- 
tained by the County Commissioners at public 
expense. They are largely patronized as a 
place for waiting and to meet appointments, 
not only by people from the country who come 
to town to shop, bnt also by the towns' folk. 
To leave all provision for human necessities 
and public hospitality to be made by the 
liquor sellers, as is usually the case, not only 
entrenches the saloons as ministrants to per- 
sonal and social need, but is an outrage upon 
those who are thus forced to patronize them. 
Here, then, is a practical work for women's 
clubs, women's Christian temperance unions, 
merchants' associations, church societies or 
even private enterprise, to secure the main- 
tenance of such public comfort stations, if 
possible, under public control, if not, at pri- 
vate initiative and expense, to demonstrate the 
desirability of having the town authorities 
assume this social function which is so neces- 
sary to the common weal. The exposure oi 
man and beast in country villages and small 
towns for the lack of such provision is an 
arraignment of the common sense and public 
spirit of an-y community. 



20 [GO] 



THE COMMONS. 



| September, 



i 



Cburcb Social fiDovements. 



i 



NOBLESSE OBLIGE." 



BY F. BURGKGRISWOLD. 

How can a child of The King 

Sit in the ashes? 

Whatever fashes, 
To grovel is not the thing. 
Up from the soli and the dust, 

Quickly arising, 

The dirt despising, 
Seek purer place he must. 

"Noblesse oblige." It we feel 

The true Blood Koyal, 

We should be loyal, 
And our high birth reveal. 
The stamp of regal graces 

(Although meanwhile 

In sad exile) 
Will show in princely faces. 

The world will surely see, 

Without confounding 

By mean surrounding, 
One's noble pedigree. 
Despite earth's painful story, 

The Christian child, 

Pure, uudefiled, 
Reflects his Father's glory. 

From The Christian Intelligencer. 



OPEN CHURCH LEAGUE CONVENTION. 



CHICAGO, OCT. 31-NOV. 1. 



Institutional Methods of Church Work to be Dis- 
cussed by Experts at Association Hall. 



For the first time the Open and Institutional 
Church League is to hold its convention in the 
West. It comes to Chicago, at the urgent invi- 
tation of a group of pastors representing sev- 
eral denominations who are at work in the 
down-town, congested districts. For the sake 
of their own work and that of the churches of 
Chicago on the densest and most destitute 
fields of the city these men have sought this 
occasion for tuis city. It will bring here rep- 
resentatives of methods that are succeeding in 
the East under the very conditions which are 
insuperable obstacles to the success and even 
existence of the city-center churches in the 
West. 

The president of the League, Frank Mason 
North, D.D., will speak on "The Vital delation 
of the Spiritual and the Social Functions of 
the Institutional Church." Its secretary, E. B. 
Sanford, D. D., will report the progress of In- 
stitutional Church work. Rev. John Bancroft 
Devins, a veteran down-town church worker, and 
founder of the Federation of Churches in New 



York City, will speak of " The Church Federa- 
tion and its Relation to Institutional Church 
Work." Rev. Charles Stelzel, of St. Louis, who 
has had success in church work for boys, will 
answer the question, " How to Reach Boys." 
Among other themes to be discussed are " The 
Need of an Economic Interpretation of Chris- 
tianity;" "Relation of the Church to the Young 
Men's Christian Association;" " The Opportu- 
nity of Wealth and Leisure in the Open Church 
Movement." 



MOTHERING AN ITALIAN'S MEN'S CLASS. 



BY A MISSION-SCHOOL TEACHER. 



Six years ago, by a curious combination of 
circumstances, I found myself, almost without 
my own volition, a teacher of a class of men in 
an Italian Sunday-school, with no knowledge 
of the language or of the nature of the people, 
or of the phase of life they represent in this 
country. 

Commencing with five, the class gradually 
increased to fifteen, most of whom were unable 
to speak any English. There was, therefore, 
nothing but the common tie of humanity, the 
desire to serve and be served, to prove a bond 
of interest by the speech of eye and tone, and 
to convey the sympathy of the heart. With 
the aid of a simple English reader, an Italian- 
English testament and an Italian-English dic- 
tionary, we began, word by word, to enlighten 
each other, until, through the mingling of the 
Latin and Saxon tongues, another language 
was evolved, more subtle and more effective, 
which requires no tongue to teach but which 
every heart can understand. There was noth- 
ing of work, no plan or scheme, but their need, 
and our mutual respect and affection led to 
the place where the term " my boys," though 
their ages ranged from seventeen to thirty-five, 
would best express to them the relation which 
I desired to exist. For there is in the maternal 
relation a ground of equality, an interdepend- 
ence, which makes one a necessary supplement 
to the deeds and happiness of the other, and 
so prevents any sense of painful superiority or 
galling obligation. The condition of so many 
young men, alone, without family ties, in a 
strange country, unable to speak the language, 
poor, and dealing often with the most oppres- 
sive conditions of labor, with the saloon, the low 
gambling den and cheap theater as their only 
resource, presented a more perplexing problem. 
The difficulty of successfully combating the 
influences of six days in the week with two 
hours on the seventh grew increasingly appa- 
rent. The thought became insistent that in 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[61] 21 



some way it was necessary to create a counter- 
acting environment, and as circumstances ren- 
dered it impossible for me to do so in the midst 
of their surroundings, an invitation was ex- 
tended to one and another to come to my house. 
Having two rooms entirely at my own disposal, 
I felt that it was possible to make this a home 
center, with its essential elements of comfort 
and cheer, and where the mother-element of 
sympathy, affection, instruction or counsel 
might always be found. The only condition 
was that such a relation to me and to each 
other must be sustained as to make its contin- 
uance possible. On this basis the family life 
was founded. Every evening in the week the 
privileges of home have been open to them for 
study, reading or amusement, and the endeavor 
has been made to meet as far as could be un- 
derstood the needs of different natures. Nearly 
all have availed themselves of it with sincere 
appreciation, walking night after night the 
two miles which lay between their lodging- 
houses and these rooms. The experiment has 
been continued six years, subject to the mis- 
takes, frictions and failures which may occur 
in any family. The result has been that twelve 
out of the fifteen are to-day earnest, self- 
respecting young men, making good citizens, 
and four of them good husbands and fathers. 

They have formed a little society among 
themselves for the furthering of the cause of 
temperance and purity, and show in their own 
lives the effect of strict adherence to the prin- 
ciples they advocate. In religion there has 
been no attempt to proselyte, the greatest lati- 
tude being allowed for individual opinion, all 
believing that the spiritual life is the one 
essential thing, and that Protestant and Cath- 
olic may mingle together with brotherly affec- 
tion and mutual respect. Some are preparing 
for college, while others have unfortunately 
in early life been unable to secure even the 
basis of an education. While their age and 
fatiguing occupations prevent much mental 
advance, they have developed equally with the 
others in the moral and spiritual qualities 
which make self-respecting men and good citi- 
zens. 

If such has been the benefit to this family of 
"boys," to the mother-friend has been given a 
loyalty and affection that has been to her so 
great a compensation as to cancel all indebted- 
ness. 

Imperfect as is this little sketch, I hope the 
simplicity of the method may appeal to some 
mother-heart to form a household of the scat- 
tered and often worse than homeless sons or 
daughters of our common Father. 



MUNICIPAL CHRISTIANITY. 



HUGH PRICE HUGHES' APPEAL. 



According to the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, 
the dean of British Wesleyanism, the future 
of the United States is imperiled by the apathy 
of Christian citizens in municipal affairs. 
Speaking to an American correspondent, Mr. 
Hughes said with reference to the proposed 
capture of London's municipal government by 
non-partisan forces : 

"The great cities of the United States are 
cesspools of political corruption. The nation's 
splendid institutions are in mortal danger from 
the hydra-headed combination of greed and 
autocracy. Christians must begin to do some- 
thing to bring 'about the kingdom of God on 
earth for which they are praying. 

'< The conditions prevalent in London are 
not entirely dissimilar to those in the United 
States. The need of a civic conscience in mu- 
nicipal Christianity is quite as urgent here. 

" The system of borough governments which 
will be inaugurated during the coming autumn, 
should induce the Christians of the metropolis 
to rise to the full height of their potentialities. 
Until they are fired with sufficient municipal 
patriotism to divorce local issues from impe- 
rial politics and to elevate to office men of 
principle, good government will continue an 
iridescent ideal." 

Mr. Hughes, in conjunction with the bish- 
ops of London and Rochester, the chief rabbi 
of London and other denominational leaders, 
has issued an appeal to the voters to interest 
themselves actively in the approaching mu- 
nicipal elections. 



THE PLOWMAN TO HIS BRETHREN. 



BY JOHN p. SJOLANDER, IN The Independent. 



We own no masters, we that walk with God 
In workday garments smelling of the sod; 
We bear no yoke that others must not bear. 
Except of greater love and tenderer care; 
We bow not clown with burdens on us laid, 
But lift them up for whom the load was made; 
For upright must we be and stand erect, 
The almoners of God to His elect. 

Not ours to judge who 'tis that makes demands. 
Ours but t seethe piteous, outstretched hands; 
For unto us the cotters be as kings- 
All all In need of what the harvest brings; 
And be that what It will, we must be just. 
For It Is only giTen us in trust: 
We will not question whose the cry or call. 
But be God's almoners to one and all. 



22 tl 



TSE COMMONS. 



[September, 



THE COMMONS. 

8 flDontblv IRecoro Devotee to aspects of life ano labor 
from tbe Social Settlement point of Pfew. 



GEAHAM TAYLOR, 



EDITOR. 



Published monthly from CHICAGO COMMONS, a Social 
Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., 
see " Publisher's Corner." 

FROM "THE SYMPHONY." 



BY SIDNEY LANIEB. 

"But oh. the poor, the poor, the poor! 
Tlutt stand by the Inward opening door 
Trade's hand doth tighten evermore. 
And siuh their monstrous foul-air sigh 
For the outside air of liberty 
Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky 
For Art to make into melody ! 

Thou Trade! thou King of the modern days! 

Change thy ways, 

Change thy ways. 
Let the sweaty laborers file 

A little while, 

A little while, 
Where Art and Nature sing'and smile. 



EDITORIAL, 

THE facts, which we take great pleasure in 
reporting in this outing number of THE 
COMMONS, are heart-cheering evidences of the 
rapid growth of the social consciousness of 
Chicago and of the great increase of those sweet 
amenities, to promote which the settlements 
stand in between. But they are only the inti- 
mations of the civic and social progress which 
in ever-broadening and deepening lines will 
make illustrious the first decade of the city's 
new century growth. 

LABOR DAY in Chicago was .. celebrated in a 
manner most creditable to the dignity, con- 
servatism and magnitude of the trades unions 
of the city. Despite the extraordinary irrita- 
tions and suffering endured with surprising 
and impressive patience by the thousands of 
locked-out building trades workmen, the great 
parade was as notable for the absence of any 
expression of bitterness as it was for the loy- 
alty it manifested to the fundamental principle 
of unionism in defence of which many of the 
rank and file have sacrificed so much and so 
long. The impartial hearing given both Mr. 
Bryan and Gov. Roosevelt was worthy of the 
carefully prepared and respectfully strong ut- 
terances of each of these distinguished speakers. 
They really vied with each other in contending 
that the workman's "possibilities must be as 
unlimited as his aspirations," in Mr. Bryan's 
phrase, and in Mr. Roosevelt's, that "it would 
be impossible to over-estimate the far-reaching 



influence of, and on the whole the amount of 
good done through the association of those who 
have learned the great lesson of acting in com- 
bination." The latter manfully rebuked "the 
tendency of each man to keep isolated in his 
own little set " and robustly plead for our people 
"to be thrown together where they act on a 
common ground, acquire a general respect for 
one another from which there must finally 
come fair play for all." All of which is good 
settlement doctrine. 



BLISS PERRY, the new editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly, speaking of Kipling at Chau- 
tauqua, said his consummate gifts are " yoked 
to a political philosophy which is barbaric; 
the philosophy of a barbarian who is ignorant 
of history, who deliberately repudiates and 
sneers at the best lessons which history has 
taught ; a philosophy which runs absolutely 
counter to those great, broad, liberal, human 
principles which Thomas Jefferson, Henry 
Clay, and Daniel Webster enunciated and im- 
planted. You can take your choice, but you 
must choose between one or the other. Either 
Whittie* is right, and Longfellow is right, and 
Lowell is right, and Kipling wrong, or else Mr. 
Kipling is right and those men are wrong. 
But there can be absolutely no compromise 
between the views of life which tell you that 
might makes right, that the individual and 
nation have a right to all that they can get 
and hold and keep, and the art of our own God- 
fearing, gentle-hearted Christian American 
poets, who were far more interested in the 
kingdom of heaven than they were in any em- 
pire that can ever be built upon earth." 

AS THE COMMONS is published not for profit, 
not even at cost so far, but for the sake of 
the cause which the settlement serves, we can 
the more confidently appeal for the help of its 
3,300 subscribers in extending its influence 
and usefulness. Sample copies will be sent to 
addresses furnished us. Some of our readers 
pay for additional subscriptions taken for 
others whom they wish to interest or assist in 
social service. A few contribute toward the 
loss to the settlement funds at which it has 
been sent on its way these fifty months. Many 
assure us it is the only paper " every line of 
which they read." The contributors to its col- 
umns are the busiest of people, many of them 
widely known as specialists, who thus gratu- 
itously serve the common cause. Increasing 
recognition is given by the press and the peo- 
ple to the real value of the service THE COM- 
MONS is rendering. Perhaps, for its own sake, 
it deserves support. 



1900] 



THE COMMONS. 



[83] 23 



PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENT. 

CHICAGO COMMONS' 

Educational Classes 



AND 



Social Clubs 

FOR PEOPLE OF ALL AGES. 

(FEES NOMINAL.) 



Begin October 1 at 140 North Union Street, and also 
at Grand Ave. and If organ St. after December 1. 



DETAILED SCHEDULE OF APPOINTMENTS AFTER CLASSES 
ARE FORMED. 

Apply for information and membership in person or by 
correspondence at 140 North Union Street. 



Permanent Settlement Appointments. 

DAILY 

All Day House open for neighbors and friends. 
9:00-12:00 a. m. Kindergartens {except Saturday and 

Sunday) at both locations. 
2:00-5:00 p. m. Kindergarten Training Classes. 
7:00 p. m. Household Vespers (except Saturday). 

WEEKLY 

Progressive Club for Young Women Monday evenings. 

Woman's Club Tuesday, 2:00 p. m. 

Free Floor Labor Discussions Tuesday evenings. 

Children and Adults' Chorus Singing Thursday after- 
noon and evening. 

Clubs and Classes for Boys and Girls Kitchen-garden, 
cooking classes, manual training; Penny Provident 
bank, mothers' meetings, dressmaking and millin- 
ery taught; classes in Literature, Language, Mathe- 
matics, History, and Music as demanded. 

SUNDAYS 

Pleasant Sunday Afternoons with music, pictures and 
brief, bright, brotherly talks. One hour: 4-5 o'clock, 
sharp. Beginning in New Building. 



tabernacle Appointments. 

Family Service with Sunday School 10:00-12:00 a.m. 

People's Hour-8.00 p. m., Sunday. 
Neighborhood Men's League and Young Men's Club 

Monday, 8 p. m. 

Fellowship Meeting Wednesday, g p. m. 
Ladies' Aiil and Missionary Society Thursday, 2 p. m 
Endeavor Meetings Friday evening. 
Choir Rehearsal Saturday evening. 

THE ILLINOIS ENGRAVING COMPANY 

346 Dearborn Street, Chicago, 



P. F. PETTIBONE & COMPANY 

46-5O So. Desplalnes St., Chicago, 

Print THE COMMONS and have large facilities for 
executing a great variety of commercial, advertis- 
ing and miscellaneous printing and binding 



PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons, 

140 N. UNION STREET, Chicago. 



Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice, including Home-making with Emphasis upon 
Industrial and Social Development and opportunity 
for Personal Contact with Settlement Work. Six In- 
structors in Theory, Gifts and Mother Play. Psy- 
chology and History of Education; Music and 
Physical Culture ; Drawing, Color Work and Design ; 
Occupations and Games; Nature Study; Home-making 
and Social Ideals and Methods in Education. Two 
years' practice in Morning Kindergartens at Settlements 
and elsewhere. Elective Courses for Teachers in 
Graduate Work. 

For requirements and further information address. 

BERTHA HOFER-HEGNER, 

HO North Union Street, CHICAGO. 



Biblical Sociology 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the Bible 
BY GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

Printed for use in the class-room. A limited number can be 
obtained for Fifty Cents of THE COMMONS. 

Gbe Cburcb in Social IReforms, 

BY GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

An Address and Discussion at the International Congrega- 
tional Council in Boston, 1899. 



THE COMMONS 



Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It is published monthly, at Chicago Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 
III., and Is entered at the Chicago Postofftce as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a year. (Two 
shillings. hnulisli; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Pos-tpaid to any State or Country. Six 
copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, 
P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-cent 
denominations. AT OUR RISK. 

Changes of Address Please notify the publisher 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to 
receive the paper within a reasonable in t ei\ai Hit it 
is due. 

Discontinuances Please notify us at once If for 
any reason you desire your subscription discontinued. 
In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish 
of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to 
each address until notified to the contrary. 



24 [64] 



THE COMMONS. 



[September, 1900.] 



.. 

Chicago Commons. 

'fe*^^'yr*H.^y^<yr*<*^<*=7V*W-?5 1 S^s5 



OUR NEW BUILDING. 



PARTLY READY FOR USE DECEMBER I. 



S5.OOO LACKING TO COMPLETE INTERIOR 

$2O,OOO NEEDED TO BUILD 

RESIDENCE WING. 



It is gratifying to report that the Morgan 
street wing of our new building is at last roofed, 
inclosed, and is being finished, without any 
breach of our faith either with workmen or 
contractors and without any dispute between 
them over our work, despite the long and seri- 
ous lockout in the building trades, which is still 
unsettled. We are assured that the first three 
floors, including the provision for the boys' 
clubs and manual training, the large assembly 
hall for settlement and church uses and the 
kindergarten and Sunday-school rooms, will be 
ready for much needed use the latter part of 
October. For that both the settlement and 
church workers are very grateful. But for the 
lack of only $5,000 with which to finish the 
floors containing the dwelling rooms for six 
resident workers and the gymnasium, the 
whole work in the new building will be 
severely crippled. For the very soul of the 
settlement work is the household life of its 
residents. It is a great pity to start the work 
there without giving the best first impressions 
of its truest spirit. Moreover, the lack of 
money with which to erect the Grand avenue 
wing, which shelters the home center of the 
entire group, threatens to deprive the work in 
the new building of its family character and 
home-likeness for another entire year, during 
which our treasury must suffer the strain of 
carrying the rent of the old residence, and the 
expense of maintaining the two large buildings. 
If the $25,000 needed to complete the plant 
could be assured before December it would be 
ready for occupancy before May, when, other- 
wise, our lease upon our old Union street 
house must be renewed. 

STATE OF THE BUILDING FUND. 

There has been subscribed to date a total of 
$26,100, of which $20,150 have been paid in, and 
$4,950 are on demand. The material and work 
contracted for amount to $24,919, of which $13,- 
985 have been paid out. Altho delay in com- 
pleting the building is only less disastrous 
than debt, we prefer to bear the living burden 
than to carry the dead weight. If twenty-five 



persons would assure from $500 to $1,000 each, 
the balance could easily be raised in time to 
complete the plant before May. Where can 
$25,000 yield quicker and larger returns in the 
uplift on the neediest, yet worthiest life, in 
civic betterment, industrial conciliation 1 , and 
the forward movement of the Christian spirit? 

OPENING OF OUR SEVENTH YEAR. 

Chicago Commons enters upon its seventh 
year of service with the confidence and hope 
born of experience in testing the people's need 
and aspiration, and in offering to work with 
them in the service of the common life. Our 
respect for the capacity and character of the 
average man and woman grows with every 
year we live in our great cosmopolitan neigh- 
borhood. We seem to be only upon the thresh- 
old of the influence and usefulness of our 
work. We believe more than ever in the great 
fund of altruism, which warrants the faith 
that what ought to be done can be, and should 
be attempted. So we press on more in faith than 
in sight of the personal and financial co-opera- 
tion needed to continue the work. 

To support the work thro the remainder of 
the year until the subscriptions for 1901 are 
received we need $500 per month, not one-fifth 
of which has yet been definitely assured us. 
For maintenance we must depend upon a large 
number of smaller gifts. 

PERSONNEL OF RESIDENTS. 

From our best summer's work we turn with 
confident hope to that of the autumn and winter. 
Altho ten of those who have worked long- 
est and best with us have scattered to other 
fields of the social service, yet no less than 
twelve of the permanent group remain and are 
re-enforced by seven new residents/.with sever- 
al applications pending. The season opens 
with ten women and nine men in residence. 

CURRENT EXPENSE DEFICIT. 

Notwithstanding the increased expenditure 
which our Fresh Air work always involves and 
the diminished income which August always 
reports, the deficit in current accounts Sep- 
tember 1st is only $280.83. This is wholly due to 
our receipt of fewer special gifts to our outing 
account than usual. Surely the many friends 
and associates of our work who are returning 
from their vacations with new stores of health 
and increased stock of energy will not fail to 
supplement the slender means with which we 
have given more of our neighbors than ever a 
larger share than ever of Mother Nature's sweet- 
ness and light. 

CALL FOR NON-RESIDENT VOLUNTEER WOBKERS. 

Our preliminary announcements are made in 
another column in full faith that non-resi- 
dent workers will surely and promptly volun- 
teer to help lead our settlement classes and 
clubs, or to co-operate with the old Taber- 
nacle in improving its exceptional opportunity 
to become a uniquely strong and effective 
down-town church of an " institutional " type. 
Offers of service should be made, if possible, 
before October 10, in person, by correspond- 
ence, or thro the telephone (Monroe, 1030) to 
Mrs. Carr, the resident in charge of the educa- 
tional classes, or to the warden, Professor 
Graham Taylor. 



" SOCIAL AND ETHICAL ASPECTS OF LIQUOK TRAFFIC " IN OUR NEXT ISSUE. 

THE COMMONS 

H flDontblu TCccoto Devotes to Hspects at JUfc ano Sabot from the Social Settlement point of Wiew. 



Whole Number 5J. 



CHICAGO. 



OCTOBER, 1900. 



UNIVERSITY FELLOWSHIPS IN 
SETTLEMENTS. 



SOCIAL 



Original Work of Michigan University Students at 
Chicago Commons. 



For the second time the five months' resi- 
dence on a Michigan University Fellowship 
has been completed, shorter periods having 
been enjoyed previously by three other stu- 
dents. The residence and report of Mr. lloyal 
L. Melendy last year were notable for his 
investigation of the ethical substitutes for the 
saloon, and the credit he received for his find- 
ings, both from the University and at the 
hands of the Committee of Fifty, as a part of 
whose investigation his inquiry was made. 

The point of view and method of work thus 
acquired enabled Mr. Melendy to apply them 
in his church work in Colorado so successfully 
that it is considered a type of service best 
adapted to Christian effort among the mining 
camps of that State. Miss Edith I. Clarke, who 
succeeded him on the fellowship, was assigned 
to the original study of "Juvenile Dependency 
and Delinquency in Chicago." For five months 
she has been closely identified with the new 
juvenile court, its probation officers, and socie- 
ties and institutions for child-saving in and 
about Chicago. Her report, which will be 
submitted to the University of Michigan this 
autumn, thoroughly canvasses the fact, causes 
and treatment of children's, dependency and 
delinquency from the point of view of her 
practical experience and personal observation. 
Her settlement residence has been very useful 
in the life and work of Chicago Commons for 
its great neighborhood. The students of the 
Christian Association and the faculty and 
friends of the University of Michigan have 
contributed in her residence no small service 
to the city and settlement, the reflex influence 
of which it is to be hoped may be very'directly 
brought to bear upon the life of the student 
body and the practical aims of the great Uni- 
versity, as Miss Clarke resumes her place in 
the class-room and the college world. 




UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT 
CHICAGO COMMONS. 



Professor Cooley on " Settlement Fellowships and 
the University." 



Royal L. Melendy on "A Student's Experience in 
Settlement Residence." 



Miss Edith I. Clarke on "The Juvenile Court in 
Chicago." 



Outlines of Fellowship Investigation of "Ethical 
Aspects of the Saloon" and "Juvenile De- 
pendency and Delinquency in Chicago.'' 



SETTLEMENT FELLOWSHIPS AND THE 
UNIVERSITY. 



BY PHOF. CHARLES H. COOLEY, University of Michigan. 



Education in sociology, as in any other 
branch of study, should be both practical and 
theoretical, special and general: it should aim 
at the widest view of social organization and 
development and also at the most detailed 
scrutiny of evefy-day facts, striving all the 
time to bring these things together and by 



2 [66J 



THE COMMONS. 



[October, 



uniting them to "make thought solid and life 
wise." Fact and theory are complementary 
and neither has any healthy existence separ- 
ate from the other. 

ACADEMIC BREADTH NECESSARY TO SOCIAL 
SANITS. 

On the one hand I believe thoroughly in the 
importance of large, sane, general conceptions 
of human life and institutions, as a basis for 
right thinking on particular problems, and 
especially as tending to correct the fiercely 
narrow views that sometimes result from the 
prolonged contemplation of particular wrongs. 
There is no state of things so bad as to make 
insanity a merit ; and the strenuous practical 
worker is so much the more efficient and influ- 
ential if he can see his affair in reasonable 
perspective as part of a whole which immensely 
transcends it. Fanaticism may have its uses, 
but it brings derision and discredit upon 
reform to a degree which must tend consider- 
ably to retard it. This is perhaps the strong 
point ef the university man and of university 
teaching: they are seldom fanatical. Aca- 
demic life gives every encouragement, through 
familiarity with books, through conversation 
with men of various culture and through a not 
too stringent personal situation, for acquiring 
and maintaining the large view. It seems, 
from conversation with people engaged in the 
direction of philanthropical undertakings, that 
this breadth of view is recognized by them as 
a result of university training and as a very 
valuable part of the outfit of a practical philan- 
thropist. 

TOUCH WITH LIFE INDISPENSABLE TO SOCIO- 
LOGICAL STUDY. 

The weakness of a purely academic study of 
sociology lies, no doubt, in the liability to 
lose that immediate and life-imparting touch 
with social need which ought to send a con- 
tinuous current of warm human feeling and 
purpose through every channel of larger 
thought. I do not see bow a man can be a 
competent sociologist except as he has normal 
sympathies and exercises them by contact with 
life. It is through sympathy, and through 
that only, that we apprehend the personal facts 
without which other facts have no meaning. 
I think, however, that the traditional notion 
of the seclusion of university life is scarce- 
ly applicable to the American university. 
The leading men on the faculties of these 
institutions are men of the world, and will 
compare favorably with merchants or lawyers 
in the variety of their experience. 



VALUE TO THE UNIVERSITY OP THE SETTLEMENT 
FELLOWSHIP. 

At any rate it is in this regard, in maintain- 
ing contact with a wider life, that an institu- 
tion like the Commons Fellowship contributes 
most directly to the being of the University of 
Michigan. To have a member of our commun- 
ity return from the Commons after four or five 
months of familiar contact with conditions on 
the West Side of Chicago, brim-full of first- 
hand facts and feeling, is a noteworthy factor in 
renewing and energizing our interest in this 
phase of life. We are glad to get the returning 
Fellow to talk before our Journal Club com- 
posed of instructors and students in econom- 
ics, history and sociology and various other 
organizations. In this way his (or her) conclu- 
sions and experiences are communicated and 
discussed and brought to bear, in one way or 
another, upon the opinions and actions of a 
large number. I know, for instance, that a 
great deal of light upon the saloon question 
has been shed among us by the researches of 
Mr. Melendy and Mr. Harrison. 

The effect of this is not measurable, but it is 
real and important, and from the university 
point of view it is most desirable there should 
be more of it. It is to be hoped that as people 
come to understand better the value of face-to- 
face study of social conditions we may find it 
practicable to increase the number of settlement 
fellowships. Certainly in no branch of study 
are the opportunities for original and effective 
work greater than in sociology. Considering 
how much interest there is in the social prob- 
lems it is surprising how little careful and 
unbiased investigation they have received. 
The literature is mostly partisan. Among 
shelvesful of books upon the liquor question it 
was impossible, until the appearance of the 
volumes now being issued by the Committee of 
Fifty, to find trustworthy information relating 
to it. When trustworthy information appears 
it is appreciated, as may be seen by the suc- 
cess of these and other studies of a similar 
reliable and thorough character. 

It would seem that when the nature of the 
work that can be done by university students 
in settlements comes to be better understood 
there should be more money forthcoming to 
support fellowships and more students of first- 
rate ability desiring to accept the opportuni- 
ties they offer. 

You are to go the road which you see to be the 
straight one, carry ing whatever you find is given 
you to carry, as well and as stoutly as you can, 
without making faces or calling people to come 
and look at you. RueTtin. 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[67] 3 



A STUDENT'S EXPERIENCE 



In Settlement Residence Its Value to His Fellow 

Students. 



BY BOYAL LOBEN MELENDY. 
New Castle, Colo. 



To the student holding this Fellowship, the 
benefits derived are of immediate and lifelong 
value. There is a difficulty, however, in 
pointing out certain definite results, arising 
from the fact that they are so numerous and 
varied, that they differ so widely from the 
results of an ordinary course of study, and that 
they depend largely upon the personality of 
the student. 

The Chicago Commons, the home of the 
student throughout the period covered by his 
Fellowship, is in the very heart of the indus- 
trial district, in one of the river wards of Chi- 
cago. It is probable that no better laboratory 
for the study of the social problems of America 
exists than this same district. Here, as from 
upturned strata, he may discover what have 
been some of the forces that brought about the 
present conditions, and some of the agencies 
now at work in the formation of the future. 

But imagine the strange plight of the stu- 
dent turned loose in this immense laboratory. 
His whole life having been spent in the atmos- 
phere of the schoolroom, he has become 
accustomed to see only, or largely, thro the 
eyes of others, and to attach undue importance 
to the printed page. There is now no professor 
at his elbow, to direct his every action no 
text book outlining his course. After a few- 
days spent seemingly to no purpose, he selects, 
with the aid of Prof. Graham Taylor, his thesis 
for study and research. Gradually, as he follows 
out some general plan which he has roughly 
outlined, the whole method of investigating 
the subject unfolds itself, and tlie very streets, 
hitherto only strange to him, begin to unlock 
their secrets, until the commonest incidents of 
daily life the children playing snatches of 
conversation in the crowd even the names 
over the saloons are teeming with ideas and 
suggestions. His whole world has enlarged, 
and not only in the study and in the lecture 
room, but everywhere at every turn he is 
now confronted with problems of society from 
which he cannot escape. This newly acquired 
habit of original research, stimulating the 
power of observation this emancipation from 
the necessarily restricted and stereotyped 
method of the classroom is the first and chief 
benefit to the student. 

Second, and closely allied to this, is a change 



in his point of view. He now sees things as 
they are, not as he supposed they were. A 
veritable flood of newly discovered facts rushes 
upon him, almost overwhelming him, and 
sweeps away a host of theories and precon- 
ceived ideas which he had hitherto never 
doubted or even questioned. The immediate 
result may be beneficial it may not. It may 
leave him bewildered, sceptical, pessimistic. 
But if he be a strong, capable man, he will be 
enabled to rebuild his theories in the light of 
new truths that have been revealed. The bene- 
fit I desire to point out lies, not in any change 
of theory (he may still be wrong), not in the 
acquisition of new facts, but in his changed 
attitude toward the reception of any theory or 
statement. He must now weigh evidences 
carefully he cannot be a dogmatist. 

Among the secondary but by no means unim- 
.portant benefits, are the acquaintance possibly 
the fellowship with men and women of ideas, 
men and women who not only possess, but are 
possessed by, their ideas; an increased faculty 
of address, and, in truth, almost' boundless 
opportunities for larger development than are 
open to the student. But, as above stated, all 
depends upon the personality of the student. 
He must be endowed with the capacity for 
growth. 

The facts that the Students' Christian Associ- 
ation of the University of Michigan has estab- 
lished and successfully maintained the first 
and thus far the only University Fellow- 
ship at the Chicago Commons, that this Fel- 
lowship is officially recognized by the Univer- 
sity, not only in the appointment of the Fellow, 
but in the granting of " credit " for the thesis 
presented, greatly enhance the value of the 
" 8. C. A." in the eyes of the entire student 
body. The Chicago Commons is a living ser- 
mon from the text, " The Word was made flesh 
and dwelt among us." The annual address of 
its founder and warden, delivered before one of 
the largest audiences gathered in Ann Arbor, 
together with the continued presence among 
them of the former incumbent of the Fellow- 
ship, who has now become an enthusiastic 
exponent of the same great truths, have 
effected in a marked degree both the method 
and the spirit of the work of the Students' 
Christian Association. 



" He who cannot feel the humanity of his 
neighbor because he is different from himself 
in education, habits, opinions, morals, circum- 
stances, objects, is unfit, if not unworthy, to 
aid him." George. Macdonald in "Robert Fal- 
coner," p. 374. 



4' F68J 



THE COMMONS. 



[October, 



THE JUVENILE COURT OF CHICAGO. 



BY EDITH I. CLABKE. 



The establishment of a separate court for 
children in Chicago has attracted very wide 
attention. Not only have foreign countries 
sent for copies of the juvenile court law, but 
representatives of these countries have visited 
the court and have studied its workings. 

HOW CRIMINALS USED TO BE MANUFACTURED. 

Before this law went into operation, the 
troubled child life of the city was in a deplor- 
able condition. Boys whose worst fault was 
that they liked to run away from school were 
tried and convicted in the same court room 
and at the same time as the worst of confirmed 
criminals. When they were arrested they were 
put into the police station to spend the -night 
with all sorts of rogues and tramps. They' 
were sentenced to confinement for small 
offenses and were considered criminals. One 
of the most dangerous features of the old sys- 
tem was that these mischievous little fellows 
were committed to the same prisons where 
grown up men were kept. They even were 
sometimes put in the same cells with the worst 
knaves. The effect of all this upon the boys is 
apparent. 

Many a child has been driven to hopeless 
discouragement by having his thoughtless 
mistakes considered tokens of criminality. 

THE NEW AND BETTER WAY DESCRIBED. 

Under the new law, no child under the age of 
sixteen years is to be considered a criminal. 
They are treated as children and are sent to 
the John Worthy school, where no men are 
committed. 

The juvenile court is held in a room of the 
court house set aside for that purpose. Judge 
Tuthill, one of the judges of the Circuit Court, 
was appointed to preside in the trials of the 
juvenile cases. His wisdom, careful examina- 
tion of details, and firmness, blended with 
kindness, have done much to make the new 
court the success that it has proved to be. 

The law went into operation July 1, 1899, but 
for the first two moths only delinquent cases 
came before the judge and jury. The court has 
been working now for over a year and ample 
opportunity has been afforded to judge of the 
efficacy of its work. The same methods have 
been used throughout the year. 

On Monday mornings, beginning at ten 
o'clock, the dependent cases are heard. These 
include the cases of children who are homeless 
or neglected in their homes. 



COUBT SCENES. 

Entering the court room by a side door at 
the back of the room, the first thing a visitor 
notices is a motley crowd of men, women and 
babies seated near the door. Ten or twelve 
different nationalities are generally represented 
by this crowd. It cannot fail to arouse the 
emotions of a sympathetic observer to look 
into the faces of the different individuals. So 
few give evidences of a happy, peaceful life, 
but almost all show unmistakably that they 
have been worsted in the struggles of life, 
that hopes have been crushed, that dis- 
couragement and bitterness hold full sway 
in their lives. Between this group of people 
and the desk at the front of the room are to be 
seen the officers of the court hurrying around 
to see that everything is in readiness for the 
coming session. In front of the desk sit the 
six men on the jury. They are present merely 
as a matter of form, but seldom are appealed to. 
They sit facing the judge's chair, and at their 
right is a raised platform with two tiers of 
chairs occupied by poor, neglected children. 
Any mother's heart would ache to see the ill- 
clad forlorn little ones sitting there, sadly 
awaiting the disposition of the court. 

Shortly after ten o'clock Judge Tuthill enters 
and ascends his platform to his desk, where he 
sits in a large arm-chair. As the different 
cases are called, the witnesses come forward, 
are sworn, and give their testimony in the 
usual manner. Mr. F. L. Barnett, states-attor- 
ney, and Lawyer T. D. Hurley, President of the 
Visitation and Aid Society, ask questions of 
witnesses and assist the judge in finding out 
the facts in the case. 

Sorrowful life stories of almost every descrip- 
tion are brought out during the trials of these 
children. During the lock-out of the building 
trades that has troubled Chicago for so many 
months, it was of quite frequent occurrence to 
have whole families of children declared 
dependent and made wards of the State because 
the father was utterly unable to get work or 
means of supporting his family. On one occa- 
sion six or seven little children, brothers and 
sisters, walked out of the court room balding 
hands, the oldest one leading the others and 
all of them sobbing and crying as tho their 
hearts would break. 

At another time, a mother begged to have her 
children left in her care, but they were taken 
from her by force because it was proved that 
she was too low and degraded, too neglectful of 
them, to be a fit guardian of her four little 
ones. 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[69] 5 



These two cases represent the two classes of 
dependent children, those whose parents can. 
not care for them but would like to, and those 
whose parents are entirely unfit to care for 
them. 

If the judge decides that a child, should be 
declared dependent, it is either adopted by 
some family, is sent directly to some suitable 
institution, or is given into the custody of 
either the Visitation and Aid Society, if Catho- 
lic; or the Children's Home and Aid Society, if 
Protestant. These societies generally keep 
the child in some institution temporarily until 
a good family home can be found for it. 

The court is open for the trial of delinquent 
children on Monday, Wednesday and Friday 
afternoons. It is hard to determine which is 
more interesting, the Monday morning session 
or one of the afternoon sessions. The trial of 
delinquent children is much less formal than 
of dependents. This is arranged in order that 
the boys may not be too much awed to tell 
what they know. The jury is dispensed with. 
In the same seats which are occupied by de- 
fendants Monday mornings, sit the delinquent 
boys, usually from ten to twenty of them. 
When the cases are called the little fellows, 
sometimes two or three at a time, go to the 
judge's desk and he talks with them in a kind, 
fatherly way that ought to win the confidence 
of any child. Some of the boys are only nine 
years old and only the tops of their heads can 
be seen above the desk. 

If the boy is penitent and it has been his 
first offense, he has another trial but is put 
under the friendly care of a probation officer, 
whose business it is to visit his home and 
school or place of business and keep a careful 
supervision over him until she is assured that 
he will try to behave better. If the judge de- 
cides that a second trial will not be the best 
thing for a child, he sends him to John Worthy 
Reform School, where he will be made to study 
and where he will have a chance to reform. 

The charges most frequently brought against 
boys are larceny and truancy. Judge Tuthill 
generally gives them some good advice and 
earnest admonition. He also talks with the 
parents or guardians, who stand behind the 
boys during the trial. He urges the parents 
to take more interest in their children and to 
gain their confidence. 

There are only six active general probation 
offices of the juvenile court. If paid at all, it 
is from private sources, as the state has made 
no provision for their support. Mr. Hurley is 
the head probation officer. The six are 
all women, one of them a colored woman, 



whose faithful, untiring service is of untold 
value. All the colored children are given over 
to her care. These women spend whole days 
in visiting their boys, getting reports from their 
teachers and employers, encouraging and help, 
ing their parents, and, in general, being a 
friend to the families. 

Very few girls are brought before the court 
as delinquents. They are usually charged 
with immorality, and are sent to some good 
institution for the care of female offenders. 

The earnest, conscientious work of the juve- 
nile court has brought about astonishing re- 
sults during the past year, and hundreds of 
children have been placed in a condition 
where they will have a chance to become no- 
ble, educated men and women. 



STUDENT CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION AC- 
TIVITIES AT NEWBERRY HALL. 



Thro the courtesy of the officers of the Stu- 
dents' Christian Association of the University 
of Michigan, we are enabled to present the fol- 
lowing brief summary of religious and social 
activities centering at their spacious and 
homelike building, a picture of which we are 
happy to print. 

Newberry Hall, the home of the Association, 
is a beautiful building of boulder stone, erected 
at an expense of $36,100 and dedicated free of 
debt. The ladies' and gentlemen's parlors are 
always open, and offer all the advantages of a 
club home to every student. The library of 
over 1,200 volumes is open all day and every 
day. The Michigan and Chicago newspapers, 
and the leading religious papers of the 
United States, are to be found on its reading 
tables. 

There is an auditorium seating 550 people, 
and there are three prayer meeting rooms, 
where various services of the Association are 
held. 

Once a week Newberry Hall is a center of 
jollity and merriment. Every Friday night the 
Association entertains it's friends and every 
student is invited. And it really entertains 
them, too, for S. C. A. socials are a feature of 
college life at Ann Arbor. The first Friday 
night of the college year is the great opening 
reception, attended by large numbers of the 
faculty, and crowds of students. 

In addition to the religious and Bible class 
group meetings, which include no less than 
250 students, a series of special addresses has 
been provided for, representing settlement and 



6 [70] 



THE COMMONS. 



[October, 



other social service being rendered in eastern 
and western cities. Every Sunday afternoon a 
group of cheery young people meet the 
patients of the hospital in the clinic room. 
Speakers' stand and singers' organ replace the 
operation tables, and a bright hour is spent in 
conference and song. After the service they 
go from ward to ward with flowers and music, 
bringing light and cheer into the lot of many 
of the patients. Another group of members 
engage in Sunday school work in " Lower 
Town," maintaining in connection with it a 
good reading room and Young People's Society. 
Still another group find their way out to the 
County Farm to hold a service regularly every 
Sunday afternoon. Preaching in surrounding 
pulpits and schoolhouses is supplied by the 
young men. An employment bureau has fur- 
nished opportunity for partial or entire self- 
support to over sixty students within the open- 
ing week of the term. Nearly one-fifth of the 
whole student body are included in the mem- 
bership of this Association. Many of the 
special addresses delivered by members of the 
faculty and others at the meetings held under 
the' auspices of the Association have been 
printed in a most inspiring volume entitled, 
"Keligious Life of the University of Michigan." 



OUTLINES OF MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY 
FELLOWSHIP INVESTIGATIONS. 



The character, scope thoroness, as well 
as the practical and academic value of the 
original investigations pursued by the last two 
incumbents of the Michigan University social 
settlement fellowship at Chicago Commons, 
may be indicated by the bare abstract of their 
very full reports presented to the University 
and the settlement. 

Grateful recognition is hereby made of the 
cordial co-operation, generous courtesies, and 
invaluable advantages received at the hands of 
the judge and officers of the Juvenile Court, 
the Children's Home and Aid Society, the 
police and public health departments of the 
city of Chicago, the representatives of fraternal 
and other organizations, and many private in- 
dividuals who have thus placed both the stu- 
dent-investigators and Chicago Commons un- 
der many personal obligations to them. 

The full text of Mr. Melendy's report will be 
published in a forthcoming volume on " The 
Ethical Aspects of the Liquor Problem," soon 
to be issued from the press of Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., by the " Committee of Fifty," for 
whom the investigation was made under the 
auspices of Chicago Commons. 



MB. ROYAL LOKEN MELENDY'S BEPOBT ON "ETH- 

ICAIj SUBSTITUTES FOB THE SALOON 

IN CHICAGO." 

I. The saloon In general, including a descriptive defini- 
tion. 

II. The saloon specialized to meet the demand in working- 
men's districts, business men's districts, and suburban 
districts, including specific Investigations of free lunches, 
social and recreative features and the provisions for 
toilet and other necessities of life. 

III. Descriptive classification of substitutes for the social 
function of the saloon. (1) Voluntary associations, in- 
cluding fraternal organizations, turn vereins and singing 
societies, trades unions, boys' clubs, church societies, 
and social settlements. (2) Amusement enterprises, 
Including theaters, parks, and billiard halls. (3) Lodg- 
ing houses, lunch counters, and reading rooms. (4) 
Special substitutes the Young Men's and Young Wo- 
men's Christian Associations, the Young Men's Insti- 
tutes, the Salvation Army and the Volunteers of 
America, the " Home Salon", the proposed coffee 
houses. 

IV. The conclusion, recapitulating the facts canvassed, ac- 
counting for the existence of the saloon, and affecting 
the nature of the substitute for It. 

V. Appendix, containing the response to inquiries made by 
representatives of the various interests and agencies In- 
volved, including the report made by the police of the 
saloons, their patronage, and the arrests made In them 
In each precinct; of the billiard halls and their patron- 
age, and the total number of churches in each precinct; 
of the lodging houses and their average accommoda- 
tion; of the theaters, their attendance, and the kind of 
entertainment provided by them. 

[Excerpts from this report will appear In our next Issue.] 

MISS EDITH i. CLABKE'S BEPOBT ON "JUVE- 
NILE DEPENDENCY AND DELINQUENCY 
IN CHICAGO." 

Introduction, including bibliography and 
other sources of information. 

I. Juvenile delinquency and dependency before the estab- 
lishment of the Juvenile Court. 

II. Agencies combined to bring the conditions before the 
public, including the efforts of individuals and those ofr 
labor unions, charity conferences, Federation of Wo- 
men's Clubs, and the Chicago Bar Association. 

III. Result of the agitation in the child labor law, com- 
pulsory education law, juvenile court law and par- 
ental school law, all of which are summarized. 

IV. The Juvenile Court, Its treatment of the dependent 
and delinquent child described; Its probation officers; 
the results of Its work to date. 

V. Agencies for the care of children, societies and Institu. 
tions. 

VI. The causes of dependency and delinquency the Ina. 
bllity of parents, due to sickness, death, poverty, 
divorce; the deficiency of parents, due to desertion, In- 
temperance, immorality, shiftlessness, indifference; the 
weakness of the marriage tie and bad legislation. De- 
linquency is due to the disagreement, ignorance or neg- 
lect of parents, heredity, the environment of bad hous- 
ing and evil associates, truancy, physical, mental or 
moral weakness of the child. 

VII. ' Ideal treatment of juvenile delinquency and depend- 
ency by the encouragement and strengthening of the 
home tie, by institutions for temporary care of children, 
by placing the child out in private families under the 
supervision of the State. 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[71] 7 



WAY-MARKS OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 



The Fifteenth Annual .Report of the Kansas 
Bureau of Labor is an exhaustive investigation 
into wage earner statistics, labor organiza- 
tions, packing, creamery and lead and zinc 
industries, county charities, industrial edu- 
cation, factory inspection, strikes, labor diffi- 
culties and court decisions of the past year in 
the state of Kansas. 

The New Zealand Parliament at its last ses- 
sion passed a minimum wage law, prescribing 
a minimum wage for children under 18. The 
object of the law is to correct a long-standing 
abuse in the apprentice system. A custom had 
grown up among employers of taking children 
into their employ to "learn the trade" on a 
basis of no wages for the first twelve months 
and then turn them adrift to take on other ap- 
prentices on the same terms. 

The law of May 10, 1900, passed by the Belgian 
Parliament provides for Belgium a system of 
Old Age pensions, or rather the Act provides 
a state subsidy in aid of old age insurance. By 
the provisions of the Act any one purchasing 
an annuity in the General Fund, which pro- 
vides annuities calculated on a three per cent, 
basis, compound interest, a maximum bonus of 
7.2 francs per year. Any member whose sub- 
scription to the fund is greater than 360 francs 
is considered in the distribution of the sub- 
sidy. 

The Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor Statis- 
tics of New York for September shows that on 
June 30th the aggregate membership of the La- 
bor Unions in New York state was nearly 250,000, 
the last three months of -the year showing an in- 
crease in the number of unions and in the 
membership greater than at any time in the 
history of trades unionism. A most encourag- 
ing feature is the report that the number of 
female unionists has more than doubled in the 
past three years, altho still confined almost 
entirely to New York City. 

When the supply of cotton cloth on hand so 
exceeded the current demand that manufactur- 
ers were iniending to reduce either the output 
of their mills or the wages of the operatives, 
Mr. M. C. D. Borden, of Fall Kiver, Mass., 
invested so heavily in the product as to keep 
the mills running and thus relieve the situa- 
tion. In forcing the other manufacturers to 
continue operating at a reduced profit to them- 
selves he has incurred their enmity, and a year 
ago was balked by them in his attempt to 
relieve the market. At that time he raised the 
wages at his own mills ten per cent and kept 
the mills running on full time. Recently he 



has contracted with the other manufacturers 
to buy a portion of their product weekly for a 
period of twenty-five weeks to assure the con- 
tinuance of work for the Fall River operatives 
without a cut in either wages or time. Mr. 
Borden's buying comes at a time when a cut 
was threatened, which would probably have 
resulted in a most serious strike. In four 
crises he has thus come to the rescue of the 
workers. 

The return of John Burns to Parliament 
after one of the most exciting of political cam. 
paigns is a notable triumph for the cause of 
labor in England. John Burns has opposed 
roost ably the policy of the government in 
South Africa, and by so doing won the hostility 
of the reactionary party. It was confidently 
predicted that the attitude of the great English 
labor leader meant his defeat. His election 
by an increased majority over his majority of 
1895 is a signal triumph of the saner and juster 
policies for which John Burns has stood in the 
face of the wave of imperialistic enthusiasm 
that seems to have dulled the moral sense of a 
justice-loving people. 

The New York Court of appeals decided in 
the case of National Protective Association of 
Steam Fitters and Helpers vs. Enterprise As- 
sociation, decided in July, 1900, affirmed the 
right of trade unionists to refuse to work with 
non-members, and to strike if non-umion mem- 
bers were not discharged, dissolving an in- 
junction granted by the lower court restrain- 
ing appellant or any of its members from 
coercing the dismissal of members of the appel- 
lee. The court said in dissolving the injunction: 
" It cannot be seriously questioned but that 
every workman has the right, in the first in- 
stance, to say for whom and with whom he will 
work. * * An employer has the absolute 
right to say whom he will employ and the em- 
ployee has the right to say by whom he will be 
employed. The right is reciprocal, and once 
that right is destroyed, personal liberty is des. 
troyed and class rights. * * It cannot be 
questioned but that one may by lawful means 
obtain employment either for himself or 
another. He may procure the discharge by 
lawful means of another person in order that 
he may obtain employment either for himself 
or another. What the workman may do in his 
individual capacity he may do collectively." 

An important decision has just been ren- 
dered by Judge Holdom of the Superior Court 
of Cook county. It affirms the invalid of 
the assignment of unearned wages. A source 
of very great oppression among the laboring 
classes of Chicago has been the "loan shark," 



THE COMMONS. 



[October, 



who making advances under the pressure 
of liabilities that must be immediately met, 
takes an assignment of wages yet to be 
earned, charging interest at the rate of from live 
to ten per cent, per month, and renewing the 
contract from time to time as long as the wage- 
earner has employment. The laborer who is 
once forced to resort to the "loan shark" for 
temporary accommodation is compelled to pay 
several times the original debt in interest, and 
is held in a condition of dependance. Judge 
Holdom adheres to the early common law rule 
that an assignment of an expectancy is void 
both at law and in equity. 

A "Christian Union" of mechanics and fac- 
tory laborers has been organized in Berlin, 
with these objects in view : 1. To regulate 
the relation of employers to employes on the 
basis of Christian morality and Christian love 
to the neighbor, and to work for the general 
improvement of the condition of the laboring 
classes. 2. To promote the mental develop- 
ment of its members, and to obtain light on 
economic questions. 3. To make strenuous 
efforts for the removal of unfavorable condi- 
tions in factories and workshops, so far as they 
are injurious to health and opposed to the 
moral law of Christianity. 4. To help in 
developing the laws which protect laborers 
and to secure their proper enforcement. 5. To 
further the establishment of trade unions on a 
Christian basis, and to give aid to the members 
in legal contests arising Irom labor contracts. 

THE_CHICAGO LOCKOUT SITUATION. 

No broader minded, more just or intelligent 
opinions on the long-strained labor situation 
in Chicago have been uttered from the em- 
ployers' and capitalists' point of view than in 
the columns of Domestic Engineering, the able 
and enterprising weekly devoted to the plumb- 
ing, heating, lighting and ventilating interests. 
Its summing up of the situation to date is to 
identical with the views we have advanced that 
we quote from its issue for October 6 and 13 in- 
stead of making any statement of our own: 

"While at present writing, no agreement has 
been reached by the masters and journeymen 
in the plumbing and steam fitting branches of 
the building trades the apparent willingness 
of both sides to negotiate terms of peace is at 
least an improvement on the apparent apathy 
recently displayed, and augurs well for the 
final settlement upon a mutually satisfactory 
basis. 

Two new elements have entered into and 
very materially changed the situation. The 
retirement of Carroll from the presidency of 
the Building Trades Council is the removal of 
a serious stumbling block in the way of a con- 
ciliation of the master plumbers, Carroll being 
personally obnoxious to them, while the elec- 
tion of President Schardt puts at the head of 
affairs a man who is trusted by masters as well 
as journeymen a man with whom the masters 
will be more willing to treat. 

A second and most important element is the 
growing willingness of the masters to treat 
with the journeymen, on a basis other than the 



latter's absolute withdrawal from a central 
form of organization. As stated in our last 
issue this demand of the masters has been prac- 
tically the only bone of contention for some 
time past. Now the masters come forward with 
a proposition which concedes to the journey. 
man the right of belonging to a central council 
similar to but different in organization from 
the present Building Trades Council. The 
plan is that sixteen unions recognized by the 
contractors as peculiarly building trades shall 
withdraw simultaneously from the Council and 
reorganize themselves into a new council from 
which shall be excluded the unions which are 
not so recognized. Nothing seems to stand in 
the way now but foolish pride in the rebellious 
hearts of a few men who have put themselves 
on record and cannot see any way to change 
their position honorably. This is true of 
masters and journeymen. In the Building 
Contractors' Council there are a few men who 
have borne the brunt of the executive work of 
the fight, and who have uncompromisingly 
taken the position that there could be no set- 
tlement until the Building Trades Council 
should dissolve. To these men it is undoubt- 
edly hard to let up one jot or tittle in their de- 
mand. But, speaking for the plumbing trade, 
we know we state the feeling of a majority of 
the conservative element when we say they are 
heartily sick of the uncompromising methods 
of those in control of the Building Contractors' 
Council, and would welcome a more concilia- 
tory course. They cannot see the justice in 
demanding their journeymen to abandon a cen- 
tral form of organization, while they maintain 
such an organization themselves. Nor is this 
position a tenable one. The public is not with 
the contractors on that proposition. The only 
possible argument which they can justly put 
forth as to why the Building Trades Council 
should be done away with is that it has been 
badly officered, and managed arbitrarily, which 
is true. With .better officers in control of the 
Building Trades Council, could not the Build- 
ing Contractors' Council waive a point in its 
demand for the abolition of the council, and 
extend the olive branch, and by conciliatory 
methods effect a settlement ? 

It seems to us this could be done without any 
injury to pride and with a vast help to business. 

The public has a right to demand that the 
contractors end the fight. It suffers seriously 
in a way It does not suspect. It is true there is 
some plumbing work being done by non-union 
journeymen, but there is no doubt it is nearly 
all badly done. Non-union men are not, as a 
rule, as competent as union men, and their 
work is very unsatisfactory to the master 
plumbers, who know what good work is aud 
who want to do it. Some of the botch work 
done in Chicago by non-union plumbers would 
be laughable were it not a serious menace to 
health. Among the men who have been work, 
ing this summer have been a number of master 
plumbers who were willing to go out of busi- 
ness and work for their fellow-associates, and 
some of the worst work has been done by them. 

A little gentle courtesy, a little forgiveness, 
a little humility, and a little justice between 
master and man should end this detestable 
condition of affairs before October has passed." 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[8] 9 



CHICAGO 
COMMONS 
FREE FLOOR 
LABOR 
DISCUSSIONS. 



OPENING OF THEIR 
SIXTH YEAR. 



Descriptive Sketch of these 
Unique Gatherings. 



BY JOHN ]'. CAVIT, 

For some time their chairman. 




THE AFTERMATH OF A KNOTTY PROBLEM. 



In the saloons of the poorer districts, as in 
the clubs of the more prosperous, men 
gather in groups to discuss the topics and 
interests of the day. These discussions are 
characterized by absolute freedom of speech 
and democracy of personnel. Every shade of 
belief, social, political, religious, from laiaaez 
faire individualism back to force-anarchism, 
from communist socialism to survival of the 
fittest, from ultra-conservative Catholicism to 
"free thought," find expression in those hand- 
to-hand disputes of neighborhood opinion. It 
was the most obvious opportunity of the set- 
tlement, as regards the men of the community, 
to offer place and occasion for just such a free 
discussion, apart from the environment and 
temptations of the saloon. 

Out of precisely this need and this oppor- 
tunity has grown to notable and all but famous 
success " the Chicago Commons Tuesday 
Meeting." It is at once a most useful, a most 
far-reaching, and the least understood feature 
of the settlement's work. Those who charac- 
terize it as a "nest of anarchists," those who 
think of, and visit it as some sort of a social 
circus, and those who regard it as a weak- 
kneed apology for a religious meeting, alike 
fail to discern its purpose and its value, alike 
misunderstand and misrepresent it. 

A NEUTRAL MEETING GROUND. 

The "Tuesday Meeting" is none of these 
things. It is the settlement's deliberate propo- 
sition that all classes of men, all shades of 



thought, all degrees of prosperity and of cul- 
ture, shall for once come face to face and 
"have it out." It calls men out of their cor- 
ners where they nurse their grievances and 
brood social distrust and potential disorder, to 
bring fheir discontent and their theory of 
social salvation into the light of day, for full 
examination and frank discussion. Assuming 
the good faith and good intentions of the aver- 
age man, it offers one of the few oases of self- 
conscious democracy in the wilderness of 
social confusion and industrial chaos, where 
distinctions of class and caste may be ignored, 
and mere human manhood may be the title to 
free speech and frank opinion. 

Four years of experience have proved to the 
men who attend the meeting the good faith of 
the settlement, and they characterize it as 
"the freest floor in Chicago." With only so 
much of organization as is implied in the pres- 
ence of one of the men of the settlement as 
chairman, yet subject to the vote of the meet 
ing, an orderly, intensely interested and inter- 
esting weekly meeting continues from October 
to June. The business man and the anarchist, 
the minister and the agnostic, the socialist 
and the single laser, the woman suffragist and 
her eternally protesting anti-suffrage sister, 
all have equal rights on the floor under the 
simple rules of mutual consideration, adhe- 
renco to the subject under discussion, unre- 
stricted free speech, all sides, no favor, and a 
reasonable time limit, which the meeting can 
extend at its pleasure. 



10 [74] 



THE COMMONS. 



[October, 



LAST SEASON'S PKOGKAM. 

EDWARD PAYSON, "Trusts;" MRS.COUINNES. BUOWN, 
"Economic Independence of Women;" JAMES MORTON, 
JR.. Editor of Free Society, San Francisco, "Ideal An- 
archy." 

New Year Social Meeting (Conversazione), "Retrospect 
and Outlook;" HOWARD L. SMITH, Secretary Auti-Impe- 
rlalist League, "Imperialism The New Peril of the Repub- 
lic;" PROF. W. D. MACKENZIE, "The War in the Trans- 
vaal Country;" THOMAS I. KIDD, Secretary Amalgamated 
Wood -Workers, "If I Were the Devil?" A. M. SIMONS, 
Editor The Workers' Call, Chicago, "The Climax of Capi- 
talism." 

D. D. THOMPSON, "Some Great Social Reformers;" 
CLARENCE S. DARROW, "Leo Tolstoy;" JOHN P. GAVIT, 
"Patriotism;" EDWARD T. KEVES, of Right Relationship 
League, Chicago, " Socializing a Country Town." 

THOMAS J. MORGAN, "The Paris Commune;" J. 
HowARD.'MoORE. "Physical Unity of Man and Animal!;" 
S. G. LINDHOLM, "Conditions in the Tailors' Trade." 

WILLIAM THOMPSON, " Rights of the I'oor Under the 
Law;" Social Meeting; R. M. SPRINGER, Secretary Liberty 
Alliance, " The Peril of Monarchism. 

DR. MAURICE F. DOTY, "Government Control League; " 
RUDOLPH A. MORRIS, "Rule of the Small Middle Class;" 
FRANK 11. MCCULLOCH, " Some Facts About the Status of 
Corporations;" Closing Social. 

CONCERNING THE MEETING IN GENERAL. 

It is unfair, however, to characterize the set- 
tlement by this meeting. The entire work can 
no more be judged by it than the character of 
a church should be judged by one Bible-class. 
It occupies but two hours out of a tremend- 
ously busy week. Nor is it permissible to ask 
for tabulated results. If the question of relig- 
ious teachings be raised the most intense 
interest and feeling always attaches to the 
deepest ethical and religious questions, which 
will not down. The discussion of the histor- 
icity of the life of Jesus lasted till past mid- 
night, and nearly every meeting elicits some 
aspect of the ethical problem. The first meet- 
ings generated tremendous heat and personal 
bitterness; that is now a thing of the long 
past. Mutual toleration and respect, and no 
small modification of opinion has taken place. 

A CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTE. 

Let one anecdote serve as illustration. It is 
taken from an article by Prof. Taylor in THE 
COMMONS:* 

The battle was on between socialism and 
individualism. An eminent socialist leader, 
from the workingmen's own ranks, had pre- 
sented his argument, when a stranger to the 
men (not a " workingman") arose and thus 
took up the gauntlet that had been thrown 
down before all comers: 

" I am tired of hearing this < brotherhood ' 
talk among workingmen, and this appeal to 



*From THE COMMONS, March, 1897. Reprinted herein 
response to many requests. Ki>. COMMONS. 



the stronger to help the weaker. By force all 
things that exist are evolved, maintained, per- 
petuated. In nature, only the fit survive. 
Everywhere and always the debilitated perish. 
Everywhere and always the mightiest have 
won. Black, furious and tragic are the bloody 
annals of Man's evolution. In business and in 
industry competition must be to the death. 
The strongest beast gets the biggest bone. 
Might is master it ought to be for progress 
depends upon its triumph. With the normal 
man it is a pleasure to struggle, a pastime to 
fight, and nothing is sweeter to him than to 
confiscate his confiscator and surpass his sur- 
passer; to smite his enemy, hip and thigh, and 
to spoil him of that of which he has despoiled 
others. The normal man prefers to eat others 
rather than to be eaten. Only with the ab- 
normal man it is otherwise. He is of the mob. 
He sheepishly obeys public opinion. He is of 
a ' flock.' Might is right, absolutely, unre- 
servedly. The chief intent of false religions 
and false moralisms is to arrest competition 
half way, in order to safeguard degenerates in 
possessing that which they could neither seize 
nor defend, if competition were unlimited. 

"The Golden Rule,'' he continued, "never 
has been, is not, and never will be practicable. 
It is a lying dream. Grim and harsh all this 
may appear to nervous souls, but is it not true 
to nature? " 

It is not within the province of our present 
purpose to describe the effect upon our own or 
other minds of this inhuman declaration of 
what the speaker was pleased to call the 
"Philosophy of Power." But it does subserve 
the object for which this incident has been 
cited to note the fact that for the first time in 
the writer's long observation, this particular 
group of radically disagreeing men was in- 
stantly, by the shock to common human 
instinct, welded into unanimity, expressing 
itself first in startled silence, then in awestruck 
murmurs of disavowal, finally in the common 
consent of indignant protest. 

THE SOCIALIST'S BETOBT. 

The socialist arose to say his final word and 
close the discussion. 

" There is in nature," said he, "as Drum- 
moud teaches us, a struggle for the life of oth- 
ers, as surely as for the life of self. This 
mother instinct prevails in every realm of life. 
The hyena type of animal shows it least." 
And pointing his finger at the stranger, he 
exclaimed: " That man's evolution seems to 
have been arrested at the hyena stage! 

" This is not the power impelling human 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



11 



progress! Have the best things of the world 
been prompted by selfishness and achieved by 
competition? Are the highest things that man 
possesses in art, literature and music, thro dis- 
covery and invention, either the product or 
the possession of this brute force? No, no, no! 
The struggle for the life of others, not selfish- 
ness, the co-operation of brothers, not the 
competition of beasts, have given the world its 
best things. Our common possessions only 
have proven fittest to survive." 

And with tears in his tone he concluded: "It 
was to get out of all of us the beast which we 
see in that man yonder that He who gave us the. 
Golden Rule died on the cross, and it makes a 
fellow's heart full to think of it! " 

THIS S-EASON'S SESSIONS. 

'Our Free Floor discussions opened October 2 
with a " Conversational Social " led by Bayard 
Holmes, M. D., who gave a charming descrip- 
tion of his fellowship with the Ober Amniergau 
villagers who have recently re-enacted the Pas- 
sion Play. The animated conversation which 
lasted over two hours was of rarest and most 
unique interest. We are now in the midst of a 
campaign symposium in which leading repre- 
sentatives of the Democratic, Republican, 
Social-Democratic and Prohibition parties pre- 
sent the claims of their respective platforms 
and candidates, answer questions, open and 
close discussions. These meetings are still 
held Tuesday evenings at the old residence, 
140 North Union street, but will fill the large 
Assembly Hall in our new building, Grand 
avenue and Morgan street, when it is opened in 
December. Both men and women are welcome. 



FORTHCOMING SETTLEMENT' BIBLIOG- 
RAPHY. 



The new edition of the Bibliography of College 
Social and University Settlements, which Mrs. 
Caroline Williamson Montgomery is editing 
for the College Settlement Association, goes to 
press this month and will be ready for distri- 
bution before December. The number of set- 
tlements listed is about the same as in 1897, 
the gains balancing the losses. The literature 
of the settlement movement, however, has 
nearly doubled. The settlement idea as adapted 
to country districts, is making headway. Fresh 
interest in the new settlements in Paris, 
New South Wales, and elsewhere will be 
awakened by this volume. Orders in ad- 
vance, inclosing ten cents per copy, should be 
sent to Miss Mabel G. Curtis, 829 Boylston 
street, Boston, Mass., or to THE COMMONS, 140 
North Union Street, Chicago. 



SETTLEMENT LIFE AND LITERATURE. 



CHICAGO The Helen Heath Settlement has 
opened up its winter's work with four resident 
and seventeen non-resident workers. 

Miss Mary D. Hill, curator of the Textile 
Museum at Hull House, extends an invitation 
to all interested to inspect the work. 

Gad's Hill Social Settlement formally opened 
up their winter's work by a general reception 
for teachers and pupils Tuesday, October 16th. 
A musical program and an address by Supt. 
Mark M. Thompson completed the evening. 

The opening of the winter's work at the Max- 
well Street Settlement has been much delayed 
on account of the Jewish holidays. The house 
has been redecorated and everything is in 
order for the winter activities, and a cordial 
invitation comes to those who are interested to 
visit the house. The kindergarten was opened 
last week with Miss Martha Simons in charge 
of twenty-five children. 

Doctor Dorothea Moore, formerly of Hull 
House, and now head worker of the San Fran- 
cisco Settlement, reports interesting evidence 
of the success of the latter in the near comple- 
tion of its new building. Two four-story brick 
buildings, remodeled so as to be one structure, 
and a new gymnasium adjoining, will provide 
forty rooms and a fine equipment. 

Altogether the most tastefully designed and 
printed settlement report that has come to 
THE COMMONS this year is that of the Good- 
rich Social Settlement, Cleveland, Ohio. In 
addition to the third annual statement regard- 
ing its growing work and the large use of its 
superb equipment, the pamphlet contains a 
carefully selected and convenient bibliography 
for the use of residents and helpers. 

Kingsley House Record reports a change in 
their banking system. The stamp account is 
now supplemented with a book account. The 
bank is opened one night each week with a 
competent man in charge and one assistant. 
The bank is working on a basis now that is 
more satisfactory than ever before. In event 
of a stamp book being lost, the demands of the 
depositor can be verified by the book account. 

The first issue of Hale House Log, Boston is 
out and will be published bi-monthly except 
during the summer. The first copy is devoted 
to the summer activities, camps, picnics and 
outings. The Natural History Club is an 
interesting feature. The Club during the 
spring and summer had field excursions to dif- 
ferent points of interest round Boston, a small 



12 [76] 



THE COMMONS. 



October, 



party spending a few days at Wood's Holl. 
Animal life was studied in the tide pools at 
Nahant and a spider hunt at Muddy Pond 
woods proved interesting. The Club will be 
continued during the winter. Success to the 
Hale House Log. 

A social center has been established among 
the Russian and Polish Jews of Milwaukee by 
cultivated and public-spirited Hebrew circles 
in the city, which it is hoped will become a 
settlement by the residence of some of them in 
the needy quarter. 

The Wage-Earners' Self Culture Club of St. 
Louis has entered on its thirteenth year. The 
formal openings at each of their branch halls 
were held the last of September. The lecture 
season is being opened with public two-sided 
debates on the questions of the day. A suc- 
cessful Men's Glee Club is reported. 

The " Relation of the School and the Settle- 
ment" is the leading article in the Hiram 
House Life for May. The author, Mr. Frank 
Manny, finds that the two institutions must co- 
operate " in taking account of the actual condi- 
tions of life, and in enabling the people to 
meet the necessity of growth in their own 
lives." The church has ceased to be local in 
the old sense, and the school and social settle- 
ment must be looked to, to supply the centers 
which carry back to the workingmen the re- 
sults of thought and art. 



Suggestions for Settlements from Ethical 
Culture Schools. <^ ^ 

At the opening of the working year every 
settlement resident is on the lookout for sug- 
gestions both theoretical and practical to help 
in planning the winter's work. 

For such workers a close study of the pros- 
pectus of the ethical culture schools of New 
York for the coming year is of value. 

Such names as Felix Adler and Percival 
Cluett suggest a breadth of work and a force 
of purpose most valuable to the settlement 
worker. 

These ethical culture schools are based on 
this broad principle, namely, the hope to con- 
tribute to the solution of the great social prob- 
lems by means of a profound reformation in 
the social and ethical system of education. 
In all the work the schools have tried to do, 
the moral purpose has ever been in the fore- 
ground. In a practical way the question, " To 
what end do we educate?" is answered ethi- 
cally. One of the first courses introduced was 
manual training, whose altruistic side has a 



strong bearing on the social life of the school. 
In all the departments, science, art, history 
(social or political), the attempt is made to 
enable the pupil to contribute to the progress 
of mankind in some one direction, and "to 
inspire him with the enthusiasm of progress " 
by keeping the evolutionary point of view in 
mind in the treatment of every branch of 
instruction. Thus, in the Department of Social 
History, a brief survey is undertaken of the 
successive systems of labor, from slavery thro 
serfdom to the present wage-earning system, 
that the pupil may not have a mass of uncor- 
related facts in his mind, but may carry with 
him a compact epitome of the world's social 
progress and may recognize in a broad way 
what has been accomplished. 

The work of the pupil is planned for the 
teacher under two general heads. Inasmuch 
as what has been and what is can give no ade- 
quate clue to what ought to be, the story of 
progress as it has unfolded itself in the past is 
supplemented by the discussion of the ideals 
of progress. Great importance is attached to 
the discussion of such ideals, particularly in 
connection with our present social and politi- 
cal development. 

Then, in order that the pupil may be helped 
and inspired to contribute to the social well- 
being and progress, every effort is made to dis- 
cover the pupil's natural aptitude thro syste- 
matic observation and to direct his attention 
into that line of social service in which he can 
most effectively contribute to progress. If the 
pupil can in this large way appropriate this 
story of struggle and striving, he can be led, 
unconsciously at first, consciously later, to see 
his own relationship to society, the relation of 
society to himself and the cause and effect of 
his work on the larger whole. 

The ethical idea is not kept apart from the 
rest of the teaching, but is interwoven with the 
work in all departments and modifies the 
course. 

Would it not be well to base the work of the 
class in the settlement with some of these 
large principles for the teachers to work for as 
an ultimate aim? 



" There are some who desire to know with 
the sole purpose that they may know, and it is 
curiosity: and some who desire to know that 
they may be known, and it is base ambition: 
and some who desire to know that they may 
sell their knowledge for wealth and honor, and 
it is base avarice: but there are some, also, 
who desire to know that they may be edified, 
and it is prudence, and some who desire to 
-know that they may help others, and it is 
charity." S. Bernard. 



1900 J 



THE COMMONS. 



[77] 13 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN THE COMMONS DURING 5900. 
One Page, - $10.00. Half Page, - - $8.00 



Quarter Page, 



6.00. One Inch, - - 



.75 



new Books of Social Interest 



The Toiling Of Felix. By Henry Van Dyke. 

A Legend oil a new saying of Jesus. And other poems. 
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 

The Social Meanings of Modern Religious 
Movements in England. 

By Thomas C. Hall, D.D. 

Being the Ely Lectures. Charles Scribner's Sous. New 
York. 

The Psychology of Religion. 

By Edwin Diller Starbuck, Ph.D. 
Assistant Professor of Education at Leland Stanford 
Junior University. With a Preface hy William James, 
Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. An 
Empirical Study of the 1 Growth of 'Religious Conscious- 
ness. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York. $1.50. 

The Spiritual Life. By George A. Coe, Ph.D. 

Professor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in 
Northwestern University. Studies in the Science of 
Keligiou. Eaton Mains, New York. Curts ; Jen- 
nings. Cincinnati. $1.00. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Waugh McCulloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother and 
child stated in story form, with full citations of statutes 
and decisions. Published by Fleming H. Revell Co. 
The .American Journal nf Sociology says of it : " The 
book is well written and will undoubtedly find many read- 
ers who do not otherwise care for legal literature." 

Price, cloth, 35c. 
Address the author, Room llOi, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

A Country Without Strikes. 

By Henry Demarest Lloyd. 

A visit to the Compulsory Arbitration Court of New Zea- 
land. New York. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900. 

The Enslavement and Emancipation of the 

People. By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Published by the Author. Price in cloth, 75 cents. J. B. 
Herboldshimer, 348 Unity Bldg.. Chicago. 

The City for the People, or the Muncipaliza- 
tion of the City Government and of Local 

Franchises. .. By Frank Parsons. 

Lecturer in the Boston University Law School. Pub- 
lished by C. F. Taylor, 1520 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, 
Pa. Cloth, $1.00; Paper, 50c. 

Quarterly Bulletin of the Bureau of Economic 
Research. 

Devoted to Index Number of prices of Commodities. 
Stocks and Freight Rates. Address, John R. Commons, 
Director. 35 Lafayette Place, New York City. $1.00 per 
year. 

The Social Gospel 

A Magazine of Christian Altruism. Conducted by Ralph 
Albertson and James P. Kelley. South Jamesboro. N. Y. 
$1.00 per year. 



PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons, 

J40 N. UNION STREET, Chicago. 



Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice, including Home-making with Emphasis upon 
Industrial and Social Development and opportunity 
for Personal Contact with Settlement Work. Six In- 
structors in Theory, Gifts and Mother Play. Psy- 
chology and History of Education; Music and 
Physical Culture ; Drawing, Color Work and Design ; 
Occupations and Games; Nature Study; Home-making 
and Social Ideals and Methods in Education. Two 
years' practice in Morning Kindergartens at Settlements 
and elsewhere. Elective Courses for Teachers in 
Graduate Work. 

For requirements and further information address. 

BERTHA HOFER-HEGNER, 

HO North Union Street, CHICAGO 



Biblical Sociology 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the Bible 
BY GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

Printed for use in the class-room. A limited number can be 
obtained for Fifty Cents of THE COMMONS. 

Gbe Cburcb in Social IReforms, 

BY GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

An Address and Discussion at the International Congrega- 
tional Council in Boston, 1809. 



THE COMMONS 



Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It is published monthly, at Chicago Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 
111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofflce as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

The Subscription Price is Fifty Ceiitg a year. (Two 
shillings, bullish; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six 
copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, 
P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not above 5-cent 
denominations, AT OUR KISK. 

Changes of Address Please notify the publisher 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to 
receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it 
is due. 

Discontinuances Please notify us at once if for 
any reason you desire your subscription discontinued. 
In accordance with custom, and the expressed wish 
of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to 
each address until notified to the contrary. 



14 [78] 



THE COMMONS. 



October, 



THE COMMONS. 

H flDontbl? IRccotS E>evote to Hapects of life an Xabot 
from tbe Social Settlement point of IDlcw. 



GRAHAM TAYLOR, 



EDITOR. 



Published the fifteen! h of every month from CHICAGO 
COMMONS, a Social Settlement at HO North Union Street, 
Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., 
see " Publisher's Corner." 

EDITORIAL. 



THIS University Fellowship number of THE 
COMMONS emphasizes and illustrates the 
university origin, the academic spirit and the 
educational significance of the social settle- 
ment movement. The settlement worthy of 
the name is more of a social center for educa- 
tional purposes than anything else. It aims to 
promote the unification of the community by 
manifesting and realizing the highest social 
ideals thro the culture of what is or ought to 
be common. It is thus more closely allied 
with the school dominated by the democratic 
spirit than with any other institution. We are 
glad to attest upon our part what professors 
and students of the University of Michigan 
recognize from their point of view, that the 
increasingly real and vital relationship be- 
tween the Chicago Commons and the Univer- 
sity is of such reciprocal advantage. 



BOOKS of greatest social significance do not 
always bear sociological titles. Some of 
the most original and fundamental contribu- 
tions to the social sciences are being written 
within the domain of pedagogy and psychology, 
history, ethics, and theology. Of the list of 
volumes printed on another page two are 
likely to prove epoch-making books in the 
quiet but revolutionary influence they have 
already begun to exert upon ideal and action 
in the family and in the schools of the church. 
Professors Starbuck and Coe, by their original 
and scientific application of psychological 
analysis and induction to the facts of religious 
experience, have defined the new point of view 
whence parents and teachers are being pre- 
pared to see and seek to fulfil the educational 
function of the family and the church. What- 
ever effects the readjustment of home influence 
and church institutions to the modern peda- 
gogical psychology will lay its social conscious- 
ness as the foundation of a better social order. 



Professor Thomas C. Hall's volume interpret- 
ing the social meanings of nineteenth century 
religious movements in England, is preparing 
the way for the fulfilment of the church's 
larger social function in the twentieth. Not 
since Belfort Bax began to emphasize the " so- 
cial side" of the Reformation, with a prepos- 
session against the church which seriously 
conditioned the effectiveness of much good 
work, has there appeared a book so well calcu- 
lated both by its criticism and its sympathies, 
to impress the reader with the economic con- 
ditions and social significance of religious 
movements. 

WE ARE happy to report that the gift of a 
friend in an eastern state has enabled us 
to cancel the debt which has so long burdened 
us in publishing this paper. For the first 
time THE COMMONS has the chance of becom- 
ing self-sustaining. We appeal to the old 
friends of the paper to help us in our effort to 
secure both subscribers -and advertisements. 
With the co-operation of its readers and the 
residents of the settlements the perpetuity of 
this paper in the service of the common cause, 
for which we all stand, can now readily be 
assured. If the addresses of those who are 
likely to become readers of THE COMMONS, are 
sent us, we will be glad to forward sample 
copies, accompanied by a circular letter stat- 
ing the aims and scope of the paper. We 
greatly need this co-operation in the gratu- 
itous service rendered the common cause by 
all who have had aught to do with this paper 
since it was started five years ago. Our next 
issue will be largely devoted to investigations 
of the social and ethical aspects of the liquor 
traffic. 



CHICAGO COMMONS IMMEDIATE NEEDS. 



$40.00 Per month to maintain and enlarge 
Tabernacle Kindergarten in new 
building. 

$283.83 To relieve settlement treasury from 
carrying deficit in Summer Outing 
account. 

$300.01) For equipment of cooking school and 
$25.00 per month for an expert in- 
structor to teach plain cooking all 
winter. 

$500.00 Per month to sustain the whole work 
until the subscriptions for 1901 are 
received. 
$3,500.00 To provide shower baths, lockers and 

apparatus for the gymnasium. 
$20,000.00 To build new residence wing. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



15 



CHICAGO COMMONS ITEMS. 



INTERIOR LIFE HOUSEHOLD VESPERS. 

We open our seventh year with twenty resi- 
dents, fourteen women and six men. To give 
a glimpse into the way our residents co-operate 
in the social service of the neighborhood, we 
detail the grouping of the workers and the 
work for the ensuing season. In the hands of 
the executive and house committees, consist- 
ing of five members each, most of the general 
administrative details 'are placed. The com- 
mittee on interior life has charge of the house- 
hold vespers, which, in addition to the de- 
votional service every evening, on Mondays is 
devoted to reports on current topics from 
periodical literature or spoken discussions; 
Tuesdays, to readings from Mazzini and other 
social idealists; Wednesdays, to consecutive 
studies in anthropology and social psychology; 
Thursdays, residents in turn present subjects 
of their own choice; Fridays, representatives 
of other settlements and different forms of so- 
cial work report the method and progress of 
their activity; Saturdays, the weekly residents' 
meeting is held, and on Sunday the early eve- 
ning is devoted to musical vespers. 

RESIDENT'S CO-OPERATION. 
The committee on educational classes tries 
to meet or create the demand of the neighbor- 
hood by the offer of attractive studies; social 
functions and occasions, altho placed in spe- 
cific charge of a few of the residents.'are pro- 
moted by all; the girls' clubs, boys' clubs, kin- 
dergartens, women's and men's clubs are each 
under the personal and continuous care of 
those directly identified with them; the cho- 
ruses, penny provident bank and the settle- 
ment relation to the district charity bureau 
are fostered in the same way. New efforts are 
being put forth to develop the use and enjoy- 
ment of the public library, art museum and 
the literature in the Commons reading room. 
Provision for the programs of the Pleasant 
Sunday Afternoon and the students' monthly 
social settlement conference are also placed 
under the most competent aijd interested 
supervision. Door service and "toting," in 
which all of the residents engage, are headed 
up by the one among them who above all 
others is willing to do everything for every- 
body. The co-operation with the Tabernacle 
church work in the Sunday-school, Endeavor 
societies, social gatherings, office bearing and 
church membership are left to the volunteer- 
ing of the individal residents, many of whom 
are enlisted with the neighborhood church, 



some are identified with other churches and 
all are left absolutely free in expressing their 
own predilections in religion. 

REUNION OF CAMPERS WITH ELGIN FRIENDS. 

To initiate the season for the boys and girls' 
clubs a reunion of all who had been at the 
Commons' summer camp was held with the 
Elgin friends who had been most active and 
interested in promoting the profit and the 
pleasure of the campers. The enthusiasm and 
the gratitude of our girls and boys for their 
summer friends were as heartily tho less 
noisily reciprocated by them. The delightful 
evening of song, recitation, story and good 
fellowship will not soon be forgotten. 

KINDERGARTEN AND TRAINING SCHOOL. 

The kindergarten and the training school 
opened October 2d at the old Commons with a 
full complement of children and a good enter- 
ing class. Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner, princi- 
pal of the school, and the warden of the Com- 
mons welcomed the young ladies to the fellow- 
ship of the house in the work for the child- 
hood and motherhood of the neighborhood. 

We hope to reopen the old Tabernacle kin- 
dergarten at once in the temporary quarters 
now occupied by the church, so as to have the 
school in readiness to remove to the spacious 
kindergarten quarters provided in the new 
building. While the training school provides 
for the support of the kindergarten at the old 
Commons, without expense to the settlement, 
the school in the new building will be de- 
pendent upon the gifts of its friends. We need 
at least forty dollars a month to maintain it 
among a people who greatly need its ministry, 
only a few of whose children are provided for 
in the public school kindergartens. In both 
schools the parents eontribute what they can 
toward the expense of maintaining them. 

COOKING CLASSES NEED ASSISTANT. 

One of the most needed and most successful 
branches of our settlement work is the teach- 
ing of plain cooking. The* demand for it 
which has sprung up at the offer of the supply 
has outgrown the volunteer force available. 

A thoroughly trained teacher offers to reside 
at the Commons and give her evenings to this 
service if the one expense of residence is met. 

This amounts to five dollars per week and 
with incidentals will require twenty-five dol- 
lars per month. 

The equipment of the fine training kitchen 
in the new building with demonstration tables, 
cupboards, and utensils needed for immediate 
use, call for an investment of $300. Who will 
thus assure to the home-life of this community 
this help fundamental to self-help? 



It,' [80] 



THE COMMONS. 



[October. 1900. 



Chicago Commons 



THE . AXD _THE 

OLD NEW 








THE NEW BUILDING 
Grand Avenue and North Morgan Street 



THE OLD COMMONS 



COMPLETION OF MAIN WING ASSURED. 

Gift of $5,000 to Finish Upper Two Floors. 



Gymnasium, Shower Baths, Lockers and Apparatus Costing $3,500 

Still Unprovided For. 



Now for the $20,000 to Build the Residence Wing! 



Who will Lay Its Foundation at a Cost of $750? 

Who will Offer the Last $5,000 to House the Resident Workers? 

i 

We are grateful to announce that, in response to our appeal of last month for funds with which to 
put to use the entire Morgan street wing, one of Chicago's most public-spirited citizens added $5,000 to his 
previous gift of S'>ooo. Contracts were immediately let to finish off and heat the two upper floors, and thus 
the work of completing the whole interior is at last actually being rushed. Our rapidly growing work 
will be provided with the following equipment early in December : 

In the basement, Boys' Clubs, Manual Training, Cooking School Kitchen, and Lunch Room. In the 
first story, the Assembly Hall, with 500 seats for the use of the Sunday services of the Tabernacle Church, 
the Commons' Frae Floor Tuesday Night Meeting, the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon, and the larger musical 
and social occasions of the Settlement. On the second story, the daily Kindergarten and its Training 
Class, and the Bible School of the Tabernacle Church, together with the Girls' Clubs. In the third story 
the Woman's Club, the Progressive Club for Young Women, and the Tabernacle Ladies' Aid and Mis- 
sionary Society, as well as dwelling rooms for two residents and space for shower baths and lockers. In 
the fourth floor, the Gymnasium, 50x28, and the suite for the family residence of the head-worker. 

Yet the Residence Wing is indispensably necessary to the effectiveness of everything that is done or 
attempted at the new building. For the household life, the family spirit and the abiding personal influ- 
ence of the individual resident workers constitute the very soul of the settlement, without which it loses its 
distinctive significance. We plead, therefore, for the roof and walls to shelter this group of twenty or 
more volunteer workers. 

On May I, IQOI, our lease upon the old residence, for which we are paying $1,300 a year and the 
expense of repairing, expires. By that time our group may be obliged to scatter if the new residence wing 
is not ready for their occupancy. Who will give the $750 to lay the foundation before the ground is 
frozen ? Who will offer an incentive to pay for the superstructure by agreeing to put on the roof ? 



THE SALOON AND SUBSTITUTES FOR IT. 

THE COMMONS 

\ 

B fflontblv -Kccocs Devotes to Hepects of Xlfc ano labor (com tbc Social Settlement point of View, 



Whole Number 52. 



CHICAGO. 



NOVEMBER, J900. 



OPTIMISM, PESSIMISM. 



Not blindly hoping that the world Is well, 
Nor lightly trusting in the present day, 

But looking calmly to the deeps of hell 
With mild compassion as an angel may. 

Not careless of the toil and pain, 
But seeing with the sweep of searching eyes 

That wrong and loss grow less In good and gain, 
And earth gives swelling hope of paradise. 

With eyes cast down upon the gutter drift, 

He walks the dusty way, 
Nor dreams that over there the daisies lift 

Their smiles to heaven all day. 
-Lewis W. Smith, Tabor College, Iowa, in the Independent. 



OUR SALOON INVESTIGATION FOR THE 
COMMITTEE OF FIFTY. 



The investigation of the "Ethical Substi- 
tutes for the Saloon in Chicago " is worthy of 
all the space we devote to it. For such first- 
hand investigation is all too rare, especially 
with reference to the fearfully complex "diink 
problem," of which many talk or write so much 
and really see so very little. It was undertaken 
by Chicago Commons under the auspices and 
at the expense of the " Committee of Fifty." 
This body of widely and diversely representa- 
tive men centering in New York City was 
organized in 1893 with such officers as Seth 
Lowe, the late Charles Dudley Warner, Prof. 
Francis G. Peabody and William E. Dodge, 
with the purpose of " securing a body of facts 
conceiniug the liquor problem of the United 
States which may serve as the basis for intelli- 
gent public and private action, and to secure 
for the evidence thus accumulated a measure 
of confidence on the part of the community 
which is not granted to partisan statements." 
As Mr. Waruer wrote, " it was from the first 
understood that the prime business 'of the 
Committee was not the expression of opinion or 
the advancing or advocacy of one theory or 
another, but strictly the investigation of facts 
without reference to the conclusions to which 
they might lead." 

Four sub-committees carry on and report its 
investigations. The first has already reported 



in a volume on " The Liquor Problem ia Its 
Legislative Aspect ; " the second another on 
" The Economic Aspects of the Liquor Prob- 
lem," and the physiological committee has 
published in periodical form some results of 
its experiments preliminary to its final report. 
The fourth line of inquiry is into the ethical 
aspects of the drink problem, and it was at the 
request of this committee that our investiga- 
tion was undertaken. I'o this delicate, diffi- 
cult and even hazardous work we assigned Mr. 
Boyal Loren Melendy, the incumbent of the 
University of Michigan social settlement fel- 
lowship at Chicago Commons. With rare 
courage, discrimination, manliness and mod- 
esty, he spent six months in arduous, thorough, 
unremitting and self-sacriticing toil, which 
was rewarded in the academic credits for 
the originality of his research awarded by both 
the Universities of Michigan and Chicago. 
Further deserved recognition is to be accorded 
his report by its publication in full in the 
Committee of Fifty's volume on " The Ethical 
Aspects of the Liquor Problem " soon to be 
published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



SOCIAL FUNCTION OF THE SALOON 
IN CHICAGO. 



ETHICAL SUBSTITUTES FOR IT. 



From the Report to the Committee of Fifty of a 
Six Months' Investigation. 



BY BOTAL LOREN MBLBNDI. 



The term "saloon" is too general a term to 
admit of concise definition. It is an institu- 
tion grown up among the people, not only in 
answer to their demand for its wares, but to 
their demand for certain necessities and con- 
veniences, which it supplies, either alone or 
better than any other agency. It is a part of 
the neighborhood, which must change with 
the neighborhood; it fulfils in it the social 
functions which unfortunately have been left 
to it to exercise. With keen insight into 



2 [82J 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



human nature and into the wants of the people, 
it anticipates all other agencies in supplying 
them, and thus claims its right to existence. 
In some sections of the city it has the appear- 
ance of accomplishing more for the laboring 
classes from business interests than we from 
philanthropic motives. The almost complete 
absence of these things which the uninitiated 
are accustomed to associate with the drinking 
of liquor, and the presence of much that is in 
itself beneficial, often leads to the advocacy of 
the saloon as a social necessity an equally 
false position. 

PERSISTENCE AND POWER DUE TO ADAPTATION 
TO DEMAND. 

Hedged in on every side by law, opposed by 
every contrivance the mind of man could in- 
vent, it persists in eiisting and flourishing. 
The very fact of its persistence ought to cause 
us to realize that we have not yet struck at the 
root. 

The saloon is charged with being the greatest 
political institution of the country; with mak- 
ing and unmaking our legislation. Why stiould 
it not? No other institution is more truly an 
institution of the people, is so sensitive to their 
every pulsation, yields to their every whim. No 
other institution puts itself out of the way so 
much to learn and accommodate itself to their 
needs. So long as we remain a government of 
the people, just so long must we expect politics 
and legislation to be controlled by that insti- 
tution, whatever it may be, that is in most 
direct touch with the people. 

With a shrewd foresight, partially due to the 
fierce competition between the great brewing 
companies, they have seen and met these needs. 
The following figures, made by a careful in- 
vestigation of each of the 163 saloons of the 
Seventeenth ward, a fairly representative ward 
of the working people, shows some of the 
attractions offered by these saloons: Number 
saloons, 163; number offering free lunches, 111; 
number offering business lunches, 24; number 
supplied with tables, 147; number supplied 
with papers, 139; number supplied with music, 
8; number supplied with billiard tables, 44; 
number supplied with stalls, 56; number sup- 
plied with dance halls, 6; number allowing 
gambling, 3. 

THE WORKINGMAN'S CLUB." 

In the statement, now current among those 
who have studied the saloon "at first hand," 
that it is the workingman's club lies the 
secret of its hold upon the vast working and 
voting populace of Chicago. The term " club " 
applies, for tho unorganized, each saloon has 






about the same constituency night after night. 
Its character is determined by the character of 
the men, who, having something in common, 
make the saloon their rendezvous. Their com- 
mon ground may be their nationality; or it may 
be their occupation; or their political affilia- 
tions. Untrammeled by rules and restrictions, 
it surpasses in spirit the organized club, l hat 
general atmosphere of freedom, that spirit of 
democracy which men crave, is here realized. 
That men seek it and that the saloon tries to 
cultivate it is blazened forth in such titles as 
"The Freedom," "The Social," "The Club," 
etc. Here men "shake out their hearts to- 
gether." Intercourse quickens the thought, 
feeling and action. 

Here the masses receive their lessons in 
civil government, learning less of our ideals, 
but more of the political workings than the 
public schools tench. It is the most cosmo- 
politan institution in the most cosmopolitan of 
cities. The saloon advertises its cosmopoli- 
tanism by this title, " Everybody's Exchange." 
Men of all nationalities meet and mingle, and 
by the interchange of views and opinions their 
own are modified. Nothing short of travel 
could exert so broadening an influence upon 
these men. It does much to assimilate the 
heterogeneous crowds that are constantly pour- 
ing into ourcity from foreign shores. But here, 
too, they learn their lessons in corruption and 
vice. It is their school for good and evil. 

The saloon-keeper, usually a man their 
superior in intelligence, often directs their 
thought. He has in his possession the latest 
political and sporting news. Here in argu- 
ment each has fair play. He who can win and 
tell the best stories leads. The saloon is in 
short the clearing house for their common 
intelligence the social and intellectual center 
of the neighborhood. 

Again, some saloons offer rooms furnished, 
heated and lighted free to certain men's clubs 
and organizations; for example, musical socie- 
ties, trades unions and fraternal organizations. 
It is also offered to the people for various 
neighborhood meetings. In such a room a gay 
wedding party celebrated the marriage vow. 
It is, in very trutb, a part of the life of the 
people of this district. 

X. 

THE BOYS' WAY TO THE SALOON. 

Now, let us follow the boy in the crowded 
districts in the river wards of Chicago. 
Placing his fingers to his mouth, he gives a 
shrill whistle, which is answered by one and 
another of the boys, till the little crowd 
their club has gathered. Seeking to join 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[83] 3 



informally such a crowd of the older young 
men, the only question asked on eligibility 
was, " Can you run? ' Short words, but of tre- 
mendous significance. It is this- as soon as 
a small crowd of boys collect, they are dis- 
persed by the police. Having been arrested 
once or twice, these young men learn the les- 
son, and I was told "to scatter" at the word 
" jiggers," the warning note given at the sight 
of an approaching " cop." Driven about the 
streets like dogs by civil authorities (whether 
itbe necessary I am not now discussing); pro- 
vided with no place for the healthy exercise of 
their physical natures, or even an opportunity 
to meet and tell stories, they have recourse to 
but one of two alternatives, either to dodge the 
police, hiding in underground caves and under 
sidewalks until they become hardened against 
the law, or to enter the places the saloons have 
provided for them. 

Thus again business interests have seized 
the opportunity that has been let slip and have 
taken a -.vantage of their necessities. Rooms 
well lighted, furnished with billiard and pool 
tables, tables for cards and other games are 
placed at the disposal of these boys. The boys 
must pass out by the bar of the adjoining 
saloon, where, heated by the game and feeling 
somewhat under obligations, they patronize 
the saloon-keeper. Some saloons have gym- 
nasiums, more or less fully equipped. Bowling 
alleys and shuffle-boards number among the 
attractions offered. 

Nearly every boy in the city is in some 
" gang" or " push," as they term their clubs, 
which, though lacking definite organization, 
are essentially clubs, with their presidents the 
real leader. Their assembly hall is the street 
in summer, and in winter, if so fortunate, an 
old barn, or shed, or underground rendezvous, 
or in a few instances a back room, a barber shop, 
or some old building. They meet here by ap- 
pointment and in some places have bo 'ing 
gloves and a little home-made apparatus for a 
"gym." pitiful attempts of the boy nature to 
find adequate eipression. The telephone poles 
and the cables supporting them form their 
principal gymnasium. Smoking is almost uni- 
versal, the cigarette having a strong hold upon 
them. Too often unguided and undirected, 
taking their ideals from the street and saloon 
life, they find in the cheap novel food for their 
imagination and thought, and consequently 
for action. Faulty as their gathering places 
are, bad as is their influence in many cases, 
they serve ofttimes to keep the boys together 
and away from the saloons, and form a nucleus 
about which here and there an occasional club 



has been formed by a settlement or church 
society. What a magnificent opportunity is 
here! As yet it has not been seized by the 
the saloon the law forbids, and to a large ex- 
tent has been obeyed. Hut who will be the 
first to seize it when a few more years are 
added and this quasi-club life is insufficient? 

BASIS OF FOOD SUPPLY TO MULTITUDES. 

For the large floating population of these 
districts, and for the thousands of men whose 
only home is the street or the cheap lodging 
house, where they are herded together like 
cattle, the saloon is practically the basis of 
food supply. The figures show that 68 per cent 
furnish free lunches, and 15 per cent busi- 
ness lunche^. On the free lunch counters are 
dishes containing bread, several kinds of meat, 
vegetables, cheeses, etc., to which the men 
freely help themselves; red-hots (frankfurters), 
clams and egg sandwiches are dispensed with 
equal freedom to those who drink and to those 
who do not. For those desiring a hot lunch, 
clam chowder hot potatoes, several kinds of 
meat and vegetables are served at tables, nearly 
always with a glass of beer. 

That the saloons are able to put out such an 
abundance and of such variety and quality is 
due to the competition of the large brewing 
companies. Thus the cost of not only the beer, 
but of the meat, bread and vegetables, bought 
in vast quantities, is greatly reduced. The 
general appearance of abundance, so lacking 
in either their homes or the cheap restaurants, 
and the absence of any sense of charity, so di" 
tasteful to the self-respecting man, add to th 
attractiveness of the place. Here the hungry 
and the penniless find re ief for a time, few 
being turned away, until they become " steady 
regulars." I believe that it is true that all the 
charity organizations in Chicago combined are 
feeding less people than the saloons. No ques- 
tions are asked about the " deserving poor;" no 
"work test" is applied, and again and again 
relief is given in the shape of money, " loaned 
expecting no return." The laboring man out 
of employment knows that in some saloon he is 
likely to find not only temporary relief, but 
assistance in finding work. That these saloons 
pose as labor bureaus is evidenced by the 
names placed over their doors, Stonecutters' 
Exchange," for example. The significance of 
these names is this: men of the same trade, 
having common interests, make the saloon that 
represents their interests their rendezvous 

MEET THE NEOK.SSITT FOB RECREATION. 

Scattered throughout the city, within easy 
reach of any neighborhood, are saloons offering 



4 [84] 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



a form of entertainment to the people not un- 
like the cheap vaudeville. The character of 
the entertainment is but a reflection of the 
character of the neighborhood. To see the 
hardened, care-worn expressions on people's 
faces gradually relax and melt away into ex- 
pressions of simple enjoyment, as they laugh 
heartily at the jokes, might at first arouse your 
sense of humor, but it would soon impress yon 
deeply with the pathos of it all; with the 
thought that this little entertainment, cheap 
and vulgar as it was, seemed to satisfy their 
longing for amusement. Patriotic songs are 
never missing, and I have heard them join 
heartily in the chorus. 

THE ONLY TOILET PROVISION. 

A function, which the municipality should 
fulfill, the saloon has appropriated, and added 
to the long list of necessities to which it minis- 
ters that of furnishing to the people the only 
toilet convenience in large .sections of the city. 
In this respect the ordinary hotel is no better 
equipped than are the saloons. Moreover, by 
their clerks or by signs, the hotels inform the 
man who habitually takes advantage of them 
that they are not for the use of the general 
public. We are behind European municipal- 
ities in this respect, and Chicago is especially 
deficient. Here is a field awaiting the efforts 
of some public-spirited man, a service by no 
means small, and one that would directly affect 
the liquor interests. Mot that it will cause 
any man to cease drinking, but that it will re- 
move a temptation from thousands of men who, 
of necessity, daily pass the bar which they feel 
under obligation to patronize. Nor will it 
longer necessitate the familiarizing of little 
boys with the evils of saloon life. 

PANDEBING TO VICE. 

While it is true that a vast army of the labor- 
ing men and boys of Chicago find the saloon 
the best place in their neighborhood for the 
development of their social, intellectual and 
physical natures, they find there also things 
which appeal to their lower natures. Almost 
without exception the saloons exhibit pictures 
of the nude, in the higher class saloons by 
costly paintings, in the smaller saloons by 
cards furnished by the brewing companies. 
As the saloon is "no respecter of persons," 
even in the best of them vile persons find en- 
trance. That the youth are here corrupted is 
too well known. The figures reveal the appall- 
ing fact that 34J per cent of the saloons in this 
district are " stall " saloons. Where is the re- 
spectable young woman, who is but one mem- 
ber of a large family, all living, or rather 



existing, in a small room which serves as 
kitchen, dining-room, parlor, and bed-room for 
the entire family, to receive her young men 
friends? Is it strange that she takes advant- 
age of those " wine-rooms? " Here her father 
goes, her mother and brothers are often there. 
They come here on cold nights to save fuel and 
light. Here, when a little tot, she used to 
come for the pitcher of beer; here, barefooted 
and dirty, she would run to hear the music of 
the German band; if she were pretty, and could 
sing, many a bright ribbon did she buy with 
the money earned here. No, they are not all 
directly evil places, but the temptation is tre- 
mendous. How can a little child brought up 
in such a locality, forced to receive from the 
saloon even the common necessities and con- 
veniences of life, grow up into noble and 
beautiful womanhood? Shall we lift up before 
her higher ideals, or can we in some way bet- 
ter the conditions, making possible the realiza- 
tion of her own ideals? 

In about '2 per cent, of these saloons gamb- 
ling is permitted. It is open and unrestricted, 
whenever sufficient "hush money" is paid. 
That more do not exist is simply due to the 
fact that the demand is not great enough for a 
larger number to thrive and pay the exorbitant 
"tax." 

Be it known, however, that there is in every 
neighborhood saloons free from any connec- 
tion whatever with gambling or the social 
vice, places where indecency in conversation 
or manner is strictly prohibited, and drinking 
to excess not allowed. This is sometimes to 
secure " a better class of trade," and some- 
times, if you will believe it, to accord with 
certain principles and religious scruples of 
the saloon-keeper. 

THE SALOON IN BUSINESS DISTRICTS. 

Thus in the workingmen's district the 
wretched condition of home and lodging-house 
life, and the failure of church and philan- 
thropy to provide opportunity for social life, 
have turned over to the saloon this large field, 
from which it is reaping an abundant harvest. 
So in the business sections the lack of an ade- 
quate provision of places for business appoint- 
ments has given the saloons an advantage which 
it was quick to take. 

Seeking a place for these appointments other 
than his office, where constant interruptions 
must occur, the business man finds in many a 
first-class saloon a place altogether suited to 
this purpose. Here he may sit down, often in 
an alcove, at one of the polished oak tables with 
which this " drawing-room " is furnished, and 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



[85] 5 



discuss business at leisure with a friend. 
Some of these " drawing-rooms " are veritable 
palm gardens; costly paintings hang upon the 
walls; German orchestras, playing with exqui- 
site taste, fill the air with sweetest music. Soft 
drinks are sold, and many an hour is spent in 
these places by those who do not know the 
taste of beer. In this connection it may be 
noted that soft drinks are expensive, because 
as one manager said, " We are not here to sell 
soft drinks, and hope to force every one to take 
beer or wine; there is more profit in them." 

Not only are these used for business appoint- 
ments, but separate rooms are sometimes 
furnished for the use of committees and small 
meetings of various character, no charge for 
their use being attached. There are in the 
city other places than the saloon for such 
appointments, but because of their scarcity 
and inadequacy they need hardly be taken into 
account. Many business transactions take place 
in these saloons. The head of a department in 
one of Chicago's large wholesale houses assures 
me that certain of their best salesmen sell a 
large portion of their goods "over a glass of 
beer " in a neighboring saloon. 

The most distinguishing feature of the down- 
town saloon is the business lunch . That the sa- 
loons are able to compete with the restaurants 
successfully is partly due to the fact that many 
of them are united under the control of the 
brewing companies, gigantic monopolies. 

Here as everywhere in Chicago the social vice 
flourishes in connection with the liquor traffic. 
The saloons having any connection with this 
evil all have a dance-hall in the rear and a 
house of ill-fame above, all under one manage- 
ment. These, however, are not scattered 
throughout among the business blocks as are 
the stalls in the workingmen's districts, but 
are clustered about certain streets. Suffice it 
to say that few enter these places who do not 
know the character of these saloons, so that in 
reality they amount to houses of ill-fame, with 
bar attachment. 

THE BEER GARDENS AND MUSIC HALLS. 

There are, of course, beer gardens of all 
grades and qualities, but those for the poorer 
classes, the ten-cent and free gardens, are 
mostly in the form of open-air vaudevilles. 
While drinking to excess is seldom known in 
the higher class gardens, a certain proportion 
of their patrons acquire in the beautiful and 
apparently harmless surroundings the pro- 
gressive appetite, which, with men of some 
temperaments, means the whole sad story of the 
ruined home and the drunkard's grave. Too 



much importance can scarcely be attached to 
the music rendered in some of these resorts. 
It is of the first quality, and to be had every 
night for the nominal fee of 25 cents. People, 
many of whom do not drink at all, gather here 
from far and near, for the gardens draw their 
patronage mostly from those who own com- 
fortable homes in the suburbs. 

The adaptability of the saloon to the needs 
of a particular locality is a source of constant 
surprise and admiration, as it is also a source 
of genuine consternation among Christian peo- 
ple, who reflect at all upon the stiff, rigid in- 
stitutionalism of the average conventional 
church. 

SUBSTITUTES FOH THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF 
THE SALOON. 

A descriptive classification of substitutes for 
the social function of the saloon includes: (1) 
Voluntary associations, such as fraternal 
organizations, turn vereins and singing socie- 
ties, trades unions, boys' clubs, church 
societies and social settlements. (2) Amuse- 
ment enterprises, including theaters, parks 
and billiard halls. (3) Lodging houses, lunch 
counters and reading rooms. (4) Special sub- 
stitutes the Young Men's and Young Women's 
Christian Associations, the Young Men's Insti- 
tutes, the Salvation Army and the Volunteers 
of America, the " Home Salon," the proposed 
coffee houses. 

THE SALOON AND THE FRATERNITY LODGE. 

There are in Chicago fifty fraternal orders, 
having in all 1,571 lodges. How great would 
be the increased patronage of the saloon if 
these lodges were not in existence? Their 
influence is both direct in furnishing rooms 
and social occasions, and indirect in the un- 
conscious influence of their teachings, and 
their bearing upon the lives of their members. 
The general attitude of fraternal societies 
towards the evils of the liquor traffic is evi- 
denced by the increasing number of them 
that are excluding liquor dealers and bar- 
tenders from their midst. It may be said, 
then, that to a certain extent it substitutes for 
the social function of the saloon. A careful 
study of the city of Chicago with reference to 
the location of the saloons and lodges reveals 
two facts which point to conclusions seemingly 
contradictory. First, in many localities where 
lodges are very abundant, the saloons are 
correspondingly scarce; second, the lodges are 
situated either immediately above the saloons 
or the saloons are clustered about the lodge 
halls. In one district in particular, the 
Russian Jewish district, the social life of the 



6 [86] 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



people finds expression almost entirely in 
lodges, very little pretext, if any, being neces- 
sary for the formation of a new lodge. Club 
life is highly developed, and the saloons are 
much less frequent here than in the adjoining 
Bohemian district. Here the nationality ele- 
ment enters into the problem, but the fact 
remains that there is a district and a people 
where the club life of the lodge takes the 
place, in a very large measure, of the club life 
of the saloon. 

Why are the lodges either immediately 
above or near the saloons? In buildings owned 
by brewing companies or private liquor dealers 
are lodge halls and an auditorium, or, in some, 
several floors are devoted to lodge halls. On 
Milwaukee avenue, the main thoroughfare of 
the workingmen's district on the West Side, in 
a distance of two and a half miles there are five 
of these halls. I do not believe that the pro- 
portion of men who drink is as great among 
fraternity men as among others. They prefer 
these halls because they are forced to the 
rent being much lower than in other halls. 
The brewing companies make up for this low 
rent by the increased sale of drinks their meet- 
ing there causes. 

TBADES' UNION HALLS. 

Trades' unions, of which there are 1'26 local 
organizations in Chicago, can scarcely be con- 
sidered as a direct substitute for the social 
function of the saloon. In only four of their 
halls, several unions meeting in each hall, are 
there club rooms. In the largest of these, the 
Building Trades Council, there are two rooms, 
one seating 2PO, and the other 150. Both are 
full during the winter months. Here the men 
sit about playing checkers and similar games, 
reading daily papers and smoking. 

A number of the unions are forced to meet in 
the saloons, or in rooms above, which are 
offered at low rates. Mr. Thomas J. Morgan, 
speaking of the early days of the Socialist 
Labor party, said that for years they met in 
the back room of a saloon, the churches and 
school-houses being closed against them, and 
that he felt a sensation akin to shame coming 
over him as night after night he passed the bar 
without paying his five cents for a drink. 

WHAT THE CHURCHES SUBSTITUTE FOB THE 
SALOON. 

A letter, enclosing a blank with the following 
questions, was sent to each of the 751 clergy- 
men of Chicago: (1) What organization lias 
your church that is specifically for men or 
young men? (2) What are its social features? 



(3) What are its recreative features? (4) State 
the number of meetings a month. (5) State 
membership. (6) State the average attendance. 
(7) At what time are the club rooms at the dis- 
posal of the members? 

.Replies opposing substitution were compara- 
tively few, only six. The silence of over 500 
indicates inactivity due either to opposition.or 
to sympathy that has not yet sufficient energy 
to take tangible form. Those hoping to enter 
such work were 17. Those having already 
made some advance along this line were 79. 
Of these, 54 are largely literary and religions, 
having no recreative features and having only 
now and then a social occasion. Eighteen 
have oiitdoor sports, such as bicycle, baseball, 
football and tennis clubs. Some of them 
spend from one to two weeks in camp in sum- 
mer, and in winter part of these have billiard 
halls and smoking rooms. Six have gymna- 
siums, more or less fully equipped, and two 
have occasional theatricals, having a stage and 
scenery at one end of the club room. 

While these reports reveal the fact that the 
church is doing but little in the way of substi- 
tution, they are, on the whole, rather encour- 
aging. They show that a start at least has 
been made and that the church is beginning to 
realize that less is to be gained by frowning 
upon all sorts of amusements than by encour- 
aging the best of them, and consecrating them 
to its own purpose. 

PATRONAGE OF THEATEBS AND BILLIARD 
HALLS. 

At eighteen theaters in Chicago there is an 
average daily attendance of 39,182; of this num- 
ber 20,443 are men, and 18,739 women. 

The average billiard hall is a place where 
men, especially young men, gather chiefly be- 
cause of their love for the game and partly for 
the sake of companionship. Beer and gamb- 
ling are sometimes secondary and sometimes 
left out entirely. Besides these there are the 
two extremes, places where nothing but soft 
drinks are sold and places where gambling is 
rife. The former are scarce and only to be 
found in residence districts and the two local 
option districts Hyde Park and Englewood. 
The latter are still more scarce. 

A NIGHT IN A CHEAP LODGING-HOUSE. 

But how are the 30,000 of our floating popu- 
lation provided for, and what kind of lodging- 
houses do they find? Let me relate my night's 
experience in a " doss-house " that you may 
get a slight insight into the needs of these 
people. On the evening in question I had 



1900. J 



THE COMMONS. 



[87] 7 



been at an "At Home" of one of the settle- 
ments where, am:d laughter and gaiety, in 
rooms having the air of home about them, and 
tastefully decorated with flowers, I saw the la- 
boring man and his family at their best. From 
a daintily arranged table in one corner of the 
dining-room ices were served by a group of 
young women, whose residence and service in 
the neighborhood have won for them a place in 
the hearts of these people. Old and yonng, 
the talented, and those less gifted with nature's 
blessings, were entering into the games of the 
evening with the free spirit of fellowship that 
was delightful to behold. The company broke 
np, going their several ways. Clouds be- 
gan to gather and a heavy storm was upon us. 
Where were the thousands whose only home is 
the street, the police station, the saloon, and 
the "doss-house?" Disguising myself in cloth- 
ing that deceived even my policemen friends, 
I went out into the darkness into the midst of 
the storm. Standing in the hallway of the 
" vilest, bummiest doss-house in the city," I 
conversed with some of my future room-mates, 
accustomed myself to them and to the odors 
that were coming down the stairway whenever 
the door was opened, and screwing my courage 
up to the highest notch I climbed up the stairs 
and entered the room. The odors coming forth 
from a foul closet near the door made me re- 
coil instinctively, but I closed the door behind 
me and shambling across the floor threw my- 
self upon a bench. The room I was in was the 
office, waiting, and reading-room. It was now 
2A.M. A few men were now sitting about 
the room, some reading, many in a drunken 
stupor. I was becoming "acclimated." I let 
the office man enter my name, letting him sup- 
pose that I could not write, and lead the way 
back to my bed. In a large room dimly lighted 
by smoking kerosene lamps were 100 two-story 
bedsteads placed end to end between the aisles; 
on the iron frame was a mere rag of a mattress 
and another for a covering reeking with filth 
and alive with vermin. It was not inviting. 
* * * The sounds, the sights, and the odors 
made that night one of indescribable horror, 
and caused me to wonder if I were still upon the 
earth in a civilized country, or if in my dreams 
I had descended into Dante's Inferno. Such is 
the place where hundreds spend their nights. 
Wonder you. then, that they do not loaf and 
spend their evenings " at home? " Would any 
sane man expect it of them? They need not. 
For the saloons furnish clean, airy drawing- 
rooms and reading rooms, and here the home- 
less, the hobo and the tramp spend their 
evenings. And shall we blame them? 



SUCCESS OF BETTER SUBSTITUTES FOB LOW 
LODGINGS. 

The Salvation Army has tried successfully 
the experiment of giving good, clean lodging 
for the sum of ten cents. The best of these 
houses contains 201 beds, bunks of iron frame. 
The bedding is comfortable and kept clean. 
The floors are kept swept and scrubbed. Toilet 
conveniences are good. There is a reading 
room in which about 30 men may be found at 
any hour of the day until twelve at night, 
when all must retire or leave the building. 
That the beds are all occupied, and an average 
of twenty-five are turned away daily, testifies 
to its popularity. 

I cannot refrain from a word in praise of the 
social department of the Salvation Army. Un- 
tutored, except by hard experience^ these men 
have hit upon more that is practical, and are 
really doing more tp solve the social problem 
than many others more highly educated, who 
are so learnedly discussing it. Their talent at 
least is sure of gaining unto itself another 
talent. 

The Y. M. C. A. has four railroad depart- 
ments, which are in all respects similar to the 
Salvation Army lodging-house. In some a res- 
taurant is attached, at which meals may be had 
for reasonable prices, but nowhere in the city, 
let it be remembered, can a man's appetite be 
satisfied for five cents as in the saloon. We 
have not yet learned how. The Volunteers of 
America are doing work along the same lines, 
though less extensively. 

Aside from the Salvation Army and Y. M. 
C. A. lodging-houses nothing is done in 
Chicago in this line of substitution. Success- 
ful experiments in New York and elsewhere 
have proven that good wholesome lodging can 
be given at popular prices and profit made. 
Some such system of "model lodging-houses," 
while it would not be a direct substitute, 
would go a long way in removing one of the 
causes which force large numbers of men to 
spend their evenings in saloons. 

RELATION OF FOOD SUPPLY TO DBINK HABIT. 

It is the free-lunch counter that has made 
the Chicago saloons notorious. The cooking 
of food plays an important part in. the morals 
of man, especially men of these districts. With 
food poorly cooked and hunger but half satis- 
fied these men are in but poor condition to re- 
sist the templing offer the saloon holds out to 
them, both in the food well cooked and often 
served in dishes daintily garnished with let- 
tuce and parsley, and in the beer, which for 
the time satisfies their hunger. Spllndid, but 



[88j 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



comparatively small in extent, are the efforts 
on the part of the settlements, to teach the 
mothers and girls how to prepare the food 
properly, how to prepare the most nourishing 
meals at the smallest expense. In the saloon 
or in the cheap restaurants the 30,000 of our 
floating population get their meals. But no- 
where in the city, aside from the saloons, can 
one fully satisfy his hunger for five cents. 

The factory districts present another famil- 
iar sight. No place being furnished within 
where the men can eat their dinner, they file 
out in large numbers and sit on the sidewalks 
or in the windows. Several of their number 
are detailed to "rush the growler." Hanging 
several dinner-pails on a pole they go to the 
nearest saloon and return with their pails full 
of beer. One saloon, of which I know, sold 90 
gallons every noon to men in a factory and to a 
railroad gang that was working near. In the 
winter the temptation to eat in the saloon and 
take advantage of the hot lunch served free is 
beyond the power of common clay to resist. 
Whether or no, owners of factories who are of 
a philanthropic turn of mind could be per- 
suaded to fit up a room in their factory where 
their men could eat; whether it would be 
financially successful to serve from the bar hot 
coffee and a light lunch; whether the men 
would come there or go still to the saloon, are 
debatable questions. That the manufacturer 
should take any personal part in its direction 
is beyond the conception of the average em- 
ployer. Perhaps, however, he might be per- 
suaded to allow some society to furnish and 
equip a room for such a purpose. Volunteer 
girls' societies in Chicago have made a success 
of this. To compete successfully with the sa- 
loon it must surpass it in cheeriness, be free 
from irritating restriction, allow smoking, etc. 
A certain per cent of the men, and especially 
the youn men, would no doubt be glad to 
take advantage of it. The lunch feature is by 
far the most serious factor of the Chicago sa- 
loon problem. 

THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION. 

The magnificent building of the central 
Y. M. C. A. department is in the heart of the 
business district. Its gymnasium, one of the 
finest in tlie West, draws into it daily large 
numbers of young men. Its educational feat- 
ures are especially valuable. But little at- 
tempt is made to make it a social gathering 
place such as would draw into it young men 
who nd the saloon a convenient loafing place. 

As substitute for the ministration of the 
saloon to the immense population of homeless 



men in the lodgings of the surrounding dis- 
trict it is of minor consequence. Yet there 
are 10,000 more males than females in the first 
ward. 

The value of its railroad department, viewed 
from this standpoint, has been mentioned in a 
previous paragraph. The branch departments 
in the residence districts are doing good work 
as Christian organizations, but large numbers 
of young men are not found gathered there in 
the informal manner so attractive to them, and 
which they find in the hundreds of brilliantly- 
lighted saloons of the same district. Several 
young collegians in these districts have stated 
that from their acquaintance among the young 
men there they believed the value of these 
Y. M. C. A. buildings would be greatly en- 
hanced if rooms were set apart for billiards 
and, perhaps, smoking. 

THE CATHOLIC YOUNG MEN'S INSTITUTE. 

The Catholics have actually carried into 
effect these suggestions. The moat successful 
substitute for the saloon among the young men 
of Chicago is the Y'oung Men's Institute, at 
the corner of Austin avenue and Wood street. 
This Y. M. I. clubhouse is a building arranged 
much after the manner of a college fraternity 
hall. In no place did I receive so hearty and 
cordial a welcome as here. In their parlors 
the young men were reclining on sofas or in 
easy rockers, smoking and visiting. It was 
music from their piano, not beer, that enliv- 
ened their spirits here. In one room several 
were playing billiards; in another pool; a third 
room was for other games, and a small gymna- 
sium was equipped in the basement. Most re- 
markable was the spirit of fellowship among 
these young men. Young men well dressed, 
and others just from their work, were visiting 
and playing together. Occasional euchre par- 
ties and dancing parties are given, to which 
their fathers and mothers are invited. One of 
the priests spends a part of nearly every eve- 
ning with them, not in preaching to, but in 
living with them. A large number of them 
drink beer (none is ever allowed in their hall), 
but as the good Father said, " It is for these 
the clubhouse is built." There are five in 
the city, only two of which have ever come up 
to the standard set by this one. 

THE HOME SALON EXPERIMENT. 

Most interesting and full of import is the 
experiment of Bishop Samuel K. Fallows, the 
Home Salon. His plan was to " adopt the best 
features of the saloon with the best features of 
the restaurant and so blend them that he 



1900.J 



THE COMMONS. 



[89] 9 



would have the excellence of both." But it 
failed. The "Bishop's beer," as the drink was 
called, proved to be alcoholic just enough to 
require a license. Seeking from all classes of 
men the reason for its failure, the usual reply 
was: " It was not attractive; " "It was a dingy 
old hole." Bishop Fallows, speaking to me of 
this experiment, said: " So long as I was able 
to give it my direct supervision the patronage 
kept up and it was a success. Owing to the 
pressure of other business I placed it in the 
hands of some young men. I attribute its fail- 
ure to these two causes: Lack of financial 
backing and business management." The ex- 
periment of the Home Salon was but an object 
lessou not entirely an ignominious defeat. It 
demonstrates what may be done by proper man- 
agement, co-operation, and sufficient capital. 

Kecapitulating what has been said regarding 
substitutes, we find that there is an abundance 
of unconscious or indirect agencies, whose 
powerful influence has been greatly under- 
estimated, and there are a few fragmentary 
attempts at direct substitution. 

Of the direct substitutes these general state- 
ments may be made: 

First They are but isolated attempts, not 
yet having caught the spirit of the times, the 
spirit of co-operation and combination. 

Second The religious element Is intruded. 
Men will not largely patronize a place where 
the feeling prevails that some one is doing 
something for them. The best results will be 
obtained from substitutes carried on, not as 
philanthropic enterprises, but upon a strictly 
business basis. 

Third They lack in attractiveness. To com- 
pete successfully with the saloon, a substitute 
must not only be as attractive as the saloon it 
is to replace, but must possess a degree of at- 
tractiveness sufficient to overcome the force of 
habit which is firmly established. 

The substitute, to attain any degree of suc- 
cess, must keep in mind the following self- 
evident fact, one which if recognized is seldom 
appreciated: the people of these industrial dis- 
tricts are simply human beings just like other 
folks, having the same moral, intellectual, 
physical and social natures, which seek de- 
velopment, but along the lines of least resist- 
ance. The substitute must be a fixed thing, 
but, like the saloon, must vary according to the 
needs of a particular district. From prolonged 
observation and from conference with the keep- 
ers and patrons of saloons, I believe that I am 
not far from the truth in stating that about 50 
P"ir cent of the men who go to the saloon go 
there primarily for drink. The other 60 per 



cent go there from such various legitimate 
motives as have been discussed. 

HOW CAUSES MAY BB REMOVED. 

No system of substitutes can abolish the 
saloon. Gradually some of the causes for the 
present evil may be removed by improvement 
in methods of lodging the people, as in model 
tenement houses; by increased facilities for 
obtaining cheap and wholesome food, such as 
is provided in the coffee houses of London; by 
an administration by proper authorities to 
such necessities as public toilet conveniences, 
labor bureaus, public parks, etc.; by a more 
general recognition by the churches of their 
social mission, and by a spread of the move- 
ment already begun by the better element of 
the community to furnish places for recreation 
and amusement and the means of social inter, 
course for the masses; by a more general spread 
of education education in the trades and pro- 
fessions education that leads to an equality of 
opportunity. 

Or to state it still more briefly, the liquor 
traffic may and in time undoubtedly will be 
regulated and controlled by legislation it may 
be robbed to a large extent of its social func- 
tions by substitution, and of its monopoly in 
administering to certain necessities, by their 
supply by proper authorities. That substitu- 
tion will not entirely do away with the liquor 
traffic need discourage no one. There is a 
large work that substitution can accomplish, 
and one that is more needed in Chicago at pres- 
ent than legislation. John Kuskin said: "It 
is very Utopian to hope for the entire doing 
away with drunkenness and misery out of the 
entire kingdom; but the Utopianism is not our 
business, the work is." 



The i'.4-;mi y of Labor. 

To work is happiness. There is no greater 
misery than enforced idleness. And enforced 
idleness is what is filling the world with pov- 
erty and despair to-day. No idler is ever 
happy. No idler can be happy. And this is 
true whether the idler be rich or poor. The 
idle rich, in the effort to kill time, may per- 
haps plunge into all sorts of soul-deadening 
dissipation, while the idle poor " loafs " in the 
sunshine and tramps our broad land to beg his 
bread from door to door. Neither is happy. 
Jean Porter Rudd, in the Arena. 



"Archbishops have given up the application 
of the golden rule to business as impractica- 
ble; but here it is being attempted by working- 
men." Lloyd's "Labor Co-partnership." 



10 [90] 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



VOX POPULL 



True is the people's sturdy soul; 

The pessimist, whose narrow dread 
Would yield them a reluctant dole 

Of power, may shrink to see instead 
In their wide hand the mighty whole, 

The sovereign crown upon their head. 

But he whose wiser, wider view 

Sees the sure struggle of his kind 
Toward the righteous and the true, 

Leaves, .day hy day. such doubts behind. 
Rests ou the many, not the few, 

And deeply trusts the people's mind. 

Prixcilla Leonard. 



VIEW-POINTS AFIELD. 



GKAHAM TAYLOB. 



The popular propaganda of Christian Social 
Ethics has always been officially recognized as 
the legitimate field-work of the sociological 
department in the Chicago Theological Semi- 
nary, and as a principal part of regular settle- 
ment service. So far as the prior obligations 
and fixed hours of professorial appointments 
and settlement administration allow, such of 
the many invitations to speak are responded 
to as seem to offer opportunity for the widest 
or most needed service, irrespective of the size 
of the community and without regard to 
"terms," altho but a small proportion of the 
opportunities thus presented can be accepted. 



Among Women's Clubs there is a marked 
tendency upon the part of prominent members 
to return to some s LI are in church work which 
they had left for more exclusive attention to 
club work. To the social development of 
churcli life and service this change is con- 
fessedly due. 



In church discussions not only have social 
topics held a prominent place, but what is 
more significant, tho social aspect and spirit 
have characterized the views taken of many 
theological and < ccleHiastical subjects by 
men in the leadership or rank and file of the 
regular church work who are not specialists. 



The Settlement Association in the Univer- 
sity of Nebraska is gathering new interest and 
strength this fall under the earnest leadership 
of Professor Caldwell and the loyal support of 
many professors and students, always strongly 
encouraged by Chancellor E. Benjamin An- 
drews. The small but effective university set- 
tlement has been maintained for two years in 
Lincoln at as great cost in personal sacrifice 



as the expense in money has been remarkably 
little. It is now proposed to remove it to a 
more populous district near the Hock Island 
tracks and reinforce its resident force and 
building equipment as soon as funds can be 
raised to secure another residence. All class 
appointments of the University were suspended 
for an hour in the middle of the morning to 
allow faculty and students to hear our presen- 
tation of the settlement movement. A parlor 
conference and public meeting were also ad- 
dressed. The vital interest in social studies is 
not only directly promoted by Professor W. G. 
Langworthy Taylor in his courses on econom- 
ics and sociology, but indirectly also by many 
of bis colleagues in other departments, nota- 
bly in American History by Professor Cald- 
well, and in Ethics by Professor Hill, as well 
as by Professors Candy, Fossler and others. 



It was a pleasure to lend heart and hand to 
the representatives of the " American Commit- 
tee " in their struggle to renew the interest 
and effort of the people of Kansas City, Mo., in 
starting over again the Young Women's Chris- 
tian Association there. There are said to be 
twice as many young women as young men 
working in the central part of that city. An 
"Association House" settlement such as has 
been established in Chicago it is hoped may 
follow the proposed headquarter-rooms, Noon- 
day Kest Club, and chain of boarding houses 
for young women. The Collegiate Alumnae of 
Kansas City courteously granted a heaving to 
these plans at a luncheon given by their presi- 
dent, and the Athenaeum Women's Club held 
under its auspices and in its rooms a public 
meeting in their interest. 



Nothing is more impressive than the mag- 
nificent Grade and High School buildings and 
equipment in tbe new cities of the great west, 
excepting the still more significant breadth 
and social vision characterizing the public 
service being rendered by their principals and 
teachers. The woman at the head of one of 
the Lincoln grade sch< ols was said by a former 
associate now engaged in Foreign Mission 
work, to be as truly doing missionary service 
as any one she had seeu on tho field abroad. 
The Lincoln high school girls and boys gave 
evidence by their appreciative interest in the 
appeal addressed to them for their social spirit 
and service tiiat their principal, Mr. H. J. 
Davenport, until recently associate professor 
in Political Economy in the University of Chi- 
cago, has carried his old point of view into his 
new work. 



1900. 



THE COMMONS. 



[91] 11 



The new park system in Kansas City affords 
splendid evidence of the rise of a new social 
consciousness and public spirit among its citi- 
zens within the last three or four years. 

Undaunted by the unconstitutionality of the 
enactments of the legislature and theimpracta- 
bility of three provisions of their old charter, 
they adopted in 1895 by an overwhelming ma- 
jority new charter provisions for park assess- 
ments and administrations which have stood 
the test of the contest by the " park knockers," 
and been sustained by the decision of the 
Supreme Court. The taxation provided for is 
unique in being "assessed upon special benefit 
upon real estate in the park district " as rated 
by a jury of six freeholders. The burden fell 
upon the land ownership and unimproved 
property, but by means of the issuance of ne- 
gotiable certificates the assessment levied was 
at the average rate of about $2 per front foot, 
payable in twenty annual installments. The 
initiative to purchase and administer was 
placed in the hands of five park commissioners 
appointed by the mayor with only the con- 
currence of the common council. 

A park area of 318 acres has been secured 
within the city limits including a tract of 1,300 
acres given by a citizen, and named after him 
"SwopePark;" several small parka; five miles 
of connecting boulevards; and the most unique 
" Paseo " or park-passage which, 240 feet wide 
and over a mile long, runs straight out from 
the center of the city, with its lovely lawns, 
banks of flowers, growing s bade trees, and the 
vine-clad columns of its picturesque " per- 
gola." At the head of this magnificent pass is 
the "parade" of 26 acres which is to be 
equipped and used as a -public playground. 
All this is a most encouraging demonstration 
of the final success of an intelligent, persist- 
ent, united effort to arouse and guide public 
sentiment toward municipal betterment. 

THE BELL TOLLED BY THE WAVES. 



Far down the bay, where pass the stately ships 
That come and go. a spar, with deep-toned bell. 
Uprises from the waves, fasteued from beneath 
To a huge rock that lurks in ambush there, 
Waiting to gore to deatli some gallant ship. 
The waves, confederate and ravenous, 
Are yet compelled to toll tl\at warning bell, 
And mingle witli their own perpetual moan 
Its dirge-like monotone, that cheats their greed. 
So walk our streets blear-eyed and sin-scarred men, 
Bearing unwilling on their visages, 
As if in endless moan ami monotone. 
Warning <if ambushed deaih. 

John Hanker, in Reminiscences '/ a Long Life. 

" The churches may make co-operation go in 
the United States." George Jacob Holyoake. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 
IN THE COMMONS DURING 1900. 



One Page, 
Quarter Page, 



$10.00. Half Page, - - $8.00 
6.00. One Inch, - - .75 



For Each Insertion. 



THE NEW FOURTH EDITION OF 

College, Social and University Settlements 
Bibliography 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery 
For the College Settlement Association, with an intro- 
duction by Villa 1). Scudder of VVelfesley College. Much 
new material. Now ready. 

Order through THE COMMONS. Teu cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. 

By Catherine Waugh McCulloch. 
Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother and 
child stated in story form, with full citations 01 statutes 
and derisions. Published by Fleming H. Reveli Co. 

The American Journal of Suclnlngy says of it : " The 
book is well written and will undoubtedly Hud many read- 
ers who do not otherwise care for legal literature." 

Price, cloth, 35c. 
Address the author, Room 1101 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

The Enslavement and Emancipation of the 
People. 

An original and practical solution of the problem. 
By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Price in cloth, 75 cents. 

.Published by the Author, J. B. Herboldshimer, Gibson 
City, 111. 

Biblical Sociology 

By G aharr. Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the Bible. 
Printed for use lu the class-room. A limited number can be 
obtained for Fifty Cents of THE COMMONS. 

The Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham laylor. 

An Address and Discussion at the International Congrega- 
tional Council in Boston, 1899. Twenty-five cents. 

Book! t on th Housing Probl in . 

"Home Ownership versus Rented Houses" 

Moral Results. 

By Rev. John Morrison. 

Apply to author London. Ontario, Cana<la. 

Price, ten cents per copy. $5.00 per hundred. 

THE COMMONS 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the 
Social Settlement point of view. 

It is published monthly, at Chicago Commons, a 
Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 
III., and Is entered at the Chicago Postofflce as mail 
matter of the second (unwspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a year. (Two 
shillings, hugllsh; 2.60 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six 
copies to one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, 
P. O. money order, cash or stamps, not abuve s-cent 
denominatbintt, AT OUR KISK. 

Changes of Address Please notify the publisher 
promptly of any change of address, or of failure to 
receive the paper within a reasonable interval after it 
Is due. 

Discontinuances Please notify us at once if for 
any reason you desire your subscript ion discontinued. 
In accordance with cusiom. and the expressed wish 
of many subscribers, we continue THE COMMONS to 
each address until notified to the contrary. 



12 [92] 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 



SETTLEMENT LIFE AND ASSOCIATED 
MOVEMENTS. 



" Short Stories of Social Service " is the title 
of a unique little book published by the West 
Side District of the Chicago Bureau of Char- 
ities. To enliven the usual dry reports of such 
associations, it tells of its work in a humorous, 
pithy manner, with a collection of informal 
stories, appreciative sayings and doings by 
the people whom they have tried to help. 



The first meeting of the Arts and Crafts 
Society for this year was held at Hull House 
the second Friday in October and officers were 
elected. The society is now three years old 
and is growing and enlarging its scope every 
year. Mr. Ashbee is expected from England to 
lecture, and an exhibition of theVorks of its 
members will be held on the twelfth floor of 
the Woman's Temple, November 25, in the 
Arts and Crafts room. 



Ground is being broken for a $100,000 flve- 
story building, the gift of Mr. JohnD. Rockefel- 
ler, on the northwest corner of Tenth avenue 
and Fiftieth street, New York, for a Settlement 
House. Through the agency of the Fifth Ave- 
nue Baptist Church, Mr. A. A. Hill, the 
founder of Neighborhood House at Louisville, 
Ky., has for over a year lived in a tenement 
which occupied the site of the new " Settle- 
ment House," on which work has now begun. 
The house will be equipped with all the neces- 
sary appointments for a " Settlement House." 
There will be eight living rooms, and the build- 
ing will be completed and ready for occupancy 
in about a year. 



The Goodrich Social Settlement of Cleveland 
reports a camp to meet the needs of the self-re- 
specting working people with small means on 
a paying basis. The rate fixed for board was 
$1.50 per week. A large number availed them- 
selves of this opportunity. 

The residents have gathered and tabulated 
facts for two investigations during the year. 
One set of facts relates to the housing of the 
working people, and the other to social 
substitutes for the saloons in Cleveland. The 
latter investigation revealed a pitiful lack of 
appreciation of the situation. The attempts to 
provide other channels than the saloon as an 
outlet for the social impulse are haphazard and 
inadequate, and there is no unity of purpose 
even among those who are endeavoring to bring 
about a change. 



MR. ST ANTON COIT TO THE FEDERA- 
TION OF CHICAGO SETTLEMENTS. 



Hull House added to its many good offices 
the procuring of Mr. Colt's presence and par- 
ticipation at the autumn session of the Settle- 
ment Federation. The guest of the evening 
has been long and widely known, first, as the 
founder of the Neighborhood Guild in New 
York and London, and later as lecturer for the 
Ethical Culture societies abroad and at home, 
and as editor of the Ethical World, the able and 
bright weekly published in London. In view 
of his having been the precursor of the settle- 
ment movement in this country, it was of 
special interest to hear him "prophesy" of 
what it would ultimately lead to. Out of our 
settlements, few and feeble as they seem to be 
to the residents, he predicted there would 
arise nothing less than a new political party. 
In England and America he declared the disin- 
tegration of the old parties, both greater and 
lesser, supplied ripe conditions for the rise of a 
new one. The unconscious beginnings of the 
new party needed on both sides of the sea he 
thought might be discerned in the spontaneous 
growth of the settlements incorporating in 
their principles and practice the ideal of the 
organic unity of society ministrant to all sides 
of life. While never socialist in the mechani- 
cal and materialistic sense of the term, the 
settlements had ever stood for socializing the 
psychological, moral and religious elements in 
men as necessarily precedent to any possible 
economic socialism. He strongly urged the 
necessity of adding to their practice of social 
democracy the "preaching" and teaching of 
the ideal of righteousness and brotherhood 
without the actual inculcation and realization 
of which the refinement and association of peo- 
ple meant all too little. Preaching of econom- 
ics will not inspire. the people, but the vision 
of the ideal will stir men to the discontent and 
hope which are the dynamic of action. The 
world is " waiting" for leadership, as it did for 
the Messiah. The very weakness of the people 
who wait may create the strength of the 
strong. It may prove to be the combined 
leadership of many, rather than, as in the past, 
the personal leadership of any one." 



"A real piece of the kingdom of God actually 
arrived." An Oxford University man describing 
his visit to lettering. 



" Of all the forces that create and determine 
values, the most important are the moral and 
sentimental." Lloyd's "Labor Co-partnership." 



1900 J 



THE COMMONS. 



[93] 13 



LABOR ABROAD AND AT HOME. 



The Muaee Social, August, 1900, reports the 
proceedings of the International Congress for 
the Legal Protection of Laborers, held at Paris, 
July 28, 1900, in the Mus^-e Social. The con- 
gress numbered over three hundred members, 
representatives of university and state, em- 
ployer and employe, from Germany, Switzer- 
land, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Holland and 
America. France was naturally in the major- 
ity; England was absent. 

The program of the congress was limited to 
four questions: 

The discussion of the legal restrictions of 
working hours including the comparative study 
of legislation; legal restriction of working 
hours for children, youths, men and women; 
desirable reform; and answers to the question, 
can we hope to obtain at least a leal maxi- 
mum of working hours in the principal in- 
dustrial countries? 

The restriction of night labor involved the 
consideration of its consequences: restriction 
in different countries; and the inquiries, can 
you restrict night labor in all classes chil- 
dren, youths, men and women? How would 
such a restriction conform to exceptions among 
different industries? Is international agree- 
ment necessary to obtain this restriction? 

The inspection of labor brought out reports 
on different organizations in different coun- 
tries devoted to the study of labor; advantages 
and disadvantages of these organizations; re- 
sults obtained; contribution of laborer to the 
inspection of labor, assistant inspectors, dele- 
gates chosen by the laborers, controlled by 
syndicates. 

An international union for the legal protec- 
tion of laborers was proposed, and its value 
and method of procedure were debated. 

The congress resulted in valuable reports; 
the actual formation of an international asso- 
ciation for the legal protection of laborers; the 
statutes of the association, and decisions of 
the congress for a ten-hour working day in all 
countries; total suppression of night labor by 
international decree; reinforcement of inspec- 
tion of labor by increase of penalties, and by 
the admission of laborers into the ranks of the 
inspectors. 

During the last year as many as six settle- 
ments " Universites Populaires " have been 
opened in Paris with associated memberships 
varying from fifty to some thousands. M. Max 
Lazard, who had spent some time at Toynbee 
Hall in preparation, was the first to settle. He 



was unable to carry on the work after nine 
months, but a workingman aud others whom he 
interested carried out his ideas with so much 
enthusiasm that this, the first " Universite 
Populaire," now numbers nearly four thousand 
members. This and other similar institutions 
have sprung up in Paris. Each group has its 
university supporters and its following of 
workingmen. The main features are " Educa- 
tional classes," but in only one instance are 
there any real "residents," and the lecture 
system is not at present followed up by any 
definite social work. 



An interesting account is given in the Mans- 
field House Magazine of the establishment at 
Aintree, England, where Mr. W. P. Hartley 
manufactures his well-known high-class pre- 
serves and marmalades. Mr. Hartley is a busi- 
ness man with a conscience and with a high 
standard of personal responsibility. Besides 
the model works and model village, there is the 
annual profit-sharing wkich takes place a day 
or two before Christmas. The Caf<j and Insti- 
tute are unique. They were to counteract the 
attractions of the neighboring " publics " and 
to provide a center of innocent reaction for the 
district. Mr. Hartley is a practical teetotaler, 
not content with denouncing t&e "traffic." 
The Cafi? and Institute, though built by him, 
are managed by an independent committee. 



The September issue of the Charities' Review 
under the heading, " Some Causes of Labor 
Unrest in Chicago," has two excellent articles. 
The first deals with Labor Legislation and 
Philanthropy in Illinois," by Florence Kelley. 
The writer places the blame of much of the 
labor unrest in Chicago on the interpretation 
given the State constitution. So many laws 
enacted to benefit the laboring classes which 
tend to limit the hours of labor and secure 
better working conditions have been defeated 
by the decision of the State Supreme Court 
declaring them to be unconstitutional. The 
philanthropists have, it is asserted, been 
among the first to condone and in some 
cases actively assist in the evasion of the 
law regulating child labor. The other arti- 
cle deals with < Chicago's Housing Con- 
ditions." A plea is made for better sanitary 
conditions and better dwellings. To the con- 
ditions peculiar to Chicago plans for model 
tenements should be adapted. The writer 
declares that the question of good housing is 
closely associated with the question of small 
parks, playgrounds and public baths. 



14 [94] 



THE COMMONS. 



Novem ber, 



THE COMMONS. 

H flnontbly IRccorB E>ex>ote& to Sspecte of life anS labor 
from tbc Social Settlement point of Ulew. 



GRAHAM TAYLOK, 



EDITOK. 



Published the fifteenth of every month from CHICAGO 
COMMONS, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, 
Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., 
see " Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



AT LAST the wisdom of the public toleration 
of free speech and open meetings has had 
a chance to demonstrate itself with regard to 
Anarchism in Chicago. For the first time in 
thirteen years, some one in authority had the 
common sense to call off the old feud of fateful 
memory between the police and the anarchists. 
And what happened? Why, tbe followers of 
the red flag emerged from their uncanny old 
headquarters in the west side river ward, 
which has for a dozen years been the scene of 
conflict, and took their annual 'Commemora- 
tion" of the men executed for the Haymarket 
riot into the broadening and elevating atmos- 
phere of Central Music Hall. The American 
flag was given the place of honor, altho their 
banner of internationalism was on either side 
of it. A great miscellaneous audience fairly 
swallowed up the few hundred "comrades" who 
have too long been forced behind closed doors. 
Herr Most's radicalism in German was offset 
by the r* asonable moderation of the speech 
in English by a former state commissioner 
of labor. The police force was conspicuous 
by its absence and peace was conspicuously 
present. When not driven at bay, Anarchism 
becomes a mere theory of individualism, so 
manifestly doctrinaire, utterly without plan of 
action, and distantly ideal as to carry with it 
its own corrective, at least in America. The 
Trades Unionists will have none of it. The 
socialists are its ever alert and sworn foes. 
The greater public are hardly half-way con- 
cerned. We have nothing to fear from it except 
the effect of driving its devotees to desperation 
by the coercion of sheer force. Let them face 
others and be faced on a free floor, and Anar- 
chism will take whatever place it can legitima- 
tely win and hold by argument among other 
theories of social order. For six years it has 
done nothing more at our Chicago Commons 



free floor discussions, where its advocates have 
been treated like other men. 

Its propagaiidism is likely to be both more 
rational and less menacing since, by what may 
seem to some the very irony of fate, the 
editorship of the Anarchist weekly, Free Society, 
published at San Francisco, Cal., has just 
been assumed by Mr. James F. Morton, Jr., who 
graduated at Harvard University in 1892, and is 
the grandson of the Eev. Samuel F. Smith, D. D,, 
author of our national hymn, "My Country, 
'Tis of Thee." 

BY THE time the next month's number of 
THE COMMONS is in the hands of its 
readers the first and main section of our new 
building will be in partial use. The auditorium, 
kindergarten and Sunday school floor, women's 
club suite, and the provision on the ground 
floor for boys' clubs, manual training, cooking 
school and lunch room will be in constant serv- 
ice, secant accommodations for only half a 
dozen residents will also be cheerfully occupied 
by such of our workers as are most needed there 
despite the inconvenience of living in the half- 
equipped plant and the necessity of returning 
five blocks to the old Commons for meals. 

But the long-desired gymnasium will be 
entirely without apparatus and the desperately- 
needed space for our men's clubs is merely in- 
closed. To finish the plastering, flooring and 
partitions and put in only the necessary plumb- 
ing will cost $650. This sum the men themselves 
can provide, besides furnishing their rooms. 
It seems poor social economy to deprive the 
volunteer resident workers of all provision for 
their shelter during a whole year. Nevertheless 
we dare not incur indebtedness to complete the 
building, when its erection has already diverted 
so many of the larger contributions for the 
support of the settlement work that we are 
struggling with a deficit of over $600 in our 
current expense account these last two trying 
months of our fiscal year. 

The most encouraging sign for the future is 
the manifest stir of interest and co-operation 
throughout the entire neighborhood in the 
approaching occupancy of the new building. 
Inquiries after the clubs and classes are made 
on every hand by many who thus show their 
first interest in the work of the Commons. 

All the clubs and classes of the settlement 
and the organizations in the Tabernacle 
Church are rallying their resources in a self- 
sacrificing effort to furnish the many larger and 
smaller rooms for immediate use. Chicago 
Commons never needed every friend of its grow- 
ing work to stand by it financially more than 
just now at this crucial crisis of its success. 



1900.] 



THE COMMONS. 



1 95] 15 



NOTES ON SOCIAL LITERATURE. 



In a contribution on " Settlement Houses and 
City Polities " to the June issue of Municipal 
Affairs, Robert A. Woods suggests that :he set- 
tlement appeal to the independent voter and 
co-operate with him to secure the adoption of 
measures that will promote the public inter- 
ests. The notion that the politican's methods 
must be adopted and followed is decried. The 
fleld of the settlement worker is held to be to 
introduce new platforms into municipal poli- 
tics, one that proposes tangible benefits which 
are to be dispensed without the precariousness 
and favoritism of the boss's bestowing. It is 
predicted ttmt the boss will be compelled to 
become a supporter of such a progressive 
policy. " The object of the settlement, there- 
fore, in political matters is to lift local issues 
to the level of common honest local needs; to 
instil into the mind of the local voter, by 
actual e*periance on his part, a conception of 
the city as a co-operative enterprise based on 
mutual aid." 



The basis for a more widely influential and 
effective temperance movement is surely being 
laid by the new literature on the liquor prob- 
lem. The dispassionately scientific spirit 
which seeks facts regardless of inference or 
conclusion is producing such basic information 
as the Committee of Fifty are slowly and most 
painstakingly gathering ami publishing at 
great cost in toil and money. Other'inductive 
studies of the political and legislative treatment 
of "The Trade" are being made by such trained 
publicists as Joseph howntreeand Arthur Sher- 
well. whose joint authorship of "The Temper- 
ance Problem and Social Keform " (Hodder & 
Stoughtoni, has met with such instant and 
wide-spread recognition that seven editions of 
their growing book have been demanded within 
fifteen months. Its thorough, personal inves- 
tigations in England and her colonies, Europe 
and the United States, and its firm, sane con- 
clusions and practically suggestive recom- 
mendations have compelled the English and 
American press, as well as temperance and 
social workers of every shade of opinion, to 
unite in pronouncing it to be the most epoch- 
making book in the entire line of temperance 
literature. The final conclusion of the authors 
is to take the trade out of private hands and 
place it, by local option vote, under the control 
of a " Company," which, within strict govern- 
mental regulations and surveillance, and with- 
out private profit, beyond 6 per cent on the in- 
vestment, is commissioned, as in Norway, to 



meet, but neither encourage nor promote the 
absolute demand. Part of the receipts are used 
to maintain counter attractions in cheap eating- 
houses and free recreation and reading-rooms, 
where, entirely removed from the " Samlag " 
spirit-bar, soft drinks only are sold. 



Arthur Sherwell has issued a second edition, 
which is quickly called for, of his " Life in East 
London." To offset the criticism of the hope- 
lessness of his former " Study and Contrast," 
he disclaims the intention of being pessimistic 
in confining himself to "an entirely dispas- 
sionate investigation of actually existing facts," 
and adds a chapter on " The Problem of Eo- 
form," in which he gathers together what he 
considers the more hopeful aspects of the social 
horizon. Chief among them he notes what 
Benjamin Kidd calls "the great fund of altru- 
istic feeling which is gradually saturating our 
whole social life," supplies the factor needed 
to modify the disastrous law of competition, to 
the harsh application of which Malthus and 
Darwin seemed to give scientific sanction. He 
attributes this modification to the reaction 
from the unimaginative spirit of forty or fifty 
years ago when there were few of the social 
enthusiasms of which life is now full. The 
most practical need to make present agencies, 
not only for philanthropic relief but for in- 
dustrial betterment, fulfill their larger purpose 
is "trained and properly qualified voluntary 
workers," for whom there is the most urgent 
demand, which all our settlements are unable 
to supply. The social worker, Mr. Sherwell 
thinks, may, against all the apparently invin- 
cible arguments of philosophic pessimism, well 
put " a steadfast belief in the undeveloped 
capacities of average human nature and keep 
faith in the measureless power oi new ways of 
moral and social enthusiasm, begotten here 
and therein a single soul, to conquer and trans- 
form systems and nations and worlds." 

Those who cannot command time or access 
for the study of such ethaustive sources of 
Booth's " Life and Labor of the People of Lon- 
don" will find this little volume, by an origi- 
nal and widely read observer of social phe- 
nomena, the most trustworthy and ready ref- 
erence book available on the economic and 
social conditions of the East London working 
people. 

"What co-operation needs here, as else- 
where, is not philanthropy, but leadership ; 
not endowment, but initiative." Lloyd's 
"Labor Co-partnership." 

Since 1883 the brotherhood of carpenters and 
joiners has expended over a million dollars for 
charitable and benevolent purposes. 



16 [96] 



THE COMMONS. 



[November, 1900. 



THE MONTH AT CHICAGO COMMONS. 

The playground in our rear and side yard 
continues to be used almost as constantly after 
school hours as it was all day long during the 
summer. 

The use of our rooms by our neighbors for 
their private companies has come about natur- 
ally. A happy "surprise party" was given by 
two young girls to one of their girl friends 
recently. 

MELENDY-THAYEB At the bride's home, Co- 
lumbus, Wis., October 24, by Rev. H. J. Fer- 
ris, assisted by Professor Graham Taylor, 
Eoyal Loren Melendy of New Castle, Colo., 
and Gertrude Esther Thayer of Chicago Com- 
mons. 

The Day Nursery, supported by the Matheon 
Club of West Side young ladies, one block 
from the New Commons, promises to take on 
new life and efficiency under the care of Miss 
Sadie Hester, the most capable of our kinder- 
garten training-school graduates for creche 
service. From 20 to 40 children are well cared 
for there daily. 

The demand for industrial features in our 
club work is one of the cheering signs of its pro- 
gress. Both the Girls' group*, and the Mothers' 
Clubs are preparing rags to weave into carpet 
rugs as soon as we can raise the $40 with which 
to purchase the hand-loom which they and we 
are anxiously waiting for. Who will now help 
ug help ourselves by furnishing this tool to 
work with. 

The services of one of our training-school 
graduates having been secured she was placed 
in charge of the kindergarten at the Old Com- 
mons, and its. director was transferred to the 
school in the neighborhood of the new build- 
ing, which, when established there, becomes 
our main school, of which the one so long sus- 
tained in the old house will be the branch. 
We still lack the $40 per month to support this 
second school. 

The teachers of the three great public 
schools of our district authorized their princi- 
pals to attest their interest in and co-operation 
with the residents of Chicago Commons in 
their effort to secure a reading-room for the 
school children and other youths in connec- 
tion with the nearby delivery station of the 
Public Library. We propose to the library 
directors to furnish, free of expense to them, 
the expert superintendence of one of our teach- 
er-residents if they will provide and maintain 



the room. There is no doubt of their hearty 
acceptance of our offer, and the early opening 
of the reading-room at the station, which is 
only two blocks from our new building. There 
the use of the " Finding Lists " will be taught 
the children, and they will be helped to 
choose the best books for supplementing their 
study at school or for their personal reading. 

The congregation of the old Tabernacle 
church are beginning to bestir themselves to 
pay off a deficit of $200 in their accounts before 
transfering their services from their temporary 
quarters to the fine auditorium and Sunday- 
school floor awaiting them. They also are 
moying to bring all their organizations into 
line in the effort to provide the seats and other 
furnishings as largely as possible from the 
gifts of those who will use them. 

The cooking classes, so well established by 
Mrs. Melendy, have been committed to the 
care of -Miss Frances A. Manning, who was 
trained for her work at the Hackley Manual 
Training School at Muskegon, Mich., and the 
Lewis Institute, Chicago. Already 108 appli- 
cants for her training are enrolled, and will 
tax our limited accommodations at tlie Old 
Commons as much as they will appreciate the 
tine school kitchen in the new building. 

The Woman's Club commemorated for the 
sixth time the birthday of Chicago Commons, 
with reminiscence, congratulation, hospitality 
to the residents and many friends, and the 
contribution of $110 toward the furnishing of 
the new rooms for their own and other women's 
clubs and societies. They presented to their 
president, Mrs. Luther Conant, of Oak Park, 
some tokens in their own handiwork of the 
affectionate esteem in which they hold her. 

Despite the severe competition of the streets, 
the saloons and the newspapers, our experi- 
ment in quietly announcing < Election returns 
received at Chicago Commons " was unexpect- 
edly successful. Not only was there a very 
pleasant and profitable gathering, but a most 
permanent and encouraging result. For a 
whole "gang" of young men in the neighbor- 
hood, who had ne-ver frequented the Commons, 
came in of their own accord, spent the entire 
evening with the most manifest pleasure and, 
in response to our inquiry why they did not 
form a social, literary and recreative club and 
use one of our rooms, they eagerly responded 
that they were only waiting for a place. When 
assured of this at " co-operative terms " they 
immediately organized and appointed their 
first meeting. 



THESEVENTH YEAROF CHICAGO COMMONS 

TKe Commcms 

Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View 




Residence Wing 



CHICAGO COMMONS Main Wing. Men's Club House 




NEW BUILDING AS IT NOW STANDS 
Grand Ave. and Morgan St. 



Fifty Cents a Yea^r. Single Copies. Five Cents. Sixteen Pages. 



THE COMMONS 



Design Traced Over 

The design of the new building speaks for itself. 
Every one who has seen its hospitable and home- 
like features has enthusiastically recognized ita 
happy adaptation to its purpose of being the social 
center of a great cosmopolitan population. A glance 
at the floor plan carries with it a conviction of the 
human needs of such a neighborhood. Indeed, the 
lines designating the uses to which the several 
apartments are to be put are simply traced over 
those common necessities of human nature, without 
some such provision for which a community can 
scarcely be human. 

FOR THE CHILDREN. 

At the base of the building, as of the city prob- 
lem itself, is the provision for the children. To pre- 
occupy and prepossess child-life with the good that 
overcomes and crowds out evil is the best way to 
help parents in their home life. Ample provision 
is therefore made for the kindergarten, kitchen-gar- 
den and advanced instruction in cooking, sewing, 
housekeeping and manual training, and for many 
small club and class rooms in which to promote the 
social, intellectual and moral culture of the succes- 
sive growths of girls and boys. 
WOMANHOOD. 

Overlying and in many aspects underlying child- 
hood's needs are the wants of womanhood and moth- 
erhood. The growing Progressive Club of young 
women and the flourishing Woman's Club for the 
older women of many nationalities, the Mothers' 
Club and the Tabernacle Ladies' Aid are all well 
provided for with attractive club rooms and kitchen 
equipment. In connection with these clubs, training 
classes will afford the young wife, the untrained 
housekeeper and the growing girl a practical knowl- 
edge of the value and preparation of foods and the 
other domestic arts, whereby they will be helped 
to lay the strongest and surest foundation of a happy 
home life. 

THE WHOLE MAN. 

For the men of the district, younger and older, 
the club rooms, containing separate apartments for 
good fellowship, games, reading and meetings, and 
especially the gymnasium, bowling alley and shower 
baths, will supply the equipment we have always 
lacked to supplement the steady attractiveness of 
the occasions for economic discussion with Influences 
for the upbuilding and unifying of their social 
and recreative life. In the freest use of the gym- 
nasium and baths, the women and children will also 
share. 

THE TABERNACLE FELLOWSHIP. 

The larger social and religious demands of thi> 
community will be met by the spacious auditorium, 
containing, with the proposed annex, 700 seats. The 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoons, which at the old Com- 
mons have gathered for free and helpful fellowship 
in song and story people of all faiths and no sect, 
will be continued and developed here in this new 
hall to be the deservedly popular occasion of the 
week. Here also on Sundays will be held the Tab- 
ernacle Family Service, with its carefully graded 
Bible school, and the Sunday evening "People's 
Hour" for song and sermon. The smaller class and 
club rooms will afford the best facilities for modern 
methods of church work. 



Community Needs 



The main floor of the auditorium can be cleared 
or seated so as to be available for public receptions, 
recreative and educational purposes. It will be the 
only assembly hall not prohibitive in rental or not 
connected with harmful associations, to which a 
population of over 30,000 people can resort for their 
social, civic and moral betterment; their economic, 
political and religious co-operation; their art exhibi- 
tions, neighborly fellowships and musical festivals, 
to the attractiveness of which our Choral Club and 
Orchestra will increasingly contribute. 

OUR OPEN HEARTH. 

The soul of the social settlement is the home spirit 
at its center. To give this spirit a body in which 
to maintain, express and impress itself in the com- 
munity the Residence Wing is designed. Its open 
door-yard, with a walk winding between little lawns 
and flower beds from the street corner to the hospit- 
able entrance, will show the latch-string ever hang- 
ing out. The cozy little reception room and the 
spacious public parlor, with its open fire-place on 
either side of the main doorway, will meet and 
greet every incoming guest. Thus the Commons' 
household will live and labor here to make its open 
hearth the warm, free and fraternal home center for 
the whole people of its great neighborhood, without 
respect to person, class, condition, sect or partisan- 
ship. Its neighborship will be large enough also to 
include those who come from the suburbs, the uni- 
versities and other communities to meet, mingle and 
minister for the common good "in a union of all who 
love in the service of all who suffer." 

BUILDING FUND PAID IN AND TO BE SUBSCRIBED. 

The main wing now completed cost $34,000, with- 
out the land, which was leased for 99 years, without 
rental, by the Chicago Commons Association from 
those holding the church property in trust, on con- 
dition that the Tabernacle share with the Settle- 
ment the occupancy of the building. Of this sum all 
but $3,400 has been subscribed, and paid in and out. 

In self-forgetful loyalty to neighborhood needs the 
provision for public uses has first been made in the 
part of the building now finished and occupied. 
Meanwhile, in face of the fact that the lease on the 
old Commons expires the first of next May and two- 
thirds of the group of volunteer resident workers 
will then be without shelter, the $20,000 needed to 
build the residence wing remains to be both solic- 
ited and subscribed. Where can $20,000 be invested 
with better assurance of steadier and larger divi- 
dends in human service than in hanging such a 
latch-string out to the family and personal life of 
this dense, river-ward population of down-town Chi- 
cago? Is it not poor social economy to let this de- 
voted and efficient household of volunteer workers 
scatter? 



Six and a half years have passed since in May, 
1894, we took up our residence as strangers in our 
great neighborhood. We came with purpose-filled 
hearts and empty hands. Now that onr new build- 
ing assures our work a foothold on the earth and a 
fine beginning toward its adequate equipment, we 
should share with our co-operating friends, near 
and far, the retrospect and prospect of the settle- 
ment service, as we pass beyond the trying period 
(Continued on next to last page of cover.) 



THE SEVENTH YEAR. OF CHICAGO COMMONS. 



THE COMMONS 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects ef Life and Labor from the Settlement Poirvt of View. 



Whole Number 53. 



CHICAGO 



December. 1900. 



The House by the Side of the Road. 

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn 

In the place of their self-content; 
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart, 

In a fellowless firmament; 
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths 

Where highways never run- 
But let me live by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

* * * 
[ see from my house by the side of the road 

By the side of the highway of life, 
The men who press with the ardor of hope, 

The men who are faint with the strife. 
But I turn not away from their smiles or their 
tears 

Both parts of an infinite plan 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

I know there arft brook-gladdened meadows ahead 

And mountains of wearisome height; 
That the road passes on through the long afternoon 

And stretches away to. the night. 
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice 

And weep with the strangers that mourn, 
Nor live in my house by the side of the road 

Like a man who dwells alone. 

Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

Where the race of men go by 

They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they 
are strong. 

Wise, foolish so am I. 
Then why should I sit in the seorner's seat 

Or hurl the cynic's ban; 
Let me live in my house by the side of the road 

And be a friend to man. 

Sam Walter Foss, In The Independent. 



Opening the New Building. 

Our New Auditorium, although not quite fin- 
ished, was put to its first use December 9th, it 
having been decided to informally open the sev- 
eral floors of the building as soon as each of 
them might be ready for occupancy and to post- 
pone throwing open the rooms to general in- 
spection until the entire structure is completed 
and in use. 

The following announcement was widely scat- 
tered through the neighborhood, no notice being 
sent to the papers for fear of crowding our 
neighbors out. 



Pleasant Sunday Afternoons 

3.'30 EVERY SUNDAY. 

Free For All the People. 

OPE N I NG 

NEW AUDITORIUM 
DECEMBER 9, 1900. 



Dec. 9 
Dec. 16 
Dec. 23 
Dec. 30 



CHORUS CONCERT, led by 
MR. MILTON R. HARRIS. Solo- 
ists, Quartette, Male Chorus and 
Fifty Voices. 

STEREOPTICON LECTURE 
on "The Ideal of Art," by MRS. 
CHARLES W. RHODES, illustrat- 
ing with superb pictures what is 
best and most beautiful in life. 

THE OBERAMMERGAU 
PASSION PLAY, by Miss JANE 
ADDAMS. The Story of what she 
saw and heard among these Ger- 
man Peasant Players. 

CHRISTMAS MUSICAL 
FESTIVAL, led by MR. H. D. 
ORR. Cantata "Prince of Peace," 
rendered by Soloists, Quartette 
and Chorus of Thirty Voices. 



Come and Bring Your 
Whole Family 

Enjoy an hour of rest and fellowship and hear 



f 'h e Kindergarten, Boys' and 
Girls' Clubs Mother's Meet- 

ings, Women's Club, Progressive Club for Young 
Women, Tuesday Evening Free Floor Labor Dis- 
cussions, Physical Culture, Gymnasium Training and 
Educational Classes for persons of all ages. (Apply 
for information either at the old Commons, 140 N. 
Union St. or at the new building, Grand Avenue and 
Morgan Street.) 

TO ALL THE PEOPLE 

In this New House for 

Our Whole Neighborhood 



THE COMMONS 



First Neighborhood Assembly. 

In response to the above announcement a 
very representative gathering from our entire 
neighborhood was present. Every one of the 
500 folding chairs, which we purchased on the 
credit of faith, was occupied, and most of the 
scant standing room besides. The first utter- 
ance within the new walls was the singing of 
Handel's "And the Glory of the Lord Shall be 
Revealed," by the Second Baptist Church cho- 
rus of fifty voices, which kindly volunteered to 
render the fine musical program of the after- 
noon. After this glorious chorus from the 
"Messiah" had uttered the prophecy of our 
faith and hope, the Warden of Chicago Com- 
mons declared the building opened for neigh- 
borhood use in the following words: 

"When, for the first time, we folk of many 
families and people of many nations are gath- 
ered together under the peace of this neigh- 
borhood roof, it is fitting that the voice of our 
glad song should rest, while in a moment of 
silence we may think and be thankful. 

"For the union of our own hearts and the 
joining of hand with hand, far and near; for 
the gifts of poorer and richer; for the toil of 
strength and skill; and for the love of the 
Father of us all, through all which from small 
beginnings this Neighborhood House has come 
to be, let us each and all be thankful. 

"To the freest use of all the people of this 
community, without distinction of race or con- 
dition, party or creed, sex or age. 

"To the cheer and safety of our homes, the 
joy of childhood, the comfort of parentage, the 
strength of growing youth, the heart's-ease of 
labor, the hope of age and the fellowship of the 
stranger. 

"To the sacred service of neighborship be- 
tween families; of the culture of the common 
in education and the social extension of the 
public school; of co-operation in industry and 
brotherhood in business; of patriotism in citi- 
zenship; of the social unification and progress 
of all the people, and of the use of the com- 
mon faith in serving the common life. 

"We devote this house and ourselves all for 
each and each for all." 



Settlement and Church. 

The erection of the new building on the site 
of the neighborhood church and its joint occu- 
pancy by the Chicago Commons and the Taber- 
nacle marks the beginning of a new era in the 
history of both settlement and church and may 
prove significant in the general movement for 



social readjustment elsewhere. The experience 
which led up to the feasibility o,f effecting this 
harmonious and promising co-operative co-ordi- 
nation was strikingly surprising to us. Less 
than two years ago the residents of the Com- 
mons declared in print that "hours upon hours 
of consideration and conference sometimes far 
into the night minute examination of avail- 
able property in the vicinity, careful weighing 
of the questions of expediency and the relation- 
ships involved, have brought us all to the final 
decision that the history and progress of the 
past, the promise of the future, the relation of 
our work to the neighborhood and city, all 
weigh in favor of the permanent location of 
the settlement in its present building." 

Just then in response to the suggestion of 
some of the church people, a proposition looking 
toward the erection of a building for joint occu- 
pancy was unexpectedly accepted by the almost 
unanimous vote of the Tabernacle membership. 
Before proceeding further, however, we frankly 
submitted all the facts to a prominent group of 
our Roman Catholic neighbors and also to many 
others not predisposed towards any church. Re- 
ceiving their cordial assurance of confidence In 
the feasibility of harmoniously using the build- 
ing for both settlement and church purposes, 
the effort was patiently, considerately and suc- 
cessfully made to find a basis for co-operation 
that would conserve all interests involved. The 
very carefully formulated agreement which be- 
came the basis upon which the church lot was 
leased to the Chicago Commons Association for 
the site of the new building received the unani- 
mous endorsement of the five separate organ- 
izations involved and secured the thirty-two 
signatures required. This most remarkable 
harmony finds continuous expression in the 
.giving of Protestant and Catholic, Jew and 
Secularist toward the building, and the cordial 
feeling and co-operation between the groups 
which have begun jointly to use it. 



The Taberna.de Announcement. 

BEGINNING SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1900. 
THE TABERNACLE 

will hold its Sunday Services and Weekly 
Gatherings In the New Building. 

"THE OLD TABERNACLE" 

Was the first English-speaking church to be 
started in what was once the northwestern su- 
burb of Chicago "across the river." For thirty- 
five years a great multitude of families have 
found it to be a home center in what was to 
most of them a strange land. In the trials and 
homesickness of leaving their old homes in the 



THE COMMONS 



mother countries, and in the struggle for a 
home of their own in the new world, they found 
comfort and companionship for themselves, 
with safety and help for their children in this 
household of their common faith. While this 
old corner has gathered and held together the 
largest group of the people of this neighbor- 
hood, who have continuously associated them- 
selves for any purpose, yet the old church In 
the uew building will have as much need and 
opportunity as ever to be the church of the 
strangers. 

ITS PURPOSE AND PRIVILEGES. 

in both purpose and organization the Taber- 
nacle is different and distinct from Chicago 
Commons. It is a Christian church, working 
to maintain public worship, to teach the young 
and old who wish to come to It the principles 
and practice of the Christian life and to fel- 
lowship all who are seeking or trying to live it. 

While all in the Tabernacle church are wel- 
come to share in all that goes on in the new 
building, yet the social clubs, educational 
classes, and the recreative or other occasions 
conducted by Chicago Commons are open alike 
to people of all opinions and races, without dis- 
tinction of sect or party and without compro- 
mise of or interference with personal convic- 
tion. 

TABERNACLE APPOINTMENTS. 

The Family Service every Sunday morning 
includes some provision for every member of 
the household. Little children are received into 
the kindergarten circle, girls and boys Into the 
departments of the Bible School, which is 
graded to correspond with their grades ia the 
public school; women and men are welcomed to 
the Bible-study classes, led by Professors Ed- 
ward T. Harper and Graham Taylor; the serv- 
ice concludes with Public Worship and preach- 
ing from 11 to 12 a. m. Come at 11 to church 
and, if possible, to the "Early Morning Pray- 
er Meeting" and Bible School at 10 o'clock. 

The People's Hour, Sunday evenings at 8, 
is devoted to congregational and choir singing 
and brief, brotherly talks on living issues, fol- 
lowed by opportunity for friendly personal in- 
tercourse with those who seek it. Professor 
Taylor will on successive Sunday evenings dur- 
ing the winter give one series of discourses on 
"Signals of the New Century," and another on 
"Old Time Heroes in Present-Day Struggles." 

GROUP MEETINGS. 

The occasions which group those together 
who naturally associate with each other are: 



The Children's Sunday Evening Meeting at 
7 o'clock for girls and boys between 8 and 16 
years.who are interested in singing, chalk talks, 
object lessons and illustrated addresses. 

The Wednesday Evening Fellowship Meeting, 
from 8 to 9 sharp, furnishes opportunity for 
conversation, song and prayer, and the inter- 
change of common experiences, faith and 
friendship. 

The Ladies' Aid and Missionary Society meets 
every Thursday at 2 p. m. to promote sociabil- 
ity among all women of the congregation, to 
co-operate with the church work, to study ways 
of doing good at home and abroad, and to wel- 
come to their fellowship any woman who will 
receive it. 

The Young People's Societies of Christian En- 
deavor invite children under twelve to the 
Junior Society; girls and boys over 12 to the 
Intermediate Society, both meeting Friday 
evenings from 7 to 8; and young people to the 
Senior Society Sunday evenings, 7:15 to 8. 

The Chorus Choir has its rehearsal Saturday 
evening at 8, and desires to share its instruc- 
tion and service with those who will volunteer 
to help lead the church music. 

Men's Clubs. The Young Men's Club and the 
Men's Neighborhood League, meeting on alter- 
nate Monday evenings, share with other men's 
groups the privileges of the club room and gym- 
nasium every evening 

THE TABERNACLE 

is composed of those who apply for and are re- 
ceived by vote into membership and is con- 
trolled only by those who belong to it. Upon 
the voluntary weekly offerings of its own people 
it depends for support. 

PASTORS. 

Graham Taylor, 140 N. Union street, and 
Henry J. Condit, residence 161 N. Carpenter 
street, who is ever ready freely to respond to 
requests to visit the sick, to call upon the sor- 
rowing, conduct the funerals of the dead, and 
to render the baptismal service or whatever 
other ministrations may be needed. 

Office hours: Wednesdays and Fridays, 7:30 
to 8 p. m. 



The first offering toward the equipment of our new 
auditorium was made by the bereaved parents of 
Walter R. Stockwell, who as a memorial to their 
noble son presented a set of oak platform furniture. 
Thus the manly spirit taken from us just as the old 
building was taken down, continues to bear witness 
for the building up of the new work in which he 
would have borne so large a part and for which he 
"yet speaketh." 



THE COMMONS 



Work With Humanity act First 
Hand. 

IMPRESSIONS OF CHICAGO COMMONS. 
BY CHARLES M. SHELDON. 

It is a very pleasant memory I have of the 
work done by Chicago Commons, as I think of 
the time I was privileged to spend within its 
walls, and take some little part at least the 
part of an observer in Its varied life. 

It is, of course, impossible for any one who 
visits any social settlement like the Commons 
to write intelligently concerning its great value. 
But certainly no one, not even a casual strang- 
er, could fail to feel to some degree the im- 
mense advantage of doing work with humanity 
at first hand. 

I think I was specially impressed with the 
"free-floor for all" Tuesday night gathering of 
men, where the discussion over human prob- 
lems was carried on with a frankness abso- 
lutely free from any fear of any one, but at 
the same time with an evident desire to reach 
certain true conclusions. If men in large cen- 
ters of population do not have such opportunity 
for the expression of even wrong ideas, they 
will find less favorable chances with one or 
two companions or a small crowd, In ways 
that will harm; whereas, in a large gathering 
such as that which caracterizes the Commons' 
meeting, the free, public utterance of ideas will 
create more satisfaction, and result in more 
permanent good than the same ideas expressed 
in private or under compulsion. 

The hopeful side of the Commons growing 
more and more hopeful as its work develops 
is, to my mind, the hold it is getting on the 
common life of the neighborhood. The kinder- 
garten, the toys' classes, the reaching out after 
life which is not yet formulated or expressed, 
constitute the real hope for the future of all 
social settlement work. 

And may I also say that I was particularly 
impressed at every visit to the Commons with 
the religious and devotional spirit maintained 
by the residents. As for myself, I have no hope 
for any large or permanent work to Tse done by 
any social settlement which ignores or dis- 
misses the deeply religious idea. There can be 
no denominationalism or narrow sectarianism 
in any social settlement worthy of the name, 
neither can there be a dismissal of the religious 
idea, which is at the basis of all real man- 
building or community building effort. 

The vesper service at the Commons was al- 
ways one of the most restful and helpful parts 
of the day. The reading, singing and praying 



all seemed a fitting close of the day's work and 
opening of the evening's bright and varied oc- 
casion. The whole atmosphere of the place, 
more or less, to my mind, took its color and 
owed its value to that part of the Commons' 
life. 

I have been personally helped by the Chicago 
Commons in an attempt to build up a social 
settlement in connection with my own church 
work in Kansas. Simply to have a building 
where people come, once a week, to hear 
preaching; to know that they are well-housed 
and well dressed, well fed, and abundantly able 
to provide for all necessities of physical and 
intellectual life, has never seemed to me to 
bound the parish of any community, which had 
within its reach any class of needy humanity. 
If the church building is not fit to be used for 
humanity's sake, then, wherever that needy 
community can be found, there is the place for 
reaching out after and lifting up the "weak of 
whatever name or class or condition. The in- 
spiration for this kind of work I can say I owe 
largely to my visits, brief and far between, to 
the Commons. 

I may also truthfully say that my first 
thought of the character of the "Bishop" in 
"In His Steps" was suggested to me there. If 
any souls have felt the encouragement and in- 
spiration of such a character, and of such a 
work, it is due to the life and work of him who 
has put his life and means into the Commons. 

I have often said to my people, and to others, 
would that we had in every community, con- 
nected with every church of means and of pow- 
er, a place where consecrated men and women 
in our churches could go and live, actually live 
themselves, with tiie people they were trying 
to bring into the kingdom. With all our boasted 
intelligence, culture and progress, I do not be- 
lieve we shall ever reach a time when a hand 
to hand living of our lives with other's lives 
can be dispensed with. There will never be 
a time in the history of Christianity when it 
will not be necessary for those who have to 
share with those who have not. This is real 
Christian socialism and we need not fear the 
term which shares, not simply money, even so 
small a share that it will not count for regene- 
rationbut what is infinitely of more value- 
shares sympathy and intelligent counsel, and 
Christian development, and the core of Chris- 
tian manhood and womanhood, with the broth- 
er or sister who would never receive such shar- 
ing unless through the personal contact of such 
lives with theirs. 



THE COMMONS 



For this end the Commons is founded, and 
with this purpose only will it continue to go on. 
May the Lord bless all its great work, raise up 
friends for its financial needs, and be around 
about those who labor in it, giving them 
strength to bear and courage to endure, look- 
ing for no reward except that of those who 
rejoice in the sheaves they shall at the end 
bear home with them. 



Interior Life of the Settlement. 

To give a glimpse into the way our residents 
co-operate in the social service of the neighbor- 
hood, we detail the grouping of the workers and 
the work for the ensuing season. In the hands 
of the executive and house committees, consist- 
ing of five members each, most of the general 
administrative details are placed. The commit- 
tee on interior life has charge of the household 
vespers, which, in addition to the devotional 
service every evening, on Mondays is devoted to 
reports on current topics from periodical litera- 
ture or spoken discussions; Tuesdays, to read- 
ings from Mazzini and other social idealists; 
Wednesdays, to consecutive studies in anthro- 
pology and social psychology; Thursdays, resi- 
dents in turn present subjects of their own 
choice; Fridays, representatives of other settle- 
ments and different forms of social work report 
the method and progress of their activity; Sat- 
urdays, the weekly residents' meeting is held, 
and on Sunday the early evening is devoted to 
musical vespers. 

RESIDENT'S CO-OPERATION. 

The committee on educational classes tries to 
meet or create the demand of the neighborhood 
by the offer of attractive studies; social func- 
tionfe and occasions, although placed In specific 
charge of a few of the residents, are promoted 
by all; the girls' clubs, boys' clubs, kindergar- 
tens, womeu's and men's clubs are each under 
the personal and continuous care of those 
directly identified with them; the choruses, 
penny provident bank and the settlement rela- 
tion to the district charity bureau are fostered 
in the same way. New efforts are being put 
forth to develop the use and enjoyment of the 
public library, art museum and the literature 
in the Commons reading room. Provision for 
the programs of the Pleasant Sunday After- 
noon and the students' monthly social settle- 
ment conference are also placed under the most 
competent and interested supervision. Door 
service and "toting," in which all the residents 
engage, are headed up by the one among them 



who above all others is willing to do everything 
for everybody. The co-operation with the Tab- 
ernacle church work in the Sunday-school, En- 
deavor societies, social gatherings, office bearing 
and church membership are left to the volun- 
teering of the individual residents, many of 
whom are enlisted with the neighborhood 
church, some are identified with other churches 
and all are left absolutely free in expressing 
their own predilections in religion. 

PERSONNEL OP THE FAMILY GROUP. 

Graham Taylor, Warden (professor Sociologi- 
cal Department, Chicago Theological Semi- 
nary) ; Mrs. Graham Taylor, Miss Helen D. 
Taylor (Assistant kindergartner, Lowell Public 
School); Graham R. Taylor (Harvard Univer- 
sity), Lea D. Taylor (Vassar College), tempo- 
rarily absent; Miss Katharine Taylor (student, 
Chicago Institute); Robert E. Todd, Physical 
Director, Chicago Theological Seminary; Miss 
Carrie Clawson (Settlement Stenographer); 
Miss Henrietta E. Stone (director of kindergar- 
ten at new building and member of faculty of 
the Pestalozzi-Froebel Training School) ; Mrs. 
Henry M. Carr (House-mother); George W. 
Carr (student, Architectural Department, Art 
Institute); Harry Carr (with the Johnson Tem- 
perature Controlling Company) ; Miss Maude I. 
Purnell (kindergartner, Jewish Manual Train- 
ing School) ; Miss Marion Cookinham (director 
of kindergarten, Washington Public School); 
Henry F. Burt (student, Chicago Theological 
Seminary); Carl V. Wisner (attorney at law); 
Miss Katharine Waugh (graduate University of 
Chicago); Mrs. Ruth Gage Frost (assistant 
kindergartner, Talcot Public School) ; Miss Stel- 
la H. Seed (teacher and writer of verse and 
story for children) ; Miss Frances A. Manning 
(student, Lewis Institute) ; Miss Clara Botsford 
(graduate University of Michigan) ; Frederick 
F. Grim (pastor Garfield Boulevard Christian 
Church); Miss Myrtle Wallace (director of kin- 
dergarten at the old Commons) ; D. S. Hamil- 
ton (pastor, Pt. St. Charles Congregational 
Church, Montreal, Canada, in temporary resi- 
dence). In the smooth running of the house- 
hold we are assisted by Mrs. Rachel Townsend, 
Miss Gertrude Severson, Mrs. I. F. Seelye, Mrs. 
Sarah J. Brower, Mr. Carl Baggesen, and Mr. 
Thomas W. Moore, fireman at the new building. 



WEEKS-BEMIS Married on November i5th at 
Boston, Mass., Mr. Charles Edward Weeks and 
Miss Jennie Bemis. At home after December ist at 
Ashcroft, Mass. 



8 



THE COMMONS 



"Degrees" in Settlement Fellow- 
ship. 

BY JOHN PALMBB OAVIT. 

In a Thanksgiving letter to the Commons 
residents, of whose household life he and his 
were so large a part for years, Mr. John Pal- 
mer Gavit writes, as he only can, of his own 
unique intense personal experience in settle- 
ment residence, thus: 

"There are four degrees to be taken in the 
Settlement fraternity. At least, I know of 
four, perhaps there are more beyond. The 
First is passed in that delightful time of first 
enthusiasm, of novelty, of assurance that the 
age-old problems of askew-society are falling 
into orderly solution under our touch of first 
love. It is all so new, so romantic, so oddly, 
even if miserably, picturesque! The Second De- 
gree is different, and some never get beyond it. 
It comes when the antiquity and persistence, 
the perplexity and complexity of the social tan- 
gle settles down about one, and when the 
glamor has worn off, and the heat and dirt 
and noise seem so hopeless, so bewildering, so 
inevitable, so obstinate. I shall never forget 
that period of conviction that it was .all hope- 
less folly and self-deception, that the devil 
rules after all, and that the effort to meet the 
hordes of barbarism with even the theoretical- 
ly-all-powerful force of love was in vain! The 
cynical assurance of Mephistopheles himself In 
one Tuesday evening meeting that love is a 
lie, that Jesus is a false prophet, a mad dream- 
er of fool dreams, an enemy of Ultimate Man, 
because an opposer of strife came near cap- 
ping the climax. 

"The Third Degree is the hardest of all, but 
the best for us. It begins when we first see 
that only the Patience of God can bear with 
the persistence of sin; that only Infinite Good- 
ness, Infinite Wisdom, could be fit to judge or 
to despair. The glamor is gone, the dreariness 
of the desert comes down like a pall, but the 
courage of those who war for a victory that 
cannot fall, comes on. We learn that those 
whom we thought were saints of the Lord 
(whatever saints may be!) at any rate are 
only human; that motives are just as various 
and inscrutable in settlement service as any- 
where else; that ideals are easy to hold but 
hard to incarnate; that 'neither in this moun- 
tain nor at Jerusalem' is the struggle over 
Self easier or less than a matter of eternal 
vigil. It is so hard (but so good for us!) to 
have it driven inexorably into heart and brain 
that no man has invented or could invent a 



machine by which the problem of self-con- 
quest could be made easy. And seeing that the 
Old Fight must be fought, whether here or 
there, we steady down for the War. 

"Hear now the wisdom of the Fourth Degree 
the Degree Retrospective. Even now I could 
not weigh nor appraise it, for how can 
one reach fingers into sore heart-strings to 
vivisect and measure his love? Much of it re- 
fuses to be set in words; nor could I tell it 
even to myself. But I can and will say to you 
who are still in the Third Passage take it well 
and thoroughly. You are in the midst of priv- 
ileges whose value you will not rightly esti- 
mate till they are past. I am ready to say that 
I know of no university course, no degree of 
doctorhood, on this continent or any other, for 
which I would surrender my four years of Real 
Life at Chicago Commons. 

"In the first year I began to learn that no 
melodrama is so absorbingly interesting as 
human life; that no novelist ever wrote such a 
tragedy as the squalid tragedy of cold and hun- 
ger in the dreary districts of the City Wilder- 
ness. On no mimic stage has yet been played 
so tender a love-story, so stirring a hero-tale, 
so deep a problem-play, as that on the next 
block below. In the second year I began to see 
that even as this life about me was from my 
point of view, so my life would be with the 
point of view reversed. I found that all the 
qualities of heart and mind that I had thought 
good in the stratum of society "above," so- 
called, were duplicated "below." The "charity" 
of tne rich to the poor sank into insignificance 
in the presence of the charity and fellow-feel- 
ing of the poor to each other. The heroism of 
the battlefield, of the navy, of the conspicuous 
places and the story-books, grew stale and flat 
beside the uncomplaining, unconscious day-to- 
day heroism of mothers and fathers, and chil- 
dren in the obscurity of top-story tenements 
and back alleys. 

"By and by let us call it the third year my 
own position began to disturb me. I saw that 
the people who made my clothes were naked; 
those who made my shoes, ill-shod. I had a 
chance to see the coal-miners cold and hungry 
as their reward for keeping me warm; I found 
that the men who print my books do not read 
them; that I was being fed by folk who never 
had such food. I felt, with a keenness that 
grows daily sharper, that I was but a pauper 
before the face of Man. A Father's voice kept 
asking in my heart 'Where is thy brother?' 
And I could not bring myself to answer, 'I do 



THE COMMONS 



not know.' For more and more I did know! 

"At last I was beginning to see plainly that 
the problem is one of All of Us. It cannot be 
solved by the reaching-down of the Above; it 
cannot be mitigated by the coming-up of the 
Below. Even yet for many a long day must the 
world be in travail waiting for the 'manifesta- 
tion of the sons of God.' The upstart imper- 
tinence of the Superior; the down-trodden covet- 
ousness of the Inferior, have neither of them 
the final word perhaps not any word to say. 
The problem is the problem of the Common 
Man. It was this that had begun to be a fact 
in my life when I went out from among you. 
This Is the last word I know of. 

"Here in this factory town, where the pro- 
fessional and business folk are but a handful 
and all but all are mechanics, where the din- 
ner-time procession has no time to wash its 
face if it is to eat, where the lathe-hand is the 
type, and the workingman the real thing, if 
you like those distinctions I find no other word 
to say. The same cheap jealousy of caste that 
raised my gorge among the rich and that was 
hard to bear even in the better days, is here be- 
tween the mechanic and the foreman. The 
curse in the way of brotherhood is the same 
here as there the Aristocracy of Labor! 

"Watch and pray, brethren, in the Commons 
and among its friends to whom these greet- 
ings come, that ye enter not into the tempta- 
tion. Be true to your name. Let no prosper- 
ity blind you. The hope of the race is in the 
Common Man. No martyr-blood can float us 
farther ahead than he. No special privilege of 
protected righteousness can get you into any 
heaven before him. The love you bear each 
other in that charmed circle of the home group 
let it be to each other as common folk. In 
the days of trial, when those of the Third De- 
gree are impatient of those in the Slough of 
Despond, which I have called the Second, 
when the cynical mood of those in the Second 
sneers upon the children in the First and the 
blase folk in the Third, bear it in mind that the 
true pace of the Settlement, as of the world, Is 
the average of all. The denominator of char- 
acter-value and work-value among you is that 
which is Common to all. Bear ye one another's 
burdens, and so fulfil, even among yourselves 
the law of Christ. 

"I thank God for all of you. If we are a 
part of all that we have met, then too all that 
we have met is part of us. Nothing that you 
gave me have I lost. The love of my heart is 
youm. 

Wilmerding, Pennsylvania. 



The Kindergarten. 

If a visitor should come early enough to the 
Commons on week day mornings, he would see 
long before nine o'clock, and in summer often 
as early as seven o'clock, groups of little chil- 
dren playing on the front sidewalk or on the 
steps waiting for the doors to open for kinder- 
garten. They are picturesque little groups, as 
only poor children can be picturesque, with 
their pieced out suits of clothes. The little 
Italian Rosies and Marys with their shawls 
over their heads, and the little Joeys and 
Tonys in suits of the most curious cut, are 
apt to be the first, for they have no clocks at 
home and as soon as the fathers are off the 
children are dressed and sent out, frequently 
unwashed, with a piece of bread for their 
breakfast, often garnished with a raw potato 
or turnip. The older ones will be sure to be 
playing, but with one eye always on the smaller 
brother or sister, in the grown-up, protecting 
way these children learn so early, and if the 
peace of the younger ones is disturbed, woe to 
the offender, a slap or a kick delivered with no 
light touch is sure to be his deserved punish- 
ment. The stolid little Germans, better dressed 
and cleaner, are not so picturesque, but they 
all come in to the kindergarten with the same 
eager rush and what a happy time they have 
before kindergarten begins, playing in the 
sand-pile as long as the weather permits, or 
inside with reins, balls, dolls or swings. The 
mothers with babies on their arms, who bring 
the older children, often stand and watch the 
play with a look that makes one wonder if in 
their hard lives they ever had such playthings 
or such a place to play in. 

INDUSTRIAL FEATURES EMPHASIZED. 

The kindergarten work was one of the first 
activities in the house, for, as everyone knows, 
it is through the children that the homes can 
best be reached. Our first kindergartener, Miss 
Bertha Hofer, now Mrs. Hegner, came down 
with little else than faith on which to start her 
work, and to her noble enthusiasm and devo- 
tion is due its present prosperous condition. She 
was trained in Berlin in the spirit of Pestalozzi 
and Froebel, which believes that Industrial 
work, that Is, actual work that the children 
can do, will best develop in them love and un- 
selfishness, and best demonstrate the great 
principle of interdependence which underlies all 
our kindergarten work. Industrial and domes- 
tic work has largely supplanted the more theo- 
retical gifts and occupations, and is the pecul- 
iar feature of this kindergarten. The children 



10 



THE COMMONS 




Off for Park Picnic from Old Commons. 



actually "wash their own towels, napkins and 
dust-cloths in their little washtubs, and iron 
them with real little irons. They often help in 
preparing the food for the residents, polishing 
the silver and sometimes in making the beds. 
In the spring they plant their own gardens in 
the back yard, whose only crop used to be old 
crockery, glass and tin cans. Now they see 
the whole process from the planting of the 
corn to the gathering of the harvest, and not 
only the seeds are saved, but the cow in the 
back alley is delighted to eat the green corn- 
stalks after the ears are gone. The industrial 
work is the work the children love best, and 
some children who are helpless with blocks, or 
weaving or paper-folding will brighten up at 
the sight of the little washtubs and afterwards 
it is much easier for them to do the other work. 
We think we are right about it when the 
mothers come back and say, "Johnny wants to 
wipe the dishes every day at home now. He 
says he does it in kindergarten." 

SWEET MEMORIES OF GOOD TIMES. 

The memories of the good times in the kinder- 
garten are so numerous that it is hard to choose 
which ones to tell about. None who went with 
the children on the first journeys to the park 
can forget the joy of some of the little ones 
who saw grass, and flowers, and trees for the 
first time. There could not possibly be chil- 



dren more divorced from Nature. Some did 
not even know what flowers were when they 
first saw them. Now the trips to the park 
are the greatest treat. One little boy whose 
mother kept him home one pouring day, a 
while ago said, "I know they will go to the 
park today if I do not go to kindergarten." The 
smoke from the factories is so thick that they 
do not often have a good look at the blue sky, 
but at night it clears away, and for a long 
time the only nature song which had any point 
of contact with their lives was "Lovely Moon," 
which they sang with ardor and loved dearly. 
No one who was there can forget the Thanks- 
giving party at which the children were asked 
to bring an apple or a potato from home for a 
dear old grandmother in the neighborhood. We 
did not know whether they could they who 
needed so much themselves it seemed to some 
of us wrong to ask them. But many of the 
fathers are peddlers, so we thought they might 
spare one out of their store and the many ones 
would make a good present from all. We want- 
ed them to feel the pleasure of giving. They 
had made their own jelly and popcorn for their 
party to which the grandmother was invited. 
The things which the children brought were 
presented to her before we ate, and the pleas- 
ure the children felt on seeing her surprise 
and delight quite over-shadowed the pleasure 
of the party itself. 



THE COMMONS 



11 



CHILDREN BACK TO MOTHER NATURE. 

Then the picnics iu summer time! Every- 
body who can claim the slightest connection 
with the kindergarten is sure to be on hand, 
and when we start off what an exodus there 
Is! The ride on the train or the trolley is most 
exciting, and when we reach our destination, 
the happy babies are put in the grass to roll 
about, the hats, coats and best clothes are put 
away for a good time, and only those who have 
seen it know what a good time it is. The lunch 
tastes so good, and after lunch the children 
play games while the babies go to sleep, and 
then it is a tired, but, oh, so happy crowd that 
goes home again. 

They are dear little children everyone who 
has known them says there are no better, 
sweeter children in the world and we want -to 
give them the chance to which they have a 
right, but which seems denied them in this 
part of Chicago, to grow up into good men 
and women. 

MOTHERS' MEETINGS. 

Out of this first kindergarten have grown 
three things as a direct result first, the moth- 
ers' meeting, which is held every Tuesday 
evening. This winter we are sewing rags which 
we are to weave into rugs for the homes as 
soon as we get our new settlement loom. This 
gives us a chance to become acquainted with 



each other, to talk about the children, and to 
try to keep the mothers posted as to what we 
are doing in the kindergarten. Afterwards we 
have short, practical talks on hygiene, then we 
have our march and games, which the mothers 
enjoy as much as the children do, and lastly 
our social cup of coffee. 

The Italian mothers who do not speak Eng- 
lish come on Thursday evening and are mak- 
ing baskets. We can only show our friendli- 
ness by looks and gestures, but we feel sure 
they know what we mean. With them come 
a few fathers, many big brothers and sisters 
and all the little children and babies so our 
hands are quite full. 

PESTALOZZI FROEBEL KINDERGARTEN TRAINING 

The second direct result of the kindergarten 
is the Kindergarten Training School, which was 
established so that the assistants could be In 
closer touch with this particular kindergarten 
spirit, than was possible coming from a dis- 
tant training school. The school emphasizes the 
industrial and social side of education, as it is 
well able to do through Its connection with the 
settlement and is intended to be not only a 
training for kindergarten work, but for home 
and social work as well. The school Is not as 
yet large, but the devotion of Its students is 
most entire to the great principles of Pestaloz- 
zi and Froebel and to his loving follower, 
through whom all this work has been possible. 




Mothers at Tea with Kindergartners. 



12 



THE COMMONS 



ON THE CHILDREN'S FLOOR OF NEW BUILDING. 

Lastly, when two years ago the settlement 
assumed the support of a kindergarten, which 
had been for years supported in connection 
with the Free Kindergarten Association, at 
the Tabernacle Church, the training school was 
able to furnish the direction and assistance. 
This kindergarten will be the one to move into 
the new building as the children at the old 
Commons cannot come so far to us. We 
feel that we ought not and cannot give up our 
hold on our first work, and so mean to keep a 
kindergarten in the old neighborhood in the 
best quarters we can find this kindergarten, 
however, remaining the branch of the one at 
the new building. 

The work in the new building promises to 
develop to meet our best hopes. The kinder- 
garden floor is one of the most beautiful and 
satisfactory floors in the building and has ev- 
ery accommodation for our needs. The rooms 
are light and airy with great wide windows, 
and are arranged so that their size does not de- 
tract from their cheerful, homelike effect. The 
change to the teachers and to the training 
school students who have been so long in the 
old basement will be most welcome. Surely 
our possibilities for increased service in the 
future are unlimited. 

BOYS' WORK. 

The most effective work with the boys was 
accomplished in the summer camp, which was 
fully reported in the September issue of THE 
COMMONS. One hundred and nine boys spent 
an average of two weeks in our Commons camp 
at Elgin. Here, by working In the garden and 
around the tents, by taking long walks to study 
nature, by playing ball, by swimming, by eat- 
ing together and by telling stories around the 
camp fire, the residents in charge came into the 
closest touch by being boys with the boys. 

The work of Dr. Rawson in the camp was 
Invaluable. The boys learned to trust him so 
that even now they come to him for advice. In 
fact, the whole summer's work bears directly 
on that of the winter. We can control the 
boys and can help them because we know them. 

There are 185 boys enrolled in our clubs, 
with a weekly attendance of 108. Their ages 
range from 9 to 16 years, 12 years being the 
average age. The enrollment will be increased 
as soon as we have room to accommodate 
more, as there are at present boys on the wait- 
ing list. 

The clubs are chiefly social. They meet once 
a week and the boys play such games as crok- 
Inole, crolard, checkers, authors, ring toss and 



dominoes. The evenings are varied by the use 
of the graphophone, stereopticon and entertain- 
ments given by the help of the clubs. In our 
entertainments the boys recite and play the 
piano and stringed instruments and often the 
leader will tell a story. One phase of the club 
that has proved very interesting might be called 
an experience meeting, where the boys gather 
around the leader and tell the incidents of their 
own lives. 




We are trying to teach the boys co-pperatlon 
by asking them to pay dues of 5 cents per 
month. This is generally complied with, but 
some of the children are not able even to pay 
this little amount. 

What good is all this? The effect can not be 
estimated, but we can note a few things in 
general. The boys here find sympathy and 
love, two qualities so lacking in their lives, and 
yet which are the basis for work in moulding 
character. Here also the boy finds some one 
who understands him. How little we do appre- 
ciate the boy life! "Anything is good enough 
for a boy." We don't believe it. If you would 
have a noble man, do not crush the boy. Know 
him as a boy and let him be a boy. 

We have ten young men working in our boys' 
clubs, eight of whom are non-residents, but all 
are men who believe in boys. To see the in- 
fluence of these men on the boys, you need 
but to see the work in the clubs and the wel- 
come the club leader receives from the boys in 
their homes and on the street. The personal 
influence of the club leader is the secret of suc- 
cess in the boys' work. 



THE COMMONS 



13 



The Little Mothers. 

Strange mockery of Motherhood 
They who should feel the fostering care, 

Maternal, and the tender good, 
Of home when folding arms are there. 

Must, ere this time, in mimic show 

Of age and sacred duties, be 
Thus wise to guide, thus deep to know 

The artless needs of Infancy. 

The little Mothers! Will they win 

The bitter sweet of elder years? 
Will love protect them from the sin, 

And faith gleam dauntless through the tears V 

God grant some guerdon for the loss, 
Of childly Joy: and when they come 

To woman's ways and woman's cross, 
Give them a fate more frolicsome. 

Richard Burton, "The Century.' 



Work With the Girls. 

LOOM FOB WEAVING CABPET BUGS NEEDED. 

Perhaps the most noticeable feature of this 
year's work among our girls is a decided in- 
crease of interest in industrial work. Some of 
the older girls had never before cared to do 
anything but "have fun," as they called it, and 
the only way they knew of having it was by 
playing games. 

1'hey objected seriously when it was proposed 
to do some kind of hand work, such as burnt 
wood work, cross-stitch embroidery, bent iron 
work, raffia weaving, or preparing rags for rugs, 
but without an exception one after another 
have fallen into line and are now so enthus- 
iastic over their work that sometimes they ob- 
ject to leaving it, as is shown by the follow- 
ing incident: In trying to fill the vacancy 
caused by the absence of one of the club lead- 
ers one evening, and not knowing about their 
work, I said to the girls, "I'll tell you a story," 
and was greeted with "Oh! we want to work!" 
We feel that the hand-work is especially bene- 
ficial because so few of our girls know how 
to do any industrial work well enough to com- 
mand a good position, and that anything we 
may do that will create in them a desire for 
doing is a helpful influence. Then by suggest- 
ing a variety of work to them we may help 
some one to find her talent. 

In addition to our work each evening we 
have some time given to pure recreation in 
the form of games, stories, fancy drills and 
parties. 

We had planned to have all the girls come 
together for closing exercises, to bring about 
that feeling of unity and harmony that we 
think so valuable in kindergarten, but lack of 



room space, with our average attendance of 
130 girls every Wednesday evening, will not 
admit of it at present. However, we have that 
as an ideal to look forward to in our work in 
the new building. 

The greatest need of our girls' work is a loom 
for weaving rags into carpet rugs. The girls 
and even the rags await the gift of |40 for 
the loom to help them help themselves. 

TRAINING IN COOKING, SEWING AND HOUSEKEEP- 
ING. 

Perhaps no department in the Commons has 
-worked under as great difficulties with as much 
success as the cooking classes. Certainly 
through this work may we reach not only the 
child, but the home life. A large percent of 
even the little girls now take the place of their 
working mothers in the care of younger chil- 
dren and do all the house-keeping that is done 
while the mother is away. 

We aim to teach how to prepare the plainest, 
most nourishing dishes which are within the 
reach of all; how to be economical in purchas- 
ing and serving food. Is it a wonder that the 
illy and under-fed working man resorts to the 
saloon where he may obtain a stimulant and 
often nourishing food? 

For three years there have been regular cook- 
ing classes carried on at the Commons it is- 
needless to say with many trials and tribula- 
tions. The kitchen, which part of the day be- 
longs to the kindergarten, will admit of no 
more than six students with any degree of com- 
fort. Nevertheless, the appreciation on the part 
of the children is shown by 115 applications we 
have for the work this year. 

Each child does individual work as fat as the 
utensils will permit, and pays a fee of five cents 
a lesson, which is supposed to cover the cost of 
material and fuel. This fee causes a number of 
children to withdraw, while others will give 
their only spending money for the lesson. It 
is not uncommon for the girls who work to 
give their week's wages to their mothers and 
in return 'are rewarded with a nickle. Now, 
shall they come to cooking school or spend the 
money for some longed-for trifle? It is credit- 
able that any choose the former. 

We hope soon to be established in the new 
Commons building. The girls ask eagerly ev- 
ery day: "How soon can we go?" They are so 
happy in anticipation of the change that it has 
not seemed wise to dampen their spirits by 
suggesting that the room might be ready long 
before we had the apparatus. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



At present we are very fortunate in having 
five volunteer non-resident workers, three of 
them being "cadets" from Lewis Institute and 
two from Armour Institute. 

The plain sewing and dress-making depart- 
ment could be made a larger one if we could 
obtain assistants for the work and were pro- 
vided with some necessities. Applicants are 
numerous. Let us hope they will be provided 
for. A good sewing machine is greatly needed 
to make this most useful training room effec- 
tive. 

The kitchen garden training, which is pro- 
vided by a lady friend of the Commons, for a 
class of eighteen little girls, both prepares the 
way for and supplements tlie other domestic 
work. 



Socializing Education. 

Early in October applications began to come 
in for various kinds of educational work. These 
may be classified in a general way as: A. Ap- 
plications for the continuance of last year's 
classes and clubs; these include memoers old 
and new. B. Applications for new classes; 
these were largely in response to certain fall 
announcements which we distributed widely 
in the neighborhood through the ready co-oper- 
ation of shop and saloonkeepers, mothers, 
fathers, children and even kindergarten babies; 
and to large placards hung high on the sides 
of the old and the new Commons, which chal- 
lenged the attention of throngs of people pass- 
ing back and forth to work. 

The courses offered were based on 'the needs 
of a neighborhood literally wedged in between 
railroads, factories, and crowded street-car 
lines; of daily lives, the ideals of which are de- 
pendent and fearfully involved in these sur- 
roundings; and of a heterogeneous population, 
Scandinavian predominating, with a large ele- 
ment of Italian, German, Irish and a few Aus- 
trians, Poles, Bohemians and Russian Jews. 
Each race presents it own problems and pos- 
sibilities as well as that net-work of problems 
on the relation of one race to the others. There- 
fore a second classification of our courses 
would be: Educational, with socializing fea- 
tures; socializing, with educational features. 

This settlement cannot emphasize too strong- 
ly the socializing side of its work, not only the 
bringing together with mutual benefit college 
graduate and fruit peddler, theologian and an- 
archist, but peddler and peddler, German and 
Italian. We do this in many ways, always in- 



directly, suggestively: picnics and outings, club 
parties, bazaars, entertainments, socials to the 
neighborhood, free-floor discussions, the gath- 
ering together of all clubs before some special 
lecturer. These lectures furthermore stimulate 
interest and broaden the outlook. 

The regular educational work is therefore 
necessarily varied. The schedule on the last 
page of the cover furnishes the details, the 
basis of which is as follows: Industrial Work: 
sewing, dressmaking, embroidery, fancy work, 
basket weaving, raffia weaving, manual train- 
ing. Art and Music; free-hand drawing, piano, 
choruses. Academic branches: reading, writ- 
ing, arithmetic, algebra, grammar, rhetoric, 
English literature, elocution. Business 
branches: shorthand, bookkeeping. 

It may be questioned why much of this work, 
especially the academic, is not omitted since 
the public night schools offer it. The settle- 
ment stands for the support of and co-operates 
with municipal institutions as far as they go, 
but beyond that aims to supplement. Now, 
what does the night school offer to this neigh- 
borhood? Elementary reading, writing and 
arithmetic, taught in large classes of young 
and old. Our applications are often for high 
school and college work; from adults diffident 
or desirous of small classes and individual at- 
tention; from Italian children who, were It not 
for personal influence, would prefer sweat- 
shop pennies, or street play to school. These 
we feel we should help. 

In conclusion, we are trying to formulate for 
them, and to ourselves, not things alone, but 
the ideals of things. Many need merely op- 
portunity and guidance; others must start at 
the foundation and learn to co-ordinate their 
activities, their talents and the control of them 
in order to use them as the tools of purpose and 
character. 



A Modern Graded Sunday School 

In a statement prepared for the forthcoming 
Year Book of the Tabernacle Bible School, Prof. 
Edward T. Harper, its principal of instruction, 
thus describes its organization and curriculum. 

The Tabernacle Bible School includes the fol- 
lowing six departments: The Cradle Roll, the 
Kindergarten, the Graded Bible School, the Bi- 
ble Classes, the Normal Course, the Home Study 
Department. 

The Cradle Roll includes all children below 
the kindergarten age. When enrolled each 
child is given an illuminated membership card. 

The Kindergarten. The Primary Department 



THE COMMONS 



15 



of the school is under the direction of a trained 
kindergartner, who is using the principles and 
methods of Froebel in her endeavor to bring the 
little child into harmony with Nature and with 
God. The kindergarten circle of little folks is 
made as homelike as possible with its music 
and song, talk and story. There the spiritual 
truth can be brought nearer to the child in 
varied forms of active expression. Table work 
is given with blocks, drawing, painting, mount- 
ing pictures from the story life, etc. In the fall 
and spring the different phases of Nature pre- 
sent the most beautiful way of interpreting the 
spirit of God to the children. In preparation 
for the Christmas-tide and for weeks thereafter 
simple stories of the life of Jesus are .impressed 
upon memory and heart. At other times of 
the year stories from the Old Testament and 
Christian traditions are freely used to incul- 
cate the spiritual ideals and religious princi- 
ples applicable to little children. 

The Graded Bible School. There are twelve 
grades in the Graded Bible School correspond- 
ing to the grades in the public schools and cov- 
ering the period from six to eighteen years in 
the scholar's life. The school Is divided into 
Primary, Junior and Senior Departments, each 
Including four grades. The Primary and Junior 
equal the period of grammar school and the 
Senior that of high school in our public school 
system. In arranging the curriculum the aim 
has been to adopt the work to the needs of the 
children and young people in the different 
periods of their development, In accordance 
with the results of the best modern 
child study, and also to cover the Bible 
material in a complete and orderly way. While 
the chief subject of study is the Bible atten- 
tion is paid to church history, missions, present 
day problems in ethics. The course naturally 
falls into six divisions. The first two cover the 
receptive period in the child's life, the work 
being confined to Bible truths and Bible stories, 
nature lessons, object lessons and the memoriz- 
ing of scripture passages. The next two divi- 
sions include the decision period in the child's 
life. The work is in the New Testament, In- 
cluding a careful study of the Life of Christ, 
the Early Church and simple Christian teach- 
ing. In the fifth division the Old Testament is 
studied and in the sixth division, when the 
young person is in the reconstruction period of 
life, the aim is to Inculcate Christian duties and 
meet the questionings and difficulties which 
arise in the mind of a young .person at this 
time. 



A Bible Class open to everybody is held each 
Sabbath morning. Other Bible classes will be 
organized as rapidly as needed. 

The Normal Course covers two years and is 
designed for those graduates of the Graded 
Bible School who desire to fit themselves for 
Bible School teachers. The course consists of 
two parts, a review of the work done in the 
Kindergarten and Graded Bible School with 
special attention to methods of teaching and 
a course in the religious development and re- 
ligious training of children. 

The aim of the Home Study Department is to 
encourage parents or guardians to help the chil- 
dren in the study of their lessons during the 
week and to assist those unable to attend the 
Bible School in systematic Bible Study at home. 



Commons Camp a.nd Outings. 

The fresh-air work of the settlement was so 
fully described and profusely illustrated in the 
September number of The Commons that little 
need be added to the concisest statement of 
the proportion to which It has grown and the 
plea it carries with it for adequate support and 
equipment. A total of 1285 of our neighbors 
enjoyed a longer or shorter outing last summer 
through the direct instrumentality of the Com- 
mons residents and the co-operation of its 
friends. Thirteen park parties rallied 669 
guests and seven lake picnics took 102 along. 
Of those sent into the country 15 spent one day, 
4 two days, 11 three days, 48 one week, 230 two 
weeks, 4 three weeks or more, and 2 all sum- 
mer. 

To the Commons camp at Elgin 191 boys and 
girls were taken for ten weeks in groups of 40 
each. While the beautiful site which has been 
put at our disposal without rent is in every 
way well located, the comfort and efficiency of 
camp work would be greatly increased by hav- 
ing a place near lake or stream with a barn 
and small cottage upon it. The outing work 
could begin earlier and continue later and 
reach many more needing rest and recreation. 

The enterprising and successful effort of the 
Young Women's Progressive Club to lease, fur- 
nish and manage the cottage erected for their 
rental at Michigan City, demonstrates their 
capacity to put to the best use any real estate 
that may well be committed to their care while 
vested in the Commons ownership. 

While our wee little playground in our back 
and side yards answered its purpose to hun- 
dreds of children, nothing will meet the need 
of the neighborhood but the adequate public 
playground or small park. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Women's Work. 

YOUNG WOMEN'S PROGRESSIVE CLUB. 

The first activity of the Commons to become 
a permanent part of the Settlement work by 
formal organization was a young woman's club. 
During the first few weeks of the Settlement 
ten or twelve girls were gathered together for 
a social time and from this little gathering 
grew a "Travel Class," which later developed 
into what has since been the Girls' Progressive 
Club. 

In May, 1895, they were formally organized 
by the election of officers and the adoption of 
a constitution, drawn up by three of their num- 
ber. Their objects in so organizing were "to 
organize such classes for mutual benefit, im- 
provement and enjoyment as the members may 
desire," and "to promote the social interests 
among its members." 

An executive committee, composed of all the 
officers of the club, with the chairman of com- 
mittees and two members-at-large, appointed 
by the president, had the executive manage- 
ment of the ciub in charge, while the Industrial 
Committee arranged such classes as would best 
meet the needs of the members, and the Social 
Committee aimed to promote the social life. 
Monday evening was chosen as the club night, 
and ever since meetings have been held on 
that evening. 

From the beginning it has been democratic 
in regard to admittance of members, any one 
proposed by a member being accepted, if over 
sixteen years of age, on the payment of twenty- 
five cents initiation fee and the monthly dues 
of ten cents, and the signing of the constitu- 
tion. 

For five years the nucleus then formed has 
held together, through success and failure, and 
have by their faithfulness assured the per- 
manency of the club. Now we have a member- 
ship of over one hundred, with an average at- 
tendance of about fifty. 

Each year there have been lectures, dramas, 
concerts and tableaux, not only for our own 
enjoyment, but also for the benefit of others. 
The first year the proceeds of an entertainment 
held in a neighborhood hall were used in fur- 
nishing their first club room, the resident in 
charge of the settlement have given up his 
room on the first floor to their use, where they 
were housed until the club outgrew the room 
and it was necessary to ask for the use of a 
larger one. 

For three years entertainments were given 
to raise a fund for the support of the Chicago 



Commons summer kindergarten, and last year 
the proceeds of the bazaar, which the club 
held, made possible the establishment of a 
summer home across the lake for the use of 
members and their friends. An<3 what a bless- 
ing it proved to be! This year we are 
working for another bazaar, to be held in the 
new building, the net proceeds of which will 
go toward the furnishing of the new club rooms 
there, in co-operation with the two other 
women's organizations (and the Commons) 
which are also to use them. 

For several years now we have had no club 
room of our own, but have used the kindergar- 
ten room on Monday evenings. So we are 
eagerly looking forward to the joint occupancy 
of the rooms which have been planned for us 
in the new building, our club having the use 
of one room every evening in the week as a 
quiet place in which to read, write or work. 
The possibilities of these rooms are large, and 
we are all inspired to make the best use we 
can of them. The larger room will make a 
fine place in which to listen to lectures, hold 
receptions and regular business meetings and 
play games; the two smaller rooms will serve 
admirably as committee and class rooms, the 
one containing a real fireplace suggesting cozy 
corners, sofa pillows, books and writing ma- 
terials and fulfilling the desire we have long 
had of a quiet, "homey" corner in which to rest. 
The club kitchen is the delight of the Social 
Committee, for it gives us all the conveniences 
for serving light refreshments without the 
immense amount of labor hitherto involved. 

The present year's work bids fair to be even 
more successful than ever before. Instead of 
arranging classes and lectures on art, history, 
literature, etc., as in previous winters, the in- 
dustrial committee thought it best to postpone 
these until later, believing that a truer appre- 
ciation of beautiful things from the artistic 
side would be gained by all in the doing oC dif- 
ferent kinds of hand-work. So groups or cir- 
cles have been formed in Battenburg, Bent 
Iron, and Burnt Wood-work, Cross-stitch and 
Plain Embroidery, and one large class, com- 
posed of all the - members of the club, in Phy- 
sical Culture. All are under the competent 
leadership of residents and one or two non- 
resident helpers. The last half hour of the 
evening is usually devoted to having a jolly 
recreative time playing games and dancing. 

Each holiday in turn gives the social commit- 
tee their opportunity and the Hallowe'en 
Ghost Party and the Thanksgiving Party have 



THE COMMONS 



17 



proved their capabilities. The suggestion of 
one of the members that we make the spirit 
of the Christmas-tide real and abiding for some 
less fortunate than ourselves is to be carried 
out by holding a "Pound Party," each girl 
bringing what she can, and a committee being 
appointed to distribute the gifts. 

Through the co-operation of two friends we 
have a nucleus for our club library, and a very 
small beginning of a fund with which to pur- 
chase our summer cottage, and toward these 
objects we shall turn our energies after our 
club rooms are ready for use. 

The club is a member of the Association of 
Young Women's Clubs of Chicago, under whose 
auspices the Business Woman's Exchange and 
the Home Science Bureau (agencies for the 
securing of employment for women), have been 
established. Through a series of talks on the 
country-wide phase of the club movement for 
young women, arranged for the early part of 
the new year, we hope to gain a better realiza- 
tion that we are a part of a very large move- 
ment. 

CHICAGO COMMONS WOMAN'S CLTJB. 

Five years ago a little group of fifteen women 
from the neighborhood, representing almost as 
many nationalities, gathered in one of the 
rooms at Chicago Commons to form a club for 
mutual improvement and helpfulness. Though 
strangers to one another at first, they became 
acquainted by meeting weekly and telling each 
other of their early life in the mother countries. 
The points of difference thus became points of 
contact, and the natives of Iceland, Scandi- 
navia, Germany, Ireland and Italy met on com- 
mon ground as Americans. 

As none of them had had any experience in 
club life, they were at first obliged to depend 
almost entirely upon outside help for their 
programs, and through the influence of friends 
had the privilege of hearing some of the best 
speakers in the city, on many different subjects. 
As their interest was roused, their self-confi- 
dence grew and was increased by lessons in 
parliamentary drill, generously given by a mem- 
ber of the Chicago Woman's Club. Last year 
an interesting course of study in Shakespeare 
was given by Mrs. Wm. Sheridan, of Oak Park, 
under whose influence the members began to 
take part in the program by writing short pa- 
pers on the different characters, asking ques- 
tions and discussing the plays. This year they 
are having, under the same efficient leadership, 
a course in American history, in which about 
twenty-five members will contribute original 



papers. This program is varied by talks from 
speakers outside of the club membership and 
a monthly social, which is always enjoyable. 
One pleasant feature Is the annual celebration 
of the Commons birthday by a social for the 
residents and the neighborhood, accompanied 
by some useful gift to the Settlement house- 
hold. 

The club is now a member of the State Fed- 
eration of Women's Clubs, joins with the clubs 
of the city in support of the vacation schools 
and other philanthropic work, and exchanges 
courtesies with them by giving and accepting 
invitations to meet together on various occa- 
sions. 

Under the enthusiastic and devoted care of 
its president, Mrs. Luther Conant, of Oak Park, 
it is constantly growing in interest, usefulness 
and in numbers, having now a membership of 
one hundred. 

Its interest in the new building has been 
shown by a very generous contribution toward 
the furnishing of a fine suite of parlors for the 
use of the three women's organizations. 

NOON-DAY LUNCH AND BEST ROOMS. 

Fro'm the public school teachers and women 
employes in the factories near us the request 
has long been urged upon us for a place in 
which to rest and eat their lunch at noon. The 
opportunity to supply this neighborhood need 
seems to be at hand in the provision of adjoin- 
ing rooms in the new building for cooking 
school and lunch purposes. Their spacious and 
hospitable walls await these much needed uses, 
while many are impatiently waiting to use 
them. Their equipment only is lacking. At a cost 
of $500 the cooking school can be adequate- 
ly provided with gas stoves, cupboards, uten- 
sils and the lunch room with tables, buffet and 
chairs, dishes, table linen and the means of 
preparing at least a bowl of hot soup and a 
cup of tea or coffee at a cost not to exceed a 
very small profit. 

THE PENNY PROVIDENT SAVING BANK. 

Our branch of this worthy substitute for the 
postal savings banks, which the people are 
demanding, is capable of indefinite develop- 
ment just as soon as a resident comes along to 
devote time and tact to this useful service to 
the individual and family life of the commun- 
ity. It affords a natural point of contact work 
with the home which can be followed up In- 
definitely in personal work with individuals 
and for the solution of the serious family prob- 
lems of the people. 



18 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons a Center for Men. 

From the very beginning men seemed to grav- 
itate to Chicago Commons freely, without hav- 
ing to be pulled there. A brief notice among 
the "special announcements" of an evening 
paper that a "free-floor discussion of economic 
and industrial problems would open at 140 
North Union street with free speech, all sides, 
and no favor," brought an entirely unique 
"meeting of extremes" which has continued for 
six years. From 60 to 150 people regularly 
gather iu the old basement every Tuesday even- 
ing, from October to May, four-fifths of them 
men. With absolutely unrestricted liberty of 
thought and freedom of speech, they have fear- 
lessly, frankly, profitably and tolerantly ex- 
pressed their convictions on the livest issues 
of common life. Employer and employee, capi- 
talist and wage-earner, railway lawyer and sec- 
tion hand, clergymen and clerks, professors and 
mechanics, students and day laborers, repre- 
sentatives of every theory of social order from 
anarchism to socialism, meet, mingle and mod- 
ify each other's views. 

Aside from the educational and social value 
of such an occasion to all classes, the vent it 
gives to "let off steam" that becomes dangerous 
only by repression, makes it a social safety 
valve. Only twice in all these years has the 
chairman had to appeal to the house against 
two individual interruptions of the speaker and 
that with instant and overwhelming support 
of order. While the discussion is upon indus- 
trial and social issues, the ethical and religious 
aspect of them almost invariably comes spon- 
taneously to the front and demands the ex- 
pression of what proves to be the deepest sen- 
timent and conviction of the men. 

At the Tabernacle a "Men's Neighborhood 
League" of forty members was the spontaneous 
response to the merest suggestion that it might 
prove as helpful to the neighborhood as to its 
members. It has not only been one of the 
mainstays of the church work through its try- 
ing transition, but it has taken an intelligent 
initiative in promoting such neighborhood in- 
terests as street paving, and has now assumed 
the $650 cost of finishing off the club rooms 
which it will open for men in the new building. 

Young men's clubs for athletic, literary, de- 
bating and social purposes have sprung up un- 
der the inspiring promise of gymnasium privi- 
leges, and will surely rally numbers that will 
tax the capacity of the club rooms and the 
gymnasium floor. The gymnasium, which will 



be used equally by women and men, is ready 
for use. Trainers and classes stand. ready to 
make full proof of the still lacking apparatus 
toward which some small gifts have been made 
but $500 more will be needed. 

IN WARD POLITICS. 

Early in the establishment of its relations 
with the neighborhood the necessity for taking 
political initiative in ward politics was pressed 
upon us by our fellow citizens. For no sooner 
was a higher ideal of the common life held up 
than some of the best men in both parties ral- 
lied to it upon the common ground for co- 
operation afforded by our non-partisan floor. 
"The 17th Ward Council of the Civic Federa- 
tion" was the form under which the citizens 
first organized. Contemptuously received when 
they demanded honest clerks and judges of elec- 
tion, and respectable aldermanic candidates at 
the hand of either party, the Federation ven- 
tured to run an independent candidate, who 
fell only 160 votes short of being elected. At 
the next election the regular nominee of one of 
the old parties seemed to be such an improve- 
ment over his predecessors that his candidacy 
was endorsed by the Federation, and he was 
elected, but his course in the Council proved 
to be a great disappointment. The crucial 
test of the right and strength of independence 
came with the conspiracy of the two party ma- 
chines in the ward to count out the independ- 
ent candidate who was elected by 80 votes. One 
of his competitors was thus fraudulently 
seated. Arrests of the election clerks and 
judges in the suspected precinct followed. One 
of the number confessed to the alteration of 
the tally sheet, and two others were sent to 
state prison for three years after two exciting 
trials. The contested seat was awarded to the 
independent candidate, who stood firm through- 
out the prolonged and triumphant struggle 
against the nefarious attempt to secure the 
"fifty-year franchises" for the street railway 
companies. This broke the tyranny of the gangs 
in the ward. The bosses of both parties were 
deposed. Better, or at least far less dangerous 
men, have succeeded them as aldermen. 

The Municipal Club has since taken the place 
of the Federation and has united an influential 
group of citizens of both parties "to promote 
municipal ownership of public utilities and to 
seek the political welfare of the whole people." 

The club is encouraged by the new constit- 
uency added to the ward by the enlargement 
of the ward boundaries, to take a new lease of 



THE COMMONS 



19 



life in its effort to educate and unify its citi- 
zenship for the struggle to better civic condi- 
tions. 

SOCIAL LIFE. 

For their own sake as well as for that of 
their neighbors, the residents improve every 
opportunity to enrich the social relations of the 
household and the groups of classes and clubs 
which are assembled now and tlien to share 
richer privileges. Varied and beautiful are the 
features which our guests and temporary resi- 
dents have added to the quiet half hour of our 
Vesper fellowship. 

Intellectually quickening and socially heart- 
warming have been the personal services ren- 
dered by such busy people as Prof. Frederick 
Starr to the residents and our clubs of street 
boys, Prof. E. S. James to the literary clubs 
before whom he read Shakespeare's Julius 
Caesar, Mrs. Ford, Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. 
Follett to the Woman's Club, and many more. 

The many non-resident workers who come to 
the house at great cost in time and toil to help 



the rooms of the house for such purposes of 
their own as "surprise parties" and group 
gatherings. 

If some good fortune could leave us in permanent 
possession of the "Old Commons" we would make 
room in it for these social needs of our utterly desti- 
tute old neighborhood, besides keeping some of the 
residents and part of the work where both are most 
needed. 



Neighborhood Notes. 

Despite the selfishly partisan and even per- 
sonal motives that manifestly determined the 
rearrangement of ward boundaries by the 
City Council, our Seventeenth Ward greatly 
benefits by the change. For not only have the 
criminally inclined and salable precincts 
"across the tracks" been transferred to another 
ward, but there has been added over half a 
mile of territory to the west, containing a far 
more homogeneous and unifiable population. 

The citizens of the Seventeenth Ward have 
cause for much rejoicing in the large amount 




'Back Room" Assembly at Old Commons. 



us with the clubs and classes share as far as 
their opportunity allows them in the fellowship 
of our inner circle. The neighbors, too, are 
sharing more largely not only in the privileges 
we have in our own family circle, but are using 



of new street pavement that has been laid in 
the ward during the last eighteen months. 
There are about eleven miles of streets in the 
Seventeenth Ward, and, of these, four miles 
and a half have been newly paved and another 



20 



THE COMMONS. 



mile, the brick pavement on Milwaukee avenue, 
has been so extensively repaired that it ought 
to last almost as long as the first pavement. 
To have more than four-elevenths of all its 
streets newly paved and an additional eleventh 
thoroughly repaired is an extremely unusual 
event in any ward. The permanent character 
of the material used is additional reason for 
rejoicing. Of the five and a half miles of 
pavement, there is only three-quarters of a 
mile of cedar block, three and a half miles of 
the remainder being brick and a mile and a 
quarter asphalt. That the wood pavement in 
this crowded river ward should be to this large 
extent done away with is real progress. Much 



and a half, but this year more stores than last 
year will be closed for six months. In the im- 
mediate vicinity of the settlement, however, 
there is a marked exception to the general con- 
dition. Though the meat markets of the neigh- 
bood are closed, four grocery stores still re- 
main open, because the owner of one of them, 
a rather small dealer, will not close. The set- 
tlement has exerted what influence it could, 
short of instituting a boycott, but without suc- 
cess. He repels all influence and defies any at- 
tempt on the part of the neighborhood to boy- 
cott him. His position is that he and his wife, 
sturdy, hard workers that they are, are here in 
the neighborhood in the scramble after money 




Rear Neighborhood of Old Commons. 



brick pavement has been laid in the adjacent 
wards of the West side and a good many sec- 
tions of old board sidewalk have been replaced 
by cement or stone. The prospect seems good 
that some day the river half of the West side 
will have such walks and streets as should be 
found in a stable, sanitary and well-equipped 
metropolis. No one who has not known the 
wretched condition of the streets in this sec- 
tion can appreciate what a difference well- 
paved, unobstructed, cleanly and well-lighted 
streets make in the health, safety and happi- 
ness of the people and their homes. 

The Sunday closing of meat and grocery 
stores in the northwest section of the city is 
well assured for the winter. Last year an as- 
sociation of these dealers and their clerks ef- 
fected a fairly general closing for two months 



for but a few years, till they secure a small 
competency, with which they may move off 
to a quieter and more pleasant locality and en- 
joy the fruit of their labor. To catch every 
possible crumb of profit, this grocer is willing 
to keep the employes of four stores at work 
Sunday mornings and make the whole neigh- 
borhood a marked exception to the other neigh- 
borhoods in its section of the city. Such woeful 
lack of normal interest in the welfare of the 
neighborhood from which the dealer's profits 
come is extremely depressing. But it is en- 
couraging that most of the grocers and butch- 
ers of the city find it possible to gain their 
ends and still join hands in a movement that 
is of such benefit to both themselves and the 
best welfare of the community. 



THE COMMONS 



21 



Co-operative Affiliations 

It is the accepted settlement policy to co- 
operate with all existing agencies and not to 
duplicate any of their work, to initiate needed 
efforts, but to appropriate no more of them to 
settlement control than cannot survive and be 
effective without it, to co-ordinate all other lines 
of service as far as possible, so as to reduce 
rather than to increase the number of organi- 
zations. Very gratefully do the residents of 
Chicago Commons acknowledge the courtesy 
and co-operation of the Chicago Woman's Club, 
and many others in and out of the State Fed- 
eration, especially the Matheon Club, which es- 
tablished and is maintaining the invaluably 
useful Day Nursery at the heart of our district; 
the Klio Club, whose success and helpfulness 
encourage us to develop our cooking school and 
establish a noon-day rest and lunch room; the 
Apollo Club, through the sympathetic public 
spirit of whose soloists and many members our 
neighbors have the lovely privilege of hearing 
the Messiah each Christmas-tide; the Art In- 
stitute, through whose unwearied considera- 
tion we residents and many of our neighbors 
enjoy about the only glimpses that some of us 
get of the beautiful; the Bureau of Associated 
Charities, whose burden-bearing makes it more 
possible for us to live under the burden of the 
poverty and wretchedness surrounding us; the 
Children's Home and Aid Society, whose expert 
knowledge and care of the dependent and the 
delinquent child helps the solution of many a 
family problem; the Juvenile Court and its pro- 
bation officers, that constitute the last and yet 
best hold on many a little victimized life; the 
Business Woman's Exchange and the employ- 
ing department of the Y. M. C. A. in helping 
us secure work for the unemployed; the Colum- 
bia School of Oratory, Armour Institute, Lewis 
Institute, the Chicago Institute, the Cook 
County Teachers' Association, Gertrude House, 
the Montifiore and Washington' public schools 
of our neighborhood; the University of Michi- 
gan and the Chicago Theological Seminary; the 
Department of Public Health; the Special 
Parks Commission; many churches and church 
organizations, little and small, near and far, 
poorer and richer, of almost every name and 
most diverse tenet; and last, but by no means 
least, the other social settlements of Chicago 
and elsewhere, among which it is not invidious 
to name Hull House. 

Could the individuals who have been co-op- 
erating with us these years be assembled, what 
a throng they would be! From what scattered 



localities all over the land and different condi- 
tions, ages and circumstances they would come! 
What strangely differing constituencies they 
would represent, and yet all of the goodly 
fellowship would be more or less in possession 
of the same social spirit and purpose, which 
marks loyalty to the essential 'Christ. 

OUB LIBRARY AND PERIODICALS. 

Gradually we have gathered several hundreds 
of choice books for a reference and loan li- 
brary. A collection of exquisitely selected' 
masterpieces of literature and library criticism 
forms its nucleus and encyclopaedias, govern- 
ment reports, authorities on economic and in- 
dustrial and something in history and bio- 
graphy constitute a considerable addition val- 
uable to working men readers. 

Through the exchange list of the Commons 
we receive a large assortment of Settlement 
publications, sociological and reform literature, 
trades union and more radical labor papers, 
and many scientific, educational, religious and 
general weeklies, to all of which free access is 
given. Back numbers of the popular illustrat- 
ed magazines are sent us for distribution and 
are eagerly taken by the attendants upon our 
gatherings. An extensive clipping department 
valuably supplements these resources. Our 
little loan collection of pictures, given in mem- 
ory of the late Edward J. Danforth, the only 
one of our many residents who has died, quietly 
carries the ideal in art where there is little else 
to beautify or inspire the home life. 

CO-OPERATION WITH THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 

Our long-hoped-for co-operation with the de- 
livery station of the Chicago Public Library, 
situated on Milwaukee avenue only two blocks 
from our new building, is having a very practi- 
cal and auspicious beginning. In most cordial 
co-operation with the library authorities Miss 
Stella H. Seed, the resident in charge of our end 
of this service, begins herewith to issue reading 
lists of books for boys and girls, with call num- 
bers of the library. Beginning with books of 
reference, story and biography on United States 
history, she submits the following lists: 

THE REVOLUTION. 

B. 2415. The American Revolution-John Fisk. 

H. 3273. Century Book of the American Revo- 
lution Brooks. 

B. 211. Boys of '76 Coffin. 

B. 2374. The War of Independence John Fisk. 

B. 2367. Blue Jackets of '76 Abbott. 

F. 2846. Stories of the Old Dominion Cooke. 



THE COMMONS 



H. 3649. Watchfires of '76 Drake. 

B. 3544. From Colony to Commonwealth Tif- 

fany. 

H. 2662. The Boston Tea Party Watson. 

H. 2661. Noble Deeds of our Fathers Watson. 

H. 5175. In Pirate Waters (Tale of American 
Navy ) Munroe. 

H. 1998. With La Fayette at Yorktown Otis. 

H. 2316. Paul Jones Seawell. 

F. 6509. A Virginia Cavalier (Geo. Washing- 
ton) Seawell. 

H. 2539. Three 'Colonial Boys Tomlinson. 

H. 2539. Three Young Continentals. Vol. 2 
Tomlinson. 

H. 2539. Washington's Young Aids., Vol. 3 
Tomlinson. 

H. 3180. For King or Country Barnes. 

H. 3272. A Son of the Revolution Brooks. 
(Days of Burr's Conspiracy.) 

H. 3296. The Knight of Liberty Butterworth. 
(Fortunes of La Fayette.) 

H. 979. The Patriot Schoolmaster Butter- 
worth. 

H. 4605. At the Siege of Quebec Otis. 

H. 2433. Guert Ten Eyck Stoddard. 

H. 1996. Neal, the Miller Otis. 

H. 2540. Boys of Old Monmouth Tomlinson. 

C. 1835. Autobiography Franklin. 

H. 978. Boysof Greenway Court Butterworth. 

THE INDIANS. STORIES. 

H. 1606. Two Young Homesteaders By Mrs. 

T. R. Jenness. 

H. 1412. Tecumseh, Chief of the Shawanoes 
H. R. Gordon. 

(Story of the War of 1812.) 
H. 1411. Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas H. R. 
Gordon. 

(Siege of Detroit 1763-64.) 
H. 1856. The Flamingo Feather K. Munroe. 

(A tale of the Huguenots in Florida.) 
H. 2435. Little Smoke W. O. Stoddard. 
(A tale of the Sioux.) 
H. 2421. Talking Leaves W. O. Stoddard. 

(Indian story of Arizona The adven- 
tures of an Indian girl with her 
adopted white sister.) 
H. 2425. Red Beauty. Story of the Pawnee 

Trail W. O. Stoddard. 
(Story of an old Indian, friend to the 
white men, but enemy to the 
Pawnees.) 

F. 4401. Romona Helen Hunt Jackson. 
F. 4390. Aztec Treasure House T. A. Janvier. 



Developemervt of Musical Taste. 

The music work, which began with the initial 
year of the settlement, may be reported as a 
growing and constituent part of the work. 
Both children's and adult choruses, then start- 
ed, will find a permanent home and assured 
success in the new building. 

The children's chorus work, beside the stimu- 
lation of song from week to week, has become 
a helpful influence in the general social life of 
the children. It is found that the better music 
not only serves for vocal and aesthetic culture, 
but gradually supplants the street song and 
the lower class of music. Concerts for Christ- 
inas and other festival occasions have helped 
the children to feel the service of song in con- 
tributing to the social life of the neighborhood. 

One of the clauses in the constitution of the 
adult chorus reads: "The object of this chorus 
is to study good music, to raise its standards 
in the neighborhood, and to assist in music ex- 
tension by giving recitals and concerts." Al- 
though its fortunes have fluctuated, it has 
maintained an average membership of forty 
and its programs for the five years show a 
steady adherence to its purpose. As a result 
of its efforts it has given concerts of folk songs, 
patriotic music of all nations, old folks' con- 
concert, cantatas and Christmas concerts, also 
contributing at various times choruses for the 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoons. This year it an- 
ticipates Pinafore. 'Social and musical exchange 
has been maintained with other settlements. 

Last year, through the courtesy of the man- 
agement of the Apollo club, two renditions of 
"The Messiah" "were given gratuitously, both 
by club and soloists, in settlement neighbor- 
hoodsone for the University Settlement and 
the other for the Commons. This beautiful 
Christmas tribute was greatly appreciated by 
those who were unable to attend the larger per- 
formances of the club. This same concert will 
again be given Jamiary 4 in the new Chicago 
Commons hall, and it is to be hoped that this 
work will be one of the yearly musical fea- 
tures of the neighborhood. The fund raised 
from the small admittance fee will go toward 
defraying the expenses of the choruses. 

The work continues in charge of Miss Marl 
Hofer, assisted by Miss Taylor, and is gradual- 
ly assuming the character of a music school 
in order to supply the demand for special train- 
ing in instrumental and vocal music. 

Subcriptions of $1.00 to the Eugene Field Monument Sou- 
venir Fund, will entitle the donor to his daintily artistic vol- 
ume "Field Flowers." Cloth bound 8x11 containing a 
selection of Field's best and most representative works. 
Address Eugene Field Monument Souvenir Fund. 

180 Monroe St.. Chicago, 111 



THE COMMONS 



23 



The Settlement Correspondent. 

One of the least known, but most widely In- 
fluential functions of Chicago Commons is the 
large correspondence, which is rapidly increas- 
ing with interested inquirers for social data 
throughout our own country and abroad. It 
long since required expert stenographic aid to 
help us keep abreast with it and at times two 
pairs of hands are needed in typewriting to 
prevent us hopelessly falling in arrears. Let- 
ters come from widely scattered and diverse 
points of view from lonely workers In the 
country and small town, out of every phase of 
the complex city problem; from men facing the 
sternest facts of our industrial situation, as 
employers or employes; from some who do not 
know what to do with the trades union and 
others who do not know what to do without 
it; from school teachers, women's clubs, judges, 
face to face with the juvenile delinquent; from 
temperance workers, Conscious of the failure 
of old methods and groping after new and bet- 
ter substitutes for the social accessories of the 
drink habit; from students writing theses and 
professors pursuing original investigations, and 
last, but by no means last, from earnest and 
baffled pastors and aggressive, but disappoint- 
ed, church members all seeking suggestions, 
friendly criticism and information from litera- 
ture or the experience with life. Many, too, 
are the encouragements and corrections re- 
ceived from the good cheer and God-speed of 
earnest hearts and true, who are not only 
friendly enough to commend, but to faithfully 
criticise. 

EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS. 
From a former resident now on the Atlantic 
Coast: "I received a letter the other day that 
touches me down deep. There is a young roan 
in Chicago that wrote me a real frank, heart 
to heart letter, in which he told me of his 
troubles and temptations. He said that it re- 
quired all the moral courage that he could mus- 
ter to refuse to teach those English whom he 
thought would do better in settlement classes 
or in night schools. 'I cannot be satisfied with 
saying business is business.' He says it is so 
hard for him not to be vain and think himself 
superior to his neighbors. His gratefulness for 
my treating him even like another human being 
is pathetic. He says that I gave him sym- 
pathy and 'a respectful ear 1 and tries to thank 
me for it. He is a very smart fellow and I got 
more from talking with him than he with me. 
I know few fellows like him for sharp incisive 
reasoning. He says he feels the need of in- 



spiring companionship to keep him humble and 
from being vain. He feels his lack of manners 
Is a great barrier to him. If ever you run 
across him pay attention to him and take an 
interest in him." 

From an aged, poor and helplessly invalid 
old lady on the Pacific Coast: "Though feeble 
and much of the time nearly helpless, I am 
deeply interested in your special lines of work, 
especially by your attempt to teach the chil- 
dren the physical basis of their life. I con- 
tend that each one of us women can, if we 
will, give instruction to two children one 
hour each day in industries or studies. I coaxed 
my two girlies with kisses and cookies to come 
and help get me out to the foot of the garden 
where I could teach them to find out how 
plants grow and drink. We had a fork, a 
rake, a trowel and a bright small space, with 
seeds of carrots, beets, beans and peas and a 
little piece of clay soil soon made mellow by 
adding fertilizers and water. 

"The seeds were covered by gardener's rule 
once, twice or three times their diameter, then 
a wire screen was put over the bed to keep 
the wild birds from poaching. Now came the 
witchery of watching each day the mystery of 
germination of growth, up and down, then tho 
opportunity of impressing the children with 
the parallel lesson of having good seeds of 
truth dropped into the soil of memory and 
conscience, slowly growing up and sunward to 
live forever. When the hour was up they sat 
beside uife on the cedar brush to rest, then 
they tenderly helped me to my room and 
couch; sometimes they tarried to ask questions, 
sometimes insisted in readjusting the little par- 
lor; always had refreshments; always came 
back. To see them on their knees with a glass 
hunting the capillary rootlets that convey nu- 
triment to the larger roots and thence to the 
body of the tuber or the stem of the peas or 
beans was a picture of enthusiasm. These 
children were once a terror of mischief, because 
idle. They became enthusiastic students and 
yet say 'it was the happiest summer of my life.' 



While in deference to our friends' feeling and our 
'own, we have never published the names of those who 
cooperate in the work of Chicago Commons by giving 
toward its equipment and support, they are all re- 
ported to our board of trustees and each donor re- 
ceives a personal acknowledgement from the Warden. 
This widely scattered correspondence becomes in- 
creasingly personal and, we have reason to believe, 
reciprocally helpful. 



24 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Socla.1 Settlement Point of View. 



GRAHAM TAYLOR, - - - Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first ol every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



THE editor of THE COMMONS takes great 
pleasure in announcing the fact that this 
paper is more and more every month the work 
of the residents of Chicago Commons. They 
prefer, however, to contribute what they do to 
its columns as from the household rather than 
to sign their several articles. This number con- 
sists almost entirely of descriptions of the va- 
rious branches of our settlement work, drawn 
by those residents upon whosfe heart and hand 
each group of activities most relies. 



THE transfer of the publication of THE 
COMMONS from one printing house to an- 
other is so peculiarly personal at both ends of 
the line as to call for a word of grateful recog- 
nition. Without the friendly interest and credit 
extended to us from the beginning until now 
by P. F. Pettibone & Co. (and the self-sacrific- 
ing energy and ability of Mr. Gavit, its founder 
and first editor), this paper could hardly have 
been started or sustained. They shared its risks 
with not a little of the faith which we have 
had to possess in larger measure in the cause 
for which this journal was born and lives to 
serve. With a fraternal consideration, all too 
rare and perhaps impossible in business rela- 
tions, they helped us carry our often large de- 
ficit, and, in the face of it, cheerfully issued the 
next number. From the head of the firm to 
the errand boy, all through the shop, and last, 
but not least, by the younger of the brothers 
in the partnership, whose sweet and gentle 
spirit so recently took its flight, we have been 
accorded not only the most faithful and efficient 
service, but the most brotherly kindness, for 
which we thank them one and all. 

The offer of Mr. John K. Allen to donate the 
press work on THE COMMONS as his share of 
the task it has undertaken, is too generous not 



to be gratefully acknowledged. It nearly cuts 
the cost of publication in two, and enables us 
to continue to offer THE COMMONS at its low 
rate of subscription to more of those who want 
to read it. 

Reluctantly, and yet with clear conscience, 
we devote the December number of THE COM- 
MONS each year to report the work of Chicago 
Commons to its widely scattered and numerous 
friends, with most of whom we have no other 
means of communication. This settlement has 
from the very beginning been very democratic 
in its dependence for support, as well as in the 
use of all that has been trusted to it. We resi- 
dents have preferred to depend upon and be 
influenced by the many rather than the few. 
We have had neither inclination nor time to 
"cultivate" a possible tributary relationship 
with any one or few who might thereby be 
considered our patrons. This attitude and the 
very strict limitations of the warden's time 
have prevented that personal solicitation, 
through which larger gifts are usually secured, 
and have thrown us back upon correspondence 
and the columns of this paper as our only 
means of approach or continued contact with 
the faith, free will and fellowship upon which 
only we rely to maintain and develop the work 
of Chicago Commons. 

Moreover, this paper was started without cap- 
ital and has for nearly five years been sus- 
tained principally by the entirely gratuitous 
service of the residents and friends of Chicago 
Commons, and at very great and sacrificial ex- 
pense to the always scant financial resources 
of our settlement treasury. We have assumed 
this larger burden we have been bearing in loy- 
alty a great deal more to the whole settlement 
than to the individual interests of our own 
neighborhood work, which could have been 
served by a far less expensive publication. We 
count it no small part, however, of the social 
service rendered by Chicago Commons to have 
been permitted and trusted to serve other set- 
tlements and the cause for which they all 
stand. 

THE outline of Mr. Melendy's report of his 
investigation of the Social Function of 
the Saloon, which we published in the Novem- 
ber number of THE COMMONS, has attracted at- 
tention very widely and is in such demand that 
one edition of 5,000 copies is already nearly ex- 
hausted. It has, of course, been grossly mis- 
interpreted by those who have not read it and 
viciously attacked by a few who have barely 



THE COMMONS 



25 



heard of it. But the recognition of its excep- 
tional value as a first-hand study of facts is 
unanimous among those who either know there 
are facts to be studied or who have sense 
enough to see that the persistence of the saloon 
is in itself a fact to be accounted for on more 
than one ground. The full report of this inves- 
tigation we made for "The Committee of Fifty" 
is to be published in the appendix to the vol- 
ume on "Social Substitutes for the Saloon," 
which is to be issued in the course of a few 
months (probably by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 
from whose press the other volume in the 
series came), under the direction of the "Ethi- 
cal Sub-Committee." 

Academic Relation of the 
Settlement. 

Loyal -to the university origin of the social 
settlement movement, Chicago Commons has 
been at once the outgrowth of the academic 
spirit and the center of academic co-operation. 
While not organically connected with the Chi- 
cago Theological Seminary or directly depenfl- 
ent upon it either for management or financial 
support, this settlement was established in most 
vital personal relationship with the Sociological 
Department of the Seminary. From its point 
of view the settlement is regarded as a center 
for social observation, inquiry, contact and in- 
duction, where life may be studied at first 
hand. The teacher who stands at the head of 
both is thus enabled to take his students from 
the class-room, either like the professor of 
geology a-field, where the strata that dip deep- 
ly come to the surface all crowded together, or 
like the professor of biology into the laboratory, 
where the life forces are to be seen at their 
creative work, or again like the medical pro- 
fessor into the vast hospital clinics, where so- 
cial diagnosis and therapeutics can be actually 
practiced. Both for the frequent contacts of 
under-graduates with the living problems, 
which confront the church and the world, and 
for the constant residence, statistical research 
and original inquiry of graduate students, Chi- 
c'ago Commons offers a rare opportunity, of 
which increasing advantage is taken not only 
by students in Prof. Taylor's Seminary classes, 
but by those of many other seminaries, univer- 
sities, colleges and training schools in and about 
Chicago and even from distant states. Occa- 
sional group meetings of students, representing 
the nearer-by institutions of learning, are held, 
in which experts .are heard and quizzed. 

The Michigan University Settlement fellowship 
sustains two students in residence half the year. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN W,r COMMONS DURING 1900. 

One Page -25.00 Half Page $15.00 
Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 

T5he New Fourth Edition f College. Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Wavigh McCulIoch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 35C. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 



Enslavement and Emancipation of 
the People. 

An original and practical solution of the problem. 

By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Price in cloth, 75 cents. Published by the Author, 
J. B. Herboldshiner, Gibson City, 111. 

Biblical Sociology, By Gralxam Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 500 of THE COMMONS. 

'She Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Booklet on tKe Housing Problem. 

"Home Ownership vs. Rented Houses." 

Moral Results By Rev. John Morrison. Apply to 
author, London, Ontario, Canada. Price ten cents 
per copy. $5.00 per hundred. 

Send 50 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ol view, It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street. 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofficeas mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

TKe Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for S2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cent denomination., at our risk. 
CKangos of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for pny 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



26 



THE COMMONS 



Stereoptican Talks. 

The opportunities for a popular propaganda 
in the interest of social conditions are far in 
excess of our time and capacity to improve 
them. Since we have begun to present our 
stereopticon views of our surroundings in far- 
down-town Chicago and what is being done to 
offset and improve them, the invitations from 
churches, labor unions, schools, teachers' asso- 
ciations, clubs and other organizations, in and 
far beyond the city, have still further increased 
although before that not one in six could be 
accepted. The reflex influence of the direct 
work thus exerted is perhaps the most far- 
reaohing result of settlement work. We stand 
in great need of a larger camera with which to 
take better views of civic conditions, and of 
the many inspiring and suggeslve object lessons 
in the effort everywhere being made now to 
better them. The investment of $25 in this 
camera would yield a very certain and large 
return. 

Commons Trustees. 



In view of the effort to put the settlement on 
a sound financial footing, and of larger outlook 
into the future, the personnel of the settlement 
board of trustees ("Trustees of the Chicago 
Commons Association, Incorporated") is inter- 
esting. ' It comprises eleven members: David 
Fales, Esq. (Lake Forest), and Prof. H. M. 
Scott (West Side), represent the Chicago (Con- 
gregational) Theological Seminary board of 
directors and faculty; Frank H. McCullogh, 
Esq., is secretary of the board, stands for the 
Evanston affiliation of the settlement, and 
Charles H. Hulburd, of the Elgin Watch Com- 
pany (North Side), represents the New Eng- 
land Church; John S. Field (Knickerbocker Ice 
Co.) and J. H. Strong (TJ. S. Life Iiis. Co.) 
represents Plymouth Church; E. Burritt 
Smith, Esq. (South Side) is an officer in the 
University Church, and a prominent attorney; 
Edward Payson (Oak Park) is a manufacturer, 
and Graham Taylor (Professor of Christian 
Sociology in Chicago Theological Seminary) is 
president and treasurer of the Association and 
resident warden. Mrs. Otto Matz represents 
the Chicago Woman's Club, and Miss Jane 
Addams embodies the close and friendly en- 
couragement which has been reciprocal be- 
tween Hull House and the Commons. 

From their last appeal for the support of the 
settlement the following excerpts express their 
judgment of the work and its needs: 



"The undersigned, trustees of the Chicago 
Commons Association (incorporated), co-oper- 
ating iu the conduct of the social settlement 
known as "Chicago Commons," desire hereby 
to bear testimony, in connection with the set- 
tlement's appeal for support for the current 
year, to our faith in the efficiency and great 
usefulness of the work accomplished througli 
the settlement by those having it immediately 
in charge. We know of no place where so 
small an investment of money makes possible 
and secures a larger expenditure of consecraied 
effort, nor are we aware of any service of 
greater practical value than that in which these 
faithful workers are engaged. 

"In addition to the small group of residents 
deriving their support through the settlement 
treasury, about twenty resident workers pro- 
vide their own maintenance, including room 
rent, thus serving not only without expense to 
the association, but at a reduction of its fixed 
charges. Professor Graham Taylor, for in- 
stance, as you doubtless appreciate, not only 
receives no compensation for his invaluable 
services in the leadership uf the work, but pays 
rent and board for himself and his family at 
the Commons. The salary list is small, and of 
those thus engaged there is none who could not 
obtain larger compensation elsewhere. 

"It is our conviction that the achievement of 
the Commons in its local field, in its wide In- 
fluence upon persons and communities through- 
out the country, and not least, in its general en- 
deavor for civic and social progress, justifies us 
in the appeal for support and co-operation. The 
settlement workers ask for $6,000 for the ex- 
penses of this year. They could use to advan- 
tage much more. Indeed, the effectiveness of 
the work will be increased in a ratio more than 
direct by every additional contribution. More- 
over, the time surely has come when both econ- 
omy and permanency demand the relief of the 
workers from the burden of excessive rent and 
inadequacy of quarters, by which too long and 
unnecessarily they have been hindered. To this 
end we propose to raise immediately a "housing 
fund" with which to provide more suitable and 
permanent accommodations. Who will be the 
first to respond to this opportunity?" 

For current expenses there had been received 
during the eleven months of this year $5,594.02, 
and there were expended $5,926.75, leaving a 
deficit of $332.73, which with a shortage of 
$80.06 brought forward from 1899, puts the 
treasury in debt $412.79. 



THE COMMONS 



Retrospect cvrvd Prospect 



of initiative and experiment and cross the threshold 
of assured success and established permanency. The 
purpose which possessed us In choosing to make our 
home in this west side river ward of far down-town 
Chicago, where we seem to be most needed, rather 
than where we were offered the most privilege or 
social prestige, afterwards found expression In the 
articles incorporating the Chicago Commons Associa- 
tion. Its object, as therein defined, is "To provide a 
center for a higher civic and social life, to initiate 
and maintain religious, educational and philan- 
thropic enterprises and to Investigate and Improve 
conditions in the Industrial districts of Chicago." 

HOW THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT MAT BE DEFINED. 

While legal Incorporation, "not for profit," is nec- 
essary to hold property and perpetuate the work, yet 
the spirit and success of the settlement depends upon 
keeping Its life and relationships wholly personal, 
with as little organization as Is necessary for corpor- 
ate living and co-operative working. George Mac- 
donald puts upon our lips the answer we would 
give to the Inquiry why we live and labor where we 
do and what holds us together. 

"Well, then," replies his Robert Falconer to this 
very question, "we are an undefined company of 
people who have grown Into human relation with 
each other naturally through one attractive force 
love for human beings, regarding them as human 
beings only In virtue of the Divine In them." 

WHAT HAS COMB OP IT *T.T, SO FAR? 

Our advance guard of three student residents In 
two hired rooms after five months grew into the 
group of twelve who, In October, 1894, took pos- 
session of the front part of the Union street house 
and then Into the household of twenty-four, center- 
ing in a family circle, and occupying the forty-four 
rooms of the entire premises at the old Commons. 
Some of us have made our home here all these 
years, others four years or less, and nearly one hun- 
dred residents have come and gone, who after ren- 
dering valuable volunteer service for longer or short- 
er periods are working In the settlement spirit in 
widely scattered and diverse fields of usefulness. Of 
the permanent group only five are relucantly obliged 
to receive their subsistence from the settlement 
funds, while devoting their entire time to the serv- 
ice of the neighborhood and being without other 
means of support. The twenty others pay their own 
living expenses at the rate of $5 per week, and 
gratuitously give either all or a large part of their 
time to the settlement work. There are usually more 
applicants for admission to residence at these rates 
than we can accommodate with rooms. 

RESPONSE OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD. 

Upon the eighty-eight occasions, tabulated in oar 
schedule of appointments, the average attendances 
each week aggregate at present 3779. Of these 897 
are upon the 44 classes and clubs left at the old 
Commons; 1157 are included In the 33 social and 
educational appointments transferred to the new 
building, or Initiated there; and 725 are attendant 
upon the 11 religious gatherings of the Tabernacle 
Church. These figures, however, give little idea of 
the co-operation of our neighbors, not only with us 
in the maintenance of the settlement work, but with 
each other in whatever makes for righteousness, 
peace and fraternity. 



A PLEA FOR THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD. 

While even the spacious apartments of the new 
building will be over-taxed from the start to accom- 
modate not only the attendances already transferred 
there, but also the multitude surrounding It, whose 
interest has been widely awakened by Its erection, 
we are yet loathe to leave the neighborhood of the 
old house without some provision to take Its place. 




THE OLD COMMONS 

Although the new location Is at the center of the 
population of our district, it Is five blocks west of 
the old Commons too far for the littlest kindergar- 
ten children and their careworn mothers to follow 
us. We appeal, therefore, for at least $50 a month 
In addition to what the work of the Commons now 
requires to lease modest quarters, in which to main- 
tain our kindergarten, Mothers' Club, and other ap- 
pointments for those who need them most and are 
least able to follow us farther to get them. 

COST OF CARRYING ON THE WORK. 

It costs about $600 a month In gifts to support all 
the work centering at Chicago Commons, including 
the $700 expense of giving over 1,200 summer outings 
in our Boys and Girls' Camp at Elgin and elsewhere, 
and also the $600 which the settlement contributes 
annually as its share toward the support of the 
neighborhood church. Owing to the fact that almost 
all of our twenty-four residents and as many more 
non-resident workers not only serve without any 
remuneration, but meet their own expenses, less 
than half of our monthly receipts is neded to support 
the three or four whose entire time Is required to 
lead the various branches of the work. The balance 
pays for the lighting, heating and care of the house, 
and for the equipment, maintenance and incidental 
expenses of the varied service. Toward these ex- 
penses the resident workers pay about a thousand 
dollars a year in rentals for their rooms, and each 
of the classes and clubs using the public apartments, 
from the kindergarten to the Sunday congregation, 
contributes its share acording to Its ability. For 
the balance $600 we are entirely dependent upon 
the regular or special contributions of friends of the 
work, to whom, whether In the neighborhood, In 
city, or suburb, or In other places, we appeal for 
help to help the people help themselves. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, 
Address: HO N. Union St., Chicago. Resident Wardens 



Subscribe for THE COMMONS 

Sixteen pages. Often with cover like this. Only 50'cents 
Address: 140 N. UNION ST., CHICAGO. 



Schedule of 

AT THE OLD COMMONS, 

DAILY: 

All Day House open for neighbors and 
friends. 

9:00-12-00 A. M. Kindergarten (except Sat- 
urday and Sunday). 

7:00 P. M. Vespers (except Saturday). 
MONDAY: 

3:30-4:30 P. M. History. 

3:30-5:00 P.M. Kitchen Garden. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Girls' Club. 
i 7:30-8:30 P. M. Algebra. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Drawing. 

7:30-10:00 P. M. English. 

7:30-10:00 P. M. Shakespeare Reading. 

8 : 30-9 : 00 P. M. Arithmetic. 

9:30 P. M. Library open. 

9 : 30 P. M. Loan Collection of Pictures. 
TUESDAY: 

7:30-8:30 P. M. English Reading for Ital- 
ian Beginners. 

7:30-8:00 P. M. Writing. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Stenography. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Boys' Club. 

7:30-9:30 P. M. Mothers' Club. 
WEDNESDAY: 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Junior Club. 



Appointments 

140 NORTH UNION STREET 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Girls' Clubs. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Boys' Club. 

9:30-10:00 P. M. Library. 

9:30- 10:00 P. M. Loan Collection of Pic- 
tures. 
THURSDAY: 

4:00-6:00 P. M. Piano Lessons. 

7:00-9:00 P. M. Italian Mothers' Club. 

7:00-10:00 P. M. English. 

7:00-8:30 P. M. Algebra. 

8: 00-10: 00 P.M. Young Men's Self Cul- 
ture Club. 

8:30-9:00 P. M.-Arithmetic. 
FRIDAY: 

4 :00-5:00 P. M. Children's Plain Sewing. 
Children's Physical Culture. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Boys' Clubs. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Rhetoric. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Grammar. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Stenography. 
SATURDAY: 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Piano Lessons. 

7:00 P. M. Residents' Meeting 

Rooms for Neighborhood occasions provided, 
when possible. 



AT THE NEW BUILDING, GRAND AVE. AND MORGAN ST. 



AT THE NEW BUILDING. 
DAILY: 

Kindergarten, every morning (except Sat- 
urday and Sunday). 

Matheon Day Nursery open from 6 A. M. 
to 7 P. M. at 217 Grand Avenue. 

Cooking classes, afternoon and evening 
(except Saturday and Sunday). 

Noon Rest and Lunch Room (except Sun- 
day). 

Gymnasium Exercise and Games, for both 
men and women; afternoon and evening. 

The Progressive Club Room (for young 
women) open every evening. 

Men's Club rooms open every evening. 
MONDAY: 

1:00-4:00 P. M. Pestalozzi-Froebel Kinder- 
garten Training Class. 

4:00-6:00 P. M. Cooking. 

7:00-9:00 P. M. Dress Making. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Boys' Clubs. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Young People's Literary 
Club. 

7:30-9:30 P.M. Young Men's Club. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Girls' Progressive Club. 

8:45-10:00 P. M. Adult Elocution. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Men's Neighborhood 
League. 

8:10 P. M. Municipal Club of the Seven- 
teenth Ward. 
TUESDAY: 

1:00-4:00 P. M. Kindergarten Training 
Class. 

2:00-4:00 P. M. Woman's Club. 

4:00-6:00 P. M. Cooking. 

4:30-5:30 P.M. Girl's Gymnasium Class. 

7:00-9:00 P. M.-Cooking. 

7:30-8:30 P M. Girls' Clubs. 
. 8:00-10:00 P. M. Forget-me-not Club. 

8:15-10:00 P. M. Free Floor Economic Dis- 
cussions. 
WEDNESDAY: 
' 4:00-6:00 P. M. Cooking. 

7:00-9:00 P. M. Cooking. 



THURSDAY: 

2:00-4:00 P. M. Kindergarten Training 
Class. 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Children's Chorus. 

4:00-6:00 P. M. Cooking. 

7:00-9:00 P. M. Cooking. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Adult Chorus. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Gymnasium Basket Ball 

for Young Women. 
FRIDAY: 

1:30-3:30 P. M. Washington School Kin- 
dergarten Mothers' Meeting. 

4:00-6:00 P. M. Cooking. 

7:00-9:00 P. M. Cooking. 

7:30-8:30 P. M. Plain Sewing. 
SATURDAY: 

Manual Training. 
SUNDAY: 

3:30-4:30 P.M. Pleasant Sunday After- 
noon. 

APPLICATIONS for membership in the social 
clubs, gymnasium groups or educational 
classes made be made at any time, either at 
the old Commons, 140 N. Union street, or at 
the new building, Grand avenue and Morgan 
street. 

TABERNACLE RELIGIOUS SERVICES. 
SUNDAY: 

10:00-12:00 A. M. Family Service, Bible 
School, 10:00-11:00 A. M.; Public Wor- 
ship, 11:00-12:00 A. M. 

2:00 P. M. Sunshine Circle. 

7:00-8:00 P. M. Children's Meeting. 

7:15-8:00 P. M. Senior Y. P. S. C. E. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. People's Hour. 
WEDNESDAY: 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Fellowship Meeting. 
THURSDAY: 

2:00-4:00 P. M. Ladies' Aid and Mission- 
ary Society. 
FRIDAY: 

7:00-8:00 Junior and Intermediate, C. E. 
SATURDAY: 8:00 P. M. Choir Rehearsal. 



Apply for Membership at New or Old Building 



TKe Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Whole Number 54. 



CHICAGO 



Je.nufe.ry, 1901. 



Social Teachings from the 
Brownings. 

"The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's, 
l s _not to fancy what were fair in life 
Provided it could be, but, finding first 
What may be, then find how to make it fair 
Up to our means; a very different thing." 

Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology. 

"The hungry beggar boy. .. 
Contains, himself, both flowers and firmaments, 
And surging sea's and aspectable stars, 
And all that we would push him out of sight 
In order to see nearer. Let us pray 
God's grace to keep God's Image in repute." 

Mrs. Browning, in "Aurora Leigh." 

" The man, most man, with tenderent human hands, 

Works best for men, as God in Nazareth.'.... 

He paused upon the word, and then resumed: 

'Fewer programmes: we who have no prescience. 

Fewer systems; we who are held and do not hold. 

Less mapping out of masses, to be saved 

By nations, or by sexes. Fourier's void, 

And Comte Is dwarfed and Cabet puerile. 

Subsists no law of life outside of life; 

No perfect manners without Christian souls; 

The Christ Himself had been no Lawgiver, 

Unless He had given the life, too, with the law.' " 

A Social Apostola.te. 

By J. Stitt Wilson. 

Prof. Geo. D. Herron, who for seven 
years occupied the chair of Applied Chris- 
tianity in Iowa College at Grinnell, and who 
for all these years has teen prominently be- 
fore the public as a noted teacher of social 
righteousness, has gathered about him the 
nucleus of a social apostolate which will begin 
an aggressive evangelism throughout the coun- 
try with the opening of the new year. The 
social, industrial, and spiritual conditions of 
our times give a striking significance to the 
character and work of this new order of preach- 
ers and teachers. 

AT THE END OP THE CENTURY. 

The closing quarter of the nineteenth century 
has been a period of vast change in the world- 
life. In the industrial activities of the western 
civilization there has been an enormous devel- 
opment. Machinery has been perfected beyond 
the dreams of inventors; trade has been ex- 
tended to every part of the planet; the interna- 
tional commerce of nations has been marvelous. 
It has likewise been a period of great intel- 



lectual activity. Not that transcendent genius 
has shone in the realms of science, art and lit- 
erature, making ours an Augustan age; but a 
great intellectual gestation has been proceed- 
ing. The common man has been reading and 
thinking. The schoolmaster's influence has 
been profoundly felt, almost to the materializa- 
tion of learning. The press, in a hundred forms 
of periodical, pamphlet and book, has been 
pouring forth its myriads of scientific and lit- 
erary leaves for the instruction of the nations. 
And as if to add yeast to the process oriental 
thought sacred and secular has been awaken 
ing the occult in occidental life and literature. 

But one manifest complaint must be brought 
against our times. Our industrial life and 
commercial activity and the possibilities which 
our social system presents for the accumulation 
of great wealth have combined to elicit the sel- 
fishness and mammonism and avarice of the 
race. As a result we have the maddest pursuit 
of riches, with its consequent colossal centrali- 
zation of wealth in the hands of the few, on 
the one hand, and a vast mass of human pov- 
erty with its suffering, upon the other. The 
struggle is intense. Industrial strife is a war 
rriore deadly than that of bullets and bayonets. 
The inevitable demoralization ensues. 

MATERIALIZING OF LIFE. 

Life has become materialized. In this pro- 
cess the soul has been stifled. We have not 
made men; we have made money. Wealth, ease, 
pleasure, worldliness, mammon, are pursued 
with frenzied eagerness by frantic multitudes 
Intoxicated by the first poison of the root of 
evil. Simple virtues have become vices. This 
materialization and mammonizatlon of life has 
sapped the springs of the spiritual and the ideal 
in character. Modify the proposition as we- 
may, the fact abides that worldliness has tri- 
umphed over the ideal and the divine, the car- 
nal has overcome the spiritual, and the Cain- 
man is in the ascendant. Hence the love of the 
world, the love of the flesh, and the pride of 
life, which is not of the Father, dominate in 
our present society. Our intellectual, aesthetic 
and spiritual life, as a virgin, has been drugged, 



THE COMMONS 



seduced, betrayed and polluted by the vile sin- 
ner, Mammon. 

REAWAKENING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIENCE. 

The power of the organized church seems so 
Incompetent to meet the worldliness, mammon- 
ism and carnality of our times, that grave and 
serious men have declared that the power of 
Christianity as a world-religion is now waning. 
By others it is declared with no small amount 
of evidence that the organized church is the 
veriest moral bulwark of these forms of social 
sin because of her complicity with the indus- 
trial and social injustice which is at the bot- 
tom of the whole of it. But the virgin soul of 
the race has always arisen and now arises 
again. Honest hearts grow sick of this gross 
materialism stalking about in conventional re- 
spectability. Sincere souls long for the ideal, 
the spiritual, the divine. They weary of the 
warped, stunted and mutilated life which such 
materialism begets. Though the holy grail 
should be found only beyond seas of sacrifice 
and suffering, on the quest they will start. A 
new conscience described as the "social con- 
science" Is awakening. New and richer depths 
are seen in the life and words of the almost re- 
jected Jesus. Men need the fellowship and 
brotherhood which warm the heart and enrich 
human experience. Character demands some- 
thing infinitely deeper than commercial integ- 
rity, business honesty and conventional re- 
spectability. 

A NEW SPRING DAWNING ON WINTER OF DISCONTENT 

At the best it is a winter and the world-life 
needs its springtimes, new outbursts of pent-up 
divine enthusiasms, of love and sacrifice. And 
now voices prophetic are causing us to know 
our sins and are calling us to righteousness and 
justice. In the light of this new law and new 
gospel whole heaps of the stuff, men foolishly 
prize to-day, will be but the foul fertilizer of 
the newer and better civilization of to-morrow. 

The fact is that our social and industrial, 
commercial and political life, under the light 
of the new social conscience is seen to be im- 
moral. Since we live in a distinctly social age 
our whole life is demoralized more or less by 
our industrial immorality, the essence of which 
is the basic injustice of our effete competitive 
system. This age mammonized by the pursuit 
and power of wealth has given us industrial 
wrongs and social injustice that must now be 
met by moralizing and spiritualizing forces. 

HOW SHALL WE MEET THE WORLD CRISIS? 

Before all the social wrong and injustice must 
be revealed by the light of moral teaching that 
shall include all the facts of the common life. 



All the industrial realm of life with its rami- 
fications must be moralized, spiritualized, sanc- 
tified. And the people must be aroused to re- 
pentance and confession of industrial wicked- 
ness. 

But the work of extending the domain of the 
moral life to include the social and industrial 
activities of society can only be done effectively 
by the spiritual power of God-anointed human 
character. The life to which men are socially 
called must somehow be incarnated in human 
flesh. The word of truth to our times must be- 
come flesh. The heart of life, the divine foun- 
tain of moral and spiritual energy must be 
charged anew with the dynamic of divine pow- 
er, thus generating a new religious impulse 
deep enough and mighty enough for the great 
task. 

Included in this moral teaching and spiritual 
awakening there must be the emfoldment of 
that new social order which will be the mate- 
rial expression and outward garment of the 
new social conscience. Capitalism must yield 
to Socialism: competition to co-operation: the 
strife of man against man, of labor against 
capital, of class against class, inevitable to-day, 
can only cease by the enthronement of peace 
among men of good-will, in the industrial 
democracy of the co-operative commonwealth. 

THE GOSPEL OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT. 

First. Moral teaching, to include every 
aspect of our common life, social and eco- 
nomic; second, a message of spiritual eman- 
cipation, holding within it the power of trans- 
forming the character, and capable of in- 
spiring the social conscience and holding it to 
its divine mission; third, the outlines of a new 
social system, the material form for the new 
individual and social character; these are the 
three natural elements entering into the work 
which the world-crisis demands. Herein Js *he 
combination of ethical instruction, spiritual 
transformation, and social reformation. 

THE SOCIAL CRUSADE A NEW EVANGELISM. 

Though men may well walk with bated breath 
in the presence of such tasks to which God 
now calls them, yet they must speak and act, 
or perish. It is to answer this call to the New 
Evangelism that the Social Crusade has begun 
its work. 

Prof. Herron has now called about him a 
group of young men in a social apostolate to 
proceed with this work, and to render their 
contribution to social reconstruction. Working 
under his leadership and inspiration they will 
devote themselves wholly to this task of the 
new century. For several years past Dr. Her- 



THE COMMONS 



ron has been preaching a great spiritual and so- 
cial message in his individual capacity as lec- 
turer, as college professor, and as the author of 
a dozen volumes of prophetic literature. 

As his work has widened and the demand for 
the social message has increased, he has called 
about him this body of co-laborers. At present 
the group consists of the writer, and his broth- 
er, Rev. Benj. F. Wilson; Rev. W. H. Wise, and 
Mr. Franklin H. Wentworth. For some time 
past the first three mentioned have been asso- 
ciated in the Social Crusade work in different 
parts of the country. Mr. Wentworth is a 
young business man who for years has been 
awakened to the great social and spiritual need 
of the hour. He became greatly inspired with 
the work of Dr. He.rron when he was delivering 
his lectures in Chicago two years ago. Mr. 
Wentworth has been in the lecture field preach- 
ing his message through such themes as "St. 
Francis of Assisi and the Revolution of Love," 
"Mazzini the Apostle of Association," and oth- 
ers of similar character. His business experi- 
ence gives him excellent qualifications as an 
executive and he has offered himself as secre- 
tary as well as speaker in the new movement. 

OPENING THE NEW CAMPAIGN OF THE CRUSADE. 

The work of the group will be opened Sunday, 
January 6, at Central Music Hall, Chicago, at 
3 : 30 p. m., when Dr. Herron will deliver his first 
sermon in a course of twelve. From this time 
on the apostolate will go up and down the land, 
going wherever they are invited and initiating 
our own work in various cities, in a continuous 
proclamation of this whole gospel, rallying the 
people under the new conscience to social an,d 
Individual righteousness. The work everywhere 
will include In a comprehensive unity the spir- 
itual, moral and social elements which the cor- 
responding conditions of life and society de- 
mand. The workers will give themselves whol- 
ly to this task, beginning in the city of Chicago 
and working from this center outwards. The 
headquarters of the work is at 609 Ashland 
block, Chicago, where the secretary, Mr. Frank- 
lin H. Wentworth, is in charge, to whom all 
communications concerning meetings, literature, 
etc., should be addressed. 

We desire to render the largest possible serv- 
ice to the greatest number of people and at the 
most strategic points, but all invitations to 
speak and to hold meetings at any point will be 
carefully considered in our plans. In all cases 
where we go on invitation we ask only that 
our expenses be met and that we may have the 
privilege of presenting the purposes and general 
needs of our work. 



Our paper, THE SOCIAL CRUSADER, is a 32-page 
monthly magazine, full of our thought and an 
account of our activities. Its subscription price 
is 50 cents per year. Sample copies may be had 
by request to the business office, 609 Ashland 
block, Chicago. 

INCARNATION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE THE CULMINA- 
TION. 

We believe that the greatest need of this age 
is a great moral and spiritual awakening. We 
know that this awakening must come as an 
answer to the social needs of our time, and 
likewise a response to the deep soul needs of 
the people, and it all must culminate in the in- 
carnation of social justice in the co-operative 
commonwealth. Dr. Herron, who now enters 
upon this work, has supreme qualifications as 
an interpreter of truth in this generation, and 
this new step of organic activity will delight 
his many friends and followers everywhere. It 
is with confidence that we go forth to witness, 
for we believe that God is on our side and that 
with us there stands an innumerable host, seen 
and unseen, who await with divine patience the 
manifestation of the sons of God, and the com- 
ing of the kingdom in the facts and forces of 
the common life. 

Evanston, Dec. 23, 1900. 



Economics of the Kingdom 
of Heaven. 

By Prof. George D. Herron. 
My purpose in the coming Central Music 
Hall lecture course, entitled "Economics of 
the Kingdom of Heaven," is to first state as 
clearly and plainly as possible the general crisis 
which seems to be approaching in that part of 
the world which we know of as Christendom. 
We cannot watch the manifest development of 
our times without seeing the approach of a crisis 
that shall not only test and try, but ultimately 
change, the whole human, order of things, 
and give us some other kind of a world to live 
in than the one we are trying to live In now. 
The economic system of private production and 
distribution cannot go on a great while, as It 
will finally fall of its own weight, or be de- 
stroyed by the principle of its own existence. 
Through the fall of this economic system will 
also fall the institutions rooted in it and de- 
pendent upon It. Government, and faith In gov- 
ernment, are everywhere breaking down much 
more rapidly than most of us discern. Whether 
they be right or wrong, the people are, by a 
pretty common instinct, feeling that the para- 
phernalia of government Is chiefly used for the 



THE COMMONS 



support and increase of great property inter- 
ests. Likewise, the church has lost its authori- 
tative power, and lost it beyond recall. It is 
not a question of whether we like to have it so 
or not; "we must recognize the simple fact tbat 
it is so, without regard to our likings. The most 
vital spiritual life of Europe is in the Catholic 
Church; in both England and America, Protest- 
antism is now a performance, and has ceased 
to be a faith. 

Now I have merely stated in the foregoing 
the conditions that are bringing the world to 
judgment. What shall we do about it? What 
resources have we for building a new world? 
For our answer we must first look into the hu- 
man fact to see if there is any manifest historic 
development. It seems to me that there is. The 
world is today in the socialist melting pot. 
Without regard to what we want or do not 
want, the socialist stage is the next stage of 
civilization. The processes that are making 
socialism inevitable are going on under our very 
eyes with a swiftness approached by no past 
historic development. Both friend and foe, both 
tyranny and democracy, are hastening the re- 
sult. 

The next resource is the deepening and wid- 
ening spiritual hunger which the church is un- 
able to feed. The nature and structure of the 
church make it philosophically and historically 
impossible for it to use or rightly direct the 
great and unrecognized present-day spiritual 
movement. This movement will not take the 
wordofany authority for anything;it will stand 
squarely upon reality. It will not place its ful- 
crum in some other world; it will have to do 
only with plain, human facts and the organiza- 
tion of these facts. The new spiritual move- 
ment manifests itself in many crude ways, and 
in many unrecognized ways, but it is essential- 
ly the outgrowth of the seed which Jesus plant- 
ed in human life. This passing away of Chris- 
tianity, and the re-appearing of Jesus in an al- 
together new religion, this is the spiritual sig- 
nificance of the coming age. 

Now my purpose is to % present, so far as pos- 
sible, a religious synthesis of the forces and 
elements that are making for the new world. 
I want to show the common root of the reli- 
gious and economic crises, and show how they 
must have a common solution. I hope to show 
the spiritual inherency of materialistic social- 
ism, and point out the nearing lines of converg- 
ence between socialism and Jesus' teachings, or 
his ideal of the kingdom of heaven. I want to 
show how the socialist accomplishment of eco- 
nomic unity is the only foundation upon which 



the principles which Jesus stated can build a 
truly free and spiritual society. 

Then I hope to show, both to those who are 
socialists and to those who are not socialists, 
that socialism is in no sense a goal, but a road 
to the free society which lies immediately the 
other side of socialism; to present Jesus' teach- 
ings concerning the kingdom of heaven as ihe 
economic of that free society. To show how 
they must inevitably result in such a society, if 
they are ever to be taken seriously, is the sole 
purpose of this lecture course. Indeed, the lec- 
tures of this winter are but introductory to the 
economic of the kingdom of heaven which I 
hope to be able to state in the course of four or 
five years. Of course I do not expect to do 
more than merely pioneer the way for a better 
statement. How well or how poorly I shall 
succeed I do not know; I only know that the 
undertaking seems to me to be as inevitable as 
my life. In fact, all my working and thinking, 
since I was a school-boy, has been a conscious 
and deliberate preparation for this task. I have 
absolutely no thought about whether much or 
little or anything may come of it, or whether I 
shall ever complete the task. I have neither 
fears nor hopes to be disappointed. I am sim- 
ply beginning the work, with such poor equip- 
ment as I have, because it seems to me the only 
thing for me to do in the first place; and in the 
second place, even if I fail, something will have 
been done toward spiritualizing the inevitable 
socialist outcome of the present human situa- 
tion. 



Lecture course to be given by George D. Her- 
ren, in Central Music Hall, January 6 to March 
24, 1906, under the auspices of the Social Cru- 
sade: 

1. The Need of a New Religious Synthesis. 

2. The Socialist Disclosure of Spiritual Sources. 

3. The Recovery of Jesus from Christianity. 

4. The Kingdom of Heaven. 

5. The Will to Love. 

6. The Economic Goal. 

7. The Divine Right of Human Need. 

8. The Spiritual Basis of Economic Equality. 

9. The Reality of Spiritual Equality. 

10. The Economic Providence of Faith. 

11. The Waste of Saving. 

12. Service Its Own Reward. 



The Social Democratic Herald of Chicago 
prints the following quotation from a speech 
recently delivered by Professor Herron in an 
explanation of the support which he has felt 
compelled to give to the Social Democratic 
movement: 



THE COMMONS 



"I came into the socialist movement from a 
different point of view, perhaps, from many 
others. I was, as most of you know, a preacher 
and a teacher in connection with an American 
college, and I have been seeking to know how 
the highest ideals of life might be made livable 
in the world. Whether we take Jesus or Plato 
or Buddha or Mazzini, the sum of all that they 
have taught us is that human life, in order to 
become livable for the bulk of mankind, in 
order to become happy and reasonable and 
healthful and noble must be lived out under 
what they called the law of love, which, trans- 
lated into economic terms, might be called 
the law of co-operation. And out of a passion 
of soul, out of an infinite yearning to find some 
way by which that law of love, of co-operation 
might be realized and change the world from 
an army of struggling and competing and de- 
stroying men into a world that might be indeed 
a paradise, I came into the economic problem 
and through that into socialism." 
"All political questions are today resolving 
themselves into economic questions. The poli- 
tics of the future will be economic politics. Al- 
though we are not aware of it, all political ques- 
tions are already merely property questions. 
Politics the world over have nothing else to do 
but be the great agent of great business inter- 
ests. Socialism comes to make politics econom- 
ic in an entirely new sense. In fact, all that we 
have understood by politics will pass away." 



Why Commonwealth Failed. 

By George Howard Gibson, late of the Colony. 

The brotherhood colony in Georgia known as 
the Christian Commonwealth, -is in process of 
legal dissolution. Most of its members are dis- 
persed and its property is in the hands of a 
receiver. 

In the three or four years of Its existence it 
has given to the world the results of an expe- 
rience in some respects different from all others 
to be found in history, and important lessons 
are to be gathered from it. 

AN ECONOMIC FAILURE. 

It was an economic failure, and economic 
failure involves failure in service. Economic 
disaster drew down upon the colony not be- 
cause it attempted to bind men together in un- 
selfish relations, but chiefly because it did not 
bring together people who could work together 
economically and effectively in the place chosen. 
The people who came to Commonwealth were 
for the most part willing and capable workers, 



but they found themselves in an economic sit- 
uation in which they could not produce enough 
to be self-supporting. They understood the law 
of love, they were moved by its impulses; but 
they had not studied with care the necessary 
means and methods or plans of economic pro- 
duction. 

It is not so easy to criticise the Common- 
wealth attempt intelligently as may at first ap- 
pear to outsiders. Sometimes failure is neces- 
sarysome people must be willing to fail. It is 
by many failures that the elements of success 
are at all brought to light. The faith that is 
willing to give all and face uncertainty and 
final failure in what appears to be the path of 
duty, is a faith that shall redeem the world. 



SPIRITUAL MOTIVE OF iftE SOCIAL EXPERIMENT. 

The organizers of the Commonwealth colony 
were men who looked upon selfishness of every 
sort as sin. They traced the great part of the 
world's evils to the selfish struggle one with 
another after property and power. They be- 
lieved in brotherhood relations. If all men 
were ready to enter into brotherhood relations 
the change would be easy and delightful. But 
are we individually at liberty to wait for those 
who are not ready? Where an individual or a 
few individuals feel conscientiously driven out 
of the selfish struggle, how are they to live? 
The Commonwealth people did not see how 
one can begin to be a brother in the midst of 
the Ishmaelitish strife by which the people 
feed, clothe, shelter and otherwise care for 
themselves. Each was standing alone, separ- 
ated in his economic interests, and while so sep- 
arated, while no one cared for another, it 
seemed to each that he must needs do as the 
selfish do in trying to buy cheap and sell dear, 
in seeking to gain as much as possible from 
others and so accumulate for his own family. 
The demands of his own family, present or pros- 
pective, seem necessarily to exclude neighbor- 
love. But these people, believing in brother- 
hood, did not wish to be mere dreamers, theo- 
rizers, or idealists. They wished to practice as 
well as preach love, and they reasoned that by 
bringing their families and means together and 
uniting their energies they could live in broth- 
erhood relations and show all men how to be 
saved. 

TRUST IN ORGANIZATION INSTEAD OF LIFE. 

What they at first failed to see with suffi- 
cient clearness was the need of trusting alto- 
gether and always to the spiritual initiative. 
Unconsciously they trusted organization instead 
of life, body instead.of spirit, numbers Instead 



6 



THE COMMONS 



of God. Form, or organization, or numbers can- 
not be depended on to contain and retain the 
spirit of God. 

However wrong, obscurely, subtly wrong, in 
what they trusted, these Commonwealth people 
were true to their convictions and heroic in their 
sacrifices. For the sake of brotherhood relations 
they together endured poverty for a time and to 
a degree that would make all selfish people 
marvel. They attracted the attention of people 
In all parts of the world, because they were 
strenuously endeavoring to practice as well as 
preach brotherhood. It was evident that the 
people of Commonwealth did not desire to 
shirk burdens or selfishly run away from the 
evils of the world, because in all their poverty 
they persisted in keeping open doors for the 
destitute, and the destitute continued to come 
to them. They in no case refused to share ev- 
erything they had with the poor, with "the least 
of these." The tramp and the outcast who 
would stay and work were never turned away. 

The leaders at Commonwealth were neither 
ascetics nor materialists. They considered all 
things good if rightly used, to supply need. 
They desired good things, ideal things, to sup- 
ply everybody's needs. They did not consider 
poverty good for any class of people except 
prodigals, but while the oppressed must suffer 
they wanted to be brothers to the poorest. 

Religion and life at Commonwealth were 
rightly considered one and the same. Labor, 
being the exercise of love in an unselfish serv- 
ice, was both fellowship and worship. The 
standard of life which this brotherhood body 
held up before the world was a singularly noble, 
exalted ideal, and all the unselfish at Common- 
wealth were greatly blessed in spirit. There is 
nothing so sweet as fellowship. The actual 
joining of heart to heart and life to life and 
family to family in brotherhood relations con- 
stitutes a social incarnation of the spirit of God 
and brings to earth the fellowship of heaven. 

LESSONS OF THE DISPERSION. 

It seems a pity that a group with so noble a 
standard, on which the attention of expectant 
minds in many countries was centering, should 
be broken up and dispersed. But the necessity 
of dispersion teaches an exceedingly important 
lesson. Love, or the desire to serve, must add 
to itself wisdom. There are economic laws and 
conditions which must be regarded. Industrial 
groups must not be formed in any haphazard 
fashion. It is not so much the grouping of the 
workers as it is the self-centered spirit which 
needs to be changed. 



The church ought to be a society of brothers, 
as at first, a society so emptied of the grasping 
spirit, so full of the serving, outpouring spirit 
of Jesus, that "distribution was made to every 
man according as he had need," "neither was 
there any among them that lacked." If the 
church were such a society today it could 
quickly overcome the evils of the self-seeking 
world and carry good news to all. We need 
loving societies, having a clearly defined pur- 
pose on the part of members, to serve in every 
sort of way. But production, as a science and 
art, should be left in the hands of those who 
can most economically organize and direct la- 
bor. The economic and spiritual are related, 
but for the sake of greater service should be 
kept distinct. 

It has been demonstrated by experiment that 
with the best intentions back of attempts to 
gather men into a Visible brotherhood, the 
' kingdom of God cannot be geographically lo- 
cated, incorporated and so extended. "Wtien 
the sons of God came to present themselves be- 
fore the Lord, Satan came also among them." 
When material good beyond today's bread and 
a place to work Is given or is promised at a cer- 
tain place, people of a selfish sort are sure to 
crowd through the gates. Professions are eas- 
ily made, and periods of probation can be cov- 
ered by self-restraint. Brotherhood pledges and 
legal obligations cannot be substituted for the 
Christ spirit, of course. And people must not 
be tempted by what they can get to make for- 
mal professions. 

The Social Gospel, the monthly magazine of 
the Commonwealth colony, was taken to South 
Jamesport, New York, by the president and 
others, and is still being published in improved 
form by Rev. Ralph Albertson and Prof. James 
P. Kelley. The breaking up of the Common- 
wealth brotherhood body released but did not 
destroy its spirit. 



Corrvmonwea-lth in Retrospect. 

By Ralph Albertson, Late of the Colony and 
Editor of the Social Gospel. 

Although the enterprise now classifies 
among the many failures of idealism, I 
cannot, at this short perspective, regret it as an 
undertaking nor begrudge any of the price that 
It cost. We love our ideals with the whole 
persistency of life, and we love their concrete 
expressions, their symbols and, more than all, 
the crosses upon which they are crucified. The 
exigencies which determine success or failure 



THE COMMONS 



in an enterprise of love cannot destroy the im- 
perishable foundations of the enterprise. More 
than one house that has been built upon a rock, 
and better built than was the Christian Com- 
monwealth, has been swept away by the winds 
and floods. Our confidence was never primarily 
in the house that man built, but in the Rock 
upon which still we stand, though unroofed and 
disorganized. 

As an effort of industrial evangelism, not to 
be segregated nor isolated, Commonwealth will 
be known as a failure. To some of us it was 
such an effort from the first. The influx of the 
poor and needy enabled us to convince our- 
selves for a while that we should succeed. Open 
hearts and open hands found expression and 
proof in open pocketbooks and open doors, and 
into these a few of the destitute and oppressed 
entered and were by machinery made equal. 
While in the main they accepted the theory of 
the open door which was our one safeguard 
against selfish segregation, it eventually be- 
came plain that the acceptance of the doctrine 
was void without the spirit of its life. Nar- 
rowness and clannishness developed, and the 
phrases "out in competition" and "the outside 
world" were too often heard, while "'Come ye 
out of her and be ye separate," as applied to 
the Babylon of competitive life, was made the 
text of some of the preaching. 

The most serious difficulty, as I now see it, 
was not the maintaining of the open door itself, 
but the imparting of the open-door spirit to 
whomsoever should come and the maintaining 
of it in whomsoever should stay. And it was 
the spirit of the open door the spirit that gave 
Its all to everybody that was the one excuse 
for the enterprise. It was that by which we 
were united to the world, and hoped to help 
save. The open door was our confession of the 
common sin, our endorsement of the common 
responsibility, our carrying of the common bur- 
den. It was conceived in us as a message of 
industrial evangelism. In realizing it there 
was a measure of success and a measure of 
failure. As compared with the standard which 
I take as representing the average church mem- 
ber, the degree of altruism marking the whole 
undertaking would rank it as a brilliant suc- 
cess; but as compared with the absolute stand- 
ard by which only we always measured it, it 
was a failure, and as a failure it will be known. 

In so far as it was an effort to obliterate nat- 
ural marks of Individuality it was also unsuc- 
cessful. The Impression should not be given, 
however, that any of the people who fairly rep- 
resented the work we had undertaken failed to 



see the weakness and fallacy of a forced, me- 
chanical, unreal equality. This was quite well 
understood, but it seemed to us an incompara- 
bly lesser evil than the unjust inequalities that 
obtain everywhere. We chose rather to fly to 
evils that we knew not than to longer be par- 
ties in promoting the wicked inequalities of 
familiar experience. We preferred the imper- 
fections of a mechanical equality to the un- 
righteousness of a selfish inequality which men 
call natural. Nevertheless it was our sad ex- 
perience that the mere persistence of old habits, 
such as cleanliness on the part of some and its 
opposite on the part of others, created inequali- 
ties that became as great in the local eye as 
those between the millionaire and the tramp in 
Cincinnati. We did not have enough social 
magnanimity to maintain the high level of dis- 
criminating love and so prevent our holy vis- 
Ion of brotherhood from becoming a bugaboo 
of equality which curtailed the efficiency of our 
services, kept us always without leadership, 
and retarded bojh our industrial and spiritual 
development, and failed after all to keep us 
from being as naturally unequal as God had 
made us. We had not consciously wished to 
defy the nature of things in any respect, yet 
the form of our organization as well as some 
unpruned expressions that went out from us 
destroyed our nice but important discrimina- 
tions as to natural and necessary inequalities 
of needs and abilities, and the bugaboo was set 
up in our midst. Yet, notwithstanding this 
failure, I am still glad that some people freely 
gave the whole of the only capital they ever 
owned to this futile effort to fill up the fearful 
chasms of unjust, unnatural, selfish human in- 
equalities. 

While I should not engage upon another just 
such enterprise, I consider that as a form of 
service it was quite justified by its results. I 
feel very certain that an equal amount of effort 
and money expended in the regular channels of 
religious work does not produce on the average 
nearly so large an aggregate of spiritual growth 
In individuals as was realized at Common- 
wealth. Of more importance, moreover, is the 
fact that thousands of persons, if our impres- 
sions were correct, were aroused to a larger 
social consciousness and awakened to a new 
vision of social righteousness. This considera- 
tion is quite apart from any impulse of ideal- 
ism. It adds comfort to the consciousness of 
having tried to do the ideal thing. In the day 
of defeat we may be permitted to say that it 
was not only a bold experiment, it was useful. 



8 



THE COMMONS 



There are a few people who will always look 
back upon It as the happiest experience of their 
lives. Their altruism was appealed to more 
powerfully than ever before, and they realized 
a joy of service and a joy of fellowship else- 
where unknown by them. To those whose la- 
bors were unceasing, whose sacrifices were con- 
siderable, and who for its sake endured perse- 
cution and such various hardnesses as are 
known to men and women in whose hearts the 
cross is planted, Commonwealth will always 
stand for holy things. 

I do not imagine that any appreciable use- 
fulness attaches to the failures or mistakes of 
the enterprise as warnings or beacons. Wiser 
men, a fair industrial equipment, or a different 
location, might have insured economic success; 
and on the spiritual side, men and women of a 
higher grade of brain power and love power 
than we, shall yet certainly succeed in living 
such a brotherhood life of unity with all the 
world's need and sin as we failed in. That we 
were not good enough nor grea,t enough to so- 
cially incarnate the love of God is neither proof 
nor evidence that others will not be. 

I find myself quite unable to justify any gen- 
eralizations as to natural or desirable or feasi- 
ble social arrangements from the limited ex- 
perience of so few and sadly limited people 
under such stringently limiting circumstances. 
I do not think that the experiment demon- 
strated anything either one way or the other as 
to natural or social law. Its disorganization 
certainly furnishes no such demonstration. 
There are higher laws than "natural selection" 
and "following the lines of least resistance." 
and "to him that hath shall be given," and 
"every tub must stand on its own bottom." 
These expressions of popular faith were not so 
effectively refuted by the poor effort at Com- 
monwealth as we had hoped they might be, but 
our failures do ,not establish their truthfulness. 
The ideal is still truer and safer than the gross- 
ness men call common sense. 

South Jamesport, N. Y., Dec. 18, 1900. 



"Finding how the unbelief of the best of the 
poor is occasioned by hopelessness in privation 
and the sufferings of those dear to them, he 
was confident that only the personal com- 
munion of friendship could make it possible for 
them to believe in God. Money he saw to be 
worse than useless, except as a gracious out- 
come of human feelings and brotherly love." 
George Macdonald in "Robert Falconer," p. 
404. 



Notes from the Workers' World. 

The president of the Grand Rapids (Mich.) 
Gas Light Co. writes us this personal letter 
that makes the new year happier: 

"I mentioned to you that this company de- 
sired to give to its employees something more 
than wages. That we had instituted a profit- 
sharing plan where by employees' wages received 
the same rate of dividend that the stockholders' 
money received. This profit-sharing plan was but 
one step in a direction which has been followed 
for several years past. We first abolished Sunday 
labor for the stokers at the works, but in doing 
so continued to pay them in full for that day. 
Then there was a 10 per cent advance in wages 
to meet the added expense of living, incidental 
to the general prosperity. Then there was a 
Christmas pay-roll where each employee re- 
ceived an additional day's pay, but no employee 
received less than f2.00. This takes the ijlace 
of the customary Christmas turkey now so gen- 
erally established. The social gathering feature 
takes place in the form of a New Year's eve 
musicale, supper and dance. The employees fur- 
nish the talent in part and the company fur- 
nishes the rest We want to keep on going, 
and if you have an idea that you think we can 
successfully and practically adopt I will be 
glad to recommend it to our board of directors." 

An editorial In one of the leading papers of 
that city adds to the above facts another re- 
garding the founder of the Neighborhood House 
Social Settlement there and comments as fol- 
lows: 

"Now Mrs. M. R. Bissell, a lady who possessed 
business ability sufficient to take up the affairs 
of the great Bissell Carpet Sweeper company 
upon the death of her husband a number of 
years ago and carry it on with increased suc- 
cess, throws open the doors of her beautiful 
home, invites every one of her large army of 
employees to walk in and accept her hospitality 
for an evening. Mrs. Bissell is 'only a woman,' 
but she has been more apt in solving the labor 
question than thousands of men who have been 
studying it all their lives. She has succeeded 
in establishing the most kindly feeling between 
herself and the men who have made her for- 
tune, and all criticism is silenced and all fric- 
tion removed by her action. The country needs 
more men like Mrs. Bissell. This expression 
may seem to require a little editing, but there 
is no clearer way to put it. When there are 
more such employers as Mrs. Bissell and the 
Grand Rapids Gas Company, there will be fewer 
strikes, lockouts, and other labor difficulties. 



THE COMMONS 



"It is doubtful if there is another city in the 
country where there is shown such a disposition 
to do the 'square thing' among employers of 
labor as in Grand Rapids. There may be an 
occasional Shylock who enjoys himself best 
when he can exact the most from his employees 
and give the least in exchange, but in the main 
there is a disposition to be fair and liberal 
among those at the head of our great enter- 
prises." 



An interesting article in. the November issue 
of the Political Science Quarterly deals with 
the question of the wages paid working-women 
and attempts to find an explanation for the fact 
that women do not, for the same work, receive 
the same return as their brother workers. The 
writer's conclusions are "that in nearly all the 
cases where men and women perform the same 
work the competition takes place in the lower 
grades of efficiency, while in the upper grades 
men alone are employed." A significant fact 
Is that at piece work where men and women 
are employed side by side, men workers earn 
more than women. The writer, Mr. Hammond, 
concludes that "the wages of women compared 
with those of men are lower than is the pro- 
ductivity of their work. Women's lower stan- 
dard of living, their partial dependence on other 
means of support and their lack o'f combination 
prevent them from obtaining their true eco- 
nomic wages." 



One of the events of the labor world In Chi- 
cago during the last days of November was the 
passing of the National Industrial Trades-Union 
which was organized for the purpose of assist- 
ing the Building Contractors' Council in its 
long fight against the Building Trades Council. 
The membership of this organization at one 
time threatened to make it a formidable com- 
petitor of the affiliated unions, and it seems to 
have greatly aided the contractors in their fight. 
The officers and members of the organization 
have, however, turned almost in a body to the 
affiliated unions composing the Building Trades 
Council. 



A recent editorial In the Chicago Times-Her- 
ald places the loss inflicted by the lockout upon 
the building interests of Chicago at $14,000,000. 
In view of the fact that a. large share of this 
money would have gone Into the hands of the 
organized labor the pitiful waste of the strug- 
gle is most apparent. 



A somewhat pessimistic view of "Labor Leg- 
islation in New Zealand" is contained in the 
report of U. S. Consul Dillingham. The work- 
ing of the statute of 1894 concerning compul- 
sory arbitration eliminates the individual work- 
ingman as a factor in industrial competition. A 
non-associated workingman has no status under 
the statute. The act in effect abolishes contract 
and restores status and it has been recently de- 
cided by the New Zealand Court of Appeals 
that a court of arbitration has power to com- 
pel employers to give trade-unionists preference 
in a particular industry. The practical work- 
Ing of this statute seems to be, under this inter- 
pretation, to compel the employer to deal with 
the labor union and to render the employment 
of the non-union man possible only after the 
employer has established by long and expen- 
sive litigation the equal capability of the non- 
union man. Contract relation between em- 
ployer and employee seems to have been ren- 
dered practically impossible by the act. Mr. 
Dillingham's conclusion seems to be that the 
industrial development of New Zealand has 
been and is being retarded by the statute 
which has created "a country without strikes." 

The "Economic Position of Women" is dis- 
cussed in the Journal of the Department of 
Labor of New Zealand for October, 1900. The 
economic position of women In New Zealand 
seems to be little better than in the United 
States, and to be attributed in a measure to 
the same causes. "Women are kept out of 
certain skilled trades not by legal restrictions 
but by the men's union." To prove this the 
printing trade both in England and in the colo- 
nies is instanced, it being shown that a con- 
certed effort has been made and with consider- 
able success to force women workers out of 
the trade entirely. The factory and mining 
laws discriminating against women workers 
are assigned as another reason for the disad- 
vantageous position occupied by women work- 
ers. The problem of domestic service is also 
seemingly as great in New Zealand as in 
America. 



The International Cigar Makers' Union con- 
tributed $250,000 to help the 6,000 cigar makers 
of New York City tide over their recent strike 
emergency, although only 700 of them were 
members of the Union, which, however, gained 
2,000 members by the "lost strike." 



"We are all booked 'steerage passage' for 
some part of our life's voyage." Horace W. 
Houldlng. 



10 



THE COMMONS 



While the Women's clubs are being agitated 
the country over by the difference of opinion 
over admitting to their National Federation a 
colored woman delegate from a club belonging 
to the Massachusetts State Federation, the fol- 
lowing action of the Chicago Federation of 
Labor, taken Dec. 3rd, stands in strange con- 
trast. Although the points at issue in each 
constituency may not be parallel, the one can- 
not fail to carry a comment on the controversy 
within the other. 

The concluding portion of the appeal to negro 
labor to join the trades unions is as follows: 

"The colored man, more simple in his ways, 
with fewer wants, and these more easily sat- 
isfied, is content under conditions which are 
irksome to the white workman, and he is to- 
day, perhaps unconsciously, being used to try 
and drag the white man down to a level lower 
.than his was before he was freed from bond- 
age. 

"It is to remedy this that we appeal to him, 
to welcome him into our fold, to elevate him 
to our standard, to better his condition, as well 
as our own. The trades union movement knows 
no race or color; its aims are the betterment 
of the condition of the wage-earner, whatever 
his color or creed. 

"In this spirit we appeal to the colored work- 
man to join with us in our work, come into our 
trade unions, give us your assistance, and in 
return receive our support, so that race hatred 
may be forever buried, and the workers of the 
country be united in a solid phalanx to de- 
mand what we are justly entitled to a fair 
share of the fruits of our industry." 

Social Progress in the Churches. 

That church serves its cause, if not itself, 
the best which serves the community most. 
So seems to think one of the most spir- 
itually-minded and evangelistic of our younger 
pastors near Chicago. For he writes: "We 
thought the Bible Class would better be held at 
the High School in a town where it is not the 
custom for men to attend church. The Red 
Cross Fund for Galveston was set rolling at our 
prayer meeting, but I advised that it should be 
made a town affair. I did this to reach the 
town and bring the church to their notice, 
rather than have it a petty prayer meeting af- 
fair and glorify the church in our denomina- 
tional paper. The whole contribution shall be 
sent in the name of the town, not the church. 
The purpose of this is to open the hearts, widen 
the sympathies and interests of the people 
salvation by grace, the grace of giving." 



Winnetka, one of the most delightful suburbs 
of Chicago, enjoys the real distinction of hold- 
ing a "Town Meeting" in a church and a "Peo- 
ple's Club" holding Sunday evening services in 
the Town Hall. Both are of unique interest 
and value. Their "Town Meeting" grew out of 
the desire of the first settlers to give expression 
to the awaking consciousness of their village 
community. Gathering within the larger circle 
the spirit and constituency which had expressed 
itself in smaller and exclusive literary clubs, 
the "Wiimetka Town Meeting" aimed to rally 
the whole citizenship of the village for social 
co-operation as the New England colonial 
towns did for political purposes. For ten years 
it has afforded a public platform for consider- 
ing all village itnerests, besides affording a 
strong center for promoting the social unifica- 
tion of all its residents. The genuine demo- 
cratic fellowship among those who would other- 
wise never have met and mingled has been as 
delightful as it has proved profitable. The pro- 
grams have included recreative, social and edu- 
cational features, which have been supplied 
principally by residents of the village, who have 
on occasion been supplemented by specialists 
from without. The "Town Meeting" is taking 
on a new lease of life in becoming an exchange 
or clearing house for all public interests, includ- 
ing the public school and the library boards, 
clubs and village improvements, and is really 
for the suburb what Mr. Stanton Coit intended 
his Neighborhood Guilds to be for the city 
center. 

The "Winnetka People's Club" was organized 
last winter by twelve men representing six re- 
ligious affiliations, to provide the kind of a Sun- 
day evening service best adapted to the diverse 
religious constituency of the village. It has 
succeeded in rallying and holding a very large 
proportion of the whole people, including Cath- 
olics, Hebrews, Ethical Culturists, and those not 
connected with any ecclesiastical organization. 
It is an adaptation of the English Pleasant 
Sunday Afternoon to an American suburban 
community. 



New Type of Temperance 
Liter a.t\i re. 

Here surely is a new and hopeful style of 
temperance appeal addressed to pastors in the 
form of a letter by Mr. E. F. Walker, of Evans- 
ton, who is a third party Prohibitionist, and, 
while in temporary residence at the Commons 
recently followed up the trail of Mr. Melendy's 
investigation of the social function of the sa- 



THE COMMONS 



11 



loon: "It is claimed that saloons ruin twice as 
many lives as all church and evangelical agen- 
cies redeem. How long will we let this go on? 
We must fight the saloon by every honorable 
method, even between campaigns. Each mem- 
ber of your congregation can help. 

"Here are a Few Practical Ways: Bveryvoter 
should insist that his alderman work for suit- 
able public toilet arrangements as many men 
patronize the bar of a saloon only because they 
feel under obligations for the toilet necessities 
that the saloon alone affords. Every employer 
should visit the homes of his employes to make 
sure he is paying them wages large enough so. 
they can live in decency and comfort, and can 
send their children to school and that none are 
compelled to frequent saloons for warmth, for 
food, for recreation or for an attractive place in 
which to read or talk. Christian capitalists 
who want to put their religion into their in- 
vestments should be urged to erect model tene- 
ments and to run good, cheap restaurants with 
reading rooms attached. 

"Your Sunday School could keep many per- 
sons from drinking liquor by giving as a Christ- 
mas gift a drinking fountain for some saloon- 
ridden district. The young people of your 
church could directly overcome evil by good, by 
organizing near some saloon a wholesome club, 
and making all welcome who would simply 
agree that in the club rooms they would not 
gamble, drink, swear nor use obscene language. 
The women of your church could accomplish 
inestimable good by establishing cooking 
classes, as many men and women drink who 
would not if they knew how to prepare nour- 
ishing dishes." 



Social Spirit in Education. 

The first Christmas celebration of the Chicago 
Institute was prefaced by these words, intro- 
ductory to the program, which were read by 
Col. F. W. Parker: 

"The thought underlying our Christmas exer- 
cise Is the triumph of light over darkness, of 
good over evil, of life over death. 

"Christmas is conceived, first, as the Festival 
of the Winter Solstice, an expression of joy at 
the turning back of the earth to the sun, the 
fount of life. 

"The first part, devoted to the solar myths of 
the Scandinavian, Celt, Greek and Egyptian, 
given not chronologically, but in order of their 
deeper meaning, brings out this idea. 

"The second part tells the story of the birth 
of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, who came 



to irradiate the darkness of men's souls, the 
spiritual analogue of the material fact. 

"The third part is a summary review at the 
end of the century (1) of the remotest past, 
personified here by the primitive type of hunter, 
shepherd and farmer, and (2) of historic times, 
personified by types of the civilizations of the 
three continents Asia, Africa and Europe. 
Each brings his special gift to the present, to 
the child of today. 

"The mother voices her hopes for her boy, ac- 
knowledges indebtedness to all the past and in- 
vokes the help of teachers and of all good men 
and women." 

AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

"The residents of Chicago Commons, to the 

teachers and pupils of Chicago Institute 

send Christmas greetings: 

"We gratefully acknowledge your beautifully 
considerate thought for our noble army of in- 
fantry marshalled this morning around our kin- 
dergarten Christmas tree here under the smoke 
and dust of far down-town Chicago. From 
sunny Italy and colder Norway; from the Ger- 
man fatherland and far-off Iceland; from the 
Emerald Isle and the Isle of Man and a dozen 
other mother countries come these little soldiers 
to serve in the great and peaceful army of in- 
dustry to work with all the rest of us in build- 
ing up one greater nation out of all the great 
peoples of the world. 

"Your beautiful little baskets of sweetmeats 
will sweeten not only the taste, but the hearts 
of many in whose lives deep poverty causes 
bitter sorrow and suffering and all the more 
because the candy was home-made at school. 

"In behalf of the children, the kindergartners 
and our residents, I am, Gratefully yours." 



Following Prof. Taylor's address on "The So- 
cial Extension of the Public School," at the 
capitol in Springfield, before the Illinois Teach- 
ers' Association, the state superintendent 
moved that "all rules regulating appropriations 
be suspended and that $250 be appropriated to 
the work of Chicago Commons." This most un- 
expected and generous co-operation, together 
with the annual gift of the Cook county teach- 
ers, assure the maintenance of the kindergarten 
in the neighborhood of the Old Commons, 
whatever betides the rest of the work that 
should be retained there. Perhaps this is the 
harbinger of other co-operation which will en- 
able us to maintain the "Old Commons" where 
it is most needed and with adequate equip- 
ment. 



12 



THE COMMONS 



Notes from Other Settlements. 

The University Settlement of New York has 
opened a branch at No. 38 King street. The 
site chosen ia in the center of the largest Ital- 
ian quarter of the city. There are five resi- 
dents, all of whom are women, and Mrs. Bond 
Thomas is the head worker. A five-story build- 
ing has been leased aud fitted up with lecture, 
club-rooms and resident quarters. The locality 
is admitted by the Italians themselves to be 
degenerating, and a special investigation will 
be made of the social and economic conditions 
in the community. The padrone system, sweat- 
ing system, and private banks, which are so 
often untrustworthy, are some of the evils 
with which these people are surrounded. 



Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, of the University Set- 
tlement, have made an offer of three prizes of 
$25, $15, $10 each for essays on either of the 
following subjects: "Comforts and Discom- 
forts of Tenement House Life," "Social Reform 
Immediately Practicable on the East Side." 
The competition is open to the Guild members 
and has been enthusiastically accepted. The 
settlement also reports that three new trades 
unions have become their tenants, namely, the 
Lithographers' Union, the Franklin Association 
No. 23 a union of pressmen and the Women's 
Hatmakers' Union. The last is one of the few 
women's unions of this city and is composed of 
hatmakers operating in this vicinity. Though 
the organization is not large, great difficulty 
was found in finding a meeting place suitable 
for women. The settlement was glad to pro- 
vide the desired room. 



The Greenpoint, situated in the northern cor- 
ner of Brooklyn, is under the direction of the 
Pratt Institute Neighborhood Association, and 
teachers from Pratt Institute conduct Its 
classes. There are a number of Germans in the 
neighborhood, and the many classes in the do- 
mestic arts are very popular among them. 
Twenty-five nationalities are- represented in 
the immediate vicinity, Americans, Irish and 
Germans predominating. The Irish and Ger- 
mans seem to make the social rules for the 
community, the young generation following in 
the footsteps of the older and clinging to the old 
customs and conditions. The settlement house 
is part of a model tenement. The residents live 
on the fifth and sixth floors. It is a unique 
setting for settlement life to be under the same 
roof with nearly one hundred families and yet 
have some privacy. 



The Neighborhood Guild Association of Co- 
lumbus, Ohio, though little more than a year 
old, has just completed a three-story brick 
building for Guild purposes. The Godman Guild 
House, as it is called, is well equipped for so- 
cial service with domestic science and manual 
training rooms and public baths. The top floor 
is arranged for the living-rooms of the resi- 
dents. At the second annual meeting of the 
Association, held Nov. 8, the House was for- 
mally opened, and during the day over 700 of 
the neighbors took the opportunity to visit the 
new neighborhood center. 



From the head residents, Mr. and Mrs. Frank- 
lin Schott, who as the guests of Chicago Com- 
mons have beeu studying the Chicago settle- 
ments, we learn the interesting fact that for 
nearly a year after they initiated the move- 
ment which has grown so rapidly into the well- 
equipped Neighborhood Guild House, they 
knew nothing of the existence of social settle- 
ments. Having seen the necessity of more 
practical and continuous effort than the con- 
ventional mission work in which they had been 
volunteer workers, they simply went to work 
to supply the need of the most destitute popu- 
lation in Columbus. The subsequent gift of the 
building grew out of the donor's interest in 
Toynbee Hall. 

Work has begun, on the new Northwestern 
University Settlement building in Chicago, 
which is to be erected at Augusta and Noble 
streets, a few blocks northwest of their present 
site. The plans designed by Pond & Pond, archi- 
tects of the Commons building, call for a thor- 
oughly modern structure, to cost over $40,000, 
of which $25,000 has already been contributed 
by one friend of the settlement. It will be built 
of brick, four stories high, covering an area of 
78 by 100 feet. The ground floor of the build- 
ing is to be devoted to a kindergarten, men's 
club-rooms, and reading room. The kinder- 
garten looks out over a sunken garden, where 
its children will play. On the main floor is a 
large coffee-room, with kitchen adjoining, and 
library, reception room and office. The third 
floor contains a dining-room, five club-rooms, 
including a domestic science equipment. The 
north section of the building provides for a 
large auditorium and a gymnasium of the same 
size. The building is to be completed about 
May 1st. The settlement has done an excel- 
lent work for ten years. Mrs. Henry Wade 
Rogers continues to be the president of its 
council. 



THE COMMONS. 



13 



Stories for Children under Ten 

WITH CALL NUMBERS OF THE CHICAGO PUBLIC 
LIBRARY. 

I. 3101. Fairy Tales Andersen. 

H. 3192. Mother Goose in Prose Baum. 

H. 1077. Editha's Burglar Burnett. 

H. 1078. Little Saint Elizabeth Burnett. 

H. 1178. Admiral's Caravan Carryl. 

H. 1089. Davy and the Goblin Carryl. 

H. 1182. Brownies Around the World Cox. 

H. 305. Adventures of a Brownie Craik. 

G. 901. Little Lame Prince Craik. 

H. 310. Fairy Tale Books Craik. 

H. 4161. Things Will Take a Turn Hnrraden. 

H. 4175. Little Mr. Thimble Finger Harris. 

H. 1602. Letters from a Cat Jackson. 

H. 2008. How Tommy Saved the Barn Kaler. 

H. 2014. Left Behind Kaler. 

H. 4601. Teddy and Carrots Kaler. 

H. 2012. Tim and Tip Kaler. 

H. 489. Water Babies Kingsley. 

F. 5095. Moon Prince Munkittrick. 

H. 1858. Chrystal, Jack & Co. Muuroe. 

H. 1857. Derrick Sterling Munroe. 

H. 2053. Dear Daughter Dorothy Plympton. 

H. 2122. Penelope Prig Plympton. 

H. 2126. Wanolasset (The Little-one-who- 

laughs ) Plympton. 
H. 2146. Pepper and Salt Pyle. 
H. 2314. Little Jarvis Seawell. 
H. 2426. Red Mustang. Stoddard. 
H. 2421. Talking Leaves Stoddard. 
H. 2424. Two Arrows Stoddard. 
H. 2611. Old, Old Fairy Tales Valentine. 
H. 2760. Fairy Folk of Blue Hill Wesselhoeft. 
H. 2761. Frowzle, the Runaway Wesselhoeft. 
H. 767. The Birds' Christmas Carol Wiggin. 
H. 2636. Story Hour Wiggin & Smith. 
H. 304. Mischief's Thanksgiving Woolsey. 

(The above list was chosen from a list issued 
by the Milwaukee Public Library.) 
H. 32P2. Little Miss Gay Brown. 
H. 1603. Hunter Cats of Connorloa Jackson. 
H. 2737. Ingleside Yechton. 
H. 3513. In Storyland Coolidge. 
H. 1344. Stories of Old Greece Firth. 
H. 2227. Joyous Story of Toto Richards. 
H. 2230. Toto's Merry Winter Richards. 
H. 951. Seven Little Sisters Andrews. 
H. 3280. True Story of Grant Brooks. 
H. 3272. True Story of Lincoln Brooks. 
H. 3276. True Story of Washington Brooks. 
H. 1242. Stories of American Life Eggleston. 
H. 1534. Little People and their Homes Hook. 
H. 1594. Stories of Other Lands Johonnot. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN T5h<; COMMONS DURING 1900. 

One Page - 25.00 Half Page - $15.00 

Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 

15he New Fourth Edition J College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Wsvviglv McCvilloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 350. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

15he Enslavement and Emancipation f 
the People. 

An original and practical solution of the problem. 

By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Price in cloth, 75 cents. Published by the Author, 
J. B. Herboldshiner, Gibson City, 111. 

Biblical Sociology. By Grsvham Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for SQC of THE COMMONS. 
15he Church in Socia 1 Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Booklet on tKe Housing Problem. 

"Home Ownership vs. Rented Houses." 

Moral Results By Rev. John Morrison. Apply to 
author, London, Ontario, Canada. Price ten cents 
per copy. $5.00 per hundred. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view, It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, 
Chicago. 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

TKe Subscription Price Is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country, Six copies to 
one address for 32.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above s-cent denomination., at our risk. 
CK&nges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Socia.1 Settlement Point of View. 



GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL 



THE Commons presents to its readers this 
month a striking contrast in the retrospect 
of a closed Christian communistic experiment, 
drawn in shadow by its founders, and in the 
prospect of an opening Social Crusade, drawn 
in the light of a new hope by the one who 
initiated it and another who assumes its leader- 
ship. 

This journal is not afraid to let men speak 
for themselves. It welcomes the light that 
comes to the social movement either from 
pnases of it that fail, or from new enterprises 
of faith and hope in the progress of the race. 

A more pathetically heroic adventure of faith 
than that which at least outwardly failed in the 
attempt to establish "The Christian Common- 
wealth" in Georgia, we know not of. Those 
may criticise or sneer who will, but the brave 
men and women who dared to fail may issue 
their challenge to fhose who come after them 
in the words which Bunyan puts into the mouth 
of Mr. Valiant-For-Truth as he answered his 
summons: "My sword I give to him that shall 
succeed me in my pilgrimage and my courage 
and skill to him that can get it, my marks and 
scars I carry with me to be a witness for me 
that I have fought His battles." 

Whatever may be thought of the specific aims 
and methods of the Social Crusade, the writer 
knows the men who have so nobly sacrificed 
to initiate this social propagandism and believes 
in them the loftiness of their ideals and the 
loyalty of their spirit. They, too, know him 
well enough to let uim dissent in public, as he 
does face to face with them from some of their 
positions, and yet believe in him and his loyalty 
to the social progress of the common Christian 
cause. 

Irrespective, as Prof. Herron says, "of wheth- 
er we like to have it so or not," and without 
regard to "what we want or do not want," we 
enter our protest against such indiscriminate 



statements as "in both England and America 
Protestantism is now a performance and has 
ceased to be a faith," and "the church has" lost 
its authoritative power and lost it beyond con- 
trol." 

If by the latter phrase Dr. Herron means 
ecclesiastical authority over conscience and 
physical force to enforce it, we gladly concur, 
but if we are to infer therefrom that the author- 
itative power of what the church as a whole 
stands for and bears witness to "has been lost 
beyond control" we demur. For never, in our 
judgment, so much as now have the hearts and 
consciences of men made quicker and wider 
response to the authority of so much of the 
Christian ideal as the church may be admitted 
even by its critics to preach and practice. 

If by the assertion that Protestantism "has 
ceased to be a faith" includes by far the great- 
est number of Protestant Christians and 
churches that have ever been enlisted in the 
application of Christianity to the social con- 
diflons of the common life, again in loyalty to 
fact we challenge the charge. That the great 
mass of the churches and their members, both 
Catholic and Protestant, eastern and western, 
have never been even conscious of their social 
mission we grant. But in evidence that the 
social consciousness and conscience of the 
churches are awakening as never before, we 
cite as only one among very many signs of the 
new and better times coming, the "Social Apos- 
tolate" itself, which can hardly account for its 
own name and spirit and sphere of influence 
without paying tribute to the faith extant in 
the churches. Probably the difference between 
us might fade away before a large enough or 
small enough definition of the church. At any 
rate neither the social movement nor the gos- 
pel of the Kingdom can come to its consumma- 
tion without the realization of the church idea 
and, we believe, without the agency of the 
churches. 

Moreover, the socialism of Mr. Wilson and his 
associates and that of the Socialist Labor par- 
ties of the world are hardly yet to be identified, 
in justice to the convictions of either. They 
need each other and are growing together. But 
in ideal, spirit and method the "Co-operative 
Commonwealth" of the new crusade is not yet 
identical with that of the regular line socialism. 
Prof. Herron's timely plea for unity among 
socialists must meet with a very generous re- 
sponse before the "Social Apostolate" will be 
recognized as an integral part of the main 
body of socialists. If in America and England 



THE COMMONS 



15 



the widely prevalent socialist movement and 
the avowedly Christian forces are ever to in- 
fluence each other, there must be some such 
advance toward common ground, as Professor 
Herron and the Social Apostolate seek to man, 
and such as Naumann is rallying both to occu- 
py in Germany. 

THE COMMONS will hereafter be issued on 
the first of each month. The February 
number will be largely devoted to the discus- 
sion of juvenile dependency and delinquency, 
especially in Chicago. It will contain copious 
extracts from Miss Edith I. Clarke's report to 
the University of Michigan of her investiga- 
tion made under the direction of Chicago Com- 
mons, together with brief supplementary arti- 
cles by official representatives of the Juvenile 
Court, the probation officers and the child-sav- 
ing work of the city. 

THOSE who hold with us the conviction 
that social unification is the duty of the 
hour will share the satisfaction we take in 
chronicling the progress of the movement to 
federate the religious workers in Chicago and 
elsewhere. It is spontaneous, and spreads rap- 
idly. All last year a little group of pastors, 
representing several denominations, who were 
at work on the hardest of the downtown fields, 
met socially to relieve their loneliness and 
compare their many discouragements and few 
encouragements. At their initiative a confer- 
ence on institutional methods of church work 
was held in October, and succeeded beyond all 
anticipation in rallying representatives of prac- 
tically all religious affiliations in the city, a 
Catholic priest participating with a fraternal 
cordiality that was notable. The value and 
practicability of federating those in all re- 
ligious fellowships who are ready for personal 
co-operation was thus demonstrated. A com- 
mittee of twenty-five was appointed to formu- 
late a basis for a federation of religious 
workers. (Rev. H. F. Ward, 4648 Marshfield 
avenue, Chicago, secretary, and Graham Tay- 
lor, 140 North Union street, chairman.) 

Meanwhile other groups had been forming. 
One organized to embody the spirit and work 
of the World's Fair Parliament of Religion; 
another constituted an Interdenomination Club. 
Under the pressure of the alarming prevalence 
of vice throughout the city, the several min- 
isters' unions appointed a joint committee to 
initiate legal and moral action to meet the 
situation. A large proportion of the individuals 
included in these groups meets at the Central 



Y. M. C. A. January 21st, at 1:30 p. m., to or- 
ganize the Chicago Federation of Religious 
Workers on such basis as they may adopt. 
Prof. Charles R. Henderson will submit for 
discussion a provisional formulation of the 
principles and organization, broad and simple 
enough to federate all who will co-operate in 
promoting the great interests common to all 
religious workers. 



To find a group representing Chicago's best 
families, most refined wealth and broadest cul- 
ture devoting themselves to the investigation 
and study of the city's great housing problem 
inspires a new and boundless social hope. The 
devotion by representatives of "the leisure 
class" of their travel, wide commercial rela- 
tionships, means for acquiring literature, pic- 
tures and object lessons and their trained intel- 
ligence to the scientific investigation of what 
is being done or should be attempted, both by 
investing capital and public spirited philan- 
thropy or municipal action, will prove as valu- 
able to them as to the communities in which 
they live and for the common good of which 
they should labor. 



The Kings' Daughters in Burlington, Iowa, 
maintain "Free Rest and Waiting Rooms," 
which are filling a social necessity that is very 
manifest in almost every community, large or 
small. Here "all are welcome." People from 
the stores and factories bring their cold lunches 
to these hospitable rooms and supplement them 
by a cup of coffee, tea or milk at two cents, 
a sandwich for three cents, a bowl of hot soup 
for four cents or a piece of pie for three cents. 
A good meal is furnished for twenty cents. 
Shoppers from the surrounding country wait 
for friends in the parlors, and have their par- 
cels delivered or checked. Limited provisions 
are made for lodging transient guests at thirty 
cents a night and a room is reserved for gra- 
tuitously furnishing a bed to any one who 
may be unfortunately stranded for a night or 
two. The free toilet and lavatory purposes are 
by no means the least of these considerate and 
for the most part self-supporting ministrations 
to those human necessities which well-disposed 
people so generally ignore, and in furnishing 
which the saloon finds its permanent rootage. 
Why is this not a legitimate function of the 
village, burrough or municipality? 



Prof. Henderson's Handbook of Social Settlements 
sells for 6oc not 500 as advertised last month. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Chicago Commons Items. 

The residents informally "received" such of 
their neighbors who dropped In to see the new 
building on the afternoon and evening of New 
Year Day. The gymnasium excites more 
demonstrative interest than any other feature 
of the whole plant, not only among the men 
and boys, but among the girls and younger wo- 
men. 

It is the experience of a life-time to watch 
the pleasure and surprise grow upon the faces 
of our neighbors as the extent, purpose and 
adaptation of floor after floor dawn upon them 
while being shown through the building. 

The event of the holidays of mosts signifi- 
cance to the settlement and its neighborhood 
was the rendering of the greater part of the 
oratorio of the "Messiah" by the noted Apollo 
Musical Club. As a part of its social service 
to the community this club of busy pople 
have for two years co-operated with the Uni- 
versity of Chicago Settlement and Chicago 
Commons in offering to the people of the stock- 
yards district and the Seventeenth ward the 
privilege of hearing the "Messiah." If this 
social chivalry was ever regarded as chimer- 
ically sentimental, the first year's experiment 
demonstrated it to be the most practical suc- 
cess. The people of both of these widely sep- 
arated districts most enthusiastically responded 
to this overture of their friends. They crowded 
the halls, listended with a keenness of interest, 
betokened by a riveted attention and alert bear- 
ing which were most noteworthy, and greeted 
the soloists and choruses which they liked best 
with discriminating and heartiest applause. 
Last year the only place we could provide for 
the concert was a beer-hall, where, on either 
side of the stage where the Hallelujah chorus 
was being rendered, were invitations to the 
bar downstairs. This year every seat we could 
possibly crowd into our auditorium was occu- 
pied and the little standing space remaining 
also. Over five hundred paid twenty-five cents 
to enjoy this feast of song, the echoes of which 
are ringing all over the ward, as they did for 
months last year. To the conductor of the 
Apollo Club, the eminent soloists, the accom- 
panist and the chorus of sixty voices we offer 
not only our thanks, but our congratulations 
for the triumph which they have achieved. 

The Pleasant Sunday Afternoons have had a 
great start in the new auditorium. The pro- 
gram for December, announced in the last 
number of THE COMMONS, was carried out with 



great success. During the six weeks succeed- 
ing Mrs. J. D. Follett describes the Chautau- 
qua Assemblies and courses of study with a 
fine series of slides; Prof. Shailer Mathews, of 
the University of Chicago, makes real the Castle 
and Town Life of the Middle Ages, aiding his 
verbal description with many stereopticon 
views of historic sites and ruins; Miss Bessie 
Lay provides a varied musical program, ren- 
dered by soloists, instrumental and vocal, and 
a quartette; Thos. H. Stark and Henry S. Saw- 
yer give their Tone Talk, illustrating in speech 
and song the music of all nations; Rev. C. L. 
Piske, with his Berea Church Choral Society, 
render the oratorio, "The Galilean," and Mr. 
Falk, of our Tabernacle Church Choir, fur- 
nishes a sacred concert. 

The attendance upon these occasions is as 
satisfactory in its very representative character 
as in the numbers who gather every Sunday 
afternoon in goodly fellowship. The ladies of 
the Commons are at the door to receive the 
neighbors, and the occasion is made as home- 
like and social as possible. Instead of de- 
pleting the evening service of the Tabernacle 
Church, held in the same place, its audiences 
are apparently being built up from the people 
who come to the building for the first time to 
attend the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. 

The co-operation of the organizations jointly 
occupying the new building is very gratifying. 
The Woman's Club has already enough money 
in hand to go far toward furnishing the club- 
rooms, which, supplemented by what the Pro- 
gressive Club and the Ladies' Aid provide, will 
well equip this fine suite of rooms and kitchen. 
The men's clubs have assumed the responsi- 
bility of meeting the expense incurred In fin- 
ishing the space designed for shower baths and 
lockers, so that it can be temporarily used by 
them for club-rooms until the Men's Annex is 
erected. In furnishing their rooms some fra- 
ternal help has been received from friends, 
who also furnish the reception hall on the sec- 
one floor in a parlor-like way, thus, giving a 
home atmosphere to the children's floor and the 
approach to the club-rooms. 

The most generous co-operation between the 
settlement and the church Is evinced in ad- 
justing the payment of expense for maintain- 
ing the space jointly occupied by them. The 
Commons, in addition to the gratuitous service 
of its warden as pastor, pays f600 a year 
toward the support of the church, and the 
Tabernacle offers $75 a month to begin with 
as its share of the current obligations involved. 



Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency in Chicago, by Judge Tuthill. 
Probation Officers, Superintendent Hart and Settlement Investigator. 

TKe Commons 

A MontHly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Whole Number 55. 



CHICAGO 



Februa.ry. 1901. 



Our Michigan University Fellow- 
ship Second Investigation- 

We devote this number of THE COMMONS, with 
much satisfaction, to the results of an inquiry 
into the Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency 
in Chicago. The subject was assigned to the last 
incumbent of the Michigan University Social 
Settlement Fellowship at Chicago Commons. 
Although coming to the study of this serious 
and complex problem of real life from only 
the second year of her undergraduate course, 
without the experience of mature years or 
of wide observation, Miss Clarke devoted her 
five months residence so purposefully and in- 
dustriously as to win the confidence and co- 
operation of all with whom she came in con- 
tact in making her investigation. Her report, 
which has been favorably received by the 
University faculty, and is partially presented 
herewith, speaks fbr itself of the clearness 
and comprehensiveness of her view of the 
situation, and the variety aud thoroughness 
of her practical experience in the Juvenile 
Court, on the probation officer's round of 
duty, and among the public and private child- 
saving agencies of the city. While offering 
less scope for originality in research than the 
"Social Function of the Saloon," to which 
Mr. Royal L. Melendy devoted his already 
widely noted fellowship investigation, Miss 
Clarke's report is creditable to her improve- 
ment of her opportunity. The papers by which 
the expert officials of the court and the Chil- 
dren's Home aud Aid Society so generously 
supplement this partial presentation of her re- 
port are to be taken as a token of the inter- 
ested co-operation with the settlement investi- 
gation in which she enlisted them. The 
marked increase of interest in the settlement 
fellowship which the warden of Chicago Com- 
mons found among the University faculty and 
students on the occasion of his recent animal 
presentation of its advantages at Ann Arbor, 
is manifestly due to the capital created for 
tliis academic enterprise by the success of the 
investigations, and the influence of the incum- 
bents of the fellowship upon their return to 



their University residence. We are happy to 
report the prompt assurance of the continu- 
ance of the fellowship for another year, and 
the worthy succession in its incumbency of 
Mr. W. L. Heap, of the Law School, and pos- 
sibly, also,' Mr. C. L. Catherman, of the aca- 
demic department. 



Juvenile Delinquency and Dependency. 
Report f Inquiry at Chicago. 

BY MISS EDITH I. CLARKE, OF THE UNIVERSITY OF 
MICHIGAN. 
SYNOPSIS. 

Introduction, including bibliography and other 
sources of information. 

I. Juvenile delinquency and dependency be- 
fore the establishment of the Juvenile 
Court. 

II. Agencies combined to bring the conditions 
before the public, including the efforts of 
individuals and those of labor unions, char- 
ity conferences, Federation of Women's 
Clubs, and the Chicago Bar Association. 

III. Results of the agitation in the child labor 
law, compulsory education law, juvenile 
court law andn parentnal school law, all of 
which are summarized. 

IV. The Juvenile Court, its treatment of the 
dependent and delinquent child described; 
its probation officers; the results of its work 
to date. 

V. Agencies for the care of children, societies 
and institutions. 

VI. The causes of dependency and delin- 
quencythe inability of parents, due to 
sickness, death, poverty, divorce; the de- 
ficiency of parents, due to desertion, intem- 
perance, immorality, shiftlessness, indiffer- 
ence; the weakness of the marriage tie and 
bad legislation. Delinquency is due to the 
disagreement, ignorance or neglect of pa- 
rents, heredity, the environment of bad 
housing and evil associates, truancy, 
physical, mental or moral weakness of the 
child. 

VII. Ideal treatment of juvenile delinquency 
and dependency by the encouragement and 
strengthening of the home tie, by institu- 



THE COMMONS 



tions for temporary care of children, by 
placing the child out in private families 
under the supervision of the State. 

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND DEPENDENCY BEFORE 

THE ESTABLISHMENT OP THE JUVENILE 

COURT IN CHICAGO. 

The condition of delinquent children in Chi- 
cago could hardly have been much worse than 
It was before the Juvenile Court Law went 
into operation. Little children, nine and ten 
years old, were tried and convicted just like 
a man of forty. If they were sentenced they 
were sent to the Bridewell or to Pontine 
prisons, where the worst criminals are kept. 
They were picked up on the streets by the 
Policeman for some supposed offense and put 
into the Police Station for the night, little or 
no care being taken as to who was in the 
same cell with them. Of course the little fel- 
lows were defiant and only too ready to learn 
all the evil the older men around them chose 
to teach them. Mr. Crawford, formerly war- 
den of the House of Correction for seven 
years, told us that a boy whom he knew in 
that place wrote to him that he had been in 
prison ever since he was a little boy, and that 
lie was now twenty -three. He had been ar- 
rested for some petty offense when he was 
nine years old, and though he was not an 
unusually bad child, he was sent to the Bride- 
well. There his only associates were confirmed 
criminals and thieves. He soon learned his 
first lessons in porch-climbing and became a 
professional burglar. 

This is only a mild case of the civil In- 
fluence of the men upon the boys. The small 
boys were often put in the same cell with 
the worst knaves. 

At that time there were no religious services 
there and no one did anything to help the 
boy morally or spiritually. He was allowed 
to sink as low as he would and not a hand 
was stretched out to save. This would have 
been bad enough if the boy were sentenced 
for life; but not so, he was taken out after he 
had full opportunity to have all the goodness 
in him killed, and was called free, was told 
to live a good life, and was expected to be a 
model citizen. But he had learned his lesson 
too well and nine times out of ten he landed 
in prison again before long. 

Another thing that was deplorable about the 
old system was that none of the boys had 
books to read or instruction in school branch- 
es. Their minds were allowed to rust and 
grow feeble unless they trained them by con- 
cocting mischief. 



Such was the condition of the delinquents. 
The dependents in .many cases were not much 
better off. In the Bridewell were children 
under seven years old with their wicked moth- 
ers, growing up amid the jail surroundings, 
no kindergarten, no one to see that they were 
cared for properly. Not only were dependent 
children allowed to stay in the Bridewell, but 
they were also sent to' the Poor-house. Any 
one who has ever visited the Poor-house (it 
Dunning knows that it is not a fit place to 
keep little children, where sickness, feebleness 
and death form their environment. Instead 
of keeping the children, while there, in a 
separate room, they put them in the surgical 
ward with the sick, old people. In that un- 
happy, unhealthy place, little boys and girls 
were allowed, nay rather forced, to stay just 
because they were unfortunate enough to be 
orphans or to have poor, sick parents. 

There was no provision whatever made for 
dependent children under two years of age. 
The cases of children older than that were 
tried in the County Court. 

AGENCIES COMBINED TO BRING THE CONDITION 
BEFORE THE PUBLIC. 

Among those who self-sacrificingly labored 
to inaugurate the better era now begun, ILe 
late Mrs. Alzina. P. Stevens (a woman of un- 
flinching fidelity to the working class and of 
great influence in labor organizations) had 
so much to do with bettering the conditions 
of child-life in Chicago, and her recent death 
was so great a loss that it seems fit to give 
here a brief account of her remarkable life. 

She was born in Parsonville, Maine, May 27, 
1849. At the age of twelve years she entered 
upon work in a factory; and when she was 
eighteen years old she learned the 'printer's 
trade in Chicago, where in 1877 she organized 
the Working Women's Union No. 1, and was 
its first President. Afterwards she moved to 
Toledo, where she was engaged in editorial 
work on a Toledo daily. There she helped to 
organize a branch, of Knights of Labor, called 
the Joan of Arc Assembly of the Knights of 
Labor. In 1892 she returned to Chicago, and 
at the World's Pair Labor Congress she was 
on the Women's Auxiliary Committee. 

She was appointed Assistant Factory Inspec- 
tor in 1893, by Gov. Altgeld, and partly 
through her efforts the law of 1897 extending 
the child labor provisions was enacted. 

She did much toward the establishment of 
the Juvenile Court Law in 1899, and also of 
the Parental School Law. The Juvenile Court 
appointed her its first Probation Officer and 



THE COMMONS 



her fidelity to that work was admirable. 
When she died she had about one hundred 
and fifty boys under her supervision from that 
Court. Her faithful work is deeply missed. 
She was a resident of Hull House for a few 
years before her death. 

Very different associations had a hand in 
the new movement for the children. The La- 
bor Unions stirred up a feeling against child- 
labor and called the attention of the public to 
the conditions of children in factories and 
other business places. The State Conference 
of Charities, of 1898, devoted its entire time 
to the subject of juvenile delinquency and de- 
pendency. The State Federation of Women's 
Clubs and many of the local Women's Clubs 
discussed it. The Chicago Bar Association 
adopted a unanimous resolution in favor of 
suitable legislation and appointed a commit- 
tee to draft a bill. 

RESULTS OF THE AGITATION. 

These efforts were successful in bringing 
into operation within the last three or four 
years four laws, the Child Labor, Compulsory 
Education, Juvenile Court and Parental School 
Laws. 

A Parental School is to be built on a forty- 
acre tract, situated between Winnemac Ave., 
Foster Street, Robey and Leavitt Streets. It 
is expected that this new school will relieve 
the great rush at the John Worthy School. In 
honor of Mrs. A. P. Stevens, and in memory of 
her services to the children of Chicago, the 
new school will bear her name. 

THE JUVENILE COUBT. 

The Juvenile Court of Chicago was estab- 
lished July, 1899. 

Any reputable resident of Cook County who 
knows of a child who appears to be neglected 
or dependent may file with the Clerk of the 
Court a petition, In writing, setting forth the 
facts, verified by affidavit. Upon the filing of 
the petition, a summons is sent to the person 
having control of the child, or with whom the 
child may be, requiring the person to appear 
in Court at the next session for dependent 
children, and stating the time of the session. 

Between the filing of the petition and the 
Monday morning session, the children are 
taken, sometimes in the Patrol Wagon, some- 
times on the cars, to what is called the "De- 
tention Hospital." 

Some of the cases are so clearly dependent 
that it does not take long to dispose of them; 
as, for instance, when a child is apparently 
without parents or friends. Often a widowed 



mother proves very quickly that she is utterly 
unable to care for one or more of her children. 
These are not the cases that are hard to de- 
cide. But when some of the neighbors of a 
woman swear that she drinks and does not 
give the proper attention to her children, and 
she swears just as firmly that it is not true, 
and when other neighbors agree with her, it 
is often hard to tell which side is telling the 
truth. In such a case, the judge lets the 
woman keep the children, but makes the whole 
family subject to the friendly visitation and 
supervision of a probation officer, or he may 
continue the case indefinitely. 

In no small number of cases the judge is con- 
vinced that the parent, or parents, are simply 
trying to get rid of the responsibility of caring 
for their family. If he thinks best, he puts 
them in charge of a probation officer, but he 
does not take the children from the parents. 

Whenever he is reasonably sure that the lit- 
tle ones are neglected at home, that It would 
be hurting them to leave them with the par- 
ents any longer, and that there Is no suitable 
relative or friend to take them, they are de- 
clared dependent and are given into the hands 
of one of the societies which care for children. 

These societies Cither have the children 
adopted into family homes or sent to suitable 
institutions. 

The delinquents, with their parents or guard- 
ians, are brought before the Court in the same 
way as the dependents. Notice is served on 
the parents, however, more often by school 
teachers and policemen, than is the case with 
the dependents. Accordinng to the law cited 
above, no delinquent child under twelve years 
of age is allowed to be kept in a Police Sta- 
tion. Consequently, such boys are taken to 
the Detention Home in a patrol wagon. They 
are brought from there to Court in a covered 
wagon, provided for the purpose, and, in the 
same wagon, are conveyed to the John Worthy 
School, if the Court decides to commit them 
to that place. 

The delinquent girls are taken sometimes to 
the Harrison Street Annex and sometimes to 
the Detention Hospital. 

In the Court room the boys, from ten to 
twenty of them, sit by themselves at Judge 
Tuthill's left, in the same chairs as are occu- 
pied by the dependents Monday morning. The 
proceedings are very informal, in order that 
the boys may not be frightened so much that 
they will not tell what they know. One case 
is called at a time. The boy, or boys, involved 



THE COMMONS 



in it goes to the Judge's desk and the witnesses 
stand behind him. When the witnesses are 
sworn, Judge Tuthill asks the questions neces- 
sary in order to make the right disposition of 
the case. He talks with the boy in a kind, 
fatherly manner, warns him against the wrong 
and encourages him to make a start in the 
right direction. Many different charges, but 
mostly larceny, are brought against the boys. 

If it is the first offense, he is allowed to go 
home, but it put under the supervision of a 
probation officer. But if the Judge decides that 
a second trial would do the boy no good, or if 
it is the second time he has been arrested, he 
usually sends him to John Worthy School, 
which is the only pMce Chicago has for her 
delinquent boys. 

The gisls sit in the back of the Court room 
and are attended after the boys. They are, as 
a rule, older than the boys who are tried and 
much fewer in number. In fact, on many days 
there are no girls to be tried. They are charged 
with immorality more often than with larceny. 

The following figures are taken from an of- 
ficial report of the work of the Juvenile Court 
during the past year, from July 1, 1899, to Juue 
30, 1900: 

Number of sessions of court 190 

Number of cases docketed...' 2,295 

Total number of hearings T3.181 

Total number of juvenile districts in the 

county 11 

DISPOSITION OF DELINQUENT CASES. 
Hearing and released on parol to probation 

officers 1,005 

Number of boys paroled to probation officers 

returned to court 203 

Committed to John Worthy School 541 

Released from John Worthy School 250 

Number boys released from John Worthy School 

and remanded 33 

Released from John Worthy School, in care of 

probation officers, not returned to court 162 

Released from John Worthy School, In care of 

parents, not returned to court 61 

Committed to State Reformatory at Pontlac... 18 
Released from State Reformatory at Pontiac... 1C 

Held to grand jury 57 

Committed to State Home for Female Juvenile 

Offenders, at Geneva 48 

Committed to House of Good Shepherd 28 

DISPOSITION OF DELINQUENT CASES. 

From this it will be seen that the Court has 
definitely fixed the status of nearly 2,300 hu- 
man beings at the most critical points of their 
lives. Hundreds have been saved from lives 
of shame and crime. Hundreds have been 
taken from homeless lives or from unfit homes 
and placed in good institutions or the care of 
societies to find them suitable homes. 



The efficacy of the method of probation is 
proved by the fact that only slightly more 
than 18 per cent of all boys paroled have been 
brought back to Court, and that, as the proba- 
tion system is perfected, the percentage is de- 
creasing. f 

The most important officers of the Juvenile 
Court are the active general probation officers. 
While there are 94 commissioned, only six de- 
vote their whole time to the work. They are 
either volunteers or, if paid, are paid from 
private sources, as the law provides for the 
support of the head probation officer only. In 
this respect, the Court is at a disadvantage. 
The year's work shows that at least twenty 
efficient, paid, general probation officers for 
specific districts could be used to advantage, 
and may be said to be absolutely necessary. 

The year's experience shows the need of 
giving summary power to the Juvenile Court 
to compel parents and other near relatives to 
support their children. It also shows the 
great need of an adequate building for the de- 
tention of both dependent and delinquent chil- 
dren. At present, the dependents are kept us- 
ually a week awaiting disposition of the De- 
tention Hospital, where the insane are await- 
ing trial. The accommodations in this place 
are limited to fourteen beds. Sometimes there 
are twenty or more children in the institution. 
The delinquents are detained in a cottage 
under the supervision of a painstaking, effi- 
cient superintendent. It is furnished by pri- 
vate means, but the city and county share the 
expense of the board of the children. 

The most prominent offenses committed by 
the children are truancy, "junking," and child- 
begging, which are at the root of many evils. 
All of these are being stopped gradually by 
the Court. 

THE CITY REFORMATORY SCHOOLS, 

Of the institutions caring for children (de- 
linquent) the most important is John Worthy 
School. The building is in the same yard with 
the Bridewell Prison, but the boys do not as- 
sociate with the prison inmates. 

There are on the average about two hundred 
boys in the school all the time. They have their 
studies from 9 to 12 a. m. and 1 to 3:30 p. m. 
The classes are graded from the first to the 
eighth. Singing has lately been introduced, 
and the songs that are enjoyed most are the 
common street songs. When class hours arc 
over, the boys spend most of their time in play- 
ing. They are not re quired to do much work. 



THE COMMONS 



To be sure, there is a chauce for them to learn 
brush-making, but almost all of their spare 
time is spent in the play room, romping. The 
play room is very large, and has almost no 
furniture in it. The day we visited, there 
were 183 boys romping and playing roughly in 
this room. There were some guards scattered 
among the little fellows, b.ut how could seven 
or eight men watch the words and actions of 
183 little street gamins? They tried to pick 
our pockets, and succeeded In getting my 
handkerchief. Surely, some better way ought 
to be provided for taking care of the delin- 
quent boys. They spend several months or 
years in a place like that, and a few may be 
benefited, but it seems almost inevitable that 
the worst ones will teach the better ones all 
sorts of wicked plans and ideas. They never 
'come into close relationship there with any 
noble, motherly woman who could win their 
confidence and help them to a higher, truer 
life. 

In the evening those who wish to may read 
a little while. The library is not very exten- 
sive, but there are some very good books in It. 
Bedtime comes at eight o'clock, and the boys 
retire to their single beds, which are placed 
side by side in the dormitory, with a little 
space between. Their dining-room is very 
much like the one in the prison next door, and 
the fare is rigidly plain and simple, better, I 
liclieve, than many of the boys get at home. 

On Sunday both Catholic and Protestant 
services are held and the boys generally at- 
tend both. 

The Illinois Industrial School for Girls is 
situated in a charming place in Bvanston, Illi- 
nois, near the lake. It is large, finely equippsd 
and well suited in every particular to the pur- 
poses for which it is used. It is made as home- 
like as such a large home could be. The num- 
ber of girls varies from 125 to 200, and when 
they we taken in they must be between three 
years old and fourteen and must be declared 
dependent by some judge or jury. 

A week's program for a child is about the 
same as it would be in any well-regulated 
home. She attends school and assists with the 
work of the Home. The older girls do the 
heavier work. No domestic help is employed. 
The work is simplified as much as possible by 
the latest and improved methods of doing 
things. Homes are found for the girls in good 
families and they are never allowed to work 
in shops or factories. They are carefully looked 
after until they are eighteen years old. 



Three school teachers are employed and the 
grades correspond to those of the public 
schools. They aim always to employ women 
of culture and refinement for every depart- 
ment. The dormitories are models of neatness 
and the older girls have small rooms of their 
own which they take great pride in keeping 
clean and pretty. 

The court also committs some boys of Cath- 
olic parentage to St. Mary's Training School 
at Feehanville and others of Protestant parent- 
age to the Illinois Manual Training and Farm 
School at Glenwood. 

CAUSES OF DEPENDENCY AND DELINQUENCY OF 
CHILDREN. 

The relationship of dependency to delin- 
quency is similar to that of the bud to the 
flower. Something may blight the bud and the 
flower may never come. The dependent child 
may never turn into the delinquent, but nine 
times out of ten the delinquency of a child is 
an outgrowth of its dependency. 

Many children are declared wards of the 
State on account of the sickness or insanity of 
the breadwinner of the family. Sometimes 
shiftlessness is at the root of this misfortune, 
but there are men who have been industrious 
and saving and yet who have seen hunger and 
deprivation staring them in the face. Until 
they can once more get on their feet, they can 
do nothing but give their children over to the 
protection of the State. 

If the parents are willing to give their chil- 
dren proper maintenance, the Court seldom 
takes the little ones away from them, however 
bad the father and mother may be. But if the 
parents are bringing up the children to immor- 
ality or dishonesty, the children are, by defini- 
tion, dependent, whether the Court declares 
them so or not. In some instances, the parents 
show their utter lack of love for their offspring 
by deserting them. It is quite an ordinary 
occurrence to have small children and some- 
times older ones brought into Court and made 
wards of the State because no one knows where 
their fathers and mothers are. 

Weakness of the marriage-tie is at the bottom 
of a great many cases of dependency. As long 
as it is an easy thing for men to marry, become 
fathers and then get divorced only to leave 
their families and do the same thing over 
again, as long as the sacredness of the family 
relations is made light of, just so long will 
there be hundreds of little children, in our 
large cities, homeless and helpless, who will 
grow up with no happy remembrance of a 
home and no desire to have the right kind of 



6 



THE COMMONS 



a borne when they become fathers and moth- 
ers. With just as great vigor as we use to 
prevent smallpox, philanthropic efforts ought 
to be directed toward the prevention of de- 
pendency caused by this evil. 

The root of the difficulty is in our industrial 
organization. In the central portions of our 
large cities, it is almost impossible for parents 
to have pleasant homes and to bring up their 
children well. It is necessary for them to live 
in these places because machinery has dimin- 
ished the demand for country laborers. They 
work in the large manufactories; and because 
of the long hours and lack of money to pay car 
fare they must live near their place of busi- 
ness. Rent in that part of the city is very 
high and consequently they must live in a 
crowded way and without many of the modern 
conveniences. Their instincts of sociability 
lead many people to seek work in large cities 
and there are other motives that lead them 
there. Where there are six or seven families 
in one house and no place for the children to 
play except in the streets and alleys, when the 
families are poor and both father and mother 
are away all day working, the conditions are 
not conducive to a happy and prosperous 
home. 

Bad housing has much to do with the deteri- 
oration of city population. There is no law as 
to the number of people who may occupy a 
given space. Consequently sometimes as many 
as thirteen people are crowded into one small 
room to sleep at night. In these houses, there 
is seldom, if ever, a bath-room. The children 
often do not get a bath during a whole winter. 

The first floors are generally damp, and I 
know of one case at least where the family 
live in a cellar which, after a thaw, became so 
filled with water that they had to bail it out 
in pails; not a very good place in which to 
bring up children. 

There are numerous rooms into which a ray 
of sunlight never strays. 

The poorer class of laborers are compelled 
by their low wages to live in such houses. No 
wonder they get discouraged in the awful 
struggle for health and decency. No wonder 
many of them give up the struggle hopelessly 
and allow themselves to be swept on and on 
in the downward current of human woe. Are 
we to expect a little boy or a little girl to grow 
up with a true, noble character, when all he 
has a chance of seeing are drunkenness, fights, 
crime, dirt and unlovely sights? 

Probably truancy has as much as anything 
else to do with landing boys in John Worthy 



School. Very few of the boys brought into 
Court had a good school record as to attend- 
ance. Eighteen per cent of 180 truants exam- 
ined in Massachusetts had committed petty 
crimes. Truancy in 98 per cent of these cases 
led to vagrancy. Fourteen per cent of the in- 
mates of the reformatories of the North Atlan- 
tic States can neither read nor write. 

In spite of the Compulsory Education Law in 
Illinois, out of 1,500,000 children of school age 
only 1,000,000 of them attend school. A boy 
who runs away from school invariably falls 
into bad company and gets into some trouble. 
He loses interest in his studies and seldom 
amounts to anything unless something happens 
to change his course. Often the causes of 
truancy are inefficient teachers, bad systems of 
instruction or some physical defect in the child. 
The number of delinquent children will dimin- 
ish in the same ratio as the number of truant 
cases is, lessened. 

IDEAL TREATMENT OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND 
DEPENDENCY. 

The greatest results in any reformatory work 
are of a preventive character. Too much stress 
cannot be laid upon the encouragement and 
strengthening of the home life of a dependent 
or delinquent child, or upon helping the chil- 
dren when they are very young before they 
are confirmed in dishonesty and sin. While 
there will ajways be cases where it will be 
absolutely necessary to remove children 
from the care and influence of unworthy peo- 
ple, still It is true that the greatest good can 
be accomplished through the steady education 
of the poorer classes about thir responsibility 
to childhood. For this reason, the probation 
system in Chicago, which I have described, 
seems to me to be a step in the right direction. 
If the officers had more leisure they could do 
a wondrous work in this line. 



How the Juvenile-Court 
is Working. 

BY RICHARD S. TUTHILL, JUDGE OF THE COURT. 

Illinois has earned the right to be classed in 
the front ranks of the advanced states of the 
Union in her provisions for general education, 
her generous treatment of the blind, the deaf 
and the insane, and the reform methods that 
have been introduced from time to time In 
her penal institutions. 

While much progress has been made by Illi- 
nois within the past decade in the matter of 
properly caring for youthful criminals, never- 
theless a most deplorable condition of affairs 



THE COMMONS 



with respect to the treatment of children has 
existed in the state up to the present time. The 
State heretofore failed to recognize the fact 
that her highest duty to her citizens was not 
performed by standing over the body of the 
small delinquent in the form of avenging jus- 
tice. It took arduous labor, in season and out 
of season, to persuade the representatives of 
the people that the State is, after all, the great 
first parent, and that when the natural parent 
was unable to care for and properly rear the 
child it 'was the duty of the State to place her- 
self in loco parentis, and assume the responsi- 
bilities the natural parent was unable to ful- 
fill. Finally the State awoke to the fact that, 
because of the inadequacy of her laws, and 
failure to provide and care for the children 
who lacked wise parental care, she was breed- 
ing an army of criminals which, in a short 
time, would not only be a menace to the com- 
monwealth, but would burden the taxpayers of 
the State with intolerable expense in providing 
protection against the criminal army. It was 
also realized that all of this trouble and bur- 
den would be unnecessary If the ounce of pre- 
vention were applied in the days of childhood. 

When the law known as the Juvenile Court 
Law became the law of Illinois, going into 
effect July 1, 1899, it seemed, on first thought, 
that it would be almost impossible to enforce 
it because of the fact that in the law itself 
adequate means to carry it into effect are not 
provided. For instance, the law, in Section 
11, provides "that no court or magistrate shall 
commit a child under the age of twelve years 
to a jail or police station." Here was an im- 
mediate difficulty, inasmuch as neither the City 
nor the County had a place of detention such 
as the law contemplated. The Board of Di- 
rectors of the Illinois Industrial Association, 
through its superintendent, Rev. A. C. Dodds, 
gave the use of their cottage at 233 Honore 
street for the detention of delinquent children 
pending a hearing of their cases, and this diffi- 
culty was in a measure overcome for the time 
being. It will be necessary in the near future, 
however, if the real good contemplated by the 
law is effected, to provide not only a suitable 
place of detention for the child before its case 
is heard, but also to study deeply .into the 
question and provide some place, modern in 
every feature and reformatory in its nature, 
but yet a home, where the delinquent child 
may be kept in proper environments while un- 
der the direct care of the court. 

The law makes provision for the appoint- 
ment by the court of probation officers, whose 



duty it shall be to "make such investigations 
as may be required by the court; to be present 
In court in order to represent the interest of 
the child when the case is heard; to furnish to 
the court such information and assistance as 
the judge may require, and to take such charge 
of any child before and after trial as may be 
directed by the court." 

The probation system is by far the most Im- 
portant feature of the Juvenile Court Law. As 
a rule, the cause of committing a criminal act 
lies not wholly with the child, but in most 
eases the blame attaches to lack of proper 
training to carelessness on the part of the 
parents. The percentage of delinquent children 
who are In any way abnormal in their moral 
nature is not much, if any, larger among chil- 
dren of the slums than among the children of 
well-to-do and honest parents. The criminal 
acts committed are not due particularly to 
hereditary taint so much as to bad environ- 
ments and improper training. The delinquent 
boys and girls are not, by nature, worse than 
your child, or mine. For the most part they 
are wide-awake, energetic youths, who need 
only to have their energies directed into the 
right channels by a guiding hand. Proper 
care will make them a blessing to themselves 
as well as to their parents and to the State. 
Without this help they will rapidly degenerate 
into criminals and fill our State with an evil 
influence which in time the authorities will be 
unable to cope with. Children are- only min- 
iature editions of men and women. They are 
peculiarly creatures of habit. Bad habits, like 
poisonous weeds, grow very rapidly and in any 
soil. During the character forming period of 
a child's life bad habits must be rooted out and 
a new and wholesome growth of good habits 
substituted. If this is accomplished a peace- 
able, law-abiding citizen is sure to be the re- 
sult of the cultivation. In the case of a delin- 
quent child such a transformation must, of 
necessity, be very slow and is almost sure to 
be discouraging to any person not possessed of 
unlimited patience and earnest hopefulness. 
Such a person is the Ideal probation officer. 
The probation officer, while his visits are made 
primarily In the interest of a particular child, 
is helpful to every member of the family as 
well as to the child under his care. One fam- 
ily thus improved must, of necessity, have a 
direct effect for good upon its neighbors, and 
thus the entire community is benefited. 

While the Juvenile Court Law gives to the 
court power to appoint probation officers, no 
provision is made for the payment of a com- 



8 



THE COMMONS 



peusation for their services. The experience 
of sixteen months, during which time the law 
has been in practical operation in Cook Coun- 
ty, has proved that the services of a probation 
officer, to be valuable, must be persistent, and 
that it is impossible to secure persistent serv- 
ice without the payment of a reasonable com- 
pensation for the services rendered. As the 
law made no provision for such payment, help 
in this respect must come entirely from out- 
side sources. If the settlements, clubs, 
churches and charitable men and women of 
the city will pay the salaries of competent pro- 
bation officers who will thus be enabled to de- 
vote their entire time to the work of the 
Juvenile Court, and assist the regular district 
officers, one more great difficulty standing in 
the way of the proper operation of the law 
will be overcome. Honorable Carter H. Har- 
rison, Mayor of. the city, at the request of 
those interested in the workings of the court, 
detailed a number of fatherly men from the 
police force of the city, who, in citizens' 
clothes, without baton or arms or any other 
outward sign of authority, act as probation 
officers. These officers have been of invaluable 
assistance in the work. 

As matters now stand, the number of proba- 
tion officers serving the Juvenile Court is total- 
ly inadequate for carrying on the work, and 
unless continued and multiplied service of the 
kind that is now being rendered can be se- 
cured, the - efficiency of the law will be im- 
paired, if not done away with. 

I have no hesitancy in declaring that I be- 
lieve the work of the Juvenile Court is of more 
importance than any other business transacted 
by the court, and that it is effecting far more 
good for the city in suppressing crime than the 
Criminal Court could possibly effect by punish- 
ment. 



Juvenile Court Probation System 

BY T. D. HUBLEY, CHIEF 1'liOBATIONTSi OFFICER. 

Illinois is to be congratulated on the Juvenile 
Court law which was passed by the Illinois 
Legislature in April, 1899, and in force July 
1, 1899, entitled, "An Act to Regulate the Treat- 
ment and Control of Neglected, Dependent ami 
Delinquent Children." Before the passage of 
this law the delinquent children were first ar- 
rested, taken to the police station, kept in as- 
sociation with hardened criminals until tried, 
then charged with a crime, and, if found guilty 
thereof, were convicted and thereafter branded 
and hunted as criminals. Under the Juvenile 



Court plan of procedure the child is treated as 
a child, impressed by the Court with the idea 
that while he may have been guilty of a tech- 
nical offense for which he might be punished, 
yet he will be given a chance, and he is there- 
upon made a ward of the Court, allowed to 
return to his home, under the friendly care of 
a probation officer, who sees him from time to 
time, assists him, advises in respect to his 
home and surroundings, and thus helps him. 
The Court is advised by reports from the pro- 
bation officer of the boy's attendance af school, 
or his conduct in employment, if at work. 

Should the child again be brought into court, 
the Court at once sees that he has broken his 
parole, and acts accordingly, if the circum- 
stances warrant. At no time is the child looked 
upon as a criminal. The idea of crime never 
enters into the case. The Court rather inquires 
into the condition of the child and deals with 
it accordingly, applying the necessary correc- 
tional means so as to change the life of the 
child. It is not necessary, nor was it ever 
necessary, to find the child guilty of crime so 
as to be able to detain him or send him to 
school. No child has liberty in the sense that 
we understand the term. A child's wants must 
be supplied; the school selected, the rules of 
life provided, and the mode of conduct mapped 
out for him. All these things are supplied, 
not by the child, but by the parent. When the 
parental care is lacking, then it is the duty of 
the State which stands in loco parentis to the 
child to take the place of the parent. When 
the natural parent violates his trust in any 
way, then the State steps In and supplies the 
place of the natural parent. So that the State, 
is not dealing harshly with the child when it 
applies the same rules and regulations to it 
that the natural parent usually does. If the 
State can detain the boy without accusing him 
or trying him for a crime, it certainly is a 
senseless, and, I think, a vicious and demor- 
alizing practice to make a criminal of him be- 
fore starting to reform him. The efficiency of 
the Juvenile Court is shown in the fact that 
more than 85 per cent of all the children 
brought before the Court are benefited, and 
may be said to be practically saved; whereas 
95 per cent of all the boys appearing before 
the justices and tried in the old way as crimi- 
nals were lost. The process before the pas- 
sage of the Juvenile Court law being, first the 
police station, next the house of correction, 
then the jail, Pontiac, the penitentiary, and 
sad to say, sometimes the gallows. As it is 
now the Court, the Circuit Court, the strong 



THE COMMONS 



and wise representative of the people, takes 
the boy iu charge, as did the old King's Bench 
in England, makes him a ward of the Court, 
advises with him from time to time, cautions 
him about the bad company he is keeping, 
tries at all times to keep him in his home, 
near his parents, and warns him that unless 
he acts as a good and faithful child will act, 
he will be taken in charge and forced to do 
his duty properly. Children soon learn that 
they must obey the master mind. One term 
In the John Worthy School has been sufficient 
in most cases to bring the boy to a realization 
of the fact that he cannot do as he pleases; 
and, furthermore, that it is not hard for him 
to do the right thing. It would be a waste of 
time and enefgy to send a child from the 
Court to its home, there to remain under the 
supervision of the Court, unless the Court had 
some person to act for it, and visit the child 
and his parents from time to time, so as to 
ascertain and become acquainted with his 
mode of life. The person who does this work 
is designated and known as a probation officer, 
who Is appointed by the judge under the 
Juvenile Court law to perform this work. It 
will be seen at once that a great many pro- 
bation officers, or assistants to probation offi- 
cers, must be appointed, when it Is known that 
at the present time there are over 1,500 chil- 
dren on probation, and the number will in- 
crease from week to week. The Boston au- 
thorities estimate that a probation officer 
should not have more than 40 children paroled 
to him or her at any one time; and I am in- 
clined to believe that no one person in Chicago 
should have charge of more than 40 to 50 
active cases; that is, cases requiring weekly 
visitations. 

To utilize the forces in the Juvenile Court, 
and at the same time systematize work, the 
Court has been divided into 12 districts, and 
each district assigned to what is known as a 
general probation officer, who devotes his or 
her entire time to the work. All children 
coming before the Court, if paroled, are as- 
signed to the district officer in the district 
where the child resides. The number of chil- 
dren in some districts exceed over 200, and in 
all districts will reach that number in a short 
time. The district probation officer works sub- 
ject to the direction of the chief probation 
officer, and, of course, will not be expected to 
do all of the visitation. It is contemplated 
and, in fact, a plan has been in partial opera- 
tion for some time, interesting all the churches, 
social settlements, societies and individuals in 



each district desiring to co-operate with the 
Juvenile Court. An individual may take two 
or three cases in a district and do all of the 
visiting, report to the district officer, who, in 
turn, will report to the chief probation officer. 
In this way it is hoped that every child in Cook 
County come before the Juvenile Court and 
paroled will be carefully and intelligently vis- 
ited, and systematic reports may be made from 
time to time. It will be seen that real and 
effective work will be done by the above agen- 
cies, and ill a great measure the district officer 
and the Court officials will simply report the 
work performed from time to time of the 
various agencies interesting themselves in the 
work. It is hoped that before long there will 
be established in each district a business 
office for the district officer, separate and apart 
from any church, settlement, society or other 
institutions. 



A Probation Officer's Use for 
the Settlement. 

BY' MARTHA P. FALCONER, PROBATION OFFICER. 

When a boy is brought to the Juvenile Court 
for trial, if it is a first offense he is usually 
allowed to return to his home, but committed 
to the care of a probation officer, who is ex- 
pected to visit the boy from time to time and 
make reports for the Court. Before dismissing 
the boy the Court will say to the boy and his 
mother if she is present: "This officer of the 
Court will come to see you, I shall learn 
through her how you are getting along in 
school or work: you must obey her; she will 
try in every way to help_ you." This gives the 
probation officer an introduction into that fam- 
ily which no friendly visitor or Settlement 
worker has; it is not only our privilege but 
our duty to visit that family. 

The first thing is to establish friendly rela- 
tions with the mother, to see that all the chil- 
dren of school age are in school, the younger 
ones in kindergarten. I have found it a great 
help to get the family into friendly relations 
with a Settlement when there is one near 
enough. Get the tired mother, whose life has 
probably been one of drudgery, into the club 
for women: I may call for her the first time, 
take her to the club; after the first she is 
ready to go alone. 

If there are older sisters I try to get them 
into cooking or sewing classes. 

For boys the club is a valuable help as well 
as a source of pleasure; he must have some 
recreation. I feel safe about a boy who is at- 



10 



THE COMMONS 



tending regularly his club at the Settlement, 
knowing he will come under good influence 
there. One of my boys who had been in the 
Juvenile Court twice, in the John Worthy 
School once, has been attending a club at the 
Commons all winter. I felt very doubtful about 
this boy after visiting his home; eight children, 
a tired mother, the father felt he had done 
his duty if he provided food and a place to 
sleep; if his boy wanted to break into cars and 
steal he could go back to the John Worthy 
School. I felt there was nothing in that home 
to hold a bright, active boy. I insisted upon 
his going to a club. I have not had any trouble 
with him, and I think it is the influence of the 
club on the boy. Already he is full of plans 
for going to the country next summer with 
the Boys' Club. I feel I did the best possible 
thing for that boy in getting him started in 
the club. The Settlement usually has an or- 
ganized class or club to meet the need of every 
member of a family where I visit. It is some- 
times a question of time and patience to get 
started, I know it will help the family and 
strengthen my work with the boy. 

In one part of my district, between the lake 
and the river, Chicago avenue to Kinzie 
street, there is no Settlement or reading room. 

I have nearly forty boys in that territory, 
most of them live in dark basements or rear 
rooms in the second or third story. Of what use 
is it to try to say to these boys "Do not run 
the streets at night, or Sunday, stay at home," 
when I know what those homes are. I know 
it would be a great help toward saving those 
boys from the John Worthy School if there 
was a Settlement or reading room where the 
boys might go. 

I am hoping to be able to rent a store room 
in that neighborhood, for a boys' club; open 
several evenings during the week and Sunday. 
Some help has been promised, but not enough. 
The expense would not be much to begin in 
a simple way; we would have to have money 
for room rent, fuel and light. I should be 
glad to hear from anyone interested in boys 
and willing to help along this line. 



Child-Sa-ving Work in Chicago. 

BY HASTINGS H. HART, SUPERINTENDENT 
CHILDREN'S HOME AND AID 

SOCIETY. 

Chicago now presents the greatest oppor- 
tunity for the work of saving dependent and 
neglected children that has ever been offered 
in the history of the world; first, because we 
may avail ourselves of the combined experi- 



ence of multitudes of agencies; second, because 
the work which has already been done in this 
city has already been done along right lines 
and there is very little rubbish to be cleared 
away. All of the older cities of Christendom 
have a large array of orphan asylums, found- 
ling asylums, children's reformatories and in- 
stitutions of various classes, many of which 
are old and entrenched in traditions which can 
only be overcome with' great difficulty. Chi- 
cago has few organizations and nearly all of 
them have been established along right lines. 

For fifty years there has been in progress 
a change of public sentiment with reference 
to the wisest plan of caring for dependent and 
neglected children. Formerly the idea pre- 
vailed that the best possible place for a home- 
less and dependent child was in the fostering 
care of an institution. It was believed that in- 
stitutions could be so organized and ordered as 
to make them better and safer places for such 
children than family homes. In some states, 
like New York, Pennsylvania and California, 
public funds have been appropriated to aid in 
maintaining institutions managed by private 
corporations. As a result New York has about 
30,000 children in private institutions and the 
public appropriations in aid of such institu- 
tions amount to about $3,000,000 per year. Cali- 
fornia maintains an average of 4,200 in private 
institutions by means of state appropriations, 
which amounts to $350,000 per year. 

The reaction against the institution system 
began with the work of Mr. Charles Loring 
Brace in the New York Children's Aid Society. 
Mr. Brace began sending children from the 
slums of New York into the west in carload 
lots nearly fifty years ago. These children 
were distributed without much investigation 
and without any special contracts for their 
protection, yet the records of the New York 
Children's Aid Society show that the great 
body of these children have made good citi- 
zens notwithstanding their unfavorable begin- 
ning. The work of the New York Society 
has been modified in later years, the children 
being handled in smaller numbers and with 
greater care. 

The plan of placing children in family homes 
met with vigorous opposition at first but grad- 
ually gained favor. About thirty years ago 
the State of Massachusetts adopted this nlan 
as a public policy; Massachusetts was followed 
a little later by Michigan, and still later by 
Minnesota, Wisconsin, Colorado and other 
states. 



THE COMMONS 



11 



In Illinois the same policy is carried out by 
the operation of private organizations. Nearly 
all the orphan asylums, industrial schools and 
children's homes In the state follow the plan 
of placing children in family homes after a 
comparatively brief stay in the institution. At 
the Illinois Manual Training School Farm at 
Glenwood the average stay of the boys in the 
institution is less than a year and a half. 

The work of placing children in family 
homes is carried on by the Illinois Children's 
Home and Aid Society, the latter being a 
Catholic society. 

The Children's Home and Aid Society has re- 
ceived about ,300 children, most of whom 
have been placed in family homes. The so- 
ciety has still under its guardianship 2,200 
children in family homes. 

The plan of placing children in family homes 
is liable to great abuses. Many people desire 
to obtain children for the sake of their labor. 
Others who are moved by a charitable influ- 
ence are not proper people to have charge of 
children. The best organizations, therefore, 
are exercising increasing care in the selection 
of homes and in the supervision of children 
after being placed. It is a tremendous ex- 
pense to undertake to determine the entire 
future of the child and to arbitrarily fix Its 
environment. This work cannot be done too 
carefully or too conscientiously. In the early 
years of this work great emphasis was laid 
upon its economic aspects. One society stated 
that they were placing children in family 
homes at the rate of J8.63 per head, in recent 
years it has come to be recognized that cheap- 
ness is not the best recommendation for the 
efficiency of such work. 



Socia.1 Function of Public 

Education. 

There are many indications of a 'new social 
consciousness in the work of public education, 
not only in the community at large, but espe- 
cially among those charged with the grave re- 
sponsibilities of administering the greatest 
trust which the people have committed to any 
of their office-holders. The report of the United 
States Commissioner of Education for the year 
1898 and 1899 clearly maintains this long-rec- 
ognized leadership in this, as in other lines of 
educational progress. In addition to its inval- 
uable technical contents of special interest to 
teachers, there is a broad survey of the prog- 
ress of public education throughout the world 



which cannot fail to be appreciated by those 
who seek the realization of the higher social 
ideals through the teacher and the school. It 
is encouraging to note the attention bestowed 
on such practical developments .of the social 
function of education as "School Gardens," 
"Educational Training for Railway Service," 
"The Amelioration of the Colored Race," "Anti- 
Alcoholic Instruction in the French Schools," 
"Movement for Prolonging the Education of the 
People," and Prof. Herbert B. Adams' exceed- 
ingly interesting and comprehensive account of 
"University Extension in Great Britain." Set- 
tlement workers will notice with satisfaction 
the emphasis he lays upon the part that Ar- 
nold Toynbee, Toynbee Hall and the social set- 
tlements in England and America have bad in 
popularizing university culture. This invalu- 
able report can be secured free upon applica- 
tion to the Commissioner of Education at 
Washington, D. C. 

Ethelbert Stewart, one of the most accom- 
plished statisticians in the National Depart- 
ment of Labor at Washington, contributes 
Part I of the Eleventh Biennial Report of the 
Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, devoted to 
an exhaustive investigation of kindergartens, 
manual training and industrial education in 
the public schools. In briefest but most com- 
prehensive descriptive and statistical form, in- 
valuable data concerning these most hopeful 
lines of progress are placed within the reach 
of all interested. 

President Andrew S. Draper of the Univer- 
sity of Illinois, in a fearless and fundamental 
discussion of the common-school problem in 
Chicago, not only went to the bottom of the 
situation which has so long been a scandal to 
the city and state, but also led the way toward 
the top by his radically reconstructive but 
most practical suggestions. 

The Merchants' Club of Chicago, composed 
of many of the more influential younger men 
representing the larger commercial interests of 
the city, discussed at their last meeting "The 
Public School as a Social Center." Accom- 
panying an invitation to this occasion, these 
stirring words of the president of the Club are 
worth quoting from a personal letter: "To me 
the question is fundamental for the elevation 
of the masses. We can hope to do little more 
than start the entering wedge, because It In- 
volves the recognition of the principle that 
very man is as entitled to recreation as he is 
to an education, and the state is equally bound 
to provide means for both." 



12 



THE COMMONS 



From the Settlements. 

The Northwestern Settlement, Chicago, looks 
forward to the establishment of a miniature 
basket factory as an outgrowth of this work 
In the boys' clubs. Orders will be welcome at 
any time. 

The Lincoln House Monthly, Cambridge, 
Mass., is a neighborhood paper distributed free 
to all Lincoln House families. The January 
number is full of bright reports of club doings. 
There is marked interest in dramatics and 
song. In April a fair and entertainment will 
be held, for which each department is notified 
to make salable contributions. 

In 1899 the Cincinnati Social Settlement 
moved from a large corner house on Broadway 
and Third street to its present "haven-like 
quarters between two flats above and a theater 
transformed into a tobacco factory "below." 
The settlement reports the registration of 1,100 
families from September, 1896, to March, 1900. 
One feature of their work is the celebration of 
national days dear to the different foreigners 
in the district. At the woman's club a Ger- 
man woman gathers her friends around her 
and reads from a book sent her by a resident 
and joyfully discovered to be "Heine." Oil 
paintings belonging to city artists were exhib- 
ited for a .month, tlie favorite being a Farny 
Indian. The Mothers' Association co-operates 
in the support of the kindergarten to the ex- 
tent of nine dollars a mouth. There is also a 
Crippled Lads' Club, in which several branches 
of manual art are taught. 



The Annual Report of Westminster House, 
Buffalo, has a good showing of the Penny Prov- 
ident 1,112 depositors, and $1,051.84 amount 
deposited, an increase of 60 and 80 per cent 
over last year. 

Mr. Tchorigian resided throe months at the 
settlement, gathering data on the saloons and 
social clubs of East Buffalo, for the Committee 
of Fifty. 

Miss Holmes feels that one of the most en- 
couraging things is the friendly interest of the 
neighbors, and their co-operation and leader- 
ship tn the work-room, sewing school, chair- 
caning and dressmaking classes. One woman 
donated the kitchen and papered the Diet 
Kitchen herself. This certainly is the right 
kind of neighborliness. 



The Louisville Neighborhood House thus ex- 
presses its purposes: 



1. To furnish a meeting place in a social 
and democratic atmosphere for men and wo- 
men, regardless of their occupation, race or 
creed. 

2. To co-operate with every force existing 
for good, both in the immediate neighborhood 
and In the whole civic life. 

3. To present knowledge in such simple form 
and by such direct means that it must take 
hold of the mind. 

4. To stimulate self-help as the ' only form 
of charity which, save in exceptional cases, 
does not undermine both character and citizen- 
ship. 

A suggestion of one child in the manual 
training class developed a dry-goods box Into 
"Little Neighborhood House." a finished and 
furnished home, in the planning and building 
of which boys and girls assumed equal re- 
sponsibility. Pictures, books, clay dishes and 
wash-stand sets were made, the common in- 
terest producing a sweet sociability much 
needed. Of the work as a whole, one mother 
exclaimed: "It's the best thing started!" 



The Third Annual Report of Hartley House, 
New York City, is as interesting in content as 
it is attractive in form. The house, it is <V- 
clared, "stands for a fundamental human 
principle clearly enunciated by Froebel, that 
organisms grow by their exercise of inherent 
creative faculties; and that the direction of the 
growth, whether for better or worse, depends 
on the nature and trend of underlying activi- 
ties, and on the nature and character of out- 
side influences in the environment in which 
the growth takes place." It "accepts without 
qualification the kindergarten doctrine that by 
the judicious exercise of childish tendencies to 
action, whether in play or in simple work, dis- 
positions, habits and resultant characters can 
be modified, developed and formed." 

The Penny Provident Fund of this Settlement 
iift'orded an opportunity to each one of the i'oiv- 
teeii members of the senior class in sociology 
at Barnard College to pay weekly visits to two 
families, represented in its list of publishers. 
Through this free and natural method of inter- 
course, the student visitors were enabled to ob- 
serve for themselves many social facts, which 
were discussed in their lecture course. 

Upward of 10,800 visits and calls were made 
at Hartley House during the year, 7,400 of 
which were made by people of the neighbor- 
hood. 



THE COMMONS. 



13 



New York Settlements have affiliated tliem- 
selvos with the Alliance Employment Bureau, 
whi.-h is organized to secure permanent poui- 
tions for the unemployed. The investigations 
of the conditions in one or more trades Is as- 
signed to each of the settlements.- The points 
of inquiry are the rate and intervals of the 
payment of wages and the pay for overtime, 
the amount, cause and use of fines imposed 
upon employes, the hours of labor by the day 
and season, the length of vacation, with or 
without pay, whether employes work inde- 
pendently or in mutually dependent groups, In 
compliance with factory laws relating to post- 
ing of regulations, full hour for lunch, toilet 
arrangements, seats for employes, apprentice- 
shiplength of without wages, amount of first 
wages and rapidity of rise; whether employes 
belong to a union, if rest or lunch rooms are 
provided, is occupation dangerous, and if so, is 
any precaution or protection guaranteed, is oc- 
cupation crowded, is number of persons em- 
ployed increasing, what proportion of machine 
to hand labor and what are latest improve- 
ments in the machinery used. 

The investigation of the condition of labor 
and wages among women stenographers, and 
laundry condition for women in New York was 
assigned to Hartley House. 



NEXT NUMBER OF THE COMMONS D 
ARTICLES BY SPECIALISTS ON 
THE BOY PROBLEM. 



Send 25 cents to THE COMMONS for 

T5he BOY PROBLEM. 

A STUDY IN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY. 

BY THE 

Rev. William Byron Forbvish, PH. D., Litt. D. 

With an Introduction by 
President G. STANLEY HALL. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. Boy-Life; a summary of the recent scat- 
tered literature of the child-study of adolescence. 
CHAPTER II. Ways iu Which Boys Spontaneously 

Organize Socially; a study of the "gang" and 

child-societies. 
CHAPTER III. Ways in Which Adults Organize in 

Behalf of Boys; a critique of boys' clubs and church 

work for boys. 
CHAPTER IV. Suggestions as to How to Help Boys; 

a constructive stdy. 

FROM THE INTRODUCTION. 

' 'The author, who is both a clergyman and a Doctor 
of Philosophy, has been among boys and done work 
with them that I regard hardly less than epoch mak- 
ing in significance. 

G. STANLEY HALL. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN &/,, COMMONS DURING 1900. 

On* Page 15-00 Half Page $15.00 

Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 

"She New Fourth Edition f College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine WeL\igS McCvilloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature. " Price cloth 350. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 



Enslavement and Emancipation f 
the People. 

An original and practical solution of the problem. 

By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Price in cloth, 75 cents. Published by the Author, 
J. B. Herboldshiner, Gibson City, 111. 

Biblical Sociology. By GraKa/n Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 5oc of THE COMMONS. 
T5he Chvirch in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Booklet orv the Housing Problem. 

"Home Ownership vs. Rented Hoxises." 

Moral Results By Rev. John Morrison. Apply to 
author, London, Ontario, Canada. Price ten cents 
per copy. $5.00 per hundred. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ot view. It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
TKe Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 
(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French - foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cent denomination., at our risk. 
CH&nges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discont in via rices. Please notify us at once if for fny 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 



GRAHAM TAYLOR, - - - - - Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL 



THE information and opinion on the com- 
plex problem of juvenile dependency 
and delinquency which we present herewith 
at first hand from those who personally know 
most of it and officially have most to do with 
it, will prove to be a timely contribution 
toward its solution in Chicago. The public 
mind is awaking to the fact that the small 
boy is one of the largest municipal problems. 
Mr. Robert Treat Paine, the eminent Boston 
authority, long ago attributed the deteriora- 
tion of city populations to these three main 
causes neglected child life, foul houses and 
misapplied charity. Perhaps the greatest 
achievement of the associated charities move- 
ment in Chicago has been the unification of 
the child-saving agencies, not only of the city, 
but of the central and western states, under 
the Children's Home and Aid Society, which is 
making national progress under the expert 
superintendency of Dr. Hastings H. Hart. 
The enactment and wise administration of the 
.Tuvenile Court law, which have been made 
possible by_ the sane co-operation of essen- 
tially the same forces, mark the greatest step 
in advance which could possibly have been 
taken in solving the local situation. In the 
bad old times before this new era began, the 
writer heard burly police magistrates and 
prison officials plead with tears in their tone 
for some change in the criminal-making proce- 
dure with juvenile delinquents which they 
were forced to execute. The fiercest denun- 
ciation of a public policy that ever came to 
his ears was made by a former warden 'of the 
House " of Correction in indignant remem- 
brance of the 9,000 boys whom he had been 
compelled to put through his crime factory in 
the seven years of his superintendency. On an- 
other occasion the declaration of a rough po- 
lice justice was heard in an early committee 



conference over this subject that "any of us 
justices would give you a hundred dollars out 
of his own pocket to be told what better he 
could do with the boys brought before him than 
to send them to the Bridewell." The last re- 
sponse to this bidding happily comes from the 
Commercial Club, composed of the wealthiest 
men of Chicago, in their offer to raise $100,000 
toward the expense of removing the John 
Worthy School from its contaminating prox- 
imity to the city prison to a separate site in 
the country, and also to contribute $125,000 
to enlarge the capacity of 4he Illinois Manual 
Training and Farm School at Glenwood to 
care for 600 boys instead of less than half 
that number. The city of Chicago cannot 
afford not to close with this offer at once. 
Other places can afford to anticipate similar 
situations and prevent them from being real- 
ized by preoccupying and prepossessing the 
boy and girl life with good. . ' 



NOTHING is more needed to Increase the 
efficiency of the social and public service 
of this country than the definite offer of prac- 
tical educational training therefor. Every 
branch of that service now attempted by 
churches, philanthropic organizations, munici- 
palities or the states is more or less crippled 
and ineffective for the lack of subordinates, as 
well as heads of departments and superintend- 
ents, who have had any chance to equip and 
discipline themselves for their delicate, dim- 
cult and far-reaching work. All those for 
whom these agencies are at work suffer life- 
long loss and positive injury at the hand of 
those whose competency or spirit, either or 
both, are inadequate to the great social trust 
of caring for them. The "true bill," which the 
grand jury of public opinion is finding, indicts 
with impartiality the untrained Sunday- 
school or public school teacher, pastor, rabbi 
or priest, charity agent, friendly visitor, set- 
tlement resident, club worker, the Young 
Men's or Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion secretary, prison guard, poorhouse-keeper, 
insane asylum attendant, and every branch of 
the civil list, from the police patrolman to the 
consular service. The few, and for the most 
part feeble, educational efforts to supply this 
practical and imperious demand, although 
ridiculously inadequate, are some of them 
achieving an initial success which Justifies 
stronger, more scientific and better equipped 
means to this end. 



THE COMMONS 



15 



Even if the public and personal demand for 
thorough training in these directions be not 
yet clearly In evidence, nevertheless the mani- 
fest need for it and the surely increasing prev- 
alence of the merit system In the civil service, 
warrant the endeavor upon the part of uni- 
versities or other educational institutionns to 
create the demand by the offer of the supply. 



15he Public Library a.nd the 
Public School. 

"The librarian should know the school and 
its work, in a general way, as a very import- 
ant part of his work, just as the teacher 
should know the library and its methods as 
a part of her work. * * * The children 
should have free access to the library shelves. 
The community should be led to regard the 
library as a necessary part of a system of pub- 
lic education, just as essential as the common 
school. If it is the duty of the state to see 
that its citizens know how to read, it is cer- 
tainly rone the less its duty to see that they 
are so trained that the ability to read will be 
a blessing rather than a curse. A free public 
library is the adult's common school. Pupils 
should know what a library is, what it con- 
tains and how to use it. A child can no more 
be wisely left to get his knowledge and taste 
for literature by himself than to get his math- 
ematical or scientific training in the same 
way. Children must be trained to use the li- 
brary as they are trained to do other things. 
The destiny of a child Is not affected by the 
ability to read, but by the use he makes of 
that ability. * * * The school trains for a 
few years; the library for a life time." Ex- 
tract from circular issued by the National Ed- 
ucational Association. 

There is, perhaps, no library that has done 
more to establish this cordial relation between 
itself and the public school than has the pub- 
lic library of New York City, which, in ad- 
dition to its already well equipped children's 
reading rooms, has recently opened twenty 
branch free libraries in schoolrooms in the 
city's poorest and most congested districts. 

Speaking of the above President O'Brien, of 
the board of education, says the purpose Is to 
put the library where the greatest masses can 
avail themselves of the opportunities which 
the reading rooms afford. "We expect," he 
adds, "to have as great a success with the 11- 
brnries as we have obtained with the free lec- 



tures, and with both working together, we 
hope to establish in New York City a system 
of education for the masses that has not been 
equaled by any other city in the world." 

At a meeting of th Principal's Association 
of Pittsburg, Pa., one year ago, the librarian of 
the public library was invited to give an ad- 
dress. In the address he made an urgent plea 
that steps should be taken to have the work of 
the library with the schools more thoroughly or- 
ganized and systematized. A committee was 
at once appointed to co-operate with the li- 
brarian and his assistants in the preparation 
of a carefully selected and graded list of books 
most suitable for school use, apart from the 
ordinary text book. To this general committee 
were added nine sub-committees. 

The graded and annotated catalogue which 
they have recently Issued is unique, and can 
be compared with no other in fullness and 
completeness. An excellent handbook for 
teacher or parent it will be the means of 
vitalizing the entire work of the school, of 
awakening among children that enthusiasm 
for good reading which Is the highest guaran-' 
tee of true culture, good habits and genuine 
character. 

Besides the children's reading rooms, tdis 
Pittsburg library has for the past three years 
successfully used the Home Library system, a 
scheme which has been thoroughly tested in 
Boston and elsewhere, usually in connection 
with charitable organizations and women's 
clubs. Library Boards have been last to realize 
what opportunities are here opened, and that 
there is no more legitimate work for the pub- 
lic library. 

Twenty-five dollars purchases a small book 
case and a number of well selected books for 
children and a year's subscription to Youth's 
Companion, Saint Nicholas or some child's pa- 
per. This little library is left in a home, 
where once each week a librarian from the 
Central library, or a volunteer visitor gathers 
a group of the neighborhood children about 
the case. At this time books are given out, 
and the case is closed until the next week. 
"When all the books have been read by the 
group the library Is exchanged for another. 
The group admits of indefinite expansion, ac- 
cording to the calls of the children, or the . 
visitor's ability to draw them out. 

Foremost among the cities all over the coun- 
try that are doing noble work in the line of 
library extension, must be mentioned Boston, 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo. Detroit and -Mil- 
waukee; Omaha, St. Louis, Denver and San 
Francisco in the west; and the splendid move- 
ment which has been started in New Orion us. 
Not in large cities alone, but in many smaller 
ones, the work 5s growing. Michigan City, 
Ind., limited in space, cut off one corner of its 
delivery room for this purpose, where now on 
special days certain grades from the public 
schools are invited that both teachers and pu- 
pils may become familiar with the resources 
of the library and the means of using them. 



Mother to Child. 

"Thou are one with the world tho I love thee the 

best, 

And to save thee from pain, I must save all the rest 
Thou wilt weep; and thy mother must dry 
The tears of the world, lest her darling should cry. 

I will do it God helping! 

For the sake of my child I must hasten to save 
All the children on earth from the jail and the grave 
For so and so only, I lighten the share 
Of the pain of the world that my daring must bear 
Even so and so only! " 

Greatsoul. 



T5he Month at Chicago Commons 

For the information of such of our readers 
as have inquired about the address of Mr. 
John P. Gavit, formerly editor of THE COM- 
MONS, we state that his present address Is 
Wilmerding, Pa., but in case of any from 
whose mind this information escapes, we will 
always be glad to forward any matter sent 
through THE COMMONS. We recently had the 
pleasure of receiving his first visit back home. 

The house-warming of the Men's Club 
rooms in the new building, given by the 
Neighborhool League, was "a grand opening" 
of the right sort. 

The Roanoke Athletic Club earned the pre- 
eminence of putting the gymnasium to its first 
use. Their rousing entertainment enables 
them to bear their fair share of the expense in 
fitting up the club-rooms which they have as- 
sumed jointly with the Neighborhood League. 

The center of attraction for young men and 
women, as well as the boys and the girls, is 
very manifestly the gymnasium, which, for 
the lack of the investment of only $500 or 
$600 in apparatus is as yet put to the partial 
but enjoyably profitable use of indoor baseball 
and basket-ball, wand exercises, etc. 



The Women's fine suite of rooms has been 
furnished by the co-operation of the Woman's 
Club, the Progressive Club for younger 
women, and the Tabernacle Ladies' Aid and 
Missionary Society. The first receptions given 
by each of these organizations created an at- 
mosphere of sociability as ruddy as any fire 
that may ever glow on their hearth. The club 
kitchen, well equipped with its gas range, 
cupboards and colossal coffee urn, has begun 
to shed its good cheer. 

The musical groups have all been trans- 
ferred to the new building. The children's 
chorus is rapidly recruiting its numbers; the 
Choral Club shares with the reorganized or- 
chestra the use of the auditorium platform. 
The sound-proofing of the floors and walls 
proves so successful that practically no inter- 
ference is suffered by the groups ineetinng 
directly above them. 

The Shakespeare Club afforded the other lit- 
erary groups a rare treat in the rendering of 
Macbeth by Prof. S. II. Clark, of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago, which will long be remem- 
bered by those who heard this masterful inter- 
pretation. 

The equipment of our cooking school in the 
new building has been assured by the gener- 
ous co-operation of the Kilo Association, 
which, from the surplus accumulated by its 
largely patronized and wisely managed Noon- 
day-Rest Lunch Club, appropriated $250 to 
this purpose. This will enable us to put Our 
fine new cooking-school kitchen at the use of 
the many classes of girls and young women, 
who, despite the inadequacy of their old quar- 
ters, have rallied a membership of 108. We 
hope also to be able to start on a small scale 
a Noonday-Rest lunch club of our own, with 
the co-operation of some of the teachers in our 
neighboring public schools, who will form the 
nucleus of the club. 



Chicago Commons is in great need of a small 
fire-proof safe for the Settlement office in the 
new building. Cannot some of its friends put 
us in the way of receiving the gift of a sec- 
ond-hand safe? 



Speciivl Rates for Special Numbers 
' of 'She Commons. 

Any number under twenty-five copies, five 
cents each; over twenty-live and under one 
hundred, three cents each; over one hundred, 
two aad one-half cents each. 



T5he BOY PROBLEM, By Some who are Solving It. 

TKe Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View 



Whole Number 56. 



CHICAGO 



March. 1901. 



A Child Went Forth. 

There was a child went forth one day, 

And the first object he looked upon, that object he 

became, 
And that object became a part of him for the day 

or a certain part of the day, 
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. 



The early lilacs became part of this chi'.d, .... 

And the apple-trees covered with blossoms and the 
fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the com- 
monest weeds by the road, 

And the old drunkard staggering home from the 
outhouse of the tavern whence he had lately 
risen, 

And the schoolmistress that pass'd on her way to 
the school, 

And the friendly boys that pass'd, and the quarrel- 
some boys, 

And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls, and the bare- 
foot negro boy and girl, 

And all the changes of the city and country wherever 
he went 

The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on 

the supper-table, 
The mother, with mild words, cleaning her cap and 

gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person 

and clothes as she walks by, 
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, 

nnger'd, unjust, 
The blow, the quick, loud word, the tight bargain, 

the crafty lure. 
The family usages, the language, the company, the 

furniture, the yearning and swelling 'heart, 
Affection that will not b gainsay'd, the sense 9f 

what is real, the thought if after all it should 

prove unreal, 
The doubt of day-time and the doubts of night-time, 

the curious whether and how. 
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all 

flashes and specks? 
Men ana women crowding fast in the streets, if 

they are not flashes and specks what are they? 
The strets themselves and the facades of houses, 

and goods in the windows, 
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank'd wharves, the 

huge crossing at the ferries 

These became part of that child who went forth 

every day, and who now goes, and will always 

go forth every day. 

Excerpts from Walt Whitman's Poem. 



Where anything is growing, one formatory is 
worth a thousand reformatories. Horace Mann. 



Forbush's ""Ghe Boy Problem." 

Dr. G. Stanley Hall in a brief, but notable, 
introduction to this remarkable pamphlet con- 
siders the author's work with boys "hardly less 
than epoch-making." He adds that he is "pro- 
foundly convinced that a new day is dawning 
in the work of the church for the young; that 
we must pause, reconsider and take our bear- 
ings anew; that there is a light about to break 
forth from genetic psychology and pedagogy 
that will show things in new relations and will 
convict some of our best ways and means in 
the past of error and bring a wealth of new 
suggestions." 

This study of the "social pedagogy of boy- 
hood" is reprinted in pamphlet form, by spe- 
cial permission, from The Pedagogical Sem- 
inary of Clark University, in order to put it 
within the reach of those who could not afford 
to secure it in the expensive form in which it 
was originally issued. 

Dr. Forbush divides his work into four parts: 
"A study of the boy life," "A study of the ways 
in which children spontaneously organize so- 
cially," "A study of the ways adults organize 
for the benefit of boys," and '"Suggestions as 
to how to help boys," concluding the work by 
a "Bibliography of works referred to." 

The "boy life" he divides into three parts: 
"Infancy," from birth to seven: "Childhood," 
from seven to twelve, and "Adolescence," from 
twelve to manhood. 

The infant is characterized by his activity 
and instinct. This is the time when "by imi- 
tation of correct models to evolve the great 
habit of adolescence." 

In boyhood the activity becomes more "self- 
directed" and the higher qualities of memory, 
emotion, and self-consciousness begin to be de- 
veloped. The play instinct is most prominent. 
The infant plays alone, while the child begins 
to play with others. "To take advantage of 
this play instinct which enfolds in itself so 
many other instincts is the newest problem of 
education." During this period the >boy changes 
from "a bundle of instincts to a bundle of hab- 
its." "Boyhood is the time for forming habits." 



THE COMMONS 



Adolescence is the time of change. It is 
called an "unselflng." It is the period of cri- 
sis. It is the "approaching end of the plastic 
period." "The will is born." 

The boy does not begin to be a social being 
until he reaches the period of childhood. His 
life in infancy is centered in the home. The 
home has "unhampered opportunity" during 
the period of infancy. After this period the 
boy becomes gradually, on the play-ground and 
in the school, a social being. He begins "spon- 
taneously" to organize. Some very interesting 
figures are given of 623 societies of this kind, 
showing, among other facts, that boys and 
girls do not naturally organize together; that 
very few literary, art, or religious societies are 
formed, and that in the period of greatest activ- 
ity, between the ages of 10 and 15, are athletic 
and game clubs. 

Dr. Forbush notes three things from the 
study of boys' own natural organizations: 1. 
Take the boy at 10 and hold him until well 
past the adolescence period. 2. Physical activ- 
ities must be the basis for work. 3. Boys and 
girls should not be organized together, and at 
the adolescence period the leaders should be 
men. 

On organizations formed for boys by adults 
a very suggestive table is prepared showing at 
what age and in what numbers boys are inter- 
ested in certain organizations. No one method 
is best, but all depend on the personality of the 
leader. The organizations are divided into two 
kinds those that have and those that have 
not the religious element. "Probably the com- 
munity club can make the more boys good and 
the church club the fewer boys better," but 
boys' clubs are a necessity in the social struc- 
ture. 

A very just criticism is made of organiza- 
tions such as the Boys' Branch of Y. M. C. A., 
the Junior Endeavor, the Knights of King 
Arthur, Captains of Ten, the Sunday School, 
etc. 

The "suggestions as to how to help boys" 
are invaluable. First of all, the home. "A 
home without a good eventime is a home with- 
out hope." Sundays should be next to the 
evenings the greatest opportunity in the, home. 

The outline of the "Andover Play-School and 
Boys' Club" is helpful. "He who can look into 
a circle of shining children's eyes and tell a 
good tale knows one of earth's finest luxuries." 
"We should give each boy something to know, 
something to love and something to do." 

A scheme is given for a system of church 



education for boys which is good, and it is 
true, as Dr. Forbush says, it takes no prophet 
to foretell that this is to be the center of the 
church work in the new century. "This is the 
new crusade." "Let us help make the men of 
to-morrow!" 

The Sabbath Literature Co., Albany, N. Y., 
Publishers. Order through THE COMMONS. 
Price 25 cents. 



15he Boy Problem in the Church- 

WILLIAM BYRON FORBUSH. 

The dangers and possibilities of the age of 
awakening, restlessness and crisis in a boy's 
life, the sad and terrifying facts which come 
to light from many sources as to its neglect 
and perversions and the inadequacy of so 
many plans for meeting the situation make 
louder the demand that "something should be 
thought of and something should be done. 
Many will share my own conviction that the 
problem of the adolescent boy is the greatest 
one the church faces or can face. True, the 
men are not in the churches, and the fact is a 
sad one. True, our young men are in danger. 
But work with men is largely too late, while 
work with boys is work with the men of to- 
morrow. 

It is a curious fact that the boys most in 
need of succor are of two classes, the children 
of the rich and the children of the very poor. 
Here, as elsewhere, the life and activities of 
the common people are the sound core of the 
nation's strength. The boys of the rich are 
debauched by luxury and the free use of 
money. The boj - s of the very poor are degen- 
erated by the opposite causes, lack of nutri- 
tion, instruction and good example. Auotuer 
fact which shapes the whole problem is that 
most boys are Jiving to-day in what is for 
them an artificial environment. They live in 
cities. No one who has dealt with boys suc- 
cessively in rural regions, large towns and the 
city could have failed to notice how much less 
potent in grasp, attention and efficiency are 
city boys, living between walls and pavements 
and among a thousand distractions and allure- 
ments, than country boys, with their freedom, 
contact with nature and wild life and oppor- 
tunity for origination in work and play in 
woodland, pasture, and carpenter shop in the 
barn. 

Of the facts that encourage the church to 
do better its duty with boys I will name but 
one, one which is being much thought of by 
many, the fact that in almost every boy's life 



THE COMMONS 



somewhere between 12 and 18 there usually 
comes a point or period of crisis. This crisis, if 
it be a religious one, we call conversion, but 
there is much to teach that a choice -of a pro- 
fession or career, the breaking or the making 
of a habit, falling in love, at this era, are mani- 
festations of the same law, namely, a natural 
regeneration which accompanies the awaken- 
ing of the sex-function, the moral ideal and 
the independent will. "This," says E. G. Lan- 
caster, "is the focal point of all psychology." 
It is the definitive battleground of all wise 
philanthropy. Upon the results of this crisis 
all after life depends. 

I may best suggest help by pointing out the 
defects of our present instrumentalities for 
boys in the church. These various agencies are 
not the ark of the covenant, and it would not 
be iconoclasm to criticise or even to destroy 
them if better means could be found to take 
their places. The deepest thing I have heard 
said lately was by the Rev. Charles E. Mc- 
Kinley: "Every method or agency used in 
Christian work must give account to God not 
only for the souls whom it wins and saves, 
but also for all whom it alienates and de- 
stroys." We are not to be satisfied with our 
success among little children, big girls and old 
women, if in trying to reach live boys by the 
same methods we find that we cannot touch 
their nature or needs. 

The Sunday School calls first for examina- 
tion. The startling fact that emerges at once 
is that we are losing our boys here at just 
the time when psychologists tell us they are 
most sensitive to religious impression. It is at 
Just this age that the school fails in its adapt- 
ation to child-nature. How does it fail so to 
adapt itself? 

Chiefly, I think, in three ways in teachers, 
in apparatus and in manuals and system of in- 
struction. 

What we need for teachers are virile, versa- 
tile men who have knowledge of boy nature. 
The boy now craves a hero, one who can do 
the things he tries to do better than he can 
and who will not immerse him in the slush of 
sentiment nor transfix him in the agony of 
personal appeal. The knowledge of boy-nature 
which is here desired is not given in any hand- 
book of normal training that I have seen. It 
is found only in the most recent and special 
university studies of the child. Yet much of 
it may be secured by observation, common 
sense and memories of one's own boyhood. 

In apparatus the main rooms of our Sunday 
School are notably deficient as compared with 



the same grade in the public schools and in 
contrast with their own primary departments. 
One reason a boy leaves Sunday School is be- 
cause that when he leaves the blackboards, 
sand maps and kindergarten material of the 
primary room he comes out only to bare chairs 
and floor space. We must soon teach our {>jBys 
in Sunday School graphically, as they au> 
taught in the day school. We must have^at'/ 
least lap-boards and some measure of privacy. 
The teacher should interest himself in free- 
hand drawing, elementary carpentering and 
some sort of a Biblical museum. Some inter- 
esting experiments could be described, if there 
were time, by which boys are made active in 
making maps of paper pulp and oriental arti- 
cles constructed in miniature in wood, paper 
and cloth, in the use of pencil and water color 
and in discovering side lights to the lesson 
from modern biography and the newspapers. 

The question paper is a survival of the Lan- 
castrian system of education, and the method 
has long been obsolete in secular education. 
As to the International Lesson System, the 
radical defect is not at all reached by way of 
correction in lengthening the scripture pass- 
ages or broadening the scope of the lesson as 
the Committee are beginning to do or by the 
various excellent improvements of Mr. Blakes- 
lee. What is wanted is not an adaptation of 
every part of the Bible to the younger grades, 
but a selecting of those parts of the Bible for 
the younger grades which are adapted to them 
and teaching those only. Dr. Dawson's mas- 
terly , study of "Children's Interests in the 
Bible" shows that the ideal order is something 
like this an order which closely follows the 
actual order of the Bible itself: Teaching the 
love and care of God, the heavenly Father, and 
the Christmas-child story of the first chapters 
of the new Testament to little children, teach- 
ing the facts of virtue, integrity and retribu- 
tion as illustrated by the heroes of the Bible 
to children in the habit-making period from 8 
to 12, teaching the life of Christ in its strength 
and splendor to adolescents, teaching the phil- 
osophy and deeper things of the Word to those 
who are older. 

The practical question is, How, with the 
model system and method yet unpublished, 
can a church introduce the right way into its 
school? There are some ways of relief. Some 
very suggestive primary lessons have already 
been published, notably Miss Florence tl. 
Palmer's "Year of Sunday School Lessons." 
For the intermediate children there is an ex- 
cellent course on the Heroes of the Bible in 



THE COMMONS 






the BlaUeslee system. For adolescent boys 
much help can be gained from "The Life of 
Christ for Boys' Bible Classes," by W. H. Da- 
vis, of the Brooklyn Y. M. C. A., especially in 
combination with his hints as to picture work 
and manual work. 

We may turn next to a school of devotion 
and practice which, though yet young, has se- 
cured a strong- foothold in thousands of 
churches. I refer to the Junior or Intermedi- 
ate Endeavor Society and kindred organiza- 
tions. The Endeavor movement soon found a 
practical difficulty in the fact that its young 
people, some of whom were quite young when 
they entered, remained in the society year after 
year, and that just as soon as their average 
age began to increase it became almost impos- 
sible to gather in younger members. To meet 
this need, in 1884 Junior societies and a few 
years later Intermediate societies began to be 
established, formed in complete imitation of 
the societies of older young people. Thus nat- 
urally, and yet we may say somewhat thought- 
lessly, an institution was introduced into our 
churches with the same name and methods as 
one already existing, but with no query as to 
whether means that were adaptable to persons 
from 16 to 60 would be perfectly natural to 
boys and girls from 10 to 1C. 

An interesting test as to whether these 
Junior societies do actually suit young chil- 
dren may be taken from the results of a care- 
ful study recently made at Clark University 
of the societies, clubs and gangs which chil- 
dren spontaneously organize. If interest is the 
key to influence, what boys like to do is a 
criterion as to the sort of things which it is 
wise to do for them. Three things were defi- 
nitely discovered regarding these societies, 
whose existence is so startlingly general that 
eight-tenths of the children examined from 10 
to 15 years of age had part in them. Physical 
activity, in the forms of play, construction, 
wandering and athletics, was the supreme in- 
terest, 85% per cent of the societies having 
this as its characteristic. Philanthropy, de- 
bating, art, music and literature, etc.. were 
almost absent. Boys and girls almost never 
organized together. 

We see at once that all our branch church 
societies ignore these three facts, for they are 
mostly organizations for sitting still, they aim 
directly at the religious and philanthropic, and 
they include boys and girls together. 

Religion in a child may be real, but it is 
only a promise. It is not yet time to talk 
about it or display it in any vocal way. 



With boys especially this is a time of re- 
serves, the distance between apprehension and 
expression is never so long as now, it is more 
important to brood than to utter, and public 
prayer or testimony or opinion is, in this imi- 
tative age, sure to be parrot-like and unnat- 
ural. It is a period when a boy tries to be 
honest with himself. The insistence upon the 
ironclad, lifelong pledge and the easy toler- 
ance of its frequent infraction does this qual- 
ity of his nature a serious wrong. There is 
also another fact which should not be for- 
gotten. Life comes on in waves, between 
which are rhythms or lulls. Those who have 
much to do with boys intimately and many 
men from their memory of childhood have tes- 
tified that conversion is quite apt to come in 
three successive waves of increasing power 
about two or three years apart. Between these 
waves there is a period of depression, caused 
perhaps by puberal or other physical changes. 
In these lulls the child is apt to think he has 
lost his faith or sinned away his day of grace. 
It seems to me that the Junior methods are 
very apt to intensify the morbidness and intro- 
spection of these curious intermediary periods. 

The catechetical revival, whatever its pro- 
fession, impresses me as little more than an 
attempt to supplement the deficiencies of both 
Sunday School and Endeavor Society by 
means of an instrumentality obsolete in edu- 
cation for centuries. In the Presbyterian, 
Protestant Episcopal, Lutheran. Reformed and 
Methodist churches the old doctrinal, iron- 
bound catechisms are already formally pre- 
scribed by church law and the revival of the 
method means the revival of a pernicious sys- 
tem and a mediaeval theology. In our own 
denomination a fresher task has been attempt- 
ed. Many of the new manuals omit answers 
and some omit questions, many drop the word 
catechism, and close inquiry shows that to the 
pastor-teacher the manual is simply the solu- 
tion book, like what the school teacher surrepti- 
tiouslyused when teaching Wentworth's Geom- 
etry, while personality and free fellowship be- 
tween teacher and pupils are really everv- 
thing. The only objection I see to the move- 
ment is that any attempt should be made to 
make it general. There are at least four dan- 
gers which might beset a person who was a 
mere imitator and used the manual of another. 
One danger is that we forget that while early 
adolescence, say the age of twelve, is the right 
time to be looking after the child, his age for 
formulating systems does not come for five 
or six years later. Another danger is that we 



THE COMMONS 



should expect to be able to teach life out of a 
booklet as we teach the exact sciences and the 
dead languages. The laboratory metnod and 
not the recitation method, learning by doing, 
is needed. A third danger is that in emphasiz- 
ing memory, which we may properly do since 
the school neglects that faculty, we teach 
proof texts, the dried figs of theology, instead 
of the great inspiring passages of truth and 
faith. The last danger, and to me it would 
be insurmountable in such a method, is to find 
thus the point of contact. Here is a bounding, 
bursting boy, with his heroisms and enthu- 
siasms and a new sexual, social and moral na- 
ture that almost overpowers him, full of 
moods, doubts and obstinacies. Do you mean 
to say that your quiet, logical, sweetly reason- 
able catechetical method really comes to where 
that boy lives and finds him at home? I con- 
fess I cannot see how it does. 

There are several dangers and difficulties in 
dealing with boys which are inherent to all 
these methods and are besetments in any 
other. One of these is tradition. The fad 
of today becomes tomorrow the traditional way 
of doing things, and before we know it we have 
no other. 

Another difficulty is uniformity. Tradition is 
the mortmain of yesterday, tout uniformity is 
the iron grasp of today. Wherever it is it throt- 
tles conviction and strangles individualism, 
progress and soul-freedom. 

There is also the temptation of numbers. As 
long as people love to roll on their tongues the 
fact that there are 15,000,000 people In Amer- 
ica's Sunday Schools and read with awe the 
quarterly accounts of the growth in figures of 
the Endeavor movement, they will cease to try, 
to find out that things need to be measured and 
weighed as well as counted and that the other 
millions whom our thoughtless and careless 
methods alienate cry up to God continually, in 
the face of our complacency. 

But in dealing with boys there is often quite 
an opposite tendency. It is the danger of cod- 
dling. Supposing the leader has few boys In- 
stead of many and is using many thoughtful 
methods, he may awake some day to find that 
he has done so much for them that they have 
become paupers upon his charge for recreation, 
incentive and material for character. 

But the greatest danger is unnaturalness. It 
is safe to say that when one talks with a boy 
in the Sunday School class upon religious mat- 
ters the teacher and the boy are almost never 
their real selves. One of the axioms of social 
effort is never to create a condition among those 



whom you try to help which you cannot make 
a permanent one. This is the immorality of an 
ordinary revival. It creates in the hot night 
atmosphere of a church in the presence or a 
crowd and with the accompaniment of fervid 
eloquence and exciting music a social and sense 
condition which cannot be carried out into the 
daylight and the home and business. So the 
Sunday School teacher must be natural. It is 
a cowardly thing to say personal things and 
ask searching questions of a boy in the midst 
of his fellows which you would not dare to ask 
that boy privately in ordinary conversation. It 
is to protect these reserves thus rudely assault- 
ed that a boy puts on with his Sunday suit a 
disguise which he carries to the hand to hand 
encounters of the Sunday School and Junior 
society. The teaching which merely touches 
that artificial boyhood will be easily slipped off 
when the disguise is removed Sunday evening 
and the boy goes forth to tire sport and free- 
dom of Monday. 

We are unnatural in method often because 
we expect unnatural results. I have already 
spoken of the danger of making prigs. Dr. Wil- 
liam J. Mutsch sensibly points out that results 
which are purely religious when produced in 
young children are always to be regarded with 
suspicion. The boy is living on the ethical 
rather than the spiritual level until he is well 
along in adolescence. He needs homely virtues 
more than spiritual graces. We are to try not 
to make little men, manikins, but the promise 
of manliness. "Even a child is known" not by 
his praying, testifying, ecstacies but "by his 
doing." 

In general, methods should apply to nearly 
all the boys as fast as they come to the age for 
approach. Since the Sunday School is the in- 
strumentality through which pass nearly all 
the children of the community, it is this agency 
which I would exalt and improve and enlarge 
rather than those which have followed it. 

Methods should be natural in order and ap- 
plication, elastic and rich in variety and adapt- 
ed to interest and enthuse those whom we 
reach. More and more I think we may be care- 
less whether our own plan is named after or 
affiliated with any larger movement, since 
there are so many to draw help from and since 
the purpose of us who have the work to do is 
not to glorify any society or movement but to 
make manhood out of its stuff, boys. 

As to the subjects of teaching, there are the 
great landmarks of religion taught in the Bible 
and which I outlined when I spoke of the Sun- 
day School curriculum. Hardly less important 



6 



THE COMMONS 



are the applications in conduct and the empha- 
sis of the fact that character, as President 
Hyde tells us, '-is chiefly to do one's work well." 
To boys in the city and those who have few 
advantages there are many things supplemen- 
tary to school life which may well be taught, 
especially those constructive crafts and plays 
which arouse the energies, focus the attention, 
train the will, make the child creative and 
direct to his life mission. 

To avoid the danger of coddling I would 
see that the boy had something to do for the 
church as well as the church something for 
him. In the boy choir, the giving of enter- 
tainments, the sliaring of good times with oth- 
ers and in missionary instruction and activity 
this can be accomplished. 

There are three special instrumentalities 
which I would particularly commend. One is 
the church service. Mr. McKinley, whom I 
have quoted before, exalts this as the divinely 
appointed agency for the redemption of boys. 
He calls attention to it as the opportunity 
"where, all unquestioned and all unobserved, 
he may lift up his heart to God, where, without 
being hastened or pressed, he may think out 
his long thoughts until they settle his char- 
acter for life." A rich, expressive service, 
thoughtful and generous prayer and fervid, 
luminous preaching surely these are bread of 
life to the age of wonder and awakening. It 
is the audience to inspire the preacher, for this 
is the age where influence reaches so deep that 
it begins to touch conduct. It is much easier 
to secure the attendance of boys than is imag- 
ined. A simple annual reward offered to all, 
the wide-awakeness of the Sunday School 
teacher, the cordial invitation of the pastor, 
and something for the boy when he comes 
these seem to be the requisites. 

A second instrumentality is friendship and 
kindness. When I gave up pastoral calling on 
the old plan of ringing so many door bells a 
year and being careful not to ring one oftener 
than I did another, and sought to go where I 
was needed, I found I began to know my peo- 
ple. One goes nearly as often, for God sends 
an angel of joy or sorrow to each household 
every year, but one goes as a man and not as 
an officer. So with boys. If we seek to know 
thorn at play, in school and at home as well 
as at church, we find a chance to share their 
sorrows and joys and to speak the word or 
hold out the hand of help for an education or 
for sympathy or in temptation. At that hour 
the boy becomes the disciple and the preacher 
finds his apostle. 



There is, finally, that matter of the crisis, 
the birth-hour of the soul- It used to be met 
by the revival. Now many meet it by a de- 
cision day. In some way, some natural way, 
in which choices should be expressed but not 
made public or counted, our Puritan churches 
must await and reap from the days in the 
valley of decision which come to all men, and 
especially to the young in heart. 

My message is really this. We must rely 
less upon scheming and method and cease to 
look for the prophet of a miracle movement 
that shall solve our problem. W T e shall save 
our boys as Jesus did the world, by incarna- 
tion. For them we must go down into the 
Galilee of simpleheartedness and the Samaria 
of commonplace and dwell at the Nazareth of 
childish toil and struggle and kneel in the Geth- 
semane of intercession, yea, and climb the sac- 
rificial mound of Calvary, with the fathers 
and mothers and saints of old, to bring them 
to God and to form in them the eternal life of 
a new creation. 



From the Hartford Conference 
Abovit Boys. 

FROM "HOW TO HELP BOYS." 

George W. Morgan says of "Hebrew Boys' 
Clubs:" One of the most striking traits of the 
Jewish boy's character is its intensity. His 
intellectual side is developed at the expense 
of the physical. "He is. a most accomplished 
mental gymnast." So you must attend to his 
emotional nature. He is 1 also an extremist. 
He is one moment an optimist, then in the 
deepest dispair. This condition is due to his 
environment. He Is "stricken down and 
thrown together in heaps, bound hand and 
foot by hostile legislation, cut off from means 
of livelihood and literally crammed with a 
religion which to him is more distasteful than 
poison. * * *" What has this to do with 
Hebrew boys' clubs? It is the thesis on which 
all successful work must proceed. 

The Jewish child develops a keen intellect 
in early life; at twelve years of age his "capac- 
ity for argument far exceeds his capacity for 
play." Thus on the physical side intellectual 
exertion is more attractive to the Jew. One 
great danger in our social work is Chat we 
give too much. "If the settlement movement 
is ever successful, it must do more than give." 
Show the boy how he can serve himself and 
others. 



THE COMMONS 



What Ca tholics are Doing for 
Yo\ing Men. 

BV THOMAS J. BUTLER. 

In Europe, Asia, Africa and America about 
1600 or 1700 "Christian Brothers" are devoting 
their whole time to the boys. There are over 
400,000 boys attending the day and night 
schools. In Connecticut the Sisters teach these 
schools. 

In Statcn Island there is a home for boys, 
where at least 15,000 are taught trades. These 
come from the neglected children of our great 
centers. A similar school is located in West- 
Chester County, X. \. There are hundreds of 
such places in America. There are over 80,000 
members enrolled in the "Catholic Total Ab- 
stinence Union of America." The "Holy Name 
Society" has a large membership in Connec- 
ticut. This society is for promoting reverence 
for the holy name of Jesus. In New York and 
Brooklyn there are 25,000 members. If the 
boys are good the men of the future will be 
noble. 



15he Scope of the Y. M. C- A- 

Boys' Work- 

BY EDGAR M. ROBINSON. 

The association is just beginning to realize 
the importance of the work for boys. At pres- 
ent there are enrolled 25,000 boys. These boys 
represent all classes. The scope of the work 
is to help every boy according to his need. The 
ideal is the "happy, healthy normal boy filled 
with the Christ purpose and striving to live 
out the 'Christ Hie of loving service." The 
agencies now used are the gymnasium, bowl- 
ing alleys, basket-ball leagues, base-ball clubs, 
summer camps, hospital corps, educational 
clubs, reading rooms, etc. The general opinion 
prevails that the association works only with 
boys over twelve years of age. Our aim is to 
stand for the highest type of abilities and 
above all to win the boyhood of this world for 
Jesus Christ. 



15he Commons Boys' Work- 

We have about 250 boys in our small group 
clubs with 11 leaders. Several of our leaders 
have more than one club, so each club numbers 
from 10 to 20 boys. 



One feature of our clubs has proved very 
interesting and helpful. Occasionally we vary 
the regular club work by a more quiet meet- 
ing. We arrange a program, each boy taking 



some part, either reciting, singing, telling 
stories or playing on some instrument. Then 
we have some simple refreshments. In this 
way the boys' individuality is drawn out. 
In one of these meetings an Italian boy 16 
years old told in a very interesting way, in 
detail, the story of the "Merchant of Venice." 
This fact is proved give a boy a chance for 
originality and you can see him develop and 
you ran win his love. 



Near the Commons is an interesting example 
of a "gang" club. There are about a dozen mem- 
bers of this club, boys from 16 to 18 years of 
age. They rent two small rooms at $5.00 per 
mouth, and each member has a key to the 
rooms, so is free to enter any time during 
the day, while the whole club gathers in the 
evening to play cards, box, tell stories, read 
the daily papers and smoke, and often have 
a "rough-house." They have adopted the 
name given them, as a "gang," by the neigh- 
borhood. This club grew out of a need which 
the neighborhood did not supply, a demand for 
a place where the boys could gather every 
night. 



A Boys* Clxib- 

GLIMPSES OF A SOCIAL SETTLEMENT BOYS' CLUB. 
BY EDWIX F. WALKER. 

"Sure, Billy!" And this to the aristocratic 
Mr. Charles Brownell, Jr., who was in the 
agonies of his third evening of trying to man- 
age a boys' club consisting of a dozen young 
hoodlums. In desperation, he had, this even- 
ing, suggested a debate. They all seemed will- 
ing enough to talk but the trouble was they 
all wanted to talk at once. He was trying to 
open the debate and had just made the ap- 
peal: "Say, boys, give a fellow a chance. I'm 
talking now." 

It was to this that' Pat had vociferously re- 
sponded, "Sure, Billy!" And Brownell felt 
willing to be addressed by any title if they 
would only agree to be still. 

But Pat's remark called forth a volley of 
comment, and the air was filled with, "That's 
the stuff, Pat." "You're dead right." "Go 
ahead, Bill," here Brownell imagined himself 
referred to again. "Now you're off, Ken- 
wood!" no doubt this time. But with the 
street boys shouting, "Sure!" "Dry up, you 
kids!" "Go on!" "Ring off!" "Shut up, you 
fellers!" they were killing him with their kind- 
and that each boy had on a clean shirt. Jerry 
joined a game of dominoes and at his first 



8 



THE COMMONS 



ness. Picking out Jerry, the worst of the bad 
lot, Brownell asked him if he wouldn't like to 
sit beside him. There was a hush for an in- 
stant, but when Jerry, with a smirk, said, 
"Thanks, awfully," and clambered across the 
top of the table, his nerve was duly appre- 
ciated .by the boys, who made such a racket 
that the resident in charge of the boys' clubs 
came down stairs and said they must go home. 
After each boy in turn had^been driven from 
under the table, out from the coal rooms, from 
behind the woodpile, out of the corners of 
that vast basement, down the hall and counted 
as the door closed behind him, Brownell was 
ready to resign. 

The "Boss of Boys" laughed a hearty, good- 
natured laugh as he put his hand on his shoul- 
der and said, "And you are the young man 
who told me you felt that somehow these boys 
were not given a fair chance in this world and 
you could well afford to give one evening a 
week to helping them." 

"But I am not helping them. They are get- 
ting worse." 

"Oh, no, they are not. You must remember 
what they are and where they come from. Not 
one of them is sixteen years old and yet nearly 
all of them have more than once been arrested 
for disorderly conduct when they were drunk. 
What can you expect when the fathers of some 
of them are the worst drunkards in the ward? 
What kind of a boy would you have been if 
you father, and your mother, too, had been 
drunk half the time? And then the best of 
them haven't any better place to call 'home' 
than two or three small rooms in which the 
whole family is packed. I tell you, it is worth 
all your trouble just to give these boys a good 
time once a week." 

"They seem to enjoy it," said Brownell 
grimly. 

"Well, that is a comfort," said the "Boss of 
Boys" in his wholesome way. "And remem- 
ber, Brownell," he said as they worked to 
clear up the room, "they are tame beside what 
they were last year. Then they would break 
chairs and tables every night; and put out all 
the gas in the house by blowing in one burner; 
and one night, by way of variety, they threw 
bricks through the windows. Stand by the 
ship, Brownell, and you will win them yet." 

Week after week he devoted his Monday 
evenings to the boys, hoping to give them a 
good time and to instil in them a desire for 
cleanliness in their persons, clothes, words and 
lives. The boys were always on hand, laugh- 
ing and shouting, but every time they had to 



be put out before the hour was over. 
Brownell's best stories failed to hold their at- 
tention, and their comments on his ability as 
an "all star show" were far from flattering. 

He gave the treasures of his boyhood, his 
books of adventure, to start a circulating li- 
brary among them; but the boys were "afraid 
to tackle" the books without pictures, even 
those with pictures were "no good" and each 
warned the other against wasting time on 
them. 

The experiment with Indian clubs was a 
total failure. In less than two minutes a 
promiscuous batting of heads convinced him 
that an instant recovery of the clubs was ne- 
cessary if either heads or clubs were to be 
of any future use. 

They carried off the crokonoles in their pock- 
ets, and in various ways managed to cripple 
all the games he brought them. 

They ruined more material for the basket 
weaving than they ever used. In fact, things 
seemed to go from bad to worse and Brownell 
went home each time with a bad attack of 
the blues in addition to "having the boys" as 
the exhaustion is called that usually follows 
an attempt to hold the attention of street 
arabs. But one wild stormy night, by being 
on hand as usual he aroused the first atom 
of respect they had ever felt for him. Al- 
though they crowded around him to warm 
their hands on his red necktie, they took to 
heart his one and only criticism of their pro- 
fanity "Tut, boys." For Brownell felt that 
they already had enough policeman tactics in 
their lives and if he could not help them to do 
right for right's sake, he at least would not 
make them do it because he said so. 

Two months later he brought down a basket 
of sandwiches and popcorn balls, and the boys 
actually asked if they might wash their hands 
and faces before starting on "de feed." And 
more wonderful still, they politely passed the 
dishes at the table, grabbed for nothing, threw 
not a single popcorn ball. 

In the spring, Jerry, who since early in the 
fall had been working nights in a stable, got 
a new job and came back into the club. The 
boys greeted him with, "Whew! Jerry! Bet you 
haven't washed for a month!" Jerry gave a 
surprised laugh, wondering what was queer 
about that, but a glance at the other "fellers" 
showed that their hands and faces were clean 
lucky draw started to congratulate himself 
with a string of cheerful oaths. He was hard- 
ly well begun before half the boys were shout- 
ing, "Shut up, Jerry. That don't go here." 



THE COMMONS 



9 



And this, coming from the boys themselves, 
sent Brownell rejoicing on his homeward way. 

The next meeting Jerry was there again, but 
he looked so strange that Brownell exclaimed, 
"What's the matter with you, Jerry? Been oat 
in the country and gotten sunburnt?" 

"Naw, I give me face a wash." 

The summer picnics and tne little outings 
were a great success and cemented the good 
will that was growing up between the boys 
and their "teacher." 

When they again took up the regular meet- 
ings of the club in the fall, the boys decided 
to devote every other Monday evening to 
studying the great characters in history, and 
the alternate evenings were set aside for their 
chess contests. The boys had developed a great 
fondness for this and several of them could be 
depended upon to beat Mr. Brownell every 
time. 

At one of their business meetings, a commit- 
tee was appointed who waited on the residents 
and requested them when showing visitors 
through the settlement to avoid talking in 
the chess room. 

At the end of that year, when a business 
opening called Brownell into another city, It 
was a hard task to say good bye, for he had 
grown to love the boys, and the way they 
grasped his hand showed that the feeling was 
not all on one side. '. 

A few years later, when in Chicago on a 
visit, he hunted up his boys, with whom he 
had kept up a constant correspondence. 

Henry was found running his prosperous 
newspaper distributing business with half a 
dozen boys under him. Steve was getting on 
well in a foundry. Wilhelm was president of 
a young men's club for reform politics in the 
ward. Frank was a well paid mechanic who 
felt it his right to dress as well as any other 
gentleman. Jerry was a driver on a wagon 
down town. The merry ways were all there 
still, but where were the profanity and the 
dirt and the ragged, foul smelling clothes? The 
little Tony was a power among the boys of 
the Italian church. The big-hearted John was 
a proud man because of the comfortable sup- 
port he could give his parents, and the regard 
In which he was held by his class of little 
girls in the settlement Sunday school. 

And so it went for every one was doing 
well except poor Pat, who came reeling out of 
a saloon to greet his old "teacher." He was so 
drunk that he could not remember the name 
of the only friend ho had ever known; and as 
he leaned against a telegraph pole for support. 



he stammered out, "Howdy, Mister , Mister 

, Mister " 

That sight nearly broke Brownell's heart. 
Still, a few years before, every one of the 
boys seemed doomed to a similar fate; and so, 
perhaps after all the club may have helped 
some of them in becoming better men. Who 
knows? 



Heredity- 



We speak a word, a volume grows 

Beyond control; 
We do a deed and warp or bless 

An unborn soul. 

We breathe a breath; it turns to storm 

Or balmy air; 
We shed a tear, a river flows 

Muddy or fair. 

The small things of today, tomorrow grow 

Mighty and strong; 

The thoughtless present brings a harvest in, 
. Of right or wrong. 

The far-off future hangs upon our wills, 

To mar or make; 
The planting time Is now, and now 

For others' sake 

Let only perfect seed be sown, 

That perfect grain 
Shall wait the Lord of harvests when 

He comes again. 

Laura J. Ritteuhouse, In The Arena. 



An interview with Judge Tuthill of Chicago, 
of the juvenile court: "How about the born 
criminals, Judge, the degenerates?" 

"The what? Born criminals? There are no 
born criminals. If I believed that, I should 
lose my faith in God. Society makes crimi- 
nals; environment and education make crimi- 
nals, but they are not born so." 

"Do you believe, then, that your children, if 
their environment were the same, would com- 
mit the same offenses as the children who daily 
appear before you?" 

"I don't think so, I know it." 



Wha.t is a. Ba.d Boy 

REV. B.F. BOLLER, CHAPLAIN AND SUPT. OF SCHOOLS 
ILLINOIS STATE REFORMATORY, PONTIAC. 

A bad boy is simply one whom people do not 
understand because they have never studied 
him and therefore do not discover the good in 
him. I was never more convinced of the truth 
of this than while sitting recently in the court 
of Judge R. S. Tuthill watching his manner of 
trying the youthful dependents and delin- 



10 



THE COMMONS 



quents. It was a valuable object-lesson and 
confirmed my previous convictions. 

While examining each incoming inmate of 
the reformatory to secure answers to some 
300 questions on the printed questionnaire, I 
try to find out the boy's physical and psycho- 
logical status; his genealogy; his environment; 
his homo influences; his amusements and rec- 
reations; his education and religious training; 
his ideals and ambitions; his temptations; his 
crime and the effect the sentence has produced 
on his mind. In a word: here is a boy. What 
started him on the wrong path? What are 
the factors making up his composite? How 
much is to be ascribed to heredity? What can 
now be done to save him? 

We find that great changes are taking place 
in a boy between his twelfth and fifteenth 
year, changes in voice, intellect, ideals and 
religious life. He does not like work, but 
is fond of play. Play is the natural and moral 
expression of boy life and that play spirit if 
undirected or misdirected naturally leads to 
crime. 

While my investigations have not been suf- 
ficiently extensive to warrant, as yet, very 
positive deductions, and while I have not room 
here for many statistics, some things may be 
said with a measure of assurance. 

These boys are mainly the product of their 
environment. So true is this that it may be 
called a law with few exceptions. The un- 
sanitary and vicious conditions permitted to 
prevail in our cities and towns (those pur- 
lieus of perdition where to be born is to be 
doomed) have robbed a large percentage of 
these boys of the chance to do well, have 
robbed them of all true home influence, of all 
physical and industrial training as well' as of 
mental and moral instruction. The force of 
their environment almost inevitably leads 
them into evil. 

The lack of moral restraint and of authority 
on the part of parents and teachers proves 
that the home and the church have either lost 
or have never had, positive restraining or di- 
recting influence over such boys. Our study 
shows that an astonishingly large number of 
the boys in this institution have been mem- 
bers of the churches, Sunday Schools and 
Young People's Societies. This would indicate 
that our methods of religious training have 
failed to solve the boy problem. In fact the 
inmates have convinced me that the ordinary 
church has left the boy out of consideration 
in shaping its life and activities, at least, that 
until- recently, he has been overlooked in our 



religious and social economies. The devil will 
beat us in the good-fellowship business with 
the boy until the church uses more than 2 per 
cent of its time and money for this purpose. 

It is a healthy sign that the Young Men's 
Christian Associations are awakening to their 
opportunities and are organizing "Boys' De- 
partments" thus supplementing the work of 
the Social Settlements and Institutional 
Churches. This indicates that the restless 
energies of boy life are to find vent in play 
grounds and gymnasia which shall become a 
part of our school system and that manual 
training will be recognized as a legitimate part 
of a complete education. 

It will be no sacrifice of the advancement 
of the boy if one-third of his school time is 
giyen to manual training. On the contrary, 
statistics indicate that such a division of study 
would be of untold benefit in developing intel- 
lectual accuracy and power. Particularly will 
this be true concerning the delinquent, the dul- 
lard and the mentally defective classes, for it 
will develop much ability that the ordinary 
day school of today never discovers, for the 
present discipline is but spiritless drudgery to 
many of the truant and criminally inclined. 

We need in our public schools a physical 
training department. The crimes of many of 
the inmates here are largely "sins of the body" 
actuated by appetite and passion. To these 
but little intellectual or moral stimulus can be 
given, because of their physical degeneracy, 
until a sound physical basis is laid. Moreover, 
physical training is well known to be the best 
means of arousing intellectual attention and 
concentration and of developing moral control. 

Penal institutions for juvenile offenders must 
be admonitory and corrective, rather than 
punitive, with probationary laws for first of- 
fenders, with prison confinement only as the 
last resource. The system based upon the 
"open" or family plan is undoubtedly the most 
efficient as it is certainly the most natural. 

There should be separate institutions for 
first offenders and for habitual criminals. Our 
jails throughout the state, where the boy for 
his first offense comes under the personal in- 
fluence of the criminal habitue who poses as a 
model of smartness and bravery because of 
his lawless violence, have become schools of 
crime. Moreover, the vicious literature allowed 
in some jails, the lack of supervision, have 
made many of them hotbeds of vice and moral 
pollution. We need places of temporary de- 
tention for first offenders awaiting trial or 
under short sentence. England, by her "Sum- 



THE COMMONS 



11 



mary Jurisdiction Act" of 1879 and the "Pro- 
bation of First Offenders Act" of 1887, has 
placed herself far in advance of this country. 
First offenders are summarily heard and may 
be dismissed "upon payment of cost, with ad- 
monition, or with suspension of sentence de- 
pendent upon subsequent good behavior and 
in graver cases with the alternative of the 
substitute of fines." 

Usually incarceration is a hardening process 
which proves fatal to the character and morals 
of the youthful recalcitrant. The Juvenile 
Court is one step, and a much needed one, in 
the right direction. 

T5he John Worthy School- 
Chicago's Reform School 

BY JOHN J. SLOAN, SUPERINTENDENT. 

When formally opened July 1, 1899, it had 
83 bojjs, which increased, until 324 boys are 
now here. 

The use of cells was discontinued in three 
weeks, and dormitories were established in the 
corridors of the cell house and other portions 
of the building. This, and the adoption of a 
system of surveillance, by which they are kept 
under constant watch, has prevented vicious 
practices by boys who were prone to commit 
secret crimes in the privacy that the cell sys- 
tem afforded, or whenever an opportunity 
offered. 

The good health of the boys, and the fact 
that only one death has occurred among the 
950 boys received in the nineteen months since 
the school has been established, bears testi- 
mony to the care that is taken of them. 

Believing that matrons should be substituted 
iu lieu of guards a gradual change was made, 
until four are now employed. Though the 
wisdom of this change was much doubted by 
many, it has proven a benefit. Incorrigibles 
of 14 years of age are more easily mastered by a 
woman of tact and firmness, and the improved 
conduct, neatness and carefulness in speech, 
which have characterized them since women 
were placed iu charge are to be seen, and last 
mouth the school board on request assigned a 
woman teacher for the primary grade, and it 
is probable that more women teachers will be 
employed later on. 

The boys are organized on a moral plane in 
companies of seventeen, each in command of a 
oaotain elected by the boys, from two boys in 
said company selected for their good conduct, 
said captain to hold his rank during good be- 
havior and while he maintains discipline, good 
conduct and progress. Except during school 



hours, when the boys are graded iu their re- 
spective classes, the company plan prevails. 
It is noted that the friendship between the 
boys in the same company tends to make them 
play and exercise together, so that unconcious- 
ly they assist the management in separating 
more Innocent from the incorrigibles during 
the few hours outdoors when all the boys min- 
gle together. 

The average length of time in school being 
only about four months, the school board on re- 
quest, lengthened the school day from 5 to 6 
hours and revised the studies in the school, so 
that now four hours are spent in academic 
studies and two in manual training. Sub- 
sequently the school week was extended to 
include Saturday. 

Calisthenic exercises and military drill are 
also features of their education a Company 
drill being held daily, and once a week the 
boys are drilled collectively. The boys who 
are able are taught to assist in the details of 
dining-room, kitchen and dormitory work, 
being assigned by their captains in regular 
'order. Many of them have developed a sense 
of order and neatness that would be a pride 
in any household. 

A large playground, 120x300 ft. was laid 
out, and weather permitting, they have from 
two to three hours' outdoor play and exercise 
each day, in which facilities are given for the 
games in which boys usually indulge. The 
grounds surrounding the institution, which 
were formerly a marshy, unhealthy place, 
were improved in a way to create a lake cov- 
ering about one acre and a small park, in 
which trees, flower beds, etc., are laid out, 
thus adding to the appearance of the institu- 
tion and minimizing the causes of ill-health. 

The brown clothes which the boys wore, 
similar to those worn by prisoners in the 
Bridewell, were discarded, and cadet uniforms 
of blue material and brass buttons were sub- 
stituted, with the result that the boys present 
a. neater appearance and take better care of 
them. 

With the adoption of the company plan, the 
system of feeding the boys was changed to a 
table for each company, with the captain sit- 
ting at the head. The diet was changed so 
as to be better adapted to the nourishment and 
requirements of boys. A separate bathroom 
was established for the boys where they are 
bathed in companies once a week, and the 
school has its own linen room, with the many 
articles required, entirely separate and dis- 
tinct. 



12 



THE COMMONS 



The punishment of boys by confining them 
in solitary dark cells for petty offenses was 
abolished, and, corporal punishment being pro- 
. hibited, it was necessary that some system of 
discipline be instituted. Various means were 
tried, and it was proven that the deprivation 
of many privileges and liberties allowed for 
good behavior was the strongest factor in 
maintaining discipline. With the more incor- 
rigibles, a plan of keeping them constantly 
walking at a moderate pace during school 
hours was instituted, which was subsequently 
called "plowing" by the boys. It has been 
satisfactory in maintaining discipline, as the 
constant tramp, tramp, tramp, around the 
large drill hall soon tires them out, subdues 
the unruly spirit, and they are glad to be re- 
leased to get back to school. 

To fill n the period between supper and bed- 
time, two women teachers are employed, who 
conduct a series of exercises each evening, de- 
signed to supplement the regular school course 
and enlighten the boys, without partaking too 
much of the routine of the ordinary class 
studies. The program at present is: 

Sunday evening, music and singing by all 
the boys collectively. 

Monday evening, spelling bees, according to 
the different school grades. 

Tuesday evening, mental arithmetic. 

Wednesday evening, oral geography. 

Thursday evening, reading from library 
books and magazines'. 

Friday evening, . declamation, oratory and 
public reading. 

Saturday evening, games and recreation. 

The boys who attain the highest percent- 
ages receive small prizes and with the ordi- 
nary boy's desire to excel, an interest and 
rivalry are aroused, so that they learn quickly. 
The above necessitated securing a small 
library, a piano, organ, games, blackboards 
and other things interesting and educational. 
When the boys were dressed in uniforms, the 
employes in charge at the school were like- 
wise, and the use of tobacco in any form by 
any person (or visitor to the school) at any 
time was prohibited. It is essential that the 
boys learn by force of precept and example as 
well as teaching. To brighten the place, a 
number of pictures, engravings and other dec- 
orations were secured, so that the dormitories, 
dining-rooms, hallways, etc., have a pleasing 
appearance. 

A system of monthly reports was estab- 
lished, in which each matron, teacher, day or 
night officer, gives his or her views upon the 



particular boys assigned to their care, and 
records his progress in studies, general deport- 
ment, appearance, disposition, and other facts 
of interest, and submits them to the superin- 
tendent, who compiles a rep.ort of each boy. 
The boys, knowing that the chanco of their re- 
lease is based upon this report, are in the main 
careful to avoid committing any offenses 
which would impair their chance of securing 
a favorable report and lengthening their stay 
in the school. The assistance which the Hon- 
orable Richard S. Tuthill, Judge of the Juvenile 
Court, has given in insisting upon a report 
before paroling any boy, has been an impor- 
tant factor in impressing upon the boy's mind 
the necessity of being well-conducted and 
showing progress in studies in order to be re- 
leased. 

As an encouragement towards good conduct, 
there are ten boys "on honor," who attend the 
classes and exercises, but are at liberty at 
other times to come and go as they please. 
These boys are accorded the same accommoda- 
tions furnished the officers, and of 43 boys to 
whom these privileges were given, only one 
abused it, and he ran away. 

There are boys at times with no homes, who 
have reached the limit of the educational fa- 
cilities and are rapidly maturing. A plan 
whereby these boys are paroled to the super- 
intendent, work secured for them and a tem- 
porary home for a few months provided in 
the school and their actions supervised, was 
established. They go to work each morning 
and report in the evening, save their earnings, 
secure new clothing, etc., and of 21 boys who 
were assistad in this way in getting a start 
towards a manly, useful life, four failed. They 
quit their positions, went to roaming the 
streets, were arrested and recommitted. The 
others have since found homes with relatives 
or friends, who, seeing their improved conduct 
and interest, were glad to receive them. 

Religious exercises are conducted each Sun- 
day by the Catholics and Episcopalians, and 
much credit is due to these influences and to 
the kindly, sympathetic and encouraging 
words and advice they extend. 

Persons connected with the public school 
system who have inspected the workings of 
the school, admit that the boys show greater 
progress for a given length of time than is 
usually the case in other schools, and the ex- 
cellence of their work in the Manual Training 
Department speaks for the ability which they 
display in this line. 

The first annual report of the school shows 



THE COMMONS. 



13 



913 boys received up to December 31, 1900, 
of whom 103, or 11 per cent, were recommitted. 

The removal of the block of cells in thfc 
building now occupied as a dormitory would 
afford more room for the increasing numbers. 
Can addition to the Manual Training Depart- 
ment, so as to teach a greater variety of useful 
employments, the remodeling of other por- 
tions of the building to secure more class 
room, and the substitution of women teachers 
for the second and third grades would be ben- 
eficial. 

The environments are responsible for most 
all of the commitments, and it is a wise policy 
to have as complete a change in their environ- 
ments as possible, hence the desirability of the 
location of an institution like this in the coun- 
try, with an opportunity to become acquainted 
with nature and to develop the better qualities 
of a boy, more outdoor work, more opportunity 
to teach the many useful employments which 
a large tract of laud would render possible, 
and where greater separation could be affected 
by several buildings. In the present location 
this is impracticable, but there is a hope that 
public spirit will provide a proper place within 
a few years. 

Some people contend that barred windows, 
high walls and locked doors are unnecessary, 
and that in other schools it is not required. 
In some instances it is true, but with an insti- 
tution like this, located in a large city, with 
boys who are beyond parental control, with 
frequent attempts to escape, we are forced to 
deem them necessary. It must be remembered 
that many of the boys have for some years 
earned their own living, and being dependent 
upon their own efforts, have a confident, self- 
reliant mannerism that is in striking contrast 
to the boys of other institutions, where they 
are mainly sent from agricultural communi- 
ties. The majority of the boys of this school, 
if released to-day, would be able to care for 
themselves, having been inured to the life of 
the waif of the streets, sleeping anywhere, 
dining everywhere. The thought of food or 
shelter seldom enters their minds, but liberty 
is the one thing they crave, so that if any 
chance of escape were open it would be taken 
advantage of, and the discipline of the school 
would be constantly disturbed. 

It is believed that as the law, the parole sys- 
tem and the school become perfected, good re- 
sults will be shown, and it compares favorably 
in equipment and the amount of good accom- 
plished with schools that are in existence in 
older com muni lies for many years. 



Fully 60 per cent of the boys enter the 
school from third grade clown, and 10 per cent 
of those are unable to speak English, or do 
not know the alphabet, and it is difficult to 
accomplish much in an educational way dur- 
ing an average period of four months, in com- 
parison to other institutions where they are 
detained for several years. 

The aim is to till in every moment of the 
boys' hours while awake with some employ- 
ment, recreation or study, to give them the 
benefit of every school hour, to keep them 
under constant watch, and by argument, rea- 
soning and close attention, guard the incorri- 
gibles, encourage those who are slow, teach 
respect for law and obedience to its com- 
mands, inculcate the principles of truthful- 
ness, honesty, loyalty and respect, encourage 
to aim high, to qualify themselves for better 
places than they ever aspired to, and in the 
main, to point the way to become useful and 
respectable citizens. 

The Mayor and members of the Board of In- 
spectors have insisted that the institution be 
brought to a higher plane, provided the means 
and upheld the management in its efforts to 
improve conditions, and by their frequent 
visits, close scrutiny and wise suggestions 
have promoted its welfare. 



The Chicago Anti-Cigarette League has car- 
ried on an active campaign against the cigar- 
ette habit, both in the way of personal can- 
vass among the boys on the street and by the 
organization of leagues among the boys of the 
big stores. The most successful league has a 
membership of about 150. Monthly noon meet- 
ings are held, with a general literary and 
musical program. A general rally is held 
monthly at Willard Hall, to which the various 
leagues send delegates. It is said that Mar- 
shall Field, Montgomery Ward & Co., Hibbard, 
Spencer & Bartlett, Gustavus Swift and the 
United States postoffice are among those who 
refuse to employ a cigarette smoker. 



"I never knew a boy so bad that he would 
not have been better if I had understood him 
better." Col. F. W. Parker. 



G. Stanley Hall says on "Boyhood:" "If the 
schools could be put on wheels and taken out 
into the fields and woods, away from the city, 
it would be a blessed thing." 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Socia.1 Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, - - - Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner," 



EDITORIAL, 



TO enhance the timely helpfulness and the 
permanent value of THE COMMONS, It is 
our policy to devote special numbers of the 
paper" to as thorough a discussion of some one 
important phase of social work or settlement 
experience as our space allows. This number, 
devoted to the boy problem, supplements the 
consideration given in our February issue to 
the juvenile dependency and delinquency 
which are taxing the resources, both spiritual 
and financial, not only of our largest cities but 
of our smaller towns and country places. For 
the contributions to both of these special 
numbers, we, and our fellow workers over the 
whole broad field, are deeply indebted to the 
gratuitous helpfulness of the busiest men and 
women who in public office and in private life 
are promoting common interests. 



IN caring for its delinquent children Chicago 
follows in the steps of other cities of this 
country. The process is about as follows: 
First there is a House of 'Correction, in which 
are kept both old and young of both sexes 
with but feeble attempts at classification. Lit- 
tle or no attempt is made to keep the boys 
away from the men. Then comes a period 
when the boys are confined to one wing of the 
building and some efforts are made to furnish 
them with instruction. Later the boys are 
more completely segregated from the men and 
are kept in a separate building, but on the 
same grounds and under the same manage- 
ment, and frequently are cared for, to some 
extent, by the older convicts. Then follows 
complete separation, and a special institution, 
usually upon a farm, with complete courses 
in manual training, and supervision of the 
boys after release on parole. 



HE vitalizing points of contact between 
learning and life are happily increasing. 
The university class room and laboratory are 
becoming more and more indispensable ad- 



juncts to the most practical lines of effort. 
From the view point of the field work with 
boys and girls there is no greater source of 
inspiration and suggestion than the pedagog- 
ical work at Clark University, whence come 
Dr. Forbush's contributions. 



In protecting children from the evils which 
may meet them at any time in city or country 
there is certainly no more important task than 
that of suppressing as far as may be the at- 
tempts to corrupt the children, by immoral 
books and pictures. Those wno have not in- 
vestigated conditions have little idea of the 
extent to which this corruption takes place. 
Unscrupulous dealers seek out lists of names 
through school reports, etc., and endeavor to 
ruin the children for the sake of gain. The 
Western Society for the Suppression of Vice 
is struggling against this evil. "During the 
first quarter (of last year) the circulation of 
a class of dangerous publications to the extent 
of 5,000,000 copies per month was stopped." 
The Society is engaged in the central states 
and was able last year to secure the convic- 
tion of- forty persons, the imposition of fines 
to the extent of $7,511, and the confiscation of 
thousands of pounds of bad and criminal mat- 
ter. The secretary of the Chicago branch of 
the Society is Mr. Wm. Alton, Jr., 110 LaSalle 
street. 



A cotton-mill owner of the South awakened 
to the need of his mill families for something 
"not made by hands" has built them a "Neigh- 
borhood House" fitted up for reading room, 
library, club and cooking classes, with a hall 
for social and lodge meetings. The conditions 
in such mills, social, moral and industrial,, 
could not be worse. The people are as a whole 
depraved. Utter lack of incentive is the cause. 
Most of them have come from the mountains 
and valleys where they work for almost noth- 
ing, for the sake of the small increase in pay 
they receive in factory towns. Though the cot- 
ton industry is growing rapidly especially in 
Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina, mill 
owners do little for employees, working them 
to the limit of endurance and guarding closely 
against labor organizations. A pitiful side of 
the problem is the child life. Little ones eight 
or nine years old work from 6 a. m. to 6:30 
p. m. with only a half hour off for dinner. 
There is need for more than one "Neighbor- 
hood House." May this pioneer effort lead to 
others. 



THE COMMONS 



1 



Home Libra.ries. 

One of the few schemes of helping boys 
and girls, which is based upon the idea of help- 
ing them at home is the Home Library. This 
plan grew, naturally, out of the practice of 
Mr. Charles E. Blrtwell, the secretary of the 
Boston Children's Aid Society, of loaning books 
to poor children of his acquaintance and later 
of talking over the books with them. This led 
to interesting others in the work, and finally 
small traveling libraries were selected and 
placed in the home of some child who agreed 
to act as librarian. Once a week some lady or 
gentleman meets with the. children. Books are 
returned and new ones drawn. The children 
discuss the books they have read. Frequently 
games are played. The visitor becomes the 
friend of the children and often wields no 
small influence upon them. The possession of 
a library has not seldom had a refining influ- 
ence upon the family. After the books are 
read they are exchanged for new ones. The 
books are carefully selected. The Boston 
Children's Aid Society considers this an im- 
portant department of its work. Home Libra- 
ries have been introduced into other cities. 
The work was first begun in Chicago by the 
Children's Aid Society. The Bureau of Asso- 
ciated Charities now has a number of such 
libraries in circulation. 



The Commons for cflpril will contain Import- 
ant Articles on Settlement Work and the ad- 
dresses of all the Settlements, 

Send 25 cents to THE COMMONS for 

W>e BOY PROBLEM. 

A STUDY IN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY. 

BY THE 

Rev. William Byrorv Forbush, Ph. D., Litt. D. 

With an Introduction by 
President G. STANLEY HALL. 



CONTENT^. 

CHAPTER I. Boy-Life; a summary of the recent scat- 
tered literature of the child-study of adolescence. 
CHAPTER II. Ways iu Which Boys Spontaneously 

Organize Socially; a study of the "gang" and 

child-societies. 
CHAPTER III. Ways in Which Adults Organize in 

Behalf of Boys; a critique of boys' clubs and church 

work for boys. 
CHAPTER IV. Suggestions as to How to Help Boys; 

a constructive stdy. 

FROM THE INTRODUCTION. 

' 'The author, who is both a clergyman and a Doctor 
of Philosophy, has been among boys and done work 
with them that I regard hardly less than epoch mak- 
ing in significance. 

G. STANLEY HALL. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN SAe COMMONS DURING 1901. 

One Page - -25.00 Half Page $15.00 

Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 

She New Fourth Edition of College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready.' Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Wfvvigh McCulloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 35c. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

"She Enslavement a.nd Emancipation f 
the People. 

An original and practical solution of the problem. 

By J. B. Herboldshimer. 

Price in cloth, 75 cents. Published by the Author, 
J. B. Herboldshiner, Gibson City, 111. 

Biblical Sociology, By Graham Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 500 of THE COMMONS. 
T5he Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Booklet orv the Housing Problem. 

"Home Ownership vs. Rented Houses." 

Moral Results By Rev. John Morrison. Apply to 
author, London, Ontario, Canada. Price ten cents 
per copy. $5.00 per hundred. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
'She Handbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view, ]t is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofficeas mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

THe Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for S*2.50. Send check, draft. P. p. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cent denomination . , at our risk. 
Changes of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 

Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each addressuntilnotified 
to the contrary. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Settlement Notes- 

A new settlement in Oxford Court, Louiston, 
Me., Is reported by Dr. C. W. Geer of Bates 
College, who is personally enlisted in its non- 
resident service. It is located among the 
thrifty and appreciative French factory folk 4 
in the midst of four-story tenement blocks. 
The free reading room could not be kept open 
Sunday afternoon because of the throngs of 
people who resorted there. Educational 
classes and small clubs are being organized to 
meet the demand of those whose schooling 
was cut short by early entrance upon work in 
the mills. 



The University of California Settlement at 
West Berkeley, Cal., is the outgrowth of a 
two-fold aim; to inspire a foreign people, few 
of vrhom need material help, with moral and 
spiritual ideals and to educate the students 
of the university to a true spirit of co-opera- 
tion and to a sense of their responsibility to 
society. 



In the larger cities of Saxony such as Dres- 
den, Leipsig, Chemnitz and Zwickau, institu- 
tions are maintained in which boys and often 
gii'ls are held after school hours to restrain 
them from evil associations. Expert teach- 
ers in manual work and games are engaged 
who train these in the principles of order, dili- 
gence and moral conduct too often neglected 
in the family life of the slums until the par- 
ents return home from the factories. This 
work is entirely supported by private individ- 
uals. 



In Boston the play-ground is intended pri- 
marily for small children. Three, however, 
are fitted up with gymnasium apparatus for 
the older boys. Some yards have been trou- 
bled by tough boys who gather on the outside 
and at times force entrance. A pathetic ex- 
perience showing the unsatisfied hunger for 
constructive work on the part of such boys is 
the avidity with which they, up to the age of 
15, seize opportunity to do a little sewing or 
to work a printed card. A New York teacher 
tamed a gang of rough boys by allowing them 
to glue together the disks used in the play 
ground. The play-ground, pending a more 
thorough covering of the need by the vacation 
schools can do useful service to boys of this 
age. 



15he Month at Chicago Commons- 

We muster twenty-six residents, eighteen of 
whom are at the old Commons, and eight 
have ''swarmed" under the new roof. 

The home life already permeates the atmos- 
phere of the spacious public rooms at the new 
Commons. It is a part of the social function 
of our residents to receive into the hospitality 
of the house those who attend some of the 
larger occasoins held in the auditorium. 

The third series of our Pleasant Sunday 
Afternoons was most auspiciously opened by 
Mr. John K. Allen's beautifully illustrated ster- 
iopticon lecture "On the Edge of Norway." 
Through the good offices of our neighborly 
daily. The Scandinavian, the auditorium was 
thronged, principally by the old country folk 
who fondly lingered over the description of 
their mother land. One notable feature of these 
occasions is that fully one-half of the audi- 
ences is composed of men. 

The old Tabernacle is beginning to feel thor- 
oughly at home in its new quarters. Its 
Ladies' Aid and Missionary Society rallied the 
largest numbers and cheeriest spirit, which 
for years have responded to its call, in the 
fine suite of rooms which it shares with the 
Chicago Commons Women's Club and the Pro- 
gressive Girls' Club. The chorus choir leads 
the worship finely and distinguished itself 
lately by its Old Folks' Concert program. 

The new building equipment is so effective 
that it seems too great a loss to leave it any 
longer without the few things still lacking to 
its largest usefulness. The spacious gymna- 
sium floor is in constant demand by the groups 
already using it at almost every available hour. 
But it is still without any apparatus what- 
soever, except for the ball games. Only $300 
or $400 are needed to equip it for its largest 
use. The reception hall leading into the club 
and class rooms on the children's floor is still 
without any furniture. Some rugs, settles, a 
bookcase and a center table would give a touch 
pf homelikeness to the whole building. 

What to do with the large work and the 
eighteen resident workers left behind at the 
old Commons, after our lease to its hospitable 
walls expires sixty days hence, greatly per- 
plexes us. No time has yet been at our com- 
mand to solicit even the "nest egg" for the 
$25,000 which it will cost to erect the residence 
wing of the new building. If there were only 
some assurances that its roof would shelter 
us before next winter, we could cheerfully 
camp out all summer. 



TKe Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 57- Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. April. 1901. 



Robert A Wood's Review of Settle- 
ment Achievemervt. 

The most notable current contribution to set- 
tlement literature is Mr. Robert A. Woods' 
long and beautifully illustrated article on 
"The So:-ial Settlement Movement After Six- 
teen Years," in the Christian World number of 
The Congregationalist of Feb. 2 (Boston, 



Denison House, Boston; the roof garden of the 
Philadelphia settlement and the design of the 
new Chicago Commons, together with the like- 
ness oC Arnold Toynbee. 

PRIORITY OF TOYNBEE HALL AMONG ENGLISH SET- 
TLEMENTS. 

Mr. Woods accords to Toynbee Hull its pri- 
ority in having set the type of settlement 




TOYNBEE HALL. LONDON. 



Mass.). The fine cuts illustrating different 
types of settlement architecture im-lnde the 
buildings of Toynbee Hall, Mansfield House. 
and Rrown'ng Hall, in London: tl>'? University 
Settlement House. New York City: Kingslcy 
House. I'ittslmrg; (ioodrich House, Cleveland: 



work "in the number and variety of university 
men whom it has attracted to its service and 
in the high standard of good taste and enlight- 
ened devotion which it has set for itself and 
imparted directly or indirectly in greater or 
less degree to other settlements. 



THE COMMONS 



It has been the contribution of Canon Bar- 
nett to make the service of the poor interest- 
ing and romantic. He brought to pass the 
idea of having university men living as neigh- 
bors to working people. He originated, or 
successfully developed, those unique efforts in 
the way of imparting the finest results of cult- 
ure to the common people which are especially 
associated with settlement work wherever it 
is found. In these ways Toynbee Hall, as 
pioneer, has probably contributed to the world 
more than the total value of the work of all 
other settlements combined. 

CONTRAST BETWEEN OXFORD AND MANSFIELD 
HOUSES IN THEIB RELIGIOUS WORK. 

There has been an interesting contrast be- 
tween these two settlements in their religious 
work. The Oxford House has undertaken to 
combat the old secularism of the working 
classes in England, which was acquired from 
Charles Bradlaugh and his gospel of individ- 
ualism and atheism. During the summer open- 
air meetings have been conducted in the parks 
and during the winter there have been large 
Sunday evening gatherings in University Hall, 
located near the Oxford House in Bethual 
Green. At these meetings the talk has been 
mainly along the somewhat conventional line 
of apologetics in rebuttal of all that secularist 
orators might say about difficulties in the Bible 
narrative. There cannot be any question that 
this sort of work has brought good results, 
but these results have come rather from the 
cheery, courageous faith of the Oxford House 
men than from their argumentative strategy. 

At Mansfield House the method has been 
much wiser and vastly more suggestive. The 
Mansfield House Sunday afternoon meeting is, 
for this day of the world, the most realistic 
and stimulating popular religious service which 
I have ever attended. Here, instead of com- 
bating, and so galvanizing into life, a mori- 
bund secularism, the new and rising social 
hopes of the people are caught up and lifted 
to their true interpretation by enforcing some 
of 1he neglected, but vital, human motives of 
the gospel. 

SETTLEMENT INITIATIVE IN AMERICA. 

The University Settlement in New York, 
which grew out of the Neighborhood Guild 
established by Dr. Stanton Coit in 1887, has in 
its new Eldrige street location the finest and 
best equipped building yet erected for settle- 
ment purposes. The College Settlement in 
New York and Hull House in Chicago were 
established so nearly at the same time that 
the matter of priority is an amiably mooted 



question. Through their loyalty to the three 
woman's settlements in New York, Philadel- 
phia, and at the Deuison House, Boston, which 
are sustained by the 'College Settlements As- 
sociation, it has come about that a large 
proportion of collegiate alumnae are in spirit 
settlement women and carry this motive into 
their home life and Into their work. For the 
inculcation of this spirit the most influential 
personal force has been that exerted by Miss 
Vida Scudder, who has resided from time to 
time at each of these settlements and has con- 
stantly been setting forth their motive with 
deep intensity and insight. The quiet, perme- 
ating influence of their work is certainly not 
the less valuable for being less obvious and 
tangible. 

HILL HOUSE MOST RESOURCEFUL IN EITHER 
COUNTRY. 

"Hull House stands easily first botli for 
achievement and for significance among Amer- 
ican settlements. It is like Toynbee Hall in 
the originality and distinction which has char- 
acterized every part of its work and in solid 
and abiding achievement, while there is de- 




MISS ADDAMS. 

termination and daring in its work such as is 
rather more characteristic of some of the other 
London settlements than Toynbee Hall." 

In its more obvious aspects Hull House rep- 
resents a massing together of practically the 
whole variety of such appliances of charity, 
philanthropy and popular education as are de- 
manded by the needs of a large and otherwise 
neglected immigrant neighborhood. The set- 
tlement has been compelled to build up the 
whole of this fabric, with the exception of a 
branch station of the public library and a 
small bath-house, both of which are supported 
by the city. 

The deeply impressive thing about Hull 
House, however, is that the finest quality of 



THE COMMONS 



settlement spirit runs through ail this compli- 
cated activity, holding it in solution and leav- 
ing the remembrance, not of an institution, 
but of personality, in the mind of even the 
casual visitor. Hull House has come to exer- 
cise a profound influence upon the whole life 
of Chicago. As a rallying center for all that 



she was able at the beginning to draw into the 
service of Hull House a remarkable group of 
young women, several of whom still remain as 
the nucleus of what is without doubt the most 
resourceful settlement force to be found in 
either country. 
It is the opinion of most sympathetic ob- 




ARNOLD TOYNBEE 
Forerunner of the Settlement Movements. 



in any way affects the uplifting and refinement 
of the great mass of the people of the city it 
has a special pre-eminence, and no stranger 
who cares at all about- the higher life of the 
Western metropolis neglects to see Hull 
House. 

It is perhaps the fullest way to sum up what 
Miss Addams has accomplished to say that 



servers, as well as of settlement workers them- 
selves, that, large as the total value of the 
work of all these settlements is in reviving 
the better life of neglected city neighborhoods, 
their still greater contribution Is in the reflex 
influence which they exert upon the educated 
and prosperous classes in the community. The 
more sensitive social conscience, the removal 



THE COMMONS 



of social barriers, the enlarged iilea of life as 
social service, the tendency toward a more 
thorough spirit of democracy as a vital ele- 
ment in Christian culture these in many peo- 
ple were suggested and in all have been re- 
enforced by the object lesson of the settle- 
ments. 

It will in all probability be found, also, that 
the settlements have made a definite contri- 
bution toward practical Christian unity, by 
bringing together Christians of every name 
into enthusiastic joint action toward the bring- 
ing in of a more Christian city. In most cases, 
especially in this country, the settlement, if it 
became a mission, would at once alienate the 
majority of its neighbors, and thus defeat its 
specific end; but in every case settlement 
workers are encouraged to co-operate with lo- 
cal church work. The American settlement 
represents in most cases a friendly overture 
from Protestant Christians to Catholic Chris- 
tians, or to a Jewish population v bich is many 
cases stands deeply in need of Christian help- 
fulness free from impossible conditions. Every 
consideration of national and social welfare 
demands that unity of feeling should be cre- 
ated between these separated and even hostile 
classes. The settlements are beyond all per- 
adventure making headway with this task. 

One of the incidental, yet highly important, 
outcomes of the growth of the settlement 
"movement" is the fact that at these centers 
men and women work together in a particular- 
ly normal way, with fairness and freedom, on 
the Christian basis of capacity for service as 
the basis for precedence, without regard to 
sex. The secret of this is that the settlement 
is in the first instance simply an extension of 
the home in its finest conception, and offers a 
field, therefore, in which the trained and en- 
lightened woman has an authority which no 
one would think of questioning. In all of the 
settlements men and women work together. 
Some have only men, or only women, actually 
iu residence. At others there is a group of 
men residents and a group of women residents, 
living in different houses. At others still, espe- 
cially where the tradition of co-educntion ob- 
tnins, men and women residents live under the 
same roof. 

Mr. Woods makes briefer reference to sev- 
eral other settlements, including a too gener- 
ous word for Chicago Commons. Even the 
copious excerpts of more general interest, to 
which we are well warranted iu giving so 
large a share of our limited space, should not 
satisfy our readers in the settlements whose 



reference files should contain the complete 
text of this most discriminating and in- 
structive article. 



Browning Hall to Its Neighbors. 

We are just in receipt of a greeting from 
Robert Browning Settlement in the form of a 
little booklet entitled "At the Meeting of the 
Centuries." This contains pictures of the 
buildings and of the residents, with hopeful 
and inspiring words from the poets. Accom- 
panying this is a schedule of appointments, 
prominent amoug which are the Saturday 
evening free concerts, and the People's Even- 
ing on Sunday, which offers: Hearty singing 
for all to join in; prayer to voice the need of 
all; straight speech to all upon their highest 
duties. 

The "Word from the Warden," with which 
Uev. F. Herbert Stead wished his neighbors 
,a merry Christmas, is so human and practical 
that we give it to our readers entire: 

To MY FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: 

Christmas is near. Christmas is the festival 
of home and friendship. And my word for the 
season is., 

Make friends. 

Make more friends. 

Make better friends. 

When we first came to Walworth, we said: 
"It is better to make friends than to make 
money." Six years in Walworth have proved 
that saying up to the hilt. Life has steadily 
grown richer and richer in the friendships we 
have formed here. There are now between one 
and two thousand homes, scattered over i more 
than 300 streets, in regular registered connec- 
tion with the settlement. 

The settlement has become a bank stored 
with the best of riches with literally thou- 
sands of friends. I want you to draw freely 
on tbis bank. You may have many friends or 
few. You could all do with plenty more. Some 
of you may even feel at times as if you were 
friendless and alone. In any case let me urge, 
"Make to yourselves friends." Make to your- 
selves friends by means of your connection 
with the settlement. 

You cannot get to know ali at once all the 
people that go to Browning Hall. But you 
can begin with your own street. You can get 
to know all the homes in your stveet that are 
in weekly touch with Browning Hall. Y'ou 
can try to make friends with them. 



THE COMMONS 



Tliat is why I am sending you this message. 

We want all the Browning Hall people in 
every street to "chum up" with each other. 
We want them to speak to each other when 
they pass, to shake hands when they have 
time, a'nd to look each other up at home now 
and then. We want them to be a group of 
friends. In each street a street-group: that 
is what we wish to see. 

The group need not meet oftener than once 
a year, to talk over the business of the street 
and choose one of its number to be secretary 
or convener, or street-friend. 

Will you help In forming the group in yonr 
own street? Will you make a point of know- 
ing every family in your street that goes to 
Browning Hall? Will you try to make of the 
group a beautiful cluster of homes? 

If any one in the group has sickness in his 
home, or a death, or other heavy sorrow, call 
on him to show your sympathy, and let your 
street-friend know. 

Then I want you to take an Interest not 
merely in your group. Keep a friendly eye 
upon the street as a whole, and see where you 
can be of service. Accept a few hints. Try 
to make your street more healthy. Tell 
the street-friend or Mr. Bryan of any bad 
smell which stays, or foul refuse which is 
unremoved. So you will check the spread of 
disease. Try to make your street less ugly. 
Some of our friends have turned their back 
yard into a garden; others have trained a 
creeper over their house front. Can you do 
the same? If you can and will, get your 
street-friend to ask at the Hall for creeper- 
roots and other plants. Perhaps you might 
persuade youi- neighbors to follow suit. U' all 
the patches of soil back and front of Wai- 
worth houses were planted with flowers or 
shrubs, or twining things, the street would be 
more sightly and fragrant and wholesome. 
There may be children in your street drooping 
and pining for want of a breath of country 
air. Tell Miss Beale, our Country Holiday 
Secretary, about them, and do not let them 
die. You might help to save the life of an 
adult neighbor in the same way. Call on 
new comers into your street. They may be 
lonesome and friendless. Make them feel a 
little more at home. 

Any unfriended cripple in your street bring 
with you to our Cripple Parlor. 

Be on the lookout for chances of doing your 
neighbors a good turn. If they need a doc- 



tor and cannot afford to pay for one, send 
them to our Medical Mission. If they waut 
legal advice, tell them of our Poor Man's 
Lawyer. The settlement is here to be made 
use of. 

In a word, try to look on your street as you 
think Jesus would have looked on it had He 
lived in your house. He is the best Friend of 
all. 

By street-groups linked In w r ard groups, we 
waut to cast a network of ueighborliness over 
the whole district. 

Yours heartily, 

F. Herbert Stead. 

Browning Hall, York St., on the Settlement 
Birthday, December 13, 1900. 



From Other Settlements- 

The Woman's Club, co-operating with the 
University of Chicago Settlement, has secured 
a free public bathhouse for the neighborhood; 
also manual training and kindergartens in sev- 
eral public schools. 

One of the clubs connected with this settle- 
ment is the Bohemian Women's Club, organ- 
ized for the benefit of those who do not talk 
English. They own their own library. The 
social gatherings of this club are character- 
istic. W T hole families take part in the pro- 
gram, which fills the entire afternoon; coffee 
and cake are served; and a genial, natural 
spirit of fellowship, seldom seen in large gath- 
erings, prevails. 

Cambridge House, London, is the headquar- 
ters of the Southern Division of the Federation 
of Working Men's Clubs. The year's work 
shows an encouraging increase in affiliations, 
but a lack of leaders in the moral and social 
life of the clubs. Social evenings have been 
popular, and contests in cricket and football 
keen and healthv. 



The boys' clubs of Gads Hili Social Settle- 
ment have established a form of civic govern- 
ment. A mayor, aldermen and all city officials 
are elected; a full police force is in operation, 
and the Settlement Association is a civic com- 
pact governed by this organization. The re- 
sults are important; the officers have deported 
themselves with dignity, and out of a mem- 
bership of a hundred the majority show grow- 
ing culture and improved ideals. 



THE COMMONS 



List of Socia.1 Settlements. 

For convenient reference we present the fol- 
lowing list of settlement addresses by cities. 
To insure completeness and accuracy we have 
carefully compared all the lists known to us. 
With the editor of the "Bibliography of Settle- 
ments," from which by far the most of our 
list is made up, we do not attempt to include 
or exclude social centers by any rigidly dis- 
criminating definition of what a settlement is, 
and with her we are convinced that the name 
and the idea upon which it is founded "have 
been and are increasingly abused." We, too, 
hope "that some that have been anxious to call 
themselves settlements will be willing to ad- 
here to old terms." But the "Bibliography," 
which The Commons will furnish for ten cents 
to any who send us their orders, will enable 
the reader to discriminate. 

A comparative numercial table of the settle- 
ments here listed shows that America has 107, 
England 38, Scotland 5, France 5, Japan 2, 
while Germany, Holland, India and Australia, 
Moravia and Austria have 1 each. The number 
of settlements in London is 30, in New York 
27, in Chicago 17, and in Boston 11. 



AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS. 



BALTIMORE, MD. 

Lawrence House, 816 W. Lombard St. 

Locust Point Social Settlement, 1409 Hull St. 
BOSTON, MASS. 

Ben Adhem House, Mall St., Roxbury. 

Denlson House, 91 Tyler St. 

Dorothea Dix House, 14 E. Brookline St. 

Elizabeth Peabody House, 156 Chambers St. 
Epwoith League House, 34 Hull St. 

Hale House, 6 Garland St. 

Lincoln House, 116 Shawmut Ave. 

South End House, 6 Rollins St. 

South End House Women's Residence, 43 E. Can- 
ton St. 

St. Stephen's House, 2 Decatur St. 

Wlllard "Y" Settlement, 11 Myrtle St. 
BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

Asacog House, 55 Hicks St. 

City Park Branch Settlement, 209 Concord St. 

Greenpolnt Settlement, The Astral, 85 Java St., 
Greenpoint. 

Neighborhood Guild, Maxwell House, 245 Con- 
cord St. 
BUFFALO, N. Y. 

Remington Gospel Settlement, 150 Erie St. 

Welcome Hall, 404 Seneca St. 

Westminster House, 424 Adams St. 
CALHOUN, ALA. 

Calhouu School and Settlement, Calhoun, Lowndes 

County. 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

The Prospect Union, 744 Massachusetts Ave. 
CHICAGO, ILL. 



Association House, Y. W. d. A. Settlement, 474 
W. North Ave. 

Central Settlement, 1409 Wabash Ave. 

Chicago Commons, 140 North Union St. New 
building, Grand Ave. and Morgan St. 

Elm St. Settlement, 80 Elm St. 

St. Elizabeth's Social Settlement, 317 Orleans St. 

The Forward Movement, 219 S. Sangamon St. 

Gad's Hill Social Settlement, 869 W. 22d St. 

Helen Heath Settlement, 869 33d Place. 

Henry Booth House, 135 W. 14th Place. 

Hull House, 335 S. Halsted St. 

Maxwell St. Settlement, 270 Maxwell St. 

Mutual Benefit House, 531 W. Superior St. 

Neighborhood House, 1224 W. 67th St. 

Northwestern University Settlement, 252 W. Chi- 
cago Ave. 

Rouse Settlement, 3213 Wallace St. 

University of Chicago Settlement, 4638 Ashland 
Ave. and 4630 Gross Ave. 

Willard Settlement, 133 South Morgan St. 
CINCINNATI, O. 

Cincinnati Social Settlement, 300 Broadway. 

Society for Neighborhood Clubs. 

The University Settlement, Liberty and Plum Sts. 
CLEVELAND, O. 

The Alta Social Settlement, Mayfleld and Fair- 
view Sts. 

Goodrich Social Settlement, 368 St. Clair St. 

Hiram House, 345 Orange St. 

The Priory Settlement, 30 Hill St. 
COLUMBUS, O. 

First Neighborhood Guild, 465 W. Goodale St. 
DBS MOINES, IA. 

Roadside Settlement, 720 Mulberry St. 
DETROIT, MICH. 

Berean Social Settlement, 642 Russell St. 

Detroit Settlement, 519 Franklin St. 
GRAND RAPIDS, MICH. 

Blssell House, Ottawa St. 
HARTFORD, CONN. 

Social Settlement of Hartford, 15 North St. 
INDIANAPOLIS, IND. 

The Planner Guild, 619 Rhode Island St. 

Indiana Ave. Neighborhood House, 905 Indiana Ave. 

Third Christian Church Neighborhood House, 1537 

N. Arsonal Ave. 
JERSEY CITY, N. J. 

Whittier House, 174 Grand St. 
LINCOLN, NEB. 

Graham Taylor House, 945 N. 8th St. 
LOS ANGELES, CAL. 

Casa de Castelar, 428 Alpine St. 
LOUISVILLE, KY. 

Neighborhood House, 324 E. Jefferson St. 
MILWAUKEE, WIS. 

Happy Home Settlement, 336 Jefferson St. 
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 

Unity Social Settlement, 1616 Washington Ave. N. 
NEW HAVEN, CONN. 

Lowell House, 202 Franklin St. 
NEW ORLEANS, LA. 

Kingsley House, 1202 Annunciation St. 

NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. 
The Alfred Corning Clark Neighborhood House, 

Cannon and Rlvlngton Sts. 
All Soul's House, 248 E. 34th St. 
Amity Church Settlement, 312 W. 54th St. 
Armitage House, 737 Tenth Ave. 



THE COMMONS 



Calvary House Settlement, 335 E. 22d St. 

Children's House, 129 Christie St. 

Christodora House of Young Women's Settlement, 

Church Settlement House (Protestant Episcopal 
Church of the Redeemer), 329 E. 84th St. 

College Settlement, 95 Klvlngton St. 

Community House of Pro. Cathedral, 153 Essex St. 

Cooper Settlement, 269 Avenue C. 

East Side House, 70th St. and East River. 

Friendly Aid House, 240 East 34th St., and Holly 
House, 201 E. 33d St. 

The Gospel Settlement, 211 Clinton St. 

Grace Church Settlement, 417 E. 13th St. 

Hartley House, 413 W. 46th St. 

King's Daughters' Settlement, 48 Henry St. 

Normal College Alumnae Settlement, 446 E. 72d St. 

Nurses' Settlement, 265 Henry St. Branches, 312 
E. 78th St., 52 Henry St., 9 Montgomery St., 

Parry Settlement, 249 E. 32d St. 

Phelps Memorial Settlement, 314 E. 35th St. 

Paulist Social Settlement, 915 Tenth Ave. 

Procathedral Settlement House, 153 Essex St. 
Men's quarters, 152 Stanton St. 

Riverside Association House, 259 W. 69th St. 

St. Christopher House, 312 East 88th St. 

St. Rose's Settlement, 364 E. 69th St. 

Union Seminary Settlement, 237 E. 104th St. 

The University Settlement, 184 Eldridge St. 

West Side Settlement, Y. W. C. A., 453 W. 47th St. 

World's W. C. T. U. Training School and Settle- 
ment, 464 W. 32d St. 

Young Women's Settlement, 163 Avenue B. 
NORTH CAROLINA. 

Log Cabin Settlement, Grace Post Office, Bun- 
combe County. 
OAKLAND, CAL. 

Oakland Social Settlement, Third and Linden Sts. 
ORANGE VALLEY, N. J. 

Orange Valley Social Institute, 35 Tompkins St. 
PASSAIC, N. J. 

Dundee House, 20 Second St. 
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

College Settlement, 431 Christian St. 

Eighth Ward Settlement House, 922 Locust St. 

Neighborhood Guild, 618 Addison St. 

St. Peter's House, 100 Pine St. 
PITTSBURG, PA. 

Klngsley House, 1709 Penn Ave. 
PORTLAND, ME. 

Fraternity House, 75 Spring St. 
PROVIDENCE, R. I. 

Mount Pleasant Settlement, 7 Armington Ave. 
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 

South Park Settlement, 84 South Park. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. 

St. Louis Social Settlement, 2501 S. 2d St. 

St. Louis Social Settlement League, 9th and Wash- 
ington Sts. 

St. Stephen's House, 6th and Rutger Sts. 
ST. PAUL, MINN. 

St. Paul Commons, 8th and Jackson Sts. 
TERRE HAUTE, IND. 

Terre Haute Settlement, 28 North 1st St. 
WEST BERKELEY, CAL. 

West Berkeley Settlement, 2015 8th St. 

SETTLEMENTS ABROAD. 
AMSTERDAM, HOLLAND. 

Ouls Huls, Rosenstraat 12-14-16. 
BERLIN, GERMANY. 



Address Pastor Paul Goehr, Y. M. C. A., 34 Wil- 

helmstrasse. 
BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND. 

Birmingham Women's Settlement, 318 Summer 

Lane. 
BOMBAY, INDIA. 

Bombay Settlement. 
BRISTOL, ENGLAND. 

Broad Plata House, St. Philips. 
BRUENN, MORAVIA. 

Toynbee Hall of Zionist Association. 
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND. . 

Chalmer's University Settlement, 10 Pouton St. 
Fountainbrldge. 

New College Settlement, 48 Pleasance. 

University Hall, Edinburgh. 
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND. 

Toynbee House, Cathedral Court, Rotteurow. 

University Students' Settlement, 10 Fossil Road, 

Garscube Cross. 
IPSWICH, ENGLAND. 

Ipswich Social Settlement, 133 Fore St. 

KYOTO, JAPAN. 
Airlnsba (The House of Neighborly Love), Kyoto. 

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 

Victoria Women's Settlement, 322 Netherfleld 

Road, North. 
LONDON, ENGLAND. 

St. Anthony's (Catholic Social Union Settlement), 
17 Great Prescot St. 

Bermondsey Settlement, Farncombe St., Jamaica 
Road, S. E. The Women's Branch, 149 Lower 
Road, Rotherhitc, S. E. 

Cambridge House, 131 Camberwell Road, London, 
E. C. 

Chalfont House, 20 Queen's Square, W. C'., 
Bloomsbury. 

Christ Church (Oxford) Mission, Lodore St., Pop- 
lar, East London. 

College of Women Workers (Grey Ladies), Dart- 
mouth Row, Blaekheath Hills, S. E. 

Friend's New East End Mission, Bedford Institute 
Residence, Foster House, South Tottenham. 

St. Helenas House, 93 The Grove, Stratford. 

St. Hilda's East Settlement, continuation of May- 
field House, Old Ford Road, Bethnal Green, E. 

The Hoxton Settlement, 280 Bleyton Buildings, 
Nile St., N. 

Lady Margaret Hall, Kensington Road, Lambeth, 
London, S. E. 

Lelghton Hall, 8 Leighton Crescent, Kentish Town, 
N. W. 

Mansfield House, 89 Barking Road, Canning Town, 
E. Settlement of Women Workers, 461 Barking 
Road. 

Maurice Hostel (Christian Social Union Settle- 
ment), 90 Shepherdess Walk, City Road, N. 

Newman House, 108 Kensington Road, S. E. 

Oxford House, Mape St., Bethnal Green, N. E. 

St. Margaret's House (Women's Branch), 4 Vic- 
toria Park Square, Bethnal Green. 

Passmore Edwards House, Tavistock Place and 
Little Coram St., St. Pancras, N. W. 

Pembroke College Mission, 207a East St., Wai- 
worth, S. E. 

Presbyterian Settlement, Esk House, 56 East India 
Dock Road, Poplar, London, E. 

Robert Browning Hall, York St., Walworth Road, 



THE COMMONS 



S. E. Settlement House, 82 Camberwell Road, 
S. E. 
Rugby School Home Mission, 292 Lancaster Road, 

Nottlng Hill, W. 
St. Mildred's House, Millwall, E. 
Stepney Meeting House, Garden St., Stepney 

Green, E. 

Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial St., Whltechapel, E. 
The United Girls' Schools' Mission Settlement, 1 

Albany Row, Camberwell, S. E. 
Wellington College Mission, 183 East St., Wai- 
worth, C. E. 
Women's University Settlement, Sotithwark, 44 

Nelson Square, Blackfriars Road, S. E. 
York House, 527 Holloway Road, N. 
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. 
Lancashire College Settlement, Embden St. and 

Clarendon, W., Hulme. 
Manchester University Settlement, Ancoats Hall, 

Manchester Art Museum. 
Star Hall, Ancoats. 
PARIS, FRANCE. 

Universlte Populaire, De la Rue Mouffetard. 
Universite Populaire, 127 Faubourg St. Antoinc. 
Universite Populaire, 19 Rue de Belleville. 
Oratoire St. Phillipe de Neri, 14 Boulevard Tuck- 

ermann. 

Ouevre de Popincourt, 72 Rue de la Folie Ragnault. 
TOKYO, JAPAN. 

The Kingsley Hall, No. 1 3d St., Misakicho, Kenda. 
SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND. 

Neighborhood Guild, Smilter Lane, Pitsmoor. 
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES. 

The Toynbee Guild, The University, Sydney. 
VIENNA, AUSTRIA. 
Toynbee Hall, Zionist Association. 



15he Twentieth Century a.nd 
Liberty- 

The close of the nineteenth century witnesses 
to the marvelous growth of the world along 
every line of advance, but says M. Roland de 
Mares, in a recent review, "Its glory is the 
triumph of liberalism." He calls attention to 
the heroic struggle for knowledge and justice; 
to the triumph of right over might, and free 
thought over religious fanaticism; to the sub- 
stitution of human conscience for old preju- 
dices; to the liberalizing and socializing of edu- 
cation now accessible to all classes; and to the 
enormous advancement of science and art. Of 
the problems which the forces of liberalism 
must face at the opening of the new century 
he says: 

'The liberals of the twentieth century must 
overcome the last shred of resistance of reac- 
tionary old Europe; they must make all people 
to know that all war, of whatever kind, is hate- 
ful, and is the ruin of the conqueror even more 
than of the conquered; they must give pro- 
founder and more unmistakable significance to 
the idea of internationalism, which should dom- 



inate all our political considerations, and tend 
each day to hasten the glad hour of commer- 
cial liberty foretold and extolled by the Man- 
chester School of Economics. This is the first 
step of that glorious road leading to the com- 
plete realization of humanity's best dream, that 
all men of good will, in all the earth, may work 
without restraint for the happiness and well 
being of the human race." 



At the Crossing of the Centuries- 
God is trying to speak with me, and I am trying 

to hear ; 

But the angry roar of an angry sea 
Has told my soul that it is not free; 
And my strange, imperfect ear 
Has only caught, on the breast of day, 
The strain of a song that is far away 
So I sit and listen and humbly pray, 
For God is near. 

God is trying to speak with me, and I am trying 

to hear. 

Away with the gold that is won by death 
Of mind and body. (O Nazareth! 

O living, breathing tear!) 
Away, away with the realist's hand, 
Away with the tyrants that slave the land, 
For the heart must sing and the stars command. 

(Great God is near.) 

And soothe and comfort the voice of pain, 
Man's Eden must return again. 
And the Christ that suffered must live and reign. 

(Great God is near.) 

And hush and silence the battle's din 
And lift forever the mists of sin 
That veil the wealth of the God within. 

(Great God Is near.) 

And strive, oh, strive to be brave and true; 
The world is dying of me and you, 
And the deeds undone that we both might do! 

(Great God is near.) 

Coletta Ryan. 



A Study of the Saloon and Some 
Substitutes for it in Cleveland.* 

UNDERTAKEN BY GOODKICH HOUSE FOR THE COM- 
MITTEE OF FIFTY. 

BY STARR CADWALLADER. 

The 1,928 saloons in Cleveland are divided 
among the forty-two wards in numbers rang- 
ing from nine to one hundred and twenty-nine. 
From observation in different parts of the city. 
260,000 is a conservative estimate of the num- 
ber of visits paid to the saloons each day. 

Fully half of the saloons are owned and 
controlled bv various brewing concerns, the 



*The information used in this article was 
collected in the latter part of the year 1899. 



THE COMMONS 



9 



largest of which is a local company with nine 
breweries in the city. The quarters vary in 
size and attactiveness from the small, dingy, 
neighborhood place to the commodious, well- 
equipped, down-town resort. The latter draws 
its patronage not only from the near by streets 
and alleys, but also from localities more re- 
mote. Among the most important patrons are 
many men who would enter a strenuous pro- 
test if a saloon were opened in the street 
where they live to mar its beauty or to invade 
the peace of a quiet neighborhood sacred to 
home interests. These same men waste neither 
thought or sentiment on a consideration of the 
deplorable fact that the drinking places fre- 
quented by them are near the homes of men 
less fortunate or less prosperous than them- 
selves, or are in close proximity to a school 
attended by a thousand children whose lives 
need safeguarding quite as much as the lives 
of their own children. The following striking 
illustration is well known, but causes not the 
slightest comment. On one side of a school in 
the heart of the city, four notorious resorts 
are in full view from the windows; on the 
other side of the same school three saloons of 
the disreputable type open directly upon the 
sidewalk where between four and five hundred 
children pass four times a day. 

ATTRACTIONS OTHER THAN DRINK. 
Numerous privileges, carefully adapted to 
the population, are offered by saloons of all 
classes. Despite the expressed opinion of the 
chief of police to the contrary, attractions 
other than drink are used to advantage by 
nearly all of them. Free lunches, consisting of 
a great variety of eatables from crackers and 
pretzels to a hot hamburg steak or a boiled 
dinner, are a common feature. The food fur- 
nished is of a better quality and more whole- 
somely prepared than that found in the cheap 
restaurants. In this way the saloon has be- 
come almost indispensable near the large facto- 
ries. Chairs and tables promote sociability 
and invite men to linger over their drinks. 
One place is a sort of lodging house, which is 
a cheap convenience not to be despised on cold 
nights. On one such night seventeen human 
beings were stretched on the floor asleep or in 
a stupor. Games such as cards, dice, baga- 
telle, pool and billiards afford rather harmless 
amusement; while gambling devices of many 
forms tempt the unwary or appeal to the curi- 
osity or cupidity of the uninitiated. Music, 
both vocal and instrumental, pleases the ear. 
Dancing, buck and wing, cake wajk,. clog, skirt 



and can-can, does the same thing for the eye. 
The gymnasium and the bowling alley draw 
those who care for athletics. A theater com- 
nection, varying in kind from the most Tul- 
gar variety show to the high-class vaudeville 
of the only summer play-house, is appropri- 
ated by the saloon for its own profit. Four 
examples of this appropriation are well known 
and there are doubtless others. Women, 
either directly or indirectly, increase the pa- 
tronage of ninety per cent of the down-town 
places. A large proportion of the halls used 
for dances and for labor, society, and polit- 
ical meetings are either under the direct con- 
trol of a saloon or in the same building with 
one. Social clubs, organized to give "dances" 
and "balls," are common among young people 
in every part of the city. Their places of 
meeting are, with scarcely an exception, so 
connected with a saloon that drinking is an 
important feature of the program. Two halls 
used for such gatherings are notorious for the 
unrestrained revels carried on in them. It is 
not strange that girls who frequent these 
places often become recruits for houses of ill- 
fame. The watering-trough and the water- 
closet are not the least among the conven- 
iences offered by the saloon. Along streets 
traveled by trucks and drays, troughs are 
placed at short intervals; but in every case 
they are supplied by saloons. The team is re- 
freshed outside; the teamster finds his re- 
freshment inside. There is the same monop- 
oly in closets. Except in the parks, where this 
convenience is furnished by the city, no pro- 
vision other than that made by hotels and sa- 
loons is anywhere to be found. The purchase 
of a drink is but an acknowledgement of the 
accommodation offered. 

SALOONS HAVE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES. 

Nearly every saloon reveals distinctive fea- 
tures, the character of which is determined by 
the personality of the proprietor. All saloon- 
keepers are not fiends incarnate, bent on push- 
ing men to destruction; many of them are very 
human, excellent citizens, devoted to their 
families, and loyal to their friends. 

Special peculiarities of a few places only can 
be mentioned. One place is closed on Sunday 
because the proprietor wants to rest. He con- 
siders six days' work enough in one week. In 
another place, men are not encouraged to loaf: 
neither are they expected to drink to excess. 
The visitors are regular customers who drop 
lu on their way to or from work, pass the time 
of clay with the proprietor, take a drink, and 



10 



THE COMMONS 



straightway go out. The owner of this place 
is doing a legalized business in an upright 
fashion. A saloon in the down-town district 
does not allow "ladies" without escorts to so- 
licit attention; when unaccompanied they must 
sit at a screened table and not unduly pro- 
long their stay. One Italian saloon, after the 
manner of the German, is a family gathering 
place. Bars presided over by women are not 
unusual; but the story of one shows how dif- 
ficult is may be for a woman who has no love 
of the occupation for its own sake to make a 
change. The father of a family owned a house 
in which is a saloon. He died suddenly, leav- 
ing the house, encumbered by a large mort- 
gage, to his wife, who, with one grown daugh- 
ter, found herself obliged to care for a large 
family of small children. Xo occupation of- 
fered save that in which the father had been 
engaged. Their little money was invested in 
the business, which they could not sell to ad- 
vantage. So this mother and daughter keep 
a bar-room, serving the customers themselves. 
The older woman does not seem to mind much; 
but the daughter, of finer fiber, loathes the po- 
sition forced upon her by necessity. Seeing no 
prospect of immediate change for herself, all 
her energy is expended to keep a younger 
sister in school, in the hope that some day she 
may become a teacher. 

Substitutes for the saloon performing simi- 
lar functions for society may be classified un- 
der two general heads: (1) Those maintained 
at the expense of the municipality; and (2) 
those maintained at the expense of private or- 
ganizations or individuals. 

OTHER PROVISIONS FOR SOCIAL NECESSITIES. 

The city makes few provisions which min- 
ister in any way to those social needs so ex- 
tensively met by the saloon. The schools, the 
public library and the parks comprise all there 
is of municipal activity in this direction. The 
schools touch the problem through the kinder- 
garten, the winter evening classes, and the 
entertainments for parents. The kindergarten 
laying emphasis as it does, through contact 
with mothers, upon the importance of well-' 
ordered and attractive homes, is exerting an 
influence at a most vital point. The winter- 
evening classes, most in demand where the 
bulk of the population is foreign, are more 
attractive in some eases than the occupations 
of the street gang. The school principal who 
a few years ago saw an opportunity to fur- 
nish entertainments, recreative and instruc- 
tive, for the parents of her pupils, not only 



changed the attitude of many toward the 
school, and added an important feature to the 
life of the community, but also established a 
precedent which is being followed elsewhere. 
The public library, having adopted the policy 
of multiplying points of contact with *he peo- 
ple in the places where they live or work, has 
established four branches in well-equipped 
buildings besides fourteen distributing sta- 
tions. This spreading out offers ease of access 
to all who care for the companionship of 
books. The reading rooms at the main library 
building and the four branches are well pat- 
ronized. The one in the main building is fre- 
quented by a class of loafers whose first ob- 
ject in winter is to keep warm and in summer 
to rest without interruption. The park sys- 
tem, while visited by thousands for 'the pur- 
poses of recreation, is so removed from the 
centers of densest population as to be inac- 
cessible for those who have greatest need. 
The advantages derived from an opportunity to 
behold the beauties of nature are recognized 
and the idea that playgrounds for the peo- 
ple increase these advantages is gradually 
finding favor. Open lawns, baseball and foot- 
ball grounds, tennis anc basket-ball courts, 
swings and other gymnastic apparatus, as well 
as sliding places and skating rinks freely pro- 
vided in all parts of the park system, would 
greatly enhance its usefulness; and a long 
step would be taken toward counteracting the 
demoralization due to the private parks, con- 
ducted for profit, where bars and vulgar en- 
tertainments tend to debauch and degrade. 

The private enterprises which in any meas- 
ure offer a substitute for the social functions 
performed by the saloon are more numerous 
than effective; those directly arrayed against 
the saloon being less effective than those 
which touch it indirectly. An adequate ac- 
count of all these efforts is impossible, but a 
list of the principal ones will give an idea of 
the variety.* Special mention is made either 



'Associated Charities, Athletic Clubs 5, Bil- 
liard and Pool Rooms, Boys' Clubs 11, Brig- 
ades 4. Bowling Alleys, Churches and Mis- 
sions 292, Concerts (Free 16), Educational Al- 
liance (Classes for boys and young men), Fra- 
ternal Orders 52, Gymnasia (10 with instruc- 
tors), Labor Organizations, Lecture Courses 3, 
Libraries 4 (open daily), Lodging Houses, 
Lunch Rooms (for profit, philanthropic, in fac- 
tories), Reading Rooms 14, Salvation Army 
(9 posts), Social Settlements 3, Theaters 5, W. 
C. T. U. (3 places). Y. M. C. A. 18 branches). 



THE COMMONS 



11 



because service of importance is performed or 
because the form of the service is in some 
way peculiar to Cleveland. 

The churches and the missions are more nu- 
merous than any of the other agencies. In 
many sections they afford the only public 
meeting places except the saloon; but their 
touch with the people is intermittent and in- 
adequate because they are closed during the 
greater part of the week. Two Protestant and 
three Catholic churches have special facilities 
for education and social work. In addition, 
the Brotherhood of St. Andrew has a well- 
equipped library and club room and two Cath- 
olic churches have club rooms for young men 
open daily. The city church does not occupy 
so large a place in the social life of its con- 
gregation as does the country church. The 
larger and more influential city church scarce- 
ly touches the self-respecting workingman. 

The Young Men's Christian Association has 
recognized its social opportunity and is meet- 
ing its obligation for 3,000 members. Even- 
ing classes for 800 students, an entertainment 
course, a cafe 1 for members, the best-equipped 
and the best-managed gymnasium in the city 
and well-kept lodgings* for men at the Rail- 
road branch, are a few of the more noticeable 
features. 

HOUSING AND LODGING. 

The importance of housing in any consider- 
ation of social phenomena suggests the group- 
ing of information concerning lodgings. The 
Salvation Army estimates the daily attend- 
ance on its meetings at 1,500. Its lodging 
house 1 for men affords shelter to tramps and 
the unemployed. The farm colony, a few 
miles from the city, is designed to remove re- 
spectable poor families to a country environ- 
ment. The Woman's Christian Temperance 
Union in its building, which is centrally lo- 
cated, besides a reading room and daily gos- 
pel temperance meetings, has a separate-room 
lodging. 2 The Associated Charities also has a 
lodging 5 , for men, and breakfast is furnished; 
but both accommodations are only offered in 
exchange for work in the wood-yard. The 
cheap lodging houses, conducted for profit, can- 
not be considered complete substitutes for the 



Twenty beds. 
'Accommodations for 100. 

'Accommodations for 20 men. Rates, $1.25 
per week. 

'Accommodations for 20 men and 20 women. 



saloon. Restraint never goes farther prob- 
ably than one proprietor indicated when he 
said, "I tend the fire myself to see that them 
hoboes don't rush the can too much." Judg- 
ing from the condition of some lodgers ''too 
much" is an expansive term. Two of these 
houses are of the type found in most cities, 
barracks on the upper floors of large build- 
ings; but others are located in old dwelling 
houses, where all the available space including 
cellar and attic is utilized for beds and cots of 
every imaginable variety. One proprietor con- 
trols six such houses. He recognizes the dis- 
advantages and talks of the beauties of a 
Mills Hotel. Lodgings such as these, although 
they possess few attractions are more popular 
than those conducted by charitable organiza- 
tions. Few workingmen in regular employ are 
accommodated in lodging-houses of either type. 
They find homes in private families. 

As Cleveland is a lake port, mention should 
be made in passing, of the privileges provided 
for sailors. Two societies do work for men 
of this class; one is a rescue mission, the dis- 
tinctive feature of which is a reading room on 
the docks; the other, also a mission, as a special 
attraction provides meals at a low rate. 

Social features, as reading rooms, traveling 
libraries, concerts, lunch rooms, bath rooms, 
have been recently introduced in large shops 
and factories. A committee of the Chamber of 
Commerce concerns itself with this special 
thing and employs a secretary to study the pos- 
sibilities and suggest ways of organizing the 
work. This form of industrial betterment, 
while the primary object is not to counteract 
the saloon, is most telling in this direction. 
One illustration from personal knowledge is 
pertinent. A roller employed in a mill where 
a lunch room was opened, had usually spent 
$12 to $14 in a neighboring saloon for meals 
and drinks every two weeks. After the lunch- 
room was opened, his drink bill for the same 
length of time was reduced to little more than 
a dollar. The proprietor of the saloon said 
that if more shops opened lunch-rooms he 
would be obliged to move elsewhere or go out 
of business. 

From the foregoing statements it Is evident' 
that the saloon is an important social factor 



(2) Accommodation for 20 men. Rates $1.25 
per week. 

(3) Accommodations for 20 men and 20 
women. 



12 



THECOMMONS 



in the community; that its appeal to human- 
ity is not altogether evil or it would cease to 
thrive: that measures to counteract its in- 
fluence cannot stop with a denunciation of 
drunkenness, but must include ways and 
means to satisfy those legitimate needs which 
it alone adequately meets; that it is scarcely 
desirable to abolish the saloon before the place 
which it fills is otherwise supplied, at least ap- 
proximately. The substitution now attempted 
ig evidently insufficient. Some ways in which 
municipal activity in this direction could be 
extended have been mentioned or implied. 
Public expenditure for public conveniences; 
for the opening of school buildings for lectures, 
concerts and social gatherings, for an increase 
in the number of parks and an improvement 
of their equipment for purposes of recreation 
would be both legitimate and economic. The 
efforts of a private nature made continuous 
and more diverse might be made more effec- 
tive. 

The force of the fact that here in a single 
city more than 4,000 men, many of them intel- 
ligent students of human nature, devote their 
whole time to the conduct of the saloon busi- 
ness, is not fully realized. The success of the 
business lies largely in the fact that the men 
engaged in it know the people of the com- 
munity and their needs as no other body of 
men do, and are content to supply needs with- 
out imposing their own personal prejudices. 
Opposition to the saloon commands no such 
number of men and is weak in that it expends 
so much effort in mere negative agitation and. 
when it goes farther-supplies not what the peo- 
ple want, but what somebody happens to think 
is good for them. When the time comes in 
which the opportunities for the satisfaction of 
the common wants of nature are more numer- 
ous, and in which a larger appreciation of the 
value and necessity of human intercourse makes 
the facilities for enjoying such intercourse more, 
general, then the possible service of the saloon 
will be restricted and its influence consequent- 
ly limited. 



Our grand business is not to see what lies 
dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly 
at hand. Thomas Carlyle. 



Love in Hell- 

[Suggested by two humble lovers, walking hand-in- 
haud amid the chaotic din of a great steel works.] 

I walked through Hell. 

On every side the roaring flres of the pit. 

In smoke and turmoil toiled the workers, like lurid 

devils, man-forgot. 
Mighty flames shot high, and blasting heat burned 

face and eyes with threats of death. 
No leaf, no flower, no bird, no gentleness of life; 
But only roaring, crashing Titans at their hugest 

task. 

"Accursed this!" I cried an unheard cry. 
"No human thing, no loving heart, lives here!" 
And bitter tears rose up to feed my wrath. 
And then, down through the smoke, amid the din, 
I saw a Two come, hand in hand. 
The old, old story of a man and maid! 
Lovers who loved with love that naught could crush. 
I said to God with tears of pain and joy: 
"O, Thou Omnipotent and Infinite! 
Not even the depths of man's most heartless Hell 
Can quench the flres of love that keeps man good! 

John P. Gavlt. 



A daughter of Austin Dobson, the English 
poet, has been sent as a missionary to ludia 
by the United Social Settlements for Univer- 
sity Women. 



"She New York Get-Together-Club. 

The general purpose of the club is to get to- 
gether, at intervals throughout the year, a body 
'of earnest men who realize that this age is con- 
fronted by great social and economic problems 
which demand the careful consideration of 
every citizen those who feel that no one man, 
or set of men, or party, has all the truth neces- 
sary to solve these problems, but who do firmly 
believe that there is a solution, and that from 
free and open discussion by men of diverse 
views, yet having a common purpose, that so- 
lution may be evolved. 

It is also the earnest desire especially of the 
younger men that by association one with an- 
other, and by being brought into contact with 
eminent men who have accomplished large and 
noble purposes, they shall be broadened in 
mind and uplifted in character. 

In brief, then, the object of the club is to 
give opportunity for the open discussion, by 
representative men, of the social, political and 
economic problems of the d.iy. 

The club has no organization other than the 
committee of direction. 

The last meeting was planned with the con- 
scious recognition that the civic salvation of 
New York City is largely dependent on indi- 
vidual action, made intelligently cumulative. 

Suppressive work is needful and imperative, 
but it is not the end; it should be the begin- 
ning of upbuilding positive constructive meas- 
ures. What New York needs, what all our 
cities need, is a positive program. 



THE COMMONS. 



Tlio following may bo suggested as among 
the features of such a program: Public ba;lis. 
public comfort stations, public wash houses, 
museums, libraries, technical schools. 

This is not an ordinary meeting for charm- 
ing social intercourse and the intellectual de- 
light of after-dinner speeches, but au occa- 
sion for impressing each man with the fact 
that just to tne extent that he is indifferent, 
apathetic, or too thoughtless to praise any of- 
ficial who is trying to do his duty to that ex- 
tent he is responsible for civic misrule. What 
are you going to do about it? 

The subject of the meeting was: "The Anti^ 
Vice Crusade: After Suppression What?" 
Bishop H. C. Potter presided. The program 
was as follows: "The Committee of Fiftee7i 
Its Origin, Scope and Purpose," Wm. H. Bald- 
win, chairman; "Who Are the Criminals," 
Henry George, Jr.; "Visual Education in Civ- 
ics," Dr. Josiah Strong, director New York 
Museum of Social Economy; "Municipal Ideals 
Realized," Milo R. Maltbie, editor Municipal 
Affairs; "What Labor Wants," J. N. Bogert, 
state organizer, American Federation of Labor. 



The International Kindergarten Union holds 
its eighth annual convention in Chicago April 
10, 11 and 12. This is a federated organization 
representing seventy clubs, kindergarten clubs 
and kindergarten associations in this country 
and Canada. It is the largest kindergarten 
organization in the world. Miss Caroline T. 
Haven, of the New York City Ethical Schools, 
Is the president, and will conduct the three 
days' sessions during the Easter holidays. The 
Chicago Kindergarten Club is to be the hostess 
to the International guests. No less than 1,000 
delegates and visitors are expected. The officers 
and executive board of this club constitute the 
local committee in charge of the. entertainment 
of the International Union, Mrs. Alice H. Put- 
nam, president, and Mrs. Mary B. Page, vice- 
president. Most of the meetings will be held 
in the Fine Arts Building, on Michigan boule- 
vard. The rooms of the Chicago Woman's 
Club oil the ninth floor are the headquarters 
for the delegates. All educational bodies in 
the city have been invited to co-operate with 
the Chicago Kindergarten Club in making the 
congress successful. At the last session, on 
Saturday morning, which is to be held at Hull 
House, "The place of the Kindergarten iu Set- 
tlement Work" will be discussed by Miss Jane 
Aildains and Miss Mary McDowell. 



First edition exhausted. Send ?1.00 for new and 
enlarged edition. 

15he BOY PROBLEM. 

A STUDY IN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY. 

BY THE 

Rev. William Byron Forbvish, Ph. D., Lift. D. 

With an Introduction by 
President G. STANLEY HALL. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. Boy-Life; a summajy of the recent scat- 
tered literature of the child-study of adolescence. 
CHAPTER II. Ways iu Which Boys Spontaneously 

Organize Socially; a study of the "gang" and 

child-societies. 
CHAPTER III. Ways in Which Adults Organize in 

Behalf of Boys; a critique of boys' clubs and church 

work for boys. 
CHAPTER IV. Suggestions as to How to Help Boys; 

a constructive stdy. 

FROM THE INTRODUCTION. 

"The author, who is both a clergyman and a Doctor 
of Philosophy, has been among boys and done work 
with them that I regard hardly less than epoch mak- 
ing in significance. 

G. STANLEY HALL. 



15he New Fourth Edition S College. Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Wa.ugn McCuIloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 350. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology. By Graha/n Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 500 of THE COMMONS. 
75he Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 

PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL, 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFER HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL 

John Marshall Williams. 

Chicago Commons loses its most liberal 
friend in the death, on March 9. of John Mar- 
shall Williams of Chicago and Evanston. at 
his winter home in Mountain View, California. 
The social vision came to him at the close oC 
his active and successful business career, as 
he was nearing the eightieth year of his life. 
Wholly through his own reflection upon his 
personal observations, he gradually became 
deeply impressed with the fact that the appli- 
cation of the common faith to the social and 
industrial conditions of the common life is the 
greateset need of our times. His first expres- 
sion of this conviction was the request that 
the contribution which he had previously made 
to the endowment of the Chicago Theological 
Seminary should apply to the maintenance of 
the sociological department. This suggested 
itself to him after the social settlement work 
at Chicago Commons had begun to attract his 
attention and elicit his interest. 

He showed his faith in this newly estab- 
lished effort by sending, without solicitation, 
a yearly contribution to its support when it 
was most of an experiment and in greatest 
need of confidence. The securing of a perma- 
nen foothold for it by the erection of the new 
building enlisted his enthusiasm. He made 
the first pledge to the building fund, of $1,500. 
Foreseeing the growth of the work, even be- 
yond the provision made for it in the design 
of the large building covering the old Taber- 
nacle site, he purchased the adjoining lot to 
the south of it. so as to make possible the addi- 
tion of a men's club house and the enlargement 
of the auditorium. To assure the completion of 
the now finished Morgan street wing, he added 
to his gifts until they aggregated $8,000, or one- 
fourth of the cost of the present structure. His 
personal interest in the details of the building, 
equipment and every feature of its work for 
the people was maintained by personal inter- 



views, and when far away in search of health, 
by correspondence. In crisis when we have 
found it very trying both to ourselves and to 
some of our friends to stand in between lines 
for industrial justice and social peace, he 
wrote to comfort and encourage us. As a 
business man he clearly saw the need of an 
increasing body of people who should refuse 
to be classified and should make the common 
cause their own. 

A quiet, simple, successful, manly man 
has gone from us. To our citizenship, 
church membership and social fellowship his 
departure is a loss which it may take many 
another man's sacrifice and service to maKe 
good in the causes he unostentatiously served. 
Who follows in his train? 



T5he Building Season without Funds for Building. 

Another building season has begun and we 
are yet without even the subscription of a dol- 
lar toward the erection of the residence wing 
of the new building so desperately needed by 
early autumn. This is due, we believe, less 
to the indisposition of many to contribute the 
$25,000 required to build it than to the war- 
den's inability to command the time to per- 
sonally solicit the co-operation of the increas- 
ing friends of the Chicago Commons' work. 
Meanwhile, we are clinging to the old Union 
street house, hoping against hope that the roof 
that has so long sheltered us will not be taken 
away until the new roof is spread over us 
eighteen unprovided for workers who are still 
standing by the old ship. And somehow, we 
"feel in our bones" that even, when the new 
building is completed, the work down here 
among the neediest of our people will not be 
left shelterless. But who knows how these 
things can be? Perhaps some who read these 
very lines can tell better than we who are ever 
under the heat and burden of this long work- 
a-day! 



&/>e First Number of our Sixth Volume. 

With this number The Commons enters upon 
the sixth year of its publication. The struggle 
and sacrifice that have gone into the five years 
of effort to maintain the paper, wholly without 
capital, have never seemed better worth while 
than now. For the grateful recognition of the 
service to the social cause which Chicago 
Commons is trying to render bv assuming the 
heavy personal and financial responsibility of 
publishing this monthly is heartier and more 
widespread than ever before. Its 3,000 sub- 
scribers and many more readers can co-operate 



THE COMMONS 



15 



with us ia bringing the paper to self-support 
in three ways: By sending us the addresses of 
those whose attention they call to its value, 
so that sample copies may be sent them; by 
suggesting advertising that may be secured, 
and by contributing to its columns personal ob- 
servations of social conditions or of the ways 
in which they are being bettered. 



In Rebuttal. 

To the testimony of our own investigation of 
the social function of the saloon in Chicago, 
presented by Mr. R. L. Melendy, in The Com- 
mons for November, we add in this issue the 
corroborating evidence gathered by Goodrich 
House, Cleveland, and reported by its head res- 
ident. In rebuttal to the violent or hysterical 
criticism of our effort to account for the 
existence of the saloon and to suggest how the 
people may be saved from its baneful evils by 
substituting better agencies for rendering its 
social service, we simply restate the same stub- 
born facts from another point of view. With 
this we rest the case of The Faithful Observ- 
ers of the Facts of the Situation vs. The Ram- 
pant Ranters, whose zeal is worthy of broader 
intelligence. 



New Hope in ovir Ward Politics. 

The most significant political event in all our 
settlement experience and in many years of 
Seventeenth Ward history was the nomination 
of John F. Smulsld as Republican candidate 
for alderman. He neither sought the nomina- 
tion himself nor was sought for it by the party 
leaders. It was successfully urged upon him 
as its unanimous ratification by acclama- 
tion was upon the convention at the demand 
of an aroused public sentiment voiced by 
the Municipal Club a non-partisan organ- 
ization initiated by and meeting at Chi- 
cago Commons. The advantage of being 
first in the field with a positive program was 
thus again demonstrated. For the Municipal 
club was the first to line up its forces behind 
an affirmatively formulated demand, within the 
new and greatly enlarged ward boundaries. 
Accepting the leader of the annexed Polish and 
German population upon his honorable and 
able record for the past two years as repre- 
sentative of the adjoining ward in the city 
council, the club, aided by the daily Scandi- 
navian and the Municipal Voters' League, ral- 
lied the influential sentiment among the Nor- 
wegian and other nationalities to such an ex- 



tent that he was recognized to be the candidate 
who would have the best chance of election 
over any other nominee of either party. The 
Municipal club scores its greatest success and 
the Seventeenth Ward has the opportunity to 
elect the best alderman it ever had. 



T5he Month at Chicago Commons. 

MUNICIPAL CLUB TRIUMPH. 
The best news of the month, if not of all our 
seven years, is the nomination, through the in- 
fluence of our Municipal club of John F. Srnul- 
ski, as the candidate of the Republican party 
for alderman of the Seventeenth Ward. The 
influence which this non-partisan club has fair- 
ly won among the people at large, entitles it 
to wield more effectively than it has more than 
once before, the balance of power in ward 
elections. The residents have already had .the 
pleasure of having our new Polish leader and 
his wife as their guests, and the Municipal 
club has the honor of presenting him to his 
new constituency at the old end of the ward, 
in the auditorium of our new building; thus 
opening his campaign. 

LOOM AT WORK. 

Thanks to the co-operation of many friends, 
singly and in groups, the carpet-rug-loom is at 
last merrily at work, and the cooking school 
kitchen has all of its equipment, excepting 
the complement of utensils for each demon- 
stration table. 

P. S. A. 

The pleasant Sunday afternoons continue to 
draw large and appreciative family gatherings 
to the new auditorium. Groups of delighted 
people follow the residents who are on receiv- 
ing service through the building and new 
friends for the old work are won at every turn. 
The programs for the afternoon culminate and 
close with the month of March, giving way to 
special work with smaller groups through the 
spring and summer. 

FOR NEXT SUMMER'S OUTINGS. 
The outing work for next summer begins to 
demand our attention as it should the support 
of its friends everywhere. Last summer we 
were obliged to carry a deficit of $238 into this 
overburdened winter from our outing account. 
This year we seek support in advance of our 
assumption of financial responsibility. Will not 
friends of fresh air and of those who need it 
plan beforehand to give as well as take it next 
summer? 



16 



THE COMMONS 



OUR GYMNASIUM EQUIPPED. 
Our gymnasium floor has not waited long for 
its equipment. A more complete and expensive 
outfit of apparatus than we could have hoped 
to secure in many a year was all ready in 
waiting for us amongst our friends in Oak 
Park. It had been contributed years ago to 
the Scovillc Institute by citizens of that little 
city of homes. But the library building in 
which it was installed proved unadapted to 
gymnasium purposes. For many months the 
disposition of the apparatus has been held in 
abeyance, until the trustees of the institute de- 
cided to put it to the widest and neediest use 
by completely equipping with it the gymnasium 
of -the new Chicago Commons building. If its 
donors could hear the enthusiastic applause 
which greets every announcement of the gift 
they would heartily ratify the liberal action 
of, their trustees. The clubs of young men, 
young women, girls and boys using the gym- 
nasium will hasten to express their lasting ap- 
preciation by placing upon its walls a tablet 
acknowledging their grateful indebtedness to 
their friends of the Scoville Institute, Oak 
Park. 

OLD FREE FLOOR SAFELY UNDER NEW ROOF. 
The transference of our Tuesday evening 
free floor discussions to the bright, large audi- 
torium in the new building, from the dingy, 
catacomb-like basement of the old house, was 
not attempted without, solicitude. The men 
seemed somewhat indifferent to the offer 
of the better accommodations and the residents 
were reluctant to risk the effect of the change 
upon the free and home-like spirit of this most 
unique occasion. So we postponed the transi- 
tion from week to week until the second Tues- 
day in March. To our great gratification this 
first meeting under the new roof was one of 
the best ever held on our free floor. The at- 
tendance, which was more representative than 
ever, rose from an average of eighty to one 
hundred and thirty. The spirit was as free as 
ever, and yet somewhat more diginified. and 
seriously practical. The occasion was signal- 
ized by giving more of a progressively educa- 
tional turn to the programs in providing for a 
consecutive series of topics on the history of 
industrial progress, and by the initiation of 
study classes. The latter will be organized on 
the basis and under the charge of the Ruskin 
Hall labor college, the management of which 
in England has been officially assumed by the 
Trades Unions and Co-operative Societies. The 
American Federation of Labor, at its last Na- 



tional convention, favorably entertained a prop- 
osition to give its official sanction, and referred 
it to the friendly consideration of the executive 
board to recommend what action should be 
taken by the next convention. Meanwhile, we 
hope to have an extensive branch of Ruskin 
Hall in practical operation at Chicago Com- 
mons this spring. In the next number of The 
Commons we will have a description of the 
English success and American prospects of the 
movement by its founder, Mr. Walter Vroo- 
man. 

CHURCH SHARES SETTLEMENT'S SUCCESS. 
The old Tabernacle shows many signs of new 
life month after month. The Bible school grows 
steadily in numbers and efficiency under its 
graded organization and instruction. The La- 
dies' Aid and Missionary Society are increas- 
ing their numbers and helpful activities. Un- 
der their auspices a City Mission Social was 
given at which representatives of the society 
which so long assisted the church were hon- 
ored guests. On Sunday evenings Prof. Taylor 
is giving "Live Answers to Every-day Ques- 
tions," assisted in turn by a doctor, lawyer, 
business man, employe and other representa- 
tives of various occupations and common rela- 
tionships. The smallest audiences rarely fall 
below the largest average congregation in the 
old church building. The death of Major D. 
W. Whittle, formerly superintendent of the 
Sunday school, was the occasion of grateful 
tributes to the "Master of Sacrifice," and the 
singing of many of the hymns he wrote. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN Ghe COMMONS DURING 1901. 

One Page -25-00 Half Page - 75.00 

Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects cf Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view, It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, 
Chicago, III., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffke as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 
(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for 2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above ^-cent denomination. ^ at our risk. 
CKanges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom. "and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



TKe Commofvs 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 58-Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago, Ma.y. 1901. 



The Williams' Residence Hall. 
Completion of the Grand Ave- 
Wing Assured. 

GIFT OF $12,000 IN MEMORY OF JOHN MARSHALL 

WILLIAMf?, INVOLVING THE RAISING OF $13,000 

TO COMPLETE AND EQUIP THE TWO WINGS. 

In filial regard for their father's memory and 
in token of sharing his interests in the per- 
manent establishment of the work of Chicago 
Commons, the family of the late John Marshall 
Williams have given $12,000 to assure the com- 
pletion of the Grand avenue wing of our new 
building as a memorial to their parents. To 
this end his six sons and daughters Lucian M. 
Williams, Mrs. Isabella Williams Blaney, Mrs. 
Helen WHliams Husser, Mrs. Jessie Williams 
Simmons, Mr. Nathan W. Williams and Mrs. 
Edith Williams Kirkwood contribute $2,000 
each, on condition that the $8,000 previously 
given by their father toward the erection of 
the Morgan street wing be added to their gift 
and that with the $20,000 thus assured the 
"Williams Residence Hall" be erected. 

The trustees of the Chicago Commons Asso- 
ciation, in gratefully accepting this sponta- 
neous and generous gift, by the action reported 




John Marshall Williams 




William's Kesicirnce Hall. 



Main Wing. 



Proposed Men's Club House. 



THE COMMONS 



below, decided to make an immediate effort to 
raise, by subscriptions, payable within one 
year, not only $8,000 to replace what must thus 
be transferred from the fund for the Morgan 
street wing, but $5,000 additional to complete 
the payments on the latter and to equip it for 
its fullest service. 

The $13,000 thus to be secured, together with 
the $12,000 given by the Williams family and 
the $29,217.71 already paid on account of the 
Morgan street wing and toward the purchase 
of the additional lot to the south of it, will put 
the Chicago 'Commons Association in possession 
of a building equipment -costing, with its fur- 
nishing, fully $56,000, which by the terms of 
the land lease can never be alienated from the 
settlement work and the use of the Tabernacle 
church, for both of which it is held in trust. 

Mr. Williams' initial contributions toward the 
building, together with those of other early 
friends, have thus secured for Chicago Com- 
mons permanent foothold in the city, and in 
so doing have also assured the perpetuity of 
the important typical work of the Tabernacle 
church, which is organically independent of 
but closely associated with it. The memory of 
the man who, in his old age, caught this new 
vision of the city's social need and began to try 
to realize it, deserves to have a living memorial 
among the masses of its people. Of Connecti- 
cut antecedents, he was born at Morrisville, 
New York, in 1821, where he improved such 
educational advantages as the common schools 
of the village and neighboring academies af- 
forded. Beginning his business career in a 
country store, he came to Chicago in 1848 and 
formed the lumber firm of Lull & Williams, 
with yards at Randolph and Jefferson streets, 
only a dozen blocks away from the site of the 
new building which will bear his name. Later 
he entered the firm of Ryerson, Williams & 
Co., located in the same neighborhood, at Ful- 
ton and Canal streets. His loyalty to the dis- 
trict, in whose soil his business life first struck 
root, is characterictic of the strong sense of 
justice he had. Believing in the future of Chi- 
cago, he invested his savings in its real estate, 
from which, together with his lumber and min- 
ing interests, his property was accumulated. He 
was president of the village of Evanston in 
1879, where for thirty-two years he made his 
home. For all -these fifty-three years of his 
Chicago career he was actively identified with 
the Congregational fellowship, earlier at the 
First Church of this city, and later with the 
First Church in Evanston. His largest public 
donation was that of $25,000, made several 



years ago, to the endowment of the Chicago 
Theological Seminary. Since, in a recent codi- 
cil to his will, he referred to his deceased wife 
as the one "by whose frugality and watchful- 
ness over the affairs of my household for many 
years, it has been made easier and possible for 
me to have accumulated the property I now 
possess," it is most appropriate that their chil- 
dren should inscribe the erection of the Wil- 
liams Residence Hall to the memory of their 
parents, John Marshall and Elizabeth C. Wil- 
liams. 



Minute of our Boa.rd of Trustees 
Accepting the Gift. 



The trustees of the Chicago Commons Asso- 
ciation, having received from the family of the 
late John Marshall Williams the assurance of 
the gift of $12,000 to the building fund of Chi- 
cago Commons, gratefully accept the contribu- 
tion. In accordance with the wish of the don- 
ors, they agree to add to it the $8,000 which 
Mr. Williams personally contributed to the 
fund and with the $20,000 thus assured erect 
"The Williams Residence Hall" at Chicago 
Commons. In so doing they hereby place upon 
their records their grateful appreciation of the 
initiative and confidence given by Mr. Williams 
to the work of Chicago Commons when it was 
in its more experimental stage of development, 
thus assuring the permanency and equipment 
now well secured. This last act of his generos- 
ity was a fitting expression of his half cen- 
tury's faith in Chicago and his deepening de- 
sire to promote the industrial peace, social 
unity and the moral and religious uplift of all 
its citizens. 

To his sons and daughters, Lucian M. Wil- 
liams, Mrs. Isabella Williams Blaney, Mrs. 
Helen Williams Husser, Mrs. Jessie Williams 
Simmons, Mr. Nathan W. Williams and Mrs. 
Edith Williams Kirkwood, the trustees give 
this token of gratitude for the generous share 
of their father's spirit which they have shown 
in giving $2,000 each for'the completion of the 
residence hall bearing their family name and 
perpetuating their parents' memory. 

To Mrs. John Marshall Williams they extend 
their heartfelt thanks for sharing her hus- 
band's interest in the establishment of Chicago 
Commons and for assuring the continuance of 
his annual contribution toward the support of 
its work for the current year. 



THE COMMONS 



The Religious Opportunity of the 
Public School Teacher. 

BY PROF. H. W. THURSTON, CHICAGO NORMAL 
SCHOOL. 

From the point of view of society, and from 
the point of view of the child himself, what is 
the task of the public school teacher? 

First, from the point of view of society. A 
comparison may be helpful to us. We think 
ourselves a civilized and progressive nation 
and China the opposite partly because in the 
United States we aim to discover and develop 
for the use of man all the natural resources of 
our great domain, while In China similar re- 
sources have remained for ages undeveloped. 

It is our national ambition to discover the lo- 
cation of all our treasures of soil, forest, mine, 
river, lake and climate, and to develop these 
resources to the utmost. Everything in nature 
must be so utilized as to contribute its maxi- 
mum to human welfare. A worthy ideal. Is 
it not? 

TWENTY MILLION SCHOOL CHILDREN OUR UNDE- 
VELOPED RESOURCE. 

But the resources of this country are not 
confined to our so-called natural resources, 
Our 20,000,000 and more of children and young 
people are a part of our undeveloped resources 
also. And is it net here, as in the case of our 
natural resources, plainly to our social advan- 
tage to discover and develop every capability 
of heart, hand and head of every child? From 
the social point of view nothing less than this 
can satisfy us as an ideal for our educational 
system. Our nation needs the maximum power 
of service that now lies potential in every 
child. 

From the point of view of the children them- 
selves likewise comes the appeal for help that 
each Individual may develop and outer-utter, 
express all there is of latent possibility In him. 
One child cannot realize and express himself 
with the same freedom through spoken and 
written language as another. The hammer 
and saw, the loom, the chisel, the brush, the 
needle, the clay, are media through which the 
soul of the child may often realize and express 
itself more genuinely than by the tongue or the 
pen. At bottom the need of each child Is the 
same, it is "more life and fuller" that he 
wants. 

THEIR RIGHT TO FULLER SELF EXPRESSION. 

It is because of late that we are coming 
more and more clearly to see thut many of our 
city children are living undeveloped lives, as 
well as that society is losing the services of 



its undeveloped human resources, that sewing, 
woodwork, domestic science, drawing, mould- 
ing and music are being introduced into the 
schools. No one who has even the glimmer of 
what these means of development and expres- 
sion mean to the child himself can make the 
mistake of calling them "fads and frills." 

As an illustration of the meaning of hand- 
work to a child, allow me to quote from the 
dally diary of one of the kindergarteners of 
last summer's Vacation Schools. "We have 
planned along the children's life this year and 
toward this end have begun on doll-houses. 
Result: Absorption in work and ecstatic de- 
light when work is over; no one wants to play 
with his ho.use; it is enough to behold it and 
satisfy the ego: 'I have done this'." Are you 
not reminded by this account of the ecstacy of 
kindergarten children over the 'work of their 
own hands, of the Biblical account of creation 
which ascribes a similar feeling to the Creator 
of the universe? "And God saw everything 
that He had made, and, behold, It was very 
good." 

MORE AHUNDANT LIFE A RELIGIOUS IDEAL. 

From the two points of view that of society 
as a whole, and that of the child himself be 
he street gamin or the petted darling of a 
luxurious home I have tried to say enough to 
make it clear that the Ideal of our educational 
leaders in trying to discover and develop all 
the potential resources of every child's nature 
is, at bottom, a religious ideal; in fact, the 
same ideal that the Great Teacher used to de- 
scribe the purpose of His own life when He 
said: "I am come that they might have life 
and that they might have it more abundantly." 
Surely, nothing less than this adequately ex- 
presses the religious opportunity of our public 
schools. 

RESPECTABILITY OF AT.T. SERVICE. 

A special phase of the social relation of man 
to man was emphasized in the Vacation 
Schools last summer. For some reason, due 
in part, surely, to the use made in the city 
press and by popular cartoonists of such words 
as "farmer" and "hay seed," most children in 
the Vacation Schools have a genuine contempt 
for the farmer and his work. Invariably 
upon the early excursions, at sight of men 
upon market wagons or at work in the fields, 
a chorus of children would shout: "Oh, see 
the hayseed! Look at the hayseed! look at 
"em!" 

In one school the nature study teacher based 
the work of the summer upon the farmer, his 
work, and the services he rendered to the 



THE COMMONS 



people in the cities. One result was that be- 
fore, the summer was over some of the boys 
who at first despised the farmer were heard 
boasting to their companions that their parents 
used to live upon a farm. 

BEGETTING HONEST PRIDE IN PARENTS' OCCUPATION. 

In another room in the same school, the 
teacher of drawing found that the pupils were 
In general from homes where the parents were 
engaged in useful occupations, but occupations 
of doubtful social respectability. For example, 
rag-dealers, stokers, shoemakers, washer- 
women, street laborers, barbers, peddlers, 
cooks, etc. Accordingly these occupations were 
chosen for drawing. One member of the class 
would pose in the attitude of a worker at some 
sketch. Incidentally the service of each occu- 
pation to society was discussed and approved. 
The tendency of such work is shown by the 
fact that instead of a reluctance to tell the 
occupations of parents, as is very often the 
case, one little boy upon handing in his draw- 
ing of a shoemaker at his bench, straightened 
himself up to his full height and said, with 
pride, "My father is a cobbler." 

Now, the attitude of these children of the 
city towards the work of the farmer, and the 
ideas of most of us which lead us to class cer- 
tain occupations as menial and others as of 
doubtful respectability are for the most part 
purely conventioal, and in the main inherited 
from a former economic and political period 
when the occupation a man followed brought 
the man himself into a position of superiority 
or subordination to others. They have no 
place In a democracy. In a democracy the only 
question to ask about a man's occupation is: 
What is its social significance? Is it socially 
helpful or harmful, and to what degree? The 
only person who needs to blush because of his 
occupation Is he whether tramp or millionaire 
who in his own person, as distinct from the 
property to which he has a legal title, is doing 
nothing with hand or brain, of service to his 
fellow men. Is there any inherent reason why 
the occupation of the person who renders us 
service in the kitchen should be despised, 
while that of him who renders us service from 
the pulpit is honored? Is the occupation of a 
garbage collector, by which the waste material 
of a great city Is eliminated and the health 
of thousands maintained, of itself any less 
honorable than that of a physician who helps 
us to keep the physiological processes of elim- 
ination in working order? 



INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SPIRITUAL AT BOTTOM. 

Our industrial system in all its complexity 
of production and exchange of commodities 
and services, with its marvelous development 
of machines, motive power and consolidations 
of corporations is at bottom a spiritual thing, 
and can ultimately be justified only by demon- 
strating that It exists for the sole purpose of 
aiding men the more efficiently to render each 
other service. Any man or institution who 
cannot abide this test is condemned already. 
On the other hand, so far as any man or insti- 
tution is rendering service to his fellow men, 
he should have the support of his own self- 
respect and the encouragement of a cordial 
recognition by those whom he serves. 

A good example of the development both of 
self-respect and social appreciation is found in 
Colonel Waring's experience with the street 
sweepers of New York. It will be remembered 
that he uniformed his men, organized them, in- 
spired them to efficiency, and cleaned the city, 
with the result that the death rate of the city 
was- distinctly lowered. Colonel Waring made 
it an honor to be a street sweeper in New 
York and taught New Yorkers for the first time 
to appreciate their service. 

THE DIGGER AND THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT. 

There was recently on exhibition in the Art 
Institute of Chicago a statue by a Chicago 
sculptor which breathes the spirit of what I 
am trying to .say. The figure is that of a man 
bareheaded and naked to the waist, clad only 
in a pair of belted overalls and heavy boots, 
his right hand clasping the handle of a spade 
and his left hand holding his crumpled soft 
hat behind his left hip. And yet the figure is 
that of a self-respecting man, ready to look 
any man in the eye, conscious that with his 
spade he has helped to dig the Drainage Canal, 
which now draws off the insidious poison of 
typhoid fever from the drinking water of two 
millions of people. 

In another room at the Institute is a statue 
of John Harvard, the founder of Harvard Col- 
lege. As I stood before the statue of the 
"Digger," I thought, here is a figure worthy to 
be placed beside that of the founder of a col- 
lege, for they stand upon the same platform 
of service to their fellow men. 

Booker T. Washington is teaching the whole 
negro race of the United States, and, in spite 
of ourselves, a part of the white race, too. 
that "no race can prosper till it learns that 
there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in 
writing a poem." 



THE COMMONS 



Again, for the highest expression of the 
ideal in this matter of our opinions about occu- 
pations, for the truest expression of the re- 
ligious opportunity of the public school in its 
economic teaching, we must go to the words 
of the Nazarene, "Whosoever will be great 
among you, let him be your minister; and 
whosoever will be chief among you let him be 
your servant." 

So far as the public school teacher in connec- 
tion with geography, drawing, economic dis- 
cussion and his own treatment of persons en- 
gaged in various occupations can develop in 
his pupils the habit of looking upon any of 
those occupations which are of service to man 
as worthy of any man's best efforts, and that 
the only disgrace in connection with a choice 
of occupations is to do nothing or something 
harmful to our fellow men, just so far is that 
teacher making use of a genuine religious as 
well as educational opportunity. 

OVERCOMING THE EVIL OF KACE ANTIPATHY WITH 
THE GOOD IN EACH NATIONALITY. 

Drawing once more upon my experience in 
the Vacation Schools, I wish to call attention 
to one more religious opportunity of the pub- 
lic schools, especially of large cities. Although 
the number of different nationalities in a single 
school went as high as eighteen, yet there 
were certain nationalities dominant in one 
school and other nationalities dominant in an- 
other school. This difference in nationality; 
especially between the members of different 
schools, was the cause of antagonism at times. 
It was impossible, for example, to take the 
Foster school, which had a large number of 
Russian Jews in it, on an excursion past a 
group of colored or Ii;,/,nii children without 
the words "sheeny," "ntgger," "dago," and 
"coon" being hurled back and forth with all 
the venom and sting in them that emphasis 
and intonation are capable of giving to words. 
One was constantly reminded of ancient Pales- 
tine, where the Jews had no dealings with the 
Samaritans; and of our own North and South 
during the slavery agitation when the words 
"Yank" and "Rebel" 'were as effective nearly 
in the contest as infantry and artillery. Only 
when these words began to lose their sting 
could North and South begin to feel their unity 
and their common destiny. 

The attitude of these children towards each 
other is but the reflection of the feeling of 
their parents of most of us. 

There are at least thirty different national- 
ities in Chicago, and the feeling of many of 



these nationalities for each other is, at best, 
one of difference and misunderstanding. In 
no other place as in the public schools can 
these nationalities be made to feel that their 
differences are but sources of richer life to- 
gether, and that their likenesses are far more 
fundamental than their differences. Each na- 
tionality has brought with it for the possible 
enrichment of all social life, in Chicago much 
that is lovely in the home, of economic worth 
in occupation, enjoyable in song, dance and 
game, beautiful in art, inspiring in tradition, 
poetry and history. 

An encouraging and appreciative receptivity 
for the best each nationality has to give to 
America should be developed in all national- 
ities, and, on the other hand, a self-respecting 
and generous rivalry in giving the best each 
has to all the others is equally necessary if 
municipal life is to be as rich, homogeneous 
and genuinely social as it ought to be. No 
American city can act as a unit in the great 
constructive work yet before it in building up 
a clean, healthy, cultured, beautiful and right- 
eous municipality unless all our nationalities 
feel their likenesses, their unity, more strongly 
than their differences. 

Every school in which several nationalities 
are found can do much to bring this about. 
This can be done by the personality of the 
teacher who shows by every word and act 
that all nationalities are alike to her, and sec- 
ondly, by encouraging each nationality to con- 
tribute the best it has of song, story, game, 
home customs and occupations to the life of 
the school. By these means both the self-re- 
spect of the giver and the appreciation of the 
receiver may be developed and a feeling of 
unity gradually substituted for one of antag- 
onism, jealousy and difference. 

By so doing the public school teacher will 
once more take advantage of a truly religious 
opportunity. 

What any city of diverse nationalities needs 
in order to work out a common municipal des- 
tiny is just what Paul said was necessary for 
a religious purpose: "For by one spirit are we 
all baptized into one body, whether we be 
Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free." 
"THE MAN-NESS or MEN VERSUS THE MEANNESS 
OF ME-ISM." 

The same thought has been quaintly and 
forcibly expressed by a recent speaker before 
an assembly of workingmen, whom he was 
urging to lay aside race prejudices and work 
together for the accomplishment of high social 
purposes. "Boys, we must forget the 'sheeny'- 



6 



THE COMMONS 



ness of the Hebrew and the 'dago'-ness of the 
Italian, yea, even the Irlshness of the police- 
man must be forgotten in the man-ness of 
men. The meanness of me-ism must give place 
to the allness of we-ism, for only so can the 
Son of Man come to reign in righteousness." 

The R.ura.1 Problem- 

ItY KENYON L. BUTTERFIELD. 

The purpose of this article is to summarize 
those forces and agencies that are now at work 
for the upbuilding of rural life, and that seem 
to be peculiarly adapted to the solution of the 
farm problem. 

It may not be out of place to suggest, at the 
outset, that the farm problem has a somewhat 
distinctive character. In the first place, the 
city problem Is one of congestion; the farm 
problem is one of isolation. This is putting 
the matter rather broadly, but it emphasizes 
the fundamental difference between the' urban 
social need and the rural social, need. There- 
fore, social theories and social institutions in- 
tended to apply to the rural situation must be 
constructed with reference to a need quite dif- 
ferent from the necessities that give rise to 
the well-known social movements of modern 
city life. 

Another peculiarity of the farm problem is 
that the farming class is to a large degree so- 
cially separate from other classes; this fact is 
largely due to physical causes, but causes 
rather difficult to eradicate. Moreover, while 
among farmers themselves there are mai'y 
grades in respect to wealth, education, culture 
and capacity, these distinctions do not seem to 
produce equivalent social castes. Whether this 
fact is a cause for congratulation or not it is 
not necessary to discuss here, but it has no 
small importance to the student of rural social 
life. 

These suggestions have been thrown i:i 
merely to call attention to the peculiar char- 
acter of the farm problem, and we may now 
consider very briefly some of those movements 
that are apparently working toward the solu- 
tion of this rural problem. 

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES. 

Just now the most interesting, because the 
most marked, movement along this line is the 
educational movement. It has its center of 
operation in the land-grant colleges, although 
they are by no means its sole exponents. Each 
state and territory has one of these colleges, 
either as a separate institution or as a part of 
the state university. A type of the separate 



college is the Michigan Agricultural College, 
the organic law of which provides that the 
college shall admit pupils from the rural 
schools. This college graduates students from 
its agricultural course who are admitted to tho 
junior or possibly the senior class in the uni- 
versity. The College of Agriculture in Cornell 
University is a type, of the second class of .ag- 
ricultural colleges, and advertises a course all 
the requirements of which are on a full uni- 
versity standard. Up to date the separate col- 
leges have graduated far more students than 
have the other class of institutions that is, 
from agricultural courses. The total number 
of graduates from the agricultural courses in 
all the land-grant colleges approximates 3,500. 
Of these, many are farmers and farm man- 
agers, a good many have become teachers and 
experimenters in agricultural colleges and ex- 
periment stations, agricultural editors, etc., 
and are thus seeking to solve some phase of 
the farm problem. The chief criticism of these 
colleges is that they have not sent out as many 
practical farmers as they should have; and it 
certainly is desirable that more colloge-trainad 
men may be found on our farms. But the col- 
leges have begun a good work in this direction. 
The agricultural courses are usually strong on 
the scientific and vocational side, fairly good 
on the cultural side, but weak on the social 
science side. The elements of political econ- 
omy are usually taught, and in the universities 
opportunity is given to elect advanced courses 
in this subject, as well as in sociology and edu- 
cation. But so far as I can discover, no col- 
lege or university in America, except perhaps 
Chicago University, offers thorough-going 
courses in rural economies or rural sociology. 

The failure of the agricultural departments 
of the universities to attract students lesd 
these institutions to establish special wintev 
courses for young farmers courses usually 
very technical in character and addressed to 
those who wish to prepare themselves In a 
short time for better work in dairying, stock- 
breeding, etc. The plan has met with notable 
success, and is now in vogue in nearly all the 
land-grant institutions. Minnesota went a step 
further and established a school of agriculture, 
in connection with the university. Tha educa- 
tional standard of the school is of a secondary 
grade, although chief attention is paid to tech- 
nical lines. Several hundred students are in 
attendance, and it seems to demonstrate the 
possibilities of secondary education in agriiml- 
ture. In Alabama there is in each congres- 
sional district an agricultural school. Koiijrhlv 



THE COMMONS 



speaking, all this work may be grouped under 
the head of secondary agricultural education. 

So far as purely high-school work is con- 
cerned, there is little to report. Very few high 
schools in America offer any subjects, much 
less any courses, that supply work proper for 
special training for the farm, and as a matter 
of fact few high-school graduates do go to the 
farm. Township high-schools have been estab- 
lished in some states, notably in Indiana and 
Wisconsin. Similar in character are central 
schools, that have been tried in Ohio, the 
"Kingville plan" having acquired considerable 
reputation. For many years the transporta- 
tion of pupils to a central school has been 
practiced in Massachusetts, and not less than 
eighteen states now have laws permitting this 
plan. 

All these tendencies are in the direction of 
centralizing the rural schools, doing away with 
weak and small schools, enabling pupils to have 
the privileges of better teachers, more complete 
apparatus, and the inspiration of numbers. 
But so far as solving the farm problem is con- 
cerned, it seems clear enough that this move- 
ment will retard rather than promote rural ad- 
vancement, unless especial attention is paid 
in these central schools to a form of education 
suited to the boys and girls who are to find 
their life-work in agriculture. The .spirit of 
rural life must permeate the schools sufficiently 
to show the youths the possibilities for a full 
life upon the farm. 

PRIMABY INSTRUCTION. 

In primary school work the most significant 
movement in rural districts is the attempt to 
introduce nature-study. New York, through 
Cornell University, has easily taken the lead 
in this work so far as enterprise and quantity 
of effort are concerned. Teachers are reached 
by means of regular bulletins on nature-study 
topics, by personal correspondence, by expert 
instructors sent to teachers' institutes and 
summer schools, by a summer school for teach- 
ers at the university, and by home reading 
courses. The children themselves are reached 
through illustrated leaflets, the formation of 
junior naturalists' clubs composed of children, 
by circular and personal letters; they are also 
encouraged to make little gardens and to col- 
lect specimens. The purpose is to develop, the 
powers of observation and the love of country 
life. Missouri has put nature-study and the 
elements of agriculture into the course of 
study for rural schools. Pennsylvania, Indi- 



ana, Illinois and Michigan have also accom- 
plished something along this line, while prac- 
tically every province in Canada makes this 
work a part of the school system. 

COLLEGE INSTITUTES. 

One of the most interesting phases of the. 
agricultural educational movement comes 
under the head of college extension work. It 
had its rise thirty years ago in farmers' insti- 
tutes, which are meetings of practical farmers 
and experts for the purpose of discussing 
topics relating to technical agriculture and 
farm life. At present nearly every state in the 
Union has these institutes, and many states 
make liberal appropriations from the state 
treasury for their support. New York, for in- 
stance, appropriates $20,000, and holds perhaps 
400 institutes each year, while the states of 
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois. Wisconsin and 
Minnesota each appropriate sums exceeding 
$10,000 per year for institutes. It is estimated 
that in 1898 not less than 2.000 institutes were 
held in this country, with a cost to the various 
states of $170.000. 

A more recent expression of this desire to 
carry some of the benefits of the college to the 
mass of the people is found in the establish- 
ment of reading courses for farmers. Pennsyl- 
vania began the movement in 1893. on the 
Chautauqua plan. At present New York has 
the most popular course. It is elementary 
work, the reading matter being prepared at 
Cornell and sent out from there to some 10,000 
farmers, who seem much pleased with this new 
opportunity for acquiring information. Penn- 
sylvania now offers some seventeen courses. 
Connecticut. New Hampshire, Rhode Island, 
New Jersey, Michigan and West Virginia have 
courses of this character more or less well de- 
veloped. 

The Federal government, by means of the De- 
partment of Agriculture, and the experiment 
station placed in every state and territory, is 
rendering a magnificent service to the Ameri- 
can farmer through careful scientific experi- 
ment, as well as through an elaborate and 
widely extended system of publications de- 
signed to distribute the best attainable inform- 
ation of interest and value to the man who 
farms for a living. The bulletin mailing list 
of the experiment stations in the great agricul- 
tural states not infrequently reaches 30,000 or 
40,000, and ten or a dozen bulletins a year may 
be issued. So much for the forces of agricul- 
tural education. 



THE COMMONS 



FAIRS AND ASSOCIATIONS. 

We now come to another movement which 
Is usually without state aid of any kind 
agricultural organizations. The earliest 
forms of these organizations were horticultural 
societies and agricultural fair associations. 
These still persist, and in some cases have 
some financial assistance from the state. Asso- 
ciations for business ends have become quite 
prominent during recent years. In the middle 
west at least there is in nearly every county 
a farmers' mutual fire insurance company. 
Co-operative creameries are found in all the 
dairy states. Fruit growers, notably in the 
Chautauqua, New York, grape district and in 
California, have formed powerful and well- 
managed associations to attend to the sale of 
fruit. The breeders of Improved live stock 
have grouped themselves into a multitude of 
associations whose centers of interest are par- 
ticular breeds of sheep, or cattle, or other stock. 

THE GRANGE. 

But perhaps the farmers' organizations that 
are most significant are those of a general 
character, with obiects not so much financial 
and technical as 'educational and social. Pre- 
eminent among these is the Grange, organized 
in 1867. The Grange acquired large prestige 
in the middle seventies, embracing at one time 
three-quarters of a million members. After a 
period of decline it has again revived, and is 
to-day the strongest single farmers' organiza- 
tion in the country, and practically the only one 
of national character. Education is Its chief 
aim, and it works through the social, political, 
moral, intellectual and financial instincts of 
men and women. The local granges are com- 
posed of families, and offer an outlet and stim- 
ulus to the social desires. Public affairs are 
debated, legislation is urged upon congress and 
legislatures, parliamentary drill is practiced, 
and the political sentiment thrives though 
everything of a partisan nature is strictly ta- 
booed. Subjects of general interest are on 
the program, and afford a mental stimulus. 
Morals are inculcated. Farm topics are con- 
sidered, and co-operative buying and fire in- 
surance are money-savers. The Grange is to- 
day a powerful factor in the rural situation, 
though strongest in the states east of Chicago 
and north of the Potomac. There are nearly 
5,000 subordinate granges in the country, with 
meetings usually twice a month. 

Other farmers' organizations have had a 
large influence in shaping opinion and in culti- 
vating both individual initiative and the spirit 
of collective activity, such as the Farmers' 



Clubs, the Farmers' National Congress, the Pa- 
trons of Industry, the Farmers' Alliance, etc. 

FACILITIES FOB COMMUNICATION. 

The material improvement going on in the 
country districts must not be overlooked, for 
it is having a most powerful influence upon the 
social and intellectual character of farm life 
and is tending to greatly simplify the farm 
problem. Rural free mail delivery, with its 
daily mail even now at the doors of several 
million farmers, induces the daily paper, the 
magazine, prompt and free letter writing. The 
electric car line, soon to be a network in many 
states, solve to some extent the road question. 
Telephones, now in ordinary use in thousands 
of farm houses, are perhaps there even more 
useful socially than in town. The farm press 
must, of course, come in for large acknowledg- 
ments of its influence upon the farm and the 
farmers. 

It would be distinctly unfair to the churches 
to omit them from this list, thought it does 
seem to be no more than the simple fact that 
they are in the country conserving elements 
rather than progressive factors. In the above 
category I have, however, tried to summarize 
with the utmost brevity those forces that now 
seem to be the dominant phenomena in the 
rural social situation. This brevity has com- 
pelled so light a treatment of each factor that 
I fear the real significance of the present 
movement may not be grasped. But it is some- 
thing more than mere hopefulness, I trust, that 
leads me to assert that these forces are pro- 
ducing the profoundest results upon farm life. 

SUMMARY OF NEXT STEPS. 

May I close by suggesting some of the 
greater needs of the present rural situation? 
They seem to me to be as follows: 

1. There is need for a better trained leader- 
ship. This is no reflection upon the many 
strong, earnest men and women who are un- 
selfishly giving of their best thought and time 
for the help of their fellow-farmers, but refers 
rather to the fact that well-trained men and 
women, as leaders in farmers' organizations, in 
school work, in church work, have an especially 
inviting field in the country. 

2. The farmers must be better organized. 
This is a supreme need, for it is only by their 
own efforts that our farmers are to work out 
their problem. Other agencies are important 
helps, but associated endeavor is the real test 
of power as well as its best training ground. 

3. Our entire system of agricultural educa- 
tion needs co-ordinating, not only in its mech- 
anism, but pre-eminently in its spirit and aim. 



THE COMMONS 



There must be in it all a distinct recognition 
of the actual need of the situation, less insist- 
ence upon accepted standards, and less aping 
of city courses. The vocational side of educa- 
tion will need larger emphasis not only teach- 
ing the art and science of agriculture, but 
teaching how, through the knowledge of the 
science and the intelligent practice of the art. 
the "complete life" may be lived upon the 
farm. 

In addition to conforming primary and sec- 
ondary education to this ideal, there ought to 
be a recognition of college extension work as a 
legitimate and necessary phase of the educa- 
tional plan of the land-grant colleges. Cornell 
has established a Department of University 
Extension in Agriculture, and is but doing 
what must be done in every state. 

Then, too, the social sciences must be given 
vastly more attention in these land-grant col- 
leges, so far as such sciences may apply to the 
rural problem. It is not surprising that the 
application of natural science to farming 
should have taken precedence, in these institu- 
tions, of the application of social science to the 
farmers, but the time has come for the second 
great movement to begin. 

4. And as a force binding together all these 
agencies inspiring them to new effort, broad- 
ening their scope, focusing their energies 
there is needed some simple form of federated 
effort, so that the intelligent men and women 
of the farm, the country clergymen, the rural 
school-teachers, the country doctors, the agri- 
cultural educators and editors, and all other 
people really interested, may unite their ener- 
gies for a widespread, well-directed and per- 
sistent attempt to solve the American rural 
problem. 

First edition exhausted. Send $1.00 for new and 
enlarged edition. 

Ghe BOY PROBLEM. 

A STUDY IN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY. 

BY THE 

Rev. William Byron ForbusK, Ph. D-, Lift. D. 

With an Introduction by 
President G. STANLEY HALL. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. Boy-Life; a summary of the recent scat- 
tered literature of the child-study of adolescence. 

CHAPTER II. Ways iu Which Boys Spontaneously 
Organize Socially, a study of the "gang" and 
child-societies. 

CHAPTER III. Ways in Which Adults Organize in 
Behalf of Boys; a critique of boys' clubs and church 
work for boys. 

CHAPTER IV. Suggestions as to How to Help Boys; 
a constructive stdy. 



T5he New Fourth Edition S College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliogra phv- 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine WavigK McCulloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 35C. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology. By Graham Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for soc of THE COMMONS. 
T5he Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL, 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFBR HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 

ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN Ce COMMONS DURING 1901. 

One Page - 25.00 Half Page $15.00 
Quarter Page 



25.00 Half Page 

8.00 One inch 
For each insertion. 



2.00 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view. It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street. 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

Tho Subscription Price Is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $2.50. Send check, draft. P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above s-cent denomination., at our risk. 
Changes of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
ny change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



10 



THE COMMONS 



A Word of Warning. 

"Am I my brother's keeper?" Answtr, now, 
You who at ease sit with uncalloused palms, 

Shall you with naught his meager days endow, 
But the mean measure of close counted alms? 

Without the giver (so the Poet saith) 
The gift is valueless, whate'er it cost. 

Go down Into his lanes of dust and death 
Read in his face the message of the lost. 

And dare forget it as you leave him there, 
Slave of the cruel greed of humankind, 

Of his own degradation scarce aware. 
Numb from the shackle-weight on soul and mind. 

His faults untrellised by your moral height, 
A cumberer of the earth who knows no Heaven, 

Factor of hidden ills that breed to blight, 
A speck despised, yet of throne toppling leaven. 

Beware lest with fool's courage you deny 
His right to sow beside you. Give him seed, 

Or you and yours, anhungered, by and by. 
Shall reap the harvest of his poison weed: 

Lulu W. Mitchell. 



The Hea.rt of Life- 

In the rear of a crowded wooden building in 
the most populous river-ward of Chicago, hard 
by a scavenger box, is the garden of a tenement 
child. Some short sticks, supporting a single 
strand of rusty wire, serve to protect the spot 
from the careless passer-by. Within this tiny 
enclosure were to be seen two living plants. 
One is yellow and sad appearing, and reminds 
us of the faces of the "old" young children that 
look down upon us rather terribly from the fac- 
tory windows across the way. The other is a 
beautiful rich green, radiant with the spring- 
tide of life. Both are common onions! .... 
A little thin-faced girl comes slowly down the 
rickety back stairs of the tenement and glanc- 
ing shyly at the intruder, bends over the plants 
and works the ground about them with a short 
stick. She is a fragile child and civilization 
seems to bear heavily upon her slight frame. 
A ray of sunlight struggling through the dark 
mass of buildings falls lovingly upon the gar- 
den and the child. She looks up and smiles a 
wonderful welcome. Behold! a vision of Para- 
dise in the heart of a manufacturing Hell! 

That vision lingers in memory eloquent with 
a strange pathos and a certain surging hope. 
Another child's garden is before me, and in the 
distance sweeps the blue grass woodland about 
the old Kentucky home. "Ole black mammy" 
is seated in the arbor nodding in the shadow 
of the cherry tree. A lusty boy, with a mina- 
ture spade, is digging eagerly in a bed of bloom- 
ing pansies. 



Why must the tenement child be starved for 
lack of sunlight and green fields and grow to 
womanhood as feeble and rickety as the back 
stairs she climbs to her dark and squalid home? 
Why must the planter's child have more sun- 
light and fields and flowers than a thousand 
children could possibly use? What foolish ques- 
tions grown children ask when they think! 



Social Movements in the Church 

Our readers who were impressed, as so many 
have been, with Mr. Royal Loren Melendy's re- 
port of his saloon investigation in Chicago, will 
share our interest in the fruit his experience 
is bearing at New Castle, the Colorado mining 
town, where he is succeeding remarkably in 
his pastoral work. We reprint his appeal for 
its own sake and in hope of helping him and 
encouraging others: 

"Wide interest is being awakened among the 
Christian people of Colorado in an attempt that 
is being made to apply the social teachings of 
Jesus to the conditions of a small western min- 
ing camp. 

"It is in one sense an adaption of social set- 
tlement methods that have proved so success- 
ful among the industrial classes of our large 
cities to the needs of the mining camps. 

"The degrading social customs, the lack of 
home life, the spirit of reckless abandon which 
characterizes the youth and the irresponsible 
'each man for himself and the devil take the 
hindmost' attitude of the older men, are factors 
in the environment of our young men. To rise 
above this environment, to develop out of it 
manly Christian lives, demands a type of hero- 
ism unknown to the average Christian youth. 

"The preaching of the gospel which is the 
'power of God unto salvation' must be accom- 
panied by an effort to better the social condi- 
tions. Individual regeneration should not be 
separated from social regeneration. Even 
though our little church is filled, yet the mass 
of the people will receive the gospel only when 
it is precipitated in the social solution. 

"The young man of the camp spends the 
hours of the day within the bowels of the 
earth. After his evening meal, he leaves his 
small, usually very unattractive, boarding 
house, and joins his fellows in the one center 
of their social life, the saloon. The "hail-fel- 
lowship-well met' is there. 'Club house,' for 
such the saloons really are, are the one bright 
feature of his day. 

"Our plan is to provide a club house which 
shall be the center of a wholesome, uplifting so- 
cial life. Enclosed is the plan' of the building 



THE COMMONS 



11 



which we had hoped to enter by January 1, 
1901. The ground floor will serve both for a 
gymnasium and an auditorium. It will be the 
best ventilated and largest auditorium in our 
community. The second floor, as the diagram 
indicates, will contain a reading, billiard and 
pool room, bath rooms and a general club 
room. ' There is no public library in our com- 
munity, either Sunday School, public school or 
town library. 

"These rooms must needs be cheery and at- 
tractive to become an effectual substitute for 
the social function of the saloon. Not only is 
there a club room in which men may play pool 
and billiards, a game room for the boys, a read- 
ing room in which the more intellectually in- 
clined may find mental recreation, but every 
effort will be made to occupy their time profit- 
ably. Experienced teachers will give Instruc- 
tions In the following classes, some of which 
are now in successful operation: 

"Adults' Class in English Literature, Young 
Men's Class in Athletics, Young Women's Class 
in Athletics, Girls' Classes in Sewing and Cook- 
ing, Young Women's Class In Basket Weaving 
and Fancy Work, Boys' Class in Civil Govern- 
ment. 

"A National Holiday lecture course has been 
Instituted. 

"A graduate of the Chicago Commons Pesta- 
lozzi-Froebel Kindergarten Training School, 
former resident of Chicago Commons Social 
Settlement, has offered to open a kindergarten 
for us if her mere living expenses are paid. 

"To make this work possible $1,500 will be 
necessary. At the last annual meeting of the 
Colorado Congregational Association a resolu- 
tion was passed commending this plan and $530 
was pledged by the ministers present. The 
building is an old hotel building partially do- 
nated by a business man of Denver. The $530 
pledged will only purchase the building and re- 
model it, not equip it with the necessary gygm- 
nastic apparatus and reading matter. The cur- 
rent expenses will be met by the people of New 
Castle. 

"We appeal to you and all Christian men, be- 
lieving the experiment to be of far more than 
local Importance. It is considered by the min- 
istry of Colorado to be a sort of 'experimental 
station' for the development of some practical 
method of Christian work among miners. We 
are in urgent need of funds, lest the winter sea- 
son pass and with it the host of magnificent op- 
portunities. A prompt as well as liberal return 
is earnestly sought." 



The Central Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion of Chicago is devoting three of its Mon- 
day noon lectures to "A Program of Practical 
Social Work for Christian Leaders," which is 
presented by Prof. Charles R. Henderson, of 
the University of Chicago, under the following 
suggestive headings: 

PERSONAL SERVICE. 

Biblical ideas of collective life Aims and 
limitations of this course Hints for a social 
programme of Christian leaders Necessity of 
united thought and action Futility of divided, 
individualistic effort Utopian schemes avoided 
Practical suggestions: 1. Plans for offering 
our religion to all the inhabitants of Chicago 
as the supreme end of social effort. 2. Personal 
ministry to the neglected; savings routes, home 
libraries, trained visitors. 3. A municipal or- 
ganization for rational and efficient co-opera- 
tion. 

PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND BETTERMENT. 

Personal service leads to community service. 

1. Concerted plans for promoting health Chris- 
tian doctrine of the body Co-opeBation with 
existing organs Public baths and public com- 
fort stations Small parks and playgrounds. 

2. Housing of the people. The house a spiritual 
factor failure of individualism voluntary as- 
sociation legal aids municipal agency. 3. 
Child-saving methods and co-operation with re- 
ligious organizations. 

THE BISE OF THE WORKING MAN. 

The Christian church and the aspirations of 
wage earners. Causes of alienation and hope 
of better understanding. Principles of the 
movement. 1. Necessity of fair understand- 
ing and true representation. 2. Emergencies in 
the lives of workingmen Causes of anxiety. 3. 
Forms of community insurance. 4. Attitude of 
moral teachers to collective bargaining. 5. Le- 
gal enactment and the Interest of the commun- 
ity. 6. Municipal government and administra- 
tion in relation to the spiritual progress of the 
people. 



Gleanings from the Settlements. 

INTERNATIONAL KINDERGARTEN UNION AT HULL 
HOUSE. 

The meeting of the International Kindergar- 
ten Union, at Hull House, on Saturday morn- 
ing, April 13th, was an inspiring close of the 
series of meetings which the union held in Chi- 
cago. The auditorium was crowded, so that 
a large overflow meeting had to be provided 
for downstairs. Miss Jane Addams gave the 
first address, in which, after acknowledging the 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



part which the kindergarten had always played 
at Hull House, she said that the charge of 
the settlements to kindergartners is not to lim- 
it their work to the few years of kindergarten 
life, but to let the influence of the kindergarten 
reach through all life, and especially through 
industrial life, which to-day has so little joy 
in it. This she emphasized by comparing the 
gayety and delight in one's work expressed in 
the folk industrial songs with the hopelessness 
in modern songs such as the "Song of the 
Sweat-shop," by Moritz Rosenfeld. She thought 
Froebel would agree with her that a system of 
education which developed and made happy 
only two or three years of life, was a poor sys- 
tem. 

She was followed by Miss McDowell, of the 
University of Chicago settlement, who told 
about her experience as kindergartner at Hull 
House, and then her larger work in the settle- 
ment where she was kiudergartner to tha whole 
community. She also spoke of the importance 
of the growing of the kindergarten idea into 
all life. Her mothers' meetings, where her po- 
sition would naturally be one of leadership, she 
has successfully turned into a woman's club, 
which has, through the suggestion of one of its 
members, been able to provide public baths for 
the neighborhood, and has initiated a move- 
ment for improvement in many lines. 

The meeting closed with some songs by the 
pupils of the Hull House music school, who 
sang several early labor songs, and by way of 
contrast, the song of the sweat-shop as it has 
been set to music by Miss Eleanor Smith. 

THE HABTFOED SETTLEMENT, AS SEEN BY A GIRL 
NEIGHBOR. 

The following extracts are from a paper 
which won the prize in a competition among 
the neighboring children for the best descrip- 
tion of the social settlement in Hartford, Conn. 
It was written by a girl of twelve years and 
is interesting as a report of the work the set- 
tlement is doing as well as for the idea it gives 
as to how this settlement is regarded by the 
children who come to it. 

The Settlement is at No. 6 North street. It is 
quite a large building, and it contains many 
rooms. Miss Jones is the head lady. It is 
called the Social Settlement. Miss Jones is very 
kind to us. She likes to have children belong 
to clubs. A new building was added to the old 
one, which contains five bedrooms, one dining- 
room, and a kitchen which is very large. The 
rooms of the old building are used for clubs. 
The names of the rooms of the old building are, 
play-room, library, reading room and parlor. 



The playroom is up one flight of stairs on the 
left hand side, the library is on the right hand 
side of the playroom, the reading room is on 
the right hand side and the parlor is on the 
right hand .side as soon as you come in. The 
clubroom is on the left hand side. 

There are many clubs going on evenings. 
Some young men joined a club, which was 
named Charter Oak. They are very polite to 
the little ones, and therefore they ought to 
thank them very much. 

Some of the clubs that go on evenings are 
Merry Twenty, Debating, and many others 
which I cannot name. The Merry Twenty, con- 
taining twenty girls, is in the front room. It 
is a very nice club, and is ruled by Miss Den- 
ham. They play games, bring some work to 
sew on, and do many other things. 

Last year Miss Jones gave them a piece to 
act, called Cinderella drill. They practiced it, 
and when they acted, they did it very nice. 
Many people were invited, and they thought 
they acted fine. 

The gymnasium is a room which the boys are 
very fond of. It is arranged very nice. There 
Is a punching bag which the boys enjoy very 
much. There are different boys which join the 
same kind of club, but they have it different 
nights. Miss Jones invites men to keep them 
in company while they play. 

Miss Brigham is our cooking teacher. The 
girls have made many things in cooking. Some 
of them are apple sauce, baked apples, mash 
potatoes, potato soup, sponge and ginger cakes, 
orange shortcake and many other things. We 
will have twelve lessons altogether. We 
thought we would not like to take lessons for 
nothing, so we pay 10 cents each. We all liked 
Miss Brigham very much and we thank Miss 
Brigham for teaching us the way to cook. 
We thank Mr. Thomson very much for giving 
the cooking, and we also thank Miss Jones for 
giving us her lovely large kitchen and stove 
to cook on. 

Last year Miss Jones took about forty girls 
and boys out to Buckland. She spent the sum- 
mer there with the children she invited; five 
or six children would stay out there for a week 
at a time. As soon as we came we were 
brought in to the grocer to see how much we 
weighed. We all had lovely times out there. 
We used to blow bubbles, go out rowing, and 
do many other things. We went out to the 
Laurel Park, and we saw all kinds of animals 
and went on the merry-go-round. 

One day Miss Jones went into Hartford from 
Happy Cottage. A conductor who was on the 



THECOMMONS 



13 



car with Miss Jones was very kind and gave 
her a dollar. 

He gave the dollar so that the children who 
were out there that week and the ones that 
came later could go out to the Laurel Park. 
The children were pleased and they all wrote 
letters to him, and he passed by on his car. 
Miss Jones and all the children thanked him 
very much. 

When our week was up and we had to go 
home, we went to the grocer's to weigh our- 
selves, to see the number of pounds we gained. 
All had separate rooms which had different 
names. One was "red room," in which most of 
the things are red, another was blue and most 
of the things are blue, and the other is yellow 
and most of the things in that are yellow. We 
each had separate beds which we liked very 
much. We were sorry to leave, for we liked 
it very much. It is a lovely place. 

I will now tell you about the new bath tub 
which is going to be put in where the dolls and 
dolls' dishes used to be kept. One day Miss 
Jones told some ladies how lovely it would be 
If a bath tub could be put in, so that the peo- 
ple who have no bath tub at home could come 
and bathe themselves, because no families 
have bath tubs and when they go to take a 
bath it costs fifteen cents for each person, 
which makes a great deal if the family is large. 

Miss Burr started it by writing about it in 
The Hartford Times, and she gave the first 
money, and the King's Daughters also sent 
some money. One day an old gentleman came 
in and banded Miss Joues twenty dollars and 
would not tell her his name, because he thought 
she might put it in the papers and he did not 
like to have it in. Miss Jones has almost 
enough money. She wishes to have the water 
heated by gas, so that the hot water may be 
used whenever it is needed and they can have 
as many baths as they want. 

Dear friends, I am telling you about the Set- 
tlement to give you an idea how lovely it Is 
to belong to clubs and come to the Settlement. 

Dora Levine. 



The New York University Settlement fur' 
nished one of its best trained residents, Mr. 
Francis H. McLean, to head the charity or- 
ganization movement in Montreal, Canada. The 
strong start given the society in this conserva- 
tive city has been due not only to the remark- 
ably influential initiative It received a year ago, 
but quite as much to the level-headed, tactful 
and business-like administration of its first sec- 
rotary. 



Hull House, Chicago, has had the deserved 
distinction of entertaining Peter Kropotkin, 
formerly Prince of the Russian nobility, sec- 
retary of the Royal Geographical Society of 
Russia, and now exiled from all that a man 
holds dear for the sake of his political convic- 
tions. Thus again the calm, courageous spirit 
of this justice-loving group has commanded a 
respectful hearing for an unpopular, perse- 
cuted, misunderstood, yet "visionary" social 
ideal, whose misnomer is as unfortunate as its 
idealism is high. 



WESTMINSTER HOUSE AND THE PAN-AMERICAN 
EXPOSITION. 

A meeting of the Western New York Branch 
of College Women will be held at Westminster 
House, Buffalo, in May. The aim is to excite 
a deeper interest and more hearty co-operation 
in settlement work among college women. 
Prominent settlement workers will address the 
meeting. Miss Louise Montgomery, head work- 
er of Welcome Hall, and Mrs. Marion Otis Por- 
ter, resident of Westminster House, are in 
charge of the meeting. 



The Westminster House Men's Club have 
purchased and fitted up a very commodious 
Club House near the settlement, which prom- 
ises to be a very strong influence in the com- 
munity. 

Westminster House Social Settlements, at 424 
Adams street, Buffalo, N. Y., will be open from 
May first to November first, for the accommo- 
dation of settlement workers, men and women, 
and their friends, visiting the Pan-American 
Exposition. A list of other accommodations of 
varied prices will be kept for the convenience 
of those arriving at the settlement when the 
rooms are occupied. Street cars, two blocks 
from the residence, running without transfer 
directly to the exposition; a telephone and a 
messenger call-bell will facilitate transporta- 
tion and communication. 

Lodging and breakfast will be furnished for 
one dollar. A reference will be required from 
guests. 

Street car lines from stations to Westminster 
House: N. Y. Central Jefferson street cars. 
Erie-Jefferson street cars. Lehigh Valley- 
Sycamore street cars. Lackawanna Main 
street cars, transferring to Broadway cars. 

All communications should be addressed to 
Emily S. Holmes, 

Buffalo, N. Y. 424 Adams street. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



The noble gift of the Williams Residence Hall 
is even more encouraging in coming from those 
whose filial devotion prompts them to seek the 
perpetuation of their parents' memory than it 
would have been as the bequest of him whose 
name it is to bear. His far-sighted faith in 
the work had already borne its first fruits in 
the co-operation of those who joined him in 
starting the building fund. His children's con- 
fidence in the permanency and value of Chi- 
cago Commons, betokened in their memorial 
gift, will go far toward giving it an estab- 
lished place among the vital causes which Chi- 
cago will do more to maintain and develop. The 
faith and sacrifice to initiate and sustain the 
Commons work in the trying experimental 
stage of its first five years were even more gen- 
.r..icJv inypsted by those outside of the city 
t ! -sn by tnose who were near enoug*h its com- 
p"jc problems to be overwhelmed by the multi- 
P'-:-Q T of their demands. By thus broadly re- 
snovriiug to the country-wide appeal, which the 
f"roopolitan situation in Chicago fairly war- 
rnnrs, our outside friends have "built better 
than they knew" m Helping to arouse and focus 
the rapidly rising, social and civic conscious- 
ness of Chicago, which makes its future bright 
with the promise and potency of assured and 
trfnmphant progress. 



Chicago's Lead in Municipal Politics. 

No more hopeful sign appears on the horizon 
of municipal politics in America than is shown 
by the aldermanic election this spring in Chi- 
cago. While the tendency in other great cities 
has been to invest in the Mayor the power 
belonging to the City Council, in distrust of 
the people's moral capacity for representative 
government, in Chicago the Municipal Voters' 
League has demonstrated the wisdom and 
safety of making a stand for good government 
on the integrity and civic patriotism of the great 
majority of the people. The League has, there- 
fore, strictly confined its efforts to helping the 



party organizations to nominate and the public 
to elect honest and capable men as aldermen. 
The spirit, courage, ability and patriotic self- 
sacrifice invested by its executive committee 
in leading the many forlorn hopes against ap- 
parently overwhelming forces of corruption, 
li.ued up for the traction franchise issues, were 
amply rewarded by the election of twenty 
nominees, endorsed as first choice, and five who 
were ratified as second choice, only ten candi- 
dates being elected who did not receive the out- 
spoken approval of the League. The defeat of 
some of the most desperately bad characters 
that have ever disgraced the City Council was 
as triumphant as in some cases it was unex- 
pected. Before tae League began its most prac- 
tically efficient service 58 of the 68 aldermen 
were known as suspicious characters and were 
powerfully organized in the prosecution of pri- 
vate interests through public legislation. This 
year 44 of 70 aldermen have signed the Munici- 
pal Voters' League pledge and proved their 
fealty to it right loyally, on the very first oc- 
casion, by effecting the non-partisan organiza- 
tion of the Council committees by the appoint- 
ment of the very best men in the Council to 
all the important positions of public trust. 



Help Punish Destoyers of Young Girls. 

The commercial traffic in the flesh and souls 
of young girls was forced upon our credence 
by the most unmistakable evidence during the 
past month. A fatherless girl of seventeen 
years, whose girlhood had grown up through 
our Sunday-school, church membership and 
Club life, applied for the "home more than 
wages" advertised in return for "the care of 
an old lady." For five days in the house of 
this vile old "mother" procuress, she was the 
attractive prey of as infamous a conspiracy as 
was ever thwarted before coming to the light 
of the police court. The rescue came only an 
hour before it would have been too late, through 
the alert courage and cool determination of the 
associate pastor of the Tabernacle church, the 
Rev. Henry J. Condit. Warned by a brave 
woman, who lost her position to inform us of 
the child's danger, he gained access to the den 
by strategy that succeeded almost by force. 
Then in swift succession followed the escape 
of the innocent, the arrest of the guilty, the 
scene in the police court, where the hard old 
hag, driven at bay, turned upon her accusers 
to vilify their characters; the masterful prose- 
cution by a volunteer neighborhood lawyer, the 
holding of the accused in too heavy bail to al- 
low her liberation; the finding of a "true bill" 



THE COMMONS 



15 



by the grand jury, nnd the identification and 
pursuit of other accomplices all surely lead- 
ing to what can hardly fail to be an exemplary 
conviction and sentence to the full penalty of 
years in prison for "enticement." 

In this case we propose to prosecute to the 
bitter end every one implicated at whatever 
cost. Who will help us bear the expense of 
court reporter, Pinkerton detectives and the 
poor child's safekeeping from kidnapping? We 
desperately need $100 at once to see justice 
done, not only to save this one girl, but many 
another unprotected innocent from the multi- 
tude that are publicly trapped and never res- 
cued. 



T5he Month at Chicago Commons- 
The election of Mr. John F. Smulski as alder- 
nian of our 17th Ward culmintes the first real 
triumph in ward politics in which Chicago 
Commons has had a share. Our part in this 
significant achievement was principally con- 
cerned with his nomination, which we noted in 
the last number of The Commons. His can- 
vass was very effectively directed by the al- 
derman himself, assisted by the better lead- 
ers of the Republican party in the ward. It 
consisted for the most part in house to house 
work and little group meetings informally held 
in residences and small halls, with only one 




ALDERMAN SMDLSKI. 

mass meeting, which was addressed by John 
Maynard Harlan and the warden of the Com- 
mons. The Scandinavian and Polish voters 
happily coalesced for the first time within the 
new ward limits, giving him the unprecedented 
majority of 1,289 over his competitor, a lead 
of 1,075 over the head of his own ticket and 
also 467 votes more than were cast for Mayor 
Harrison in this naturally Democratic ward. 



The Municipal Voters' League of the city ren- 
dered invaluable assistance in this as in many 
other wards by its endorsement of the candi- 
date, and the newspaper and platform support 
in the campaign. We sum up its achievement 
in our editorial column. 



15he Men's Community Club. 

The new building is rallying men to all 
branches of the settlement work. In the course 
of a month hundreds are included in the at- 
tendances upon the various occasions which in- 
terest them. Their strong tendency to unify 
their organizations and class interests is most 
promising. The members of the Municipal Club 
and the Neighborhood League have united to 
form one strong social and civic organization, 
which has most auspiciously entered upon a 
career of wide influence and usefulness under 
the name of "The Community Club in the 17th 
Ward." Its object is "to foster personal fellow- 
ship, to promote the cause of social unity, to 
inspire civic patriotism and encourage co-oper- 
ation for the betterment of municipal condi- 
tions." To its membership, which includes at 
the start 75 men, "any male resident of this 
community above the age of twenty years 
may be eligible." The Club is to be strictly 
non-partisan and non-sectarian. At the initial 
banquet, which was beautifully served by the 
Chicago 'Commons Woman's Club, prominent 
representatives of different nationalities, par- 
ties and faiths vied with each other in appre- 
ciative tributes to the value of the common 
ground and unifying spirit furnished by the 
settlement. An Irish-American Democrat, who 
refused to run for alderman in opposition to 
so good a candidate as the Polish-Republican 
who was elected, declared that before the high- 
er ideal of ward politics had been lifted by the 
Commons, no decent man could take interest 
in them without strong suspicion of his dis- 
honesty. A prominent member of the neighbor- 
ing Catholic church, in a rousing speech, full 
of eloquence and feeling, expressed the grati- 
tude of the community "for this one place 
where a man is received as a man no matter 
at what altar he worships." Alderman Smulski, 
in applying for membership, spok6 of the honor 
and help it would be to him to belong to the 
Community Club, aad invited its members 
to freely co-operate with him in promoting the 
interests of the ward and the city, especially 
in getting the people to lodge their complaints 
and suggestions at the public aldermanic of- 
fice, which he is about to establish at the cen- 



16 



THE COMMONS 



ter of the ward, lie closed bis speech by offer- 
ing the following resolution, which was unani- 
mously adopted: 

Resolved, by the members of the "Community 
Club," ill meeting assembled, that the heart- 
felt thanks of the community be extended to 
the sons and daughters of the late John Mar- 
shall Williams for their magnificent gift of the 
"Williams Residence Hall," a gift which will 
tend to elevate, educate and ennoble our com- 
munity and immortalize the memory of the 
donors in the hearts of the many who will share 
the home-spirit of this social and civic center 
for all our people. 

Resolved, further, that a copy of this resolu- 
tion be engrossed and sent to the members of 
the family of the late John Marshall Williams. 



The investment of the $10,000 in the erection 
of a Men's Club House for the social head- 
quarters of the working manhood of this great 
industrial population will pay ample dividends 
in honest politics, fraternal industrial relations 
and social unification. The lot adjoining the 
new building on the south, which was secured 
to us by the late J. M. Williams, awaits the 
patriotic enterprise of our manufacturing cor- 
porations and business men, in co-operation 
with the rank and file of the high-class work- 
ingmen and merchants of this district. 



Our Loom At Work- 

By the co-operation of our many friends far 
and near at last our loom is here, and after 
several hours of hard work with an experienced 
weaver, it was set up and made ready for use. 
According to some of our Swedish neighbors 
who have spent many hours at looms in their 
own country, it is very complete, and we think 
it quite an ornamental as well as useful piece 
of furniture. It Is called the Eureka Hand- 
shuttle Loom, and we believe it will prove to 
be all that its name implies. The first after- 
noon it was put to use was in one of our 
Mother's Meetings, and to many of the women 
who were masters of the art of weaving and 
who were at once installed as teachers, there 
came the joy that has come some time in our 
lives to every, one of us, of knowing how to do 
something that was really of use to others. 
We had been preparing rags for rugs for some 
time, so we were all ready to begin our 
weaving, and before the first afternoon was 
over four or five women came asking if they 
couldn't bring their own rags and weave in 
between our meetings. One woman said she 



had had rags for years that her mother had 
given her ready to be woven, but had never had 
money enough to have them woven. Xow she 
can weave them herself, the cost in money be- 
ing only the price of the warp. The interest of 
the children, who watch through the windows, 
and the girls and boys who come into the clubs 
is intense. Something that really goes always 
holds their interest. Not the least in import- 
ance is the class of visitors who are more or 
less skeptical about our work in general, who 
show new interest to find something "really 
practical," as they say. And truly some of our 
rugs are beautiful, as well as useful. Perhaps 
some of these days, when we become more ex- 
pert, you will want to send for one and see for 
yourselves. 



NOW FOB OUR SUMMER OUTINGS. 

We have begun to make garden at the old 
camp ground near Elgin, which is again at our 
disposal for the Chicago Commons camp for 
boys and girls. Mr. Henry F. Burt, the resi- 
dent in charge of the boys' work, who so ef- 
ficiently heads both its summer and winter 
administration, will live at camp all summer 
with other residents assigned to this service. 
Already the winter-worn little folks are long- 
ingly looking towards the "green pastures and 
still waters," which they hope will be theirs 
for two whole weeks. But we must be assured 
in advance this year of the $500 or $600 which 
it will cost to give no less than two hundred 
boys and girls a fortnight's camp life during 
the summer. In addition to this we need as 
much more of an outing fund as we can get to 
let the thousand or more of people, who looked 
to us last summer for about the only glimpse 
of nature they got, out for a day or even a few 
hours from their pent-up homes and shops. 

Our Progressive Club for young women is 
again planning to rent, at their own cost, the 
cottage at Michigan City, which it occu- 
pied last year, but they greatly need a little 
help to pay the passage and board of those 
who most need the rest and are least able to 
meet their own expense. 

Who that is planning a summer vacation can 
afford not to include in the provision for it 
some share in God's fresh air and bright sun- 
light for .another who would not otherwise 
get it? 



Cottage to Rent at Macatawa, Mich. 
Lake Front. Seven Rooms. Accommodation for 
Seven or Eight. Address "Cottage," care Chicago 
Commons, Chicago, 111 



TKe Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 59 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. June. 1901. 



15he Doukhobors or Spirit Wrestlers of Russia. 



"CHRISTIANS OK T11K r.MVKHSAI. BKOTHEKHOOD. 



By (irnliam Romeyn Taylor, Harvard 

I'uiversity. 

There have been few more dramatic events 
in recent years Thau that which occurred in 
an out of the way corner of southeastern Rus- 
sia in June, 1895. A huge bonfire made of fire 
arms and weapons of every description, and 
an assemblage of peasants gathered round it, 



people evidently possessing such strong con- 
victions against tlu> use of arms could peace- 
fully dwell In Russia. How could they ( with- 
out sacrificing these principles, live unmolested 
in a country whose government requires mili- 
tary service from every able-bodied man of 
suitable age. 

MARTYRDOM I'NDER THE LASH. 

He would have sufficient answer to his 
question, however, if he knew of the subse- 




MARTVKDOM UNDER THE LASH 



singing psalms and saying prayers over the 
destruction of instruments of warfare, cer- 
tainly present a strange contrast to our ordi- 
nary notion of Russian militarism. Yet the 
average American, upon reading in a news- 
paper of such an occurrence, would probably 
think of it merely as another queer manifes- 
tation of eastern fanaticism. But a moment's 
reflection would perhaps suggest to him the 
incompatibility of such an event with Russian 
military regulations, and lie might wonder if 



queiit history of these people. Before the em- 
bers of that bonfire ceased to glow, a troop of 
Cossacks, armed with long lead-loaded whips, 
rode up and immediately, without the slightest 
provocation, charged upon these defenceless 
men and women who had voluntarily disarmed 
themselves. With the utmost wantonness and 
cruelty the attack was made, and mercilessly 
the cruel whips were plied. Without a murmur 
of complaint the people formed a circle women 
and children in the center, and the strongest 



THE COMMONS 



rueii on the outside to receive the stinging 
blows. As fast as one stalwart form suc- 
cumbed to the inhuman lashing another one 
stepped into the gap and offered his back to 
the savage whips of the tormentors. Singing 
hymns of praise to God, and enduring with 
meekness the terrible scourging which ren- 
dered numbers of them insensible, they were 
driven to a village about two miles distant, 
there to await the further "pleasure" of the 
government. 

We have always the utmost profound ad- 
miration and respect for that heroism and 
fortitude which, without resistance or bitter- 
ness, uncomplainingly bears suffering and per- 
secution on account of principles dictated by 
conscience. When people, able to bear arms 
in their own defence, refuse to do so because 
they take in earnest the Gospel injunction 
against the use of violence, whether we agree 
with them or not, we never scornfully accuse 
them, of showing cowardly submission to su- 
perior force, but rather recognize in them even 
a higher type or quality of heroism than the 
active, aggressive kind which characterizes the 
soldier. One naturally asks, what are the 
foundation principles of faith and practice and 
what is the previous history of these lowly 
peasants? 

THEIR ORIGIN. 

The Society of the Doukhobors (Spirit- 
Wrestlers) or Christians of the Universal 
Brotherhood, as they now call themselves, 
originated in Russia in the latter half of the 
eighteenth century. From the first they suf- 
fered persecution from both State and Ortho- 
dox Church. Inasmuch as they repudiated the 
rituals and outward forms of the Greek 
Church, every priest with whom they came in 
contact helped to give the police and magis- 
trates a false and prejudiced opinion of them. 
Years of persecution, imprisonment, and every 
sort of outrage only tended to Increase the 
number of adherents and strengthen their 
firmness of belief. The governmental reports 
so misrepresented them that people who or- 
dinarily would have sympathized with them 
only received the impression that they were 
disturbers of the peace and vicious offenders 
against law. But in the peaceful reign of 
Alexander I. two senators were commissioned 
to obtain reliable* information concerning them, 
and for the first time the Czar found out their 
true character. A policy of moderation and 
tolerance was inaugurated, for it was seen 
that persecution only added to their numbers. 



BELIGIOUS BELIEF AND MODE OF LIFE. 

At about this time, 1805, an interesting ac- 
count of their beliefs and mode of life was 
written. This has recently been republished 
and the description is fairly applicable to them 
at present. The cardinal principle now, as 
then, on which all their life and relations are 
founded is God's Law of Lqve. This rules 
their relations with God and man. It affects 
their individual and communal life and the 
way in which they regard every other living 
creature. They know no creed but say "they 
are of the faith of Jesus." Their conception 
of Christ is based on the gospel and they hoUl 
that belief in God, the Father, and Christ, the 
Son, is the only hope of salvation. But faith 
without works is considered useless. Sins are 
confessed to God in prayer; and if they have 
wronged their brethren, they ask forgiveness 
before all. To deny one's sin when one is re- 
minded of it is counted a great wrong, and they 
also severely condemn the "practice of calling 
oneself a great sinner in sham meekness, or as a 
sort of boast, to excuse oneself from trying to 
correct one's errors." Their lack of marriage 
regulations has frequently brought them into 
conflict with the authorities. The simplest 
sort of ceremony suffices. In the presence of 
parents and elders the young couple merely 
agree to live together as husband and wife. 
Divorce is correspondingly easy. This, how- 
ever, is only rarely taken advantage of. The 
home life is very pure and the family tie 
strong. They regard death as a change "our 
brother has changed," is the common way of 
referring to one who has died. The Future 
does not particularly concern them. They leave 
it and all questions relating to it in the care of 
God, trusting implicitly in His justice and 
mercy. The Church, according to them, is 
wherever two or three are gathered together 
in His name. Their religious services are held 
in no building set apart for the purpose and 
on no special days, for they see no sanctity 
in locality and hold that each day is as sacred 
as any other. Meetings are held in each 
others' homes on any day that seems best to 
the host, although the national or orthodox 
holy days are generally selected for conven- 
ience. All present take part and the reciting 
of scripture from memory is considered im- 
portant. The prominence given to the latter 
exercise is perhaps due to their illiteracy, In 
which they have been kept by years of oppres- 
sion and hardship. 

THEIR COMMUNAL ASSOCIATION. 

Most of the property is held in common. 



THE COMMONS 



3 



Each one takes an occupation, most of them 
preferring agriculture. State taxes are regularly 
and promptly paid. Drunkenness and idleness 
are practically unknown among them, and they 
are always neat and tidy. Even the govern- 
ment officials who have had anything to do 
with them testify to these characteristics. They 
have no organization, written regulations, nor 
provision for punishment. Instead of the lat- 
ter they merely remind one another in a broth- 
erly way of their faults. 

DUUKHOBOR REFUGEES EX ROUTE TO CANADA.* 
THEIR HISTORY. 

The years of comparative peace which began 
in the reign of Alexander I. came to an end 
when, under Nicholas I., persecution again fell 
to their lot. The steadfast refusal of the 
Doukhobors to bear arms suggested a new 
method of dealing with them. The government 
of course realized that the young men whom 
they had forced to serve in the army would 
be of little use in actual warfare. But the 
maintenance of their decree and the assertion 
of their prerogative and authority seemed 
necessary to the government officials. So the 
shrewd plan was devised to send all the 
Doukhobors to a rough and hilly country, 
sparsely settled and containing wild beasts and 
warlike mountaineers. It was thought that the 
necessities of self-preservation and defence 
would compel them to use arms and eventually 
make them learn warfare. Accordingly in the 
early forties they were sent to the Caucasus. 
Not only did the plan fail to accomplish the 
results expected, but, on the other hand, the 
Doukhobors won the respect of their rough 
neighbors by their gentle spirit and trans- 
formed the barren country into flourishing 
colonies. 

Again, In 1879, the government banished 
them to the region but lately acquired from 
Turkey. Here, in addition to the desired quali- 
fications of a country inhabited by ferocious 
men and animals, were hostile people still bit- 
ter after a cruel war. But again the hopes of 
the oppressors were disappointed and the 
Doukhobors continued to live the same Chris- 
tian and industrious lives. Notwithstanding 
the rigorous nature of the climate for this 
part of southern Russia has a very high ele- 
vationtheir material welfare increased and 
soon they were possessed of considerable prop- 
erty. The effect of this was that, little by 
little, they began to depart from their cus- 
toms, so that, in 1887, when universal military 
service was introduced into all the Caucasus, 
they were taken unawares and outwardly sub- 



mitted to the regulations, although in their 
consciences they still clung to the belief that 
war was a great sin. 

THEIR "CRIME" AND PERSECUTIONS. 
It was not long, however, before the faith 
of their fathers began to reassert itself. They 
grew more and more discontented with their- 
failure to put it into practice and soon decided 
to demonstrate the sincerity of their belief. In 
1895 those who had arms belonging to the 
government returned them. Even those in the 
membership of the reserve force of the Rus- 
sian army (which corresponds to our militia) 
gave back their certificates of enrollment. Anil 
besides this, in three different places the Douk- 
hobors assembled and, as before stated, de- 
stroyed in huge bonfires the weapons which 
belonged to them personally. In one of the 
places the event passed without notice: in nn- 
other, forty Doukhobors were imprisoned. In 
the third instance, the governor of the province 
was informed by a few Doukhobors (who had 
basely obtained possession of a large part of 
the public property of the community through 
a corrupt decision of the government officials) 
that the gathering was for the purpose of 
revolt. The local authorities, without verify- 
ing the truth of this information, ordered Cos- 
sacks and infantry to proceed to the scene of 
the supposed insurrection. On arriving at the 
place they made two cavalry attacks with 
shameful cruelty and the Doukhobors were 
driven to prison. 

MARTYRDOM IN EXILE. 

A whole series of persecutions was now 
directed against these people, whose only of- 
fense was that they tried to live up to the dic- 
tates of conscience who regarded Christ's 
teaching as applicable to daily life. Their 
property was plundered. They were visited 
with every sort of insult and abuse. Men and 
women were inhumanly flogged and some of 
the latter were .violated. The men who had 
refused military service were thrown into 
prisons or sent to penal battalions where they 
suffered dreadful punishment from which, in 
some instances, they were left to die alone 
their friends being refused permission to see 
them. Some were sentenced to periods of soli- 
tary confinement on bread and water. In fact, 
their life became a slow martyrdom. Some 
four hundred families were driven from their 
prosperous and well-cultivated lands, and scat- 
tered among the Georgian villages two or 
three families to a village. To prevent them 
from reuniting, they were commanded not to 
leave the villages to which they had been ex- 



THE COMMONS 



iled. From a cold mountain climate they had 
been sent to hot and low-lying valleys where 
disease soon began to spread among them and 
mortality increased at an alarming rate. 
Starvation claimed many of them, for they had 
scanty means of procuring food, and labor was 
not in immediate demand. In short, their con- 
dition grew almost hopeless and the whole sect 
seemed doomed to perish unless succor came 
soon. 

THEIR EMIGRATION. 

At this juncture an appeal was made for help. 
Of the three who signed it, two were banished 
to small towns and one was given his choice 
between the same sentence and exile alto- 



> T EW PILGRIM FATHERS IX MANITOBA. 

After investigation, Canada seemed to be a 
country well adapted to their mode of life, and 
Mr. Aylmer Maude, an Englishman who had 
lived in Russia and sympathized with the 
Doukhobors, left England to negotiate with the 
Canadian government concerning immigration. 
With him went Prince Hilkoff, a Russian well 
acquainted with the conditions necessary for 
a successful colony. Manitoba was decided 
upon as a desirable place and satisfactory ar- 
rangements with both the government and the 
railroad company were made. Friends in Eng- 
land helped toward the great undertaking, and 
Tolstoy, who had always been interested in the 




DOUKHOBOR REFUGEES EN ROUTE TO CANADA. 



gether from Russia. He chose the latter, 
thinking that it would give him a better chance 
to help the sufferers. The interest which this 
gentleman, Mr. Vladimir Tchertkoff, stirred up 
in England finally resulted in the deliverance 
of the oppressed people. Friends went among 
them with plans for ('migration. The consent 
of the Russian government was obtained, and, 
with the assistance of people in England, those 
of the Doukhobors who were in most imme- 
diate need were transported to Cyprus. But 
the -warm climate of the island proved little 
better than that from which they had so 
thankfully escaped. 

Sickness appeared among them, and it was 
soon made evident that another place must be 
selected for permanent settlement. 



persecuted people, devoted the proceeds derived 
from the sale of several novels toward the 
necessary expense. When one considers that 
it was to a country absolutely unknown to 
them and that for years they had experienced 
only harsh treatment from strangers and those 
in authority, the implicit trust which the Douk- 
hobors put in their English friends and the 
simple faith they had that all was being done 
solely for their welfare are very touching. 

LEFT THEIR ABODES READY FOR NEXT OCCUPANTS. 

A characteristic incident was the fact that 
when they abandoned their humble cottages 
and huts in Russia, each one was left in a neat 
and tidy condition, and in each were arranged 
a table, two chairs, two loaves of bread, and 
a jug of water, so that any one who might 



THE COMMONS 



come to them hungry would uot go away un- 
satisfied. Those who had been iu Cyprus were, 
of course, added to one of the first parties to 
set out for the new settlement. With little 
regret at leaving the country of their oppres- 
sion and with high hopes at the chance to start 
anew and in freedom a Doukhobor community, 
they arrived in Canada. Their reasonableness 
in adapting themselves to the new conditions 
was noted by Maude, who wrote: "I found 
them, on the whole, remarkably amenable to 
reason, considering how very difficult and con- 
fusing everything must seem to them in such 
novel surroundings. Still they are men with 
human limitations and deficiencies, and not the 
plaster .saints that I had supposed, after read- 



relations as well, will not at any rate receive 
discouragement at the hands of the nominally 
Christian nations, who find it so convenient to 
make use of force and increasing armaments 
in extending the kingdom of the Prince of 
Peace. But although the sincerity of these 
people may command our admiration and re- 
spect, it may be enquired if there is any real 
significance in the history and attitude of these 
"Christians of the Universal Brotherhood." 
The inquiry may best be answered by quoting, 
in conclusion, the words which Tolstoy wrpte 
at the time of the oppression in the Caucasus. 

TOLSTOY'S OPINION OF THE DOUKHOBORS. 
"A Roman Emperor enters Rome in noisy, 
pompous triumph how important this seems; 




IN QUARANTINE GROSSE ISLE, QUEBEC. 

ing the literature published about them. Being 
men, they are much more interesting, and bet- 
ter worth helping. Had they been saints, it 
would have seemed almost a pity to prevent 
their being martyrs also." It is said that the 
captains of the ships declared their admiration 
for the cleanliness and orderly conduct of the 
emigrants, and also for their readiness to help 
in any way those In charge of the ships. In 
all, about 7,500 of them in four steamship loads 
arrived in Canada after long voyages the port 
of departure being Batonm, at the easternmost 
end of the Black Sea. 

Let us hope that these long-suffering people, 
who try to practice Christian love and justice 
iu their private life not only, but in their social 



JUST AFTER THE MIDDAY MEAL. 

and how insignificant it then seemed, that a 
Galilean was preaching a new doctrine, and 
was executed therefor, just as hundreds of 
others were executed for similar, as it seemed, 
crimes. And so now, too. how important, in 
the eyes of refined members of rival parties of 
the English, French, and Italian Parliaments 
or of the Austrian and German Diets, and in 
the eyes of all the business men in the city 
and of the bankers of the whole world, and 
their press organs, are the questions as to who 
shall occupy the Bosphorus, who shall sieze 
some patch of land in Africa or Asia, who 
shall triumph in the question of bimetallism, 
and so on; and how, not only unimportant, but 
even so insignificant that they are not worth 



THE COMMONS 



speaking about, seein the stories which tell 
that somewhere in the Caucasus the Russian 
Government has taken measures for crushing 
certain half-savage fanatics, who deny the obli- 
gation to submit to the authorities. And yet, 
in reality, how not merely insignificant, but 
comic, -beside the phenomena of such immense 
importance as are now taking place in the Cau- 
casus, is the strange anxiety of people, full 
grown, educated, and illuminated by the teach- 
ing of Christ (or at least acquainted with this 
teaching, and capable of being Illuminated by 
it), as to which country shall have this or that 
patch of land, and what words were uttered 
by this or that erring, stumbling mortal, who 
is merely a production of the surrounding con- 
ditions." 

"Pilate and Herod, indeed, might not under- 
stand the Importance of that, for which the 
Galilean, who had disturbed their province, was 
brought before them for judgment; they did 
not even think it worth while learning wherein 
consisted his teaching; but as for us, we can- 
not but know the teaching itself, as well as 
the fact that it has not disappeared in the 
course of eighteen hundred years, and will not 
disappear until it is. realized. And if we know 
this, then, notwithstanding the insignificance, 
illiterateness, and obscurity of the Spirit- 
Wrestlers, we cannot but see the whole im- 
portance of that which is taking place among 
them. Christ's disciples were just such insig- 
nificant, unrefined, unknown people, and other 
than such the followers of Christ cannot be. 
Among the Spirit-Wrestlers, or rather, the 
'Christians of the Universal Brotherhood,' as 
they now call themselves, nothing new is tak- 
ing place, but merely the germinating of that 
seed which was sown by Christ eighteen hun- 
dred years ago, the resurrection of Christ Him- 
self." 

"This resurrection must take place, cannot 
but take place, and it is impossible to shut 
one's eyes to the fact that it is taking place, 
merely because it is occurring without the fir- 
ing of guns, parade of troops, planting of flags, 
bell-ringing, and the solemn speeches and the 
cries of people decorated with gold-lace and 
ribbons. Only savages judge of the importance 
of phenomena by the outward splendor with 
which they are accompanied. ... It is gen- 
erally said that such attempts at the realiza- 
tion of the Christian life have been made more 
than once already; there have been the 
Quakers, the Menonites, and others, all of 
whom have weakened and degenerated into 



ordinary people, living the general life under 
the State. And, therefore, it is said such at- 
tempts at the realization of the Christian life 
are not of importance." 

"To say so is like saying that the pains of 
labour which have not yet ended in birth, that 
the warm rains and the sun rays which have 
not as yet brought spring, are of no impor- 
tance. . . . The fact that these pains of 
labour continue and increase does n6t prove 
that there will be no birth, but, on the con- 
trary, that the birth is near at hand. People 
say that this will happen, but not in that way 
in some other way, by books, newspapers, 
universities, theaters, speeches, meetings, con- 
gresses. But even if it be admitted that all 
these newspapers and books and meetings and 
universities help to the realization of the Chris- 
tian life, yet, after all, the realization must be 
accomplished by living men. with a Christian 
spirit, ready for righteous common life. There- 
fore the main condition for the realization is 
the existence and gathering together of such 
people who shall even now realize that toward 
which we are all striving. And behold, these 
people exist!" 

"It may be, although I doubt it, that the 
movement of the 'Christian Universal Brother- 
hood' will also be stamped out, especially if 
society itself does not understand all the im- 
portance of what is taking place, and does not 
help them with brotherly aid; but that which 
this movement represents, that which has been 
expressed in it, will certainly not die. cannot 
die, and sooner or later will burst forth to the 
light, will destroy all that is now crushing it, 
and will take possession of the world. It is 
only a question of time." 



First edition exhausted. Send 81.00 for new [and 
enlarged edition. 

15he BOY PROBLEM. 
A STUDY IN SOCIAL PEDAGOGY. 

BY THE 

Rev. William Byron Forbvish, PK. D., Lift. D. 

With an Introduction by 
President G. STANLEY HALL. 



The second edition of Forbush's "Boy Prob- 
lem" has not yet been published. We will fur- 
nish it to those who order it through us as soon 
as it is Issued. 



THE COMMONS 



Three Months in the West 
London Mission. 

By Miss Finley, of Montreal. 

The problems of modern life seem to reach 
their intensest point of complicity iu the great 
city which is not only the metropolis of the 
British Empire but which does far more than 
merely represent the life of the British nation. 
To its importance as the great center of trade 
London adds a thousand other interests. It is 
a world in itself. It is expected that the next 
census will declare its population to be 8,000,- 
000, and that population represents every na- 
tion under heaven, every talent and every am- 
bition, every sorrow and every form of gayety. 

It possesses a strange centripetal power this 
little world. To it come the young and ambi- 
tious to find the niche that they think is wait- 
ing for them in the temple of fame, and most 
of them find unceasing toil and a reward for 
the fortunate few. 

THE WEST END. 

And yet among this great human family is 
found the most utter loneliness. Many are 
thrown among uncongenial people, and because 
of some limitation iu themselves or their sur- 
roundings, or perhaps because their ideal of 
life is too high for them to find companionship 
among the selfish and worldly minded, or be- 
cause their pride and poverty hold them aloof, 
they suffer from that bitter desolation which 
exists in its worst form in great cities where 
there are many to see, none to know and love. 

The poverty and squalor of East London have 
long been a bye word, but that the beautiful 
West End should shelter within itself some of 
the most miserable of Londons' poor may be 
new to some. 

A year ago some startling facts were brought 
before the public in the "No Room to Live" 
article published by the Daily News. Such 
books as Sherwell's have informed many who 
were ignorant before of the terrible conditions 
under which so many Londoners live. 

That there should be 900,000 people who are 
living in overcrowded conditions without the 
minimum air space of 400 cubic feet which 
is allowed by law is almost incredible, but that 
nearly 400,000 people should occupy one-room 
dwellings is even worse. It means that people 
are herded together like animals and that even 
childhood cannot possess its birthright of 
purity. In these rooms the dwellers not only 
eat and sleep, but frequently carry on a trade. 

THE LOT OF WOMAN. 

The hardest burden falls upon the women. 
To the miseries of their habitations and the 



pains of incessant child-bearing they must add 
the night and day drudgery of their stifling 
little homes. Cooking one day, they fill the 
house with fumes from bad ovens, for the 
ovens are generally worthless in the one- 
roomed homes. Washing the next day, iu 
saucepans and basins, they scatter soapsuds 
everywhere and fill the place with steam, after- 
wards stretching the wet linen iu double rows 
from wall to wall. There may be a child ill 
in bed; there are certain to be children crawl- 
ing about too young to go to school; yet the 
women must do all the work in their single 
rooms just the same. 

When death comes it brings some sort of 
distinction to the slum home, and they will 
not be hurried in the last respect they can 
show. For days the corpse may remain in the 
room which is all the family have for every 
purpose, until the relatives have got the mourn- 
ing in which the insurance is often spent and 
made their preparations. A "ham and jam 
funeral" is the correct one, and it is a sad 
matter if they are only able to afford a "cake 
and tea" repast. 

It is in this great, gay, rich and intolerably 
wretched neighborhood that the West London 
Mission works. And as it was my privilege 
to spend three months with the Sisters during 
the past summer, it might seem as if I should 
have gained an intimate knowledge of its work. 
But at the end of three months I must confess 
that time all too short to become familiar with 
all of a work that is conducted on such large 
lines and which includes many and varied 
activities to meet the varied conditions 
around it. 

Thirteen years ago Mr. Hugh Price Hughes, 
realizing that the Wesleyan Church was doing 
little or nothing in West London, inaugurated 
the West London Mission. It has become, not 
only an influence for good in London, but an 
example which has led to the establishment of 
similar missions in cities of Great Britain and 
in other lands. 

REGENERATION OF THE WHOLE LIFE. 

The mission believes in the regeneration that 
changes the life, and so to preaching it adds 
every practical activity that can benefit the 
people. While it Is a Wesleyan mission, it Is 
not conducted on sectarian lines. Among the 
Sisters who carry on much of its work are 
Anglicans, Congregationalists, Presbyterians; 
in fact, though I lived among them, it is only 
by accident that I know which is the chosen 
denomination of any one, for all work loyally 



THE COMMONS 



in the interests of the Mission church. Serv- 
ices are held in various halls, and from these 
centers the "Sisters," who have played such 
an important part in the Mission from the be- 
ginning, and the workers go out. St. James' 
Hall is the center for the fashionable West 
End. There, during the week, concerts and 
minstrel shows are held, but on Sunday it 
assumes a new character, and as the cosmo- 
politan crowds of Piccadilly pass its doors 
many drift in and hear a gospel that falls with 
compelling sweetness on world-weary hearts. 
The St. James' Hall services have also come 
to be a Methodist Mecca, and after the morn- 
ing service, as Mr. Pearse stands at the door 
of the hall, it seeins as if representatives from 
all the nations pass by and claim his kindly 
greeting and friendly handshake. 

Before the preacher passes on to the plat- 
form, the stewards, sisters and choir join in 
earnest prayer that God's blessing may rest 
upon the service, and that custom may never 
make them enter upon it carelessly or prayer- 
lessly. 

The evening service is distinctly evangelistic. 
The orchestral band begins to play half an 
hour before the service, at which time there is 
not a vacant seat in the hall, and it leads the 
singing during the service, which is conducted 
by Mr. Hughes. With intense earnestness and 
burning words he delivers his message. At 
these services one fs instantly impressed by 
the fact that the object of Mr. Pearse and Mr. 
Hughes is not to deliver- eloquent sermons, but 
that each one is a lover of humanity, and 
under a Divine compulsion must urge men and 
women to seek and find a Savior who will save 
them from sin and selfishness and make them 
in turn work for the salvation of their fellows. 
The atmosphere is full of kindly human sym- 
pathy. Mr. Pearse said in homely similie one 
day: "Xo one can go to heaven in a sulk it 
must be in a sociable. You can't be saved 
yourself without wanting to take your brother 
with you." 

There is a beautiful story of a "Social-Demo- 
crat," as he called himself, who became a 
member of the Mission. Relating his expe- 
rience, he told of the bitterness that had pos- 
sessed his heart as he had compared the lot 
of the poor with that of the rich, "and I used 
to say," he said, "down with all that's hup! 
But now," he continued, "as I goes about the 
streets, my heart is just full of pity for the 
poor women and the white-faced children, and 
I says, 'Hup with all that's down!' " 



After the evening service an invitation is 
given to all to remain to a short after-meeting 
when those who wish to may go into the en- 
quiry rooms and get any help that Sisters and 
workers may give. 

This service interested me much, for it is 
a modern adaptation of the kind of service we 
are sometimes inclined to think out of date, 
and yet, judged by its results, it receives an 
ample justification, for a Sunday never passes 
that some one is not led to the service of 
Christ through its agency. Those who come 
in this way are visited and drafted into one 
of the Mission classes. 

SISTER LILY A.ND HER CLASS. 

I shall always look back with pleasure on 
my attendance at Sister Lily's class. It is a 
splendid example of a Mission class. It num- 
bers over two hundred women, and has been 
largely recruited from the St. James Hall serv- 
ice. Its members are taken from all grades of 
society, but unconsciously they have caught 
Sister Lily's genial spirit and count it a privi- 
lege "in love" to "serve one another" and to 
give the Mission their enthusiastic support. 
Their givings are simply wonderful, and shame 
those who are more largely possessed of this 
world's goods, but who are not so beautifully 
rich toward God. 

They are all simply devoted to their leader, 
and many of them are bound to her by very 
special ties. She has been the spiritual mother 
of most and a friend and sometimes the only 
friend to many. Her splendid judgment and 
strong common sense and loving sympathy 
have not to be deserved or to be asked. She 
lives to help, and whether by deliberate plan 
or by the outflow of her generous nature, she 
enriches the lives of those whom slie touches. 
She has a healthy interest in life, which en- 
larges her scope and possesses a large share 
of the very blessed quality of humor which 
is fortunately somewhat prevalent In the Mis- 
sion. 

THE SISTERHOOD.- 

The Sisterhood, under Mrs. Price Hughes, 
was started at the same time as the Mission, 
and it is not too much to say that the Mission 
could not be carried on -without it. 

IN THE DEEPEST SLUMS. 

Somers Town Hall is in the slummiest and 
most difficult part of 'the Mission. It was built 
by Lady Henry Somerset, and there is a resi- 
dence for three Sisters beside it. The Sister 
in charge. Sister Agatha, is a woman of great 
spiritual power and splendid courage, and she 



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9 



and her helpers have made themselves a power 
in rhe neighborhood. Their hall door opens 
iuto a slum passage, and there, day by day, 
and often making night hideous and sleep im- 
possible, are heard the coarse voices and 
sounds of slum life. The people are very poor. 
It is pathetic to think that they never own a 
new garment, but always the "east offs," which 
can be got cheap. 

The Mission old clothes sales are greatly ap- 
preciated, and Sister Agatha's ready wit calls 
forth much merriment. It. is surprising how 
she has quickened these people mentally as 
well as spiritually. 

I shall not soon forget the open air service 
I attended at Somers Town Hall.. It was a 
Sunday school anniversary, and they had asked 
for flowers so that they might have a flower 
service. Friends and teachers, some of them 
young people in the big business houses, had 
gone afield and sent of the riches of field and 
garden a gorgeous show! We made them 
into bunches, buttonholes for men and boquets 
for the women. These we piled into baskets 
which the children proudly took in charge. In 
front of the hall the road was taken possession 
of by the Mission people. A picturesque group 
they made. 

Cleveland and Craven Halls are centers for 
work, each in their own particular district, and 
each hall in addition to its minister has a group 
of Sisters and Nursing Sisters, who work in 
the neighborhood and at the hall. They visit 
the people, have mothers' meetings, classes, 
boys' and girls' clubs, coal clubs and Provident 
clubs. 

A large creche is carried on, while the Sister 
in charge of it also succeeds in getting ' the 
mothers to her mothers' meetings. 

THE GUILD OF POOR BRAVE THINGS. 

It was suggested by Mrs. Ewing's "Story of 
a Short Life." The members all suffer from 
some physical disability, but in entering the 
Guild they determine with Gods help to make 
the motto a rule of life, "Laetus sorte mea," 
and a spirit of martial courage is developed. 
The Guild hymn is "The Son of Man Goes 
Forth to War." 

It is a pathetic sight to see young and old, 
crippled and blind, gather as their strength 
permits at the Guild meetings and teas, and, 
decorated with scarlet badges, show themselves 
brave soldiers. There is a story of a little 
girl, who was seen disconsolately hanging on 
the palings outside the hall while a Guild tea 
was in progress. A sympathetic passer-by 



stopped and said: "Well, my little girl, and 
what is the matter with you?" 

"Please, sir, that's just the trouble; there 
ain't nothing the matter with me!" 

But the Guild of Play is open to other chil- 
dren. Poor little mortals! I think of the 
atmosphere in which a child's play centers 
round "drunks" and "funerals," and how little 
opportunity for the development of healthy 
child life, while childish innocence can hardly 
exist in the presence of the sights they must 
constantly see. So they learn pretty childish 
games in the Guild of Play. 

Another of the beautiful charities of the 
Mission is St. Luke's House, a home for the 
respectable dying poor. Surely the fact that 
every patient is a "hopeless case" is enough 
to make an atmosphere of gloom, you think? 
But no; the wards are bright and cosy and 
there is an air of cheerfulness, for love is there, 
constantly watching and caring for these af- 
flicted ones. As one goes from bed to bed a 
clearer vision comes from converse with these 
patient sufferers. My friend Gordon, a bright 
fellow of twenty-six, full of interest in life, 
says: "It's a pity they couldn't send out a lot 
of us useless fellows to the war!" And yet 
he is engaged in as real a warfare and will 
come out more than conqueror, 

OUTINGS FOR THE POOR. 

A large number of the poor have holidays 
and outings during the summer through the 
Mission. One day, while a number of mothers 
were taking their places in the brakes that 
were to take them iuto the country for a day, 
I overheard two men passing down the street 
say with grim humor glancing up at Lincoln 
House, "West London Mission, and all tin. 1 
'usbands at work." 

There was more pathos than humor in the 
ignorance of the small boy, who looking from 
the railway carriage on a Sunday school ex- 
cursion, thought a solemn old cow was a stag, 
the horns quite convincing him of the fact! 

One of the Sisters works among the "Tom- 
mies." The St. James' Hall evening service 
has the largest congregation of soldiers in 
London, and a splendid bit of color they make 
in the gallery, where seats are reserved for 
them; also for policemen and nurses. 

Lord Roseberry was very much impressed by 
their numbers on an occasion when he went 
to the service and inquired if their attendance 
was voluntary. There were some two hundred 
present that evening. 



10 



THE COMMONS 



I.OVE NEVER FAILETH. 

Ill the glare of midnight Picadilly. Among 
that throng whose gay exterior is a poor mock- 
ery of happiness, there walk the quiet figures 
of two women, Sisters of the West London Mis- 
sion. A flower may make an opportunity for 
the kindly word and the invitation. They carry 
cards on which are written: 

"Sister Margaret and Sister Faith invite you 
to visit them at Westbonne Terrace." 

"Won't you have a flower?" proffers the Sis- 
ter. Such daisies grew in different but well- 
remembered scenes! The girl stands hesitating 
and then bursts out: "No, Sister; take them 
away! They are far too pure for me. You 
are far too pure. You are too good to come 
among us." 

Another girl won't take one because she has 
had "no luck" since she took the last. "Be 
cause it made her think and she couldn't be 
as gay," the Sister explained. But others ac- 
cept them, and others have been won by the 
gentle, pleading, why not these in thine? For 
the Sisters can point to many whose feet no 
longer tread the pathway of shame but have 
been guided into ways of peace, and the har- 
bor of the Rescue Home, lit by Divine love 
and compassion, sends its gleam across the 
tossing sea of life to the drifting, lost souls. 

Among those who are "interested in the poor" 
one often hears of the "hopelessness of uplift- 
ing the masses." I am so glad that such words 
do not come from those who are actually 
engaged in the work. One does not hear 
much of those pet phrases "submerged tenth," 
"masses," etc. in the Mission. The Mission 
workers do not look upon the people as a 
''mass." They are Individuals, with just as 
much individuality as the rich and in need of 
just as tender treatment. That they have their 
sore disappointments, the workers would be 
last to deny, but they are too busy to brood 
over failure and too grateful to God for the 
miracles in life and character that He is work- 
ing among them to be discouraged. Not alone 
in London do 1,899 members testify to the 
success of the Mission, but all over the world 
are scattered those who thank God for what 
the West London Mission has been to them. 



Cottage to Kent at Macatawa", Mich. 
Lake Front. Seven Rooms. Accommodation for 
Seven or Eight. Address "Cottage," care Chicago 
Commons, Chicago, 111 



Settlement Notes. 

The Orange Valley (N. J.) Social Settlement 
adds its testimony to the volume from expe- 
rience and observation, pronouncing affirma- 
tively upon the social functions of the saloon. 
Quoting Trom its Annual (1900) under the title 
of "The Place of the Saloon in the Neighbor- 
hood," the writer affirms: "In this working 
district the saloon generally takes the place 
of a men's club. . . . They turn there to 
spend a social evening and to enjoy congenial 
companionship. ... To condemn the saloon 
without providing something else is no solution 
of the problem." 

"Our one thought and purpose neighborli- 
ness has been applied to every detail of daily 
life, and as the days have gone by our con- 
victions have deepened, that this is possibly the 
best thing we could teach or live." (Head 
Worker in St. Louis Social Settlement Annual.) 
During the brief and wonderful ministry of 
Jesus in the flesh, He deemed it worth while 
to magnify by His concern and illuminate by 
His teaching this idea of neighborliness. We be- 
lieve its application by residents everywhere 
will be found the Open Sesame to the hearts 
of many men and women that seem so indif- 
ferent to all other pleas. 



In far-away Japan, deep in the shadow dis- 
trict of the capital city of Tokyo, the social 
movement has found expression in the Social 
Settlement of Kingsley Hall, and the publica- 
tion of "The Labor World." Monthly at Kings- 
ley Hall is held a workingmen's social. The 
report of the February meeting recites: "Work- 
ingment expressed their opinions freely. One 
spoke on the Parliamentary reforms of 1832 in 
England and some told experiences from their 
factory life." We are encouraged and inspired 
by these echoes from distant lands proclaiming 
the unity of human interests and the necessity 
for a larger social vision including all the la- 
borers of the earth. 



Toynbee Hall may justly feel proud of the 
endorsement its work has received from the 
electors of the East End. From "The Toynbee 
Record" (April) we quote: "The residents are 
now represented on all the principal governing 
bodies of London the School Board (one), the 
County Council (one), the Borough Council 
(three), and the Board of Guardians (one). 

The English elector may be slow, but he holds 
no prejudice against either the church or phi- 



THE COMMONS 



11 



lanthropy when individuals prove themselves 
helpful to human needs in either name. 



The future historian will note as one of the 
unique and powerful factors in the social 
awakening of our time the service of obscure 
persons in the patient study and careful com- 
pilation of data upon the facts and forces of 
life in the great centers of population. 

Generalizations of the utmost consequence to 
the social interests of the race will be found 
to rest upon these unostentatious yet firm 
foundations. While the press, platform, and 
pulpit, are giving vent to crafty, crass, and 
stupid utterances upon subjects such as the 
saloon, Tenement House and Juvenile Delin- 
quentsunknown yet earnest and thoughtful 
men and women are preparing the dynamics 
for intelligent social action upon these prob- 
lems of the great city. 

Such persons living under the shadow of these 
evils, gathering facts and testing conclusions 
in the laboratory of life, reach that sane view 
from the study of things as they are that 
no great mind nor benevolent disposition can 
yield to the most vivid imagination misled by 
a few exceptional facts. 

One of these contributions of practical social 
value is an article by Miss Edna Sheldrake of 
the Northwestern University Settlement in the 
April issue of "The World Review." The facts 
here set forth demand action and point the next 
step. Adequate school facilities groups led by 
Christian men and women that dare to prac- 
tice the religion they preach, and legislation 
enforced against child labor. What are you 
going to do about it? 



Wa.ymeLrks of Socia.1 Progress. 

FBEE SCHOOL BOOKS. 

While discussing the free text-book law in a 
recent article, Ethelbert Stewart says the two 
resolutions concerning free text-book laws 
which were adopted by the Louisville conven- 
tion of the American Federation of Labor may 
be fairly considered as representative of the 
views of the industrial masses. One read: 
"Resolved, That the American Federation 'jf 
Labor instruct its state federations and cen- 
tral bodies to work for the establishment of 
the free text-book system in the public schools, 
where such does not already exist, in the differ- 
ent states and cities where they are located." 
The other affirmed that "all books used in the 
public schools of the country should be fur- 
nished by the state " 



School authorities are practically unanimous 
in their support of the free text-book system 
because it enables schools to begin the term's 
work without the delay of waiting for parents 
to buy the needed books, and puts enough 
books into the school so that each pupil has 
one. 

The fact that the opposition comes from pub- 
lishers, who admit that fewer books are sold 
where free text-books laws prevail, confirms 
the position of the friends of the law that 
money is saved for the community. "That it is 
economical, viewed from the community stand- 
point, to furnish free text-books, cannot be dis- 
puted." 

Eleven states now have compulsory text- 
book laws. Delaware. Idaho, Maine, Maryland. 
Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Hampshire, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island an.l 
Vermont, all of which, excepting Delaware, 
Maine and Maryland, include in the free list 
all school supplies of whatever nature. There 
are thirteen states having a local option text- 
book law. The only states which have no text- 
book legislation of any sort are Kansas. Ala- 
bama, Florida and Illinois, and in Florida the) 
county officials got together in 1883 aid 
adopted uniform series of text-books, with five 
year contracts, all of the counties but three 
joining the agreement; these three adopted 
free text-books. 

Michigan finds the cost of furnishing free 
books is 47 cents per pupil for the state. Ne- 
braska finds an average cost of 45 cents per 
pupil. This includes not only books but paper, 
pencils, slates and maps, entailing a tax of sev- 
en-tenths of a mill on taxable property of the 
state. After seventeen years' trial of the law, 
the state superintendent of the state of Massa- 
chusetts said in his report of 1899: "There is 
no question but that the schools are more 
promptly, fully and satisfactorily, as well as 
more cheaply equipped with text-books and 
supplies under the free text-book law, than 
they could be without such a law. 

Philadelphia introduced free books in 1818 
when its public schools were established. New 
York has furnished all school books free for 68 
years, and many other cities have done so from 
20 to 60 years "without suffering from bac- 
teria, bankruptcy, or any other of the promised 
calamities that are supposed to wait on this 
'dangerous experiment'." "No where does it 
appear that any state or district has once 
adopted free text-books, and after giving the 
system a fair trial, abandoned it." 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTS TO LABOR. 

In connection with the Ministry of Commerce, 
Austria has just created a Technical Comrais. 
sion for the Prevention of Accidents to Labor, 
for the purpose of the government, with infor- 
mation and data on all questions concerning 
the protection and health of laborers. This 
Commission comprises the Inspector-General of 
the Labor Department of Austria and from six- 
teen to twenty members named by the Minister 
of Commerce of that country from the engin- 
eers and hygienists in establishments where 
there is an insurance against accidents, and 
from employers and workmen in manufactories 
where insurance is compulsory. 

The Commission gives Its opinions and de- 
cides questions submitted to it by the Minister, 
and can also formulate proposals on any sub- 
ject coming within its scope; and has power to 
appoint sub-committees for the technical ex 
am ination of special matters. 



INDUSTRIAL ARBITRATION IN FRANCE. 

The "Moniteur," a Paris Republican jour- 
nal, in behalf of the workingmen of France, 
calls attention to the proposal of the govern- 
ment to enact a law by which differences and 
difficulties between employer and employee 
must be settled by arbitration. 

"The necessity for arbitration is becoming 
more and more apparent," says the "Moniteur." 
"The organizations of workingmen are becom- 
ing stronger and more powerful. It were well 
for employers to recognize this, and to do of 
their own will what the government proposes 
to have done for them. It is a mistake to sup- 
pose that the interest of the employers and the 
workingmen are opposed. It is true that the 
claims of the workingmeu are sometimes exor- 
bitant, but they are often just." And the "Mon- 
iteur" believes that "If employers would adopt 
this method many of the so-called difficulties 
would vanish, to the mutual satisfaction of 
both parties." 



American Social Democrats are now voting 
for two members of the International Social- 
istic Committee which will have its headquar- 
ters in Brussels and which is designed to keep 
socialists of all countries informed of the prin- 
cipal occurrences and to draw them closer In- 
to a compact world's union. Committeemen 
have been selected from France, Germany, 
England, Austria-Poland and Italv. Ex. 



Nearly 14 per cent of the total number of 
wage earners in Minnesota are women, accord- 



ing to the report of the State Labor Depart- 
ment. 



The Cigar Makers' Union, since its organiza- 
tion in 1879, has seen an increase of nearly 50 
per cent in the average wage paid in the trade, 
with a shortening of the average day. more 
than one-third. While these results may not 
in entire fairness be attributed to the Cigar 
Makers' Union, the fact remains that no in- 
dustry in the country is more thoroughly or- 
ganized, and none has shown such a remark- 
able betterment of the condition of the workers 
in a corresponding period of time. 



A bill has been introduced in the present 
Illinois General Assembly to amend the present 
garnishment law; raising the amount of the 
weekly wage exempt from garnishment to fif- 
teen dollars per week. As the law now stands 
the exemption is eight dollars per week. 

The present law has been the source of more 
injustice and oppression to laboring men than 
almost any other law on the statute books. 
It has enabled the loan shark to fatten on the 
misfortune of the wage earner and many times-, 
drive him from employment. It is a commoril 
practice with business houses to discharge em- 
ployees promptly on the commencement of 
garnishment proceedings against them, as the 
trouble and expense of the proceedings are 
greater than the evils of the loss of a good 
employee. 

The exemption from garnishment of eight 
dollars per week only is entirely too low. The 
present law is a source of annoyance to both 
employer and employee and benefits only the 
loan sharks and collection agencies. The 
amendment should have the hearty support of 
all workingmeu. 

Japan now boasts of a daily paper called the 
"Commons." It is published in Tokio and de- 
voted to the socialistic propaganda. 



Public Play Grounds. 

IN NEW YORK CITY 

New York City has four tenement house 
playgrounds, all of which have been estab- 
lished through the persistency of the Outdoor 
Recreation League. This league has also per- 
suaded the board of education to provide sum 
mer recreation grounds in sixty school district? 
where the children who cannot be taken out 
of town for the summer can spend the days in 
sunshine, with piles of sand to play in. swings, 
balls and bats and other simple forms of 



T HECOMMONS 



13 



amusements, with kindergarten outfits for the 
little ones. In this way the tired mothers work- 
ing in hot rooms are relieved of the care of 
fretting children, and the children at least get ' 
fresh air. The amount of good that has been 
done in this simple way is great. The Rem-a- 
tiou League has received valuable assistance 
from guilds of girls who have showed a benev- 
olent activity in other directions quite as val- 
uable. 

In many places school yards have been uti- 
lized as temporary playgrounds. In some cases 
owners of vacant lots available for such pur- 
poses have given use of them free, and in a ' 
few instances a rent has been paid. The at- 
tendance at these playgrounds last summer 
was over 180,000 children. The total expense 
paid by the board of education was $28,000. 

IN CHICAGO. 

The committee for the Chicago Woman's Club 
on Permanent Schools and Playgrounds has 
published a voluminous report in a 72-page 
pamphlet with a series of seventeen half-tone 
pictures representative of the subject. 

This cogent appeal and interesting exhibit is 
designed to do duty wherever it goes. The 
.-cliool house must be given back to the public, 
the playground must be made a public park 
available to the public when not in use by the 
school children, whose first right it is. How- 
ever, much of the play in the city, especially 
of smaller children, must necessarily be near 
home, and "to a great extent this playground." 
says Joseph Lee, in the March issue of The 
Charities Review, "will probably always be the 
street. * * * It is therefore a matter of 
enormous importance which, however, has so 
far attracted no attention to make the streets 
a good playground, by having asphalt or some 
other smooth surface, as has been done in the 
crowued districts of New York and in some 
other cities. (See Bulletin of Department of 
Labor, Sept. 1000, table VIII.) And by regu- 
lating the play and traffic in such a manner as 
to secure the greatest freedom consistent with 
safety to life and reasonable safety to prop- 
erty. 

"In towns near Boston it is not uncommon to 
see such a sign as "Coasting allowed on this 
street between 3 and 8 p. m." This is an ad- 
mirable beginning and the most intelligent 
tiling which our municipal authorities have 
done in their dealings with children, but the 
same idea ought to be carried further. Why, 
for instance, should children have to wait till 
a house is being built in order to find sand to 
play in?" 



"She New Fourth Edition f College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine Wtvugh McCviIloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 350. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology, By Gre.ha.rn Ta.ylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 500 of THE COMMONS. 
E6e Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL, 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFER HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 

ADVERTISEMENTS 

IN G/>e COMMONS DURING 1901. 

One Page - .25.00 Half Page $15.00 

Quarter Page 8.00 One inch 2.00 

For each insertion. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects rf Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ot view, ]t is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at 140 North Onion Street. 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 
(Two Shillings, English; 2 50 francs, French -foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cent denomination., at our risk. 
Changes of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 

Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Sochvl Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at 140 North Union Street, Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



The poor Doukhobors, to whose pathetic 
story our leading article is devoted, have be- 
come the shuttlecock between the party battle- 
doors in the Canadian Parliament. They are 
already contemplating "moving on" from their 
new home in the Northwest Territory to Mexico 
for liberty's sake once more. 



'She Destroyers of Young Girls PvinisHed. 

We owe our readers, especially those who re- 
sponded to our editorial appeal last month to 
"help punish destroyers of young girls," in- 
formation regarding the issue of our desper- 
ate struggle. Against the money, social influ- 
ence and legal talent used to shield the fugi- 
tive business man most seriously involved and 
still "wanted" by the police to end the case, 
though ostensibly to defend his criminal fe- 
male accomplice, we had the hearty and able 
support of the State's Attorney's office. Against 
the menace of violence, with which the safety 
of the innocent -victim of this foul conspiracy 
and some of us who were trying to protect her 
were threatened, only our own ceaseless vigi- 
lanc prevented a second tragedy. No one 
knows the difficulties and dangers of 'such a 
prosecution until he actually encounters them. 
After a desperately contested trial in the crim- 
inal court, lasting three days and a half, the 
jury, though largely composed of young men, 
returned within half an hour a verdict of 
guilty after their first formal ballot. 

Instead of further comment we prefer to add 
the editorial which appeared in The Chicago 
Tribune for May 17th: 

"A PROCURESS SENTENCED." 

"The trial which was concluded yesterday 
by the sentence of 'Mother' Lyons to the peni- 
tentiary for procuring, detaining, and all but 
delivering a 17-year-old girl to be the mistress 
of 'Bert Brown' opened a window into the 
realm of events which one would gladly believe 
never occur. That they do occur, however, is 
no less true than it is that their frequency 



is by no means indicated by the convictions 
therefor in court. 

"Indeed, the rescue of the young girl in this 
case, which was accomplished through a bold 
combination of strategy and force, took place 
only an hour before she was actually to have 
been delivered to the man for whom she had 
been procured, and all the circumstances of the 
case indicate how subtly and successfully the 
game of the procuress can be played even 
against virtuous girls who are of course her 
chosen victims. 

"The details of this case the original trap 
of an advertisement for a woman's companion 
the gradual disclosure to the unsuspecting ap- 
plicant of her 'employer's' real designs, her in- 
troduction to the proposed purchaser, her close 
confinement, the cry for help sent to her friends 
by the cook, the instant discharge of the lat- 
ter, the entrance of the rescuer through a door 
momentarily opened to let the expressman take 
away the cook's trunk, the actual force re- 
quired even then to release the proposed vic- 
tim, the final whispered plea to her not to 'tell 
about Bert Brown,' the immediate disappear- 
ance of this individual, the menacing demon- 
strations made against the girl and her pro- 
tectors prior to the trial, and the fact that the 
procuress was well known to the police and 
is alleged to have caused the downfall of many 
other girls, though she has never before been 
convicted all these details should serve at 
least to make young girls more wary against 
such pitfalls and to deepen the public indig- 
nation against men willing to buy such crimes. 

"Credit is due to Professor Graham Taylor, 
who has taken the financial and other risks 
of this prosecution; to the State's Attorney, 
who aided it; and to his assistant, Mr. Olson, 
who conducted it with energy." 



Stivncliivi: in tne Breach with Us. 

While we were standing "between the lines" 
in the severest stress of the building trades 
lockout winter before last, an incident oc- 
curred which fell like a ray of sunshine upon 
the deep shadow. Now that the man has 
passed away, whose spirit is illuminated by 
his act, others should share the encourage- 
ment he gave us to stand by the right re- 
gardless of consequences. As an eastern man- 
ufacturer and large employer of labor, he was 
interested in the critical situation in which 
he found the building trades when he came, 
to Chicago on business. Meeting the editor 
of THE COMMONS by chance in the lobby of a 
hotel, he assured him of the justice and tern- 
perateness of the positions taken in his speech 



THE COMMONS 



15 



before the trades union convention. In token 
of his appreciation, as an employer, of the 
stand we had taken and to tide over our 
work, while in some quarters its support was 
being temporarily withheld, he sent us his 
check from New York for one thousand dol- 
lars. That vote of confidence, by so strong 
and calm a man, far enough removed to es 
cape the heat of our controversy, not only 
helped us to keep our foothold in a hard 
place, but also illuminated the breadth and 
depth of Christian principle which character- 
ized Thomas Duncan, President of the Hud- 
son River Water Power and Paper Company, 
whose recent death we deeply deplore. 



The regret with which we part from the 
Rev. Henry J. Condit, who for. six years has 
served with conspicuous fidelity as associate 
pastor of our neighborhood Tabernacle Church, 
is equaled only by the warmth with which we 
welcome Rev. D wight Goddard as his tempo- 
rary successor. Mr. Goddard comes with the 
training of experience on the foreign mission- 
ary, home pastorate and local settlement fields, 
having been a temporary resident at Mansfield 
House. 



ITEMS. 

Our kindergarten infantry led the procession 
of picnics in the first march to the suburbs. 

Flowers from God's country have begun to 
arrive. If friends sending them will kindly 
accompany them with the name and address 
of the sender, we will be glad to acknowledge 
their kindness. 

The Commons Camp for boys and girls at 
Elgin will be pitched the middle of June on 
the old camp ground in the Penny meadow, 
which has generously been placed at our dis- 
posal again. The registration of applicants for 
camp is fast rolling up -toward our limit. To 
enlarge the accommodations even a little we 
need at least $100 at once with which to pur- 
chase fifty blankets, erect the cook house and 
add two smaller tents and a large dining tent, 
for the lack of which the camp suffered much 
inconvenience last year. Even then we will 
have room only for the children between ten 
and fourteen years of age, and will be com- 
pelled to disappoint all over this age limit and 
many within these years. For their-sakes we 
appeal to our friends in the suburbs and out- 
lying towns to provide places, and if possible 
transportation, for as many of the disappointed 
boys and girls as they can. Last year we gave 



128") outings at an expense of less than 
But somehow we failed to secure only a little 
more than half of this amount for the purpose 
and were obliged to carry the deficit of $250 
over the winter. This year we must all try 
to meet the entire expense during the outing 
season. The number of those who at most will 
get less than their share of God's fresh air, 
golden sunlight and green earth will be limited 
only by the means entrusted to us by those 
who have all or a large part of their full share 
of the "open." 

Our Progressive Club of young women, who 
so successfully secured, managed and used the 
outing cottage they rented at Michigan City 
last summer, are moving this season to secure 
shelter on this side of the Lake. The expense 
of reaching the place, even at such short re- 
move, proved too great for not a few of the 
girls to take advantage of what the Club had 
collectively provided for its members If their 
efforts succeed, we hope our outing fund will 
allow us to provide transportation, or part of 
the food expense, for those of them who, while 
needing the rest and change the most, are least 
likely to be able to avail themselves of this 
opportunity The expense of maintenance for a 
week will not exceed $2.50 for each girl and the 
transportation will be well within half a dollar 
for the round trip, 

The Progressive Club May Entertainment 
netted enough to warrant them in renting a 
house in Glencoe for the summer, where the 
club members and their friends will spend their 
vacations during June, July and August. 

SUMMEB KINDEEGABTEN AND PLAYGROUND. 

All the arrangements for the summer kinder- 
garten, which will be held this season at the 
new building, have been satisfactorily made. 
Two or three kindergartners will be in, charge 
at the cost only of their bare maintenance, five 
dollars per week. They should have a share 
in the outing fund sufficient to give their little 
ones frequent holidays In the parks and 
suburbs. 

The scanty little playground on the strip of 
land twenty feet wide surrounding the old 
Commons is opened and thronged again this 
season. There is no sadder feature of our leav- 
ing the premises than shutting these poor little 
children of the streets from a "privilege" which 
God knows is less than the least right which 
should be claimed for every human being by 
all the rest of us. We are trying to find a 
lot for a new playground. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



T5he Month at Chica-go Commons- 

OPENING RECEPTION AT THE NEW BUILDING. 

We have been "opening" the new building 
for four months to our whole great neighbor- 
iioocl. An endless series of opportunities to 
inspect and use every nook and corner of it 
have been eagerly taken advantage of by 
smaller and larger groups during all this time. 
Last mouth we began inviting friends outsid" 1 
of the district to take their turn. In response 
to the invitation of the trustees ami residents 
of Chicago Commons fully five hundred guests 
spent the afternoon or evening with us on May 
llth and hundreds more sent us their kindly 
greeting in letters of regret. 

At the request of the Alunrni of the Chicago 
Theological Seminary we threw open, the set- 
tlement auditorium to one of the sessions of 
the annual meeting of their Association, held 
in connection with the Seminary anniversary. 

For the first time in its thirty-five years' his- 
tory the old Tabernacle entertained the Asso- 
ciation of Chicago Congregational churches. 
Two hundred and fifty representatives of fifty- 
seven churches were entertained at lunch by 
our church ladies and hundreds more attended 
the sessions. One of the first women, outside 
of their membership, who volunteered her 
co-operation in providing and serving this hos- 
pitality was a Catholic member of the Chicago. 
Commons Woman's Club, who thus beautifully 
demonstrated her catholicity of spirit. Upon 
these three occasions over a thousand guests 
shared the social cheer of our new home with 
every evidence of satisfaction and pleasure in 
what they saw and sensed. 

GROUND BROKEN FOR THE WILLIAMS RESIHENCK 
HALL. 

As we go to press the foundations of the 
Williams Residence Hall are being laid. The 
contracts have been favorably let to the con- 
tractors who built tile Morgan street wing so 
satisfactorily. The time limit for the comple- 
tion of the work is fixed jit September 15th. 
It will be most fortunate for the whole work 
of the settlement if the new wing can be fin- 
ished and furnished at that date, so as to be 
in readiness for the opening of the winter sea- 
son work upon the first of October. To this 
end not les-s than $13,000 must be provided by 
our friends, all of it payable not later than the 
first of December. Co-operation is urgently 
solicited both in giving and in influencing gifts. 

LEAVING THE OLD UNION STREET HOUSE. 

It is not without many sincere regrets that 
we expect to leave the "Old Commons" on July 



1st. It costs us not only the sacrifice of not 
a little justifiable sentiment, which has grown 
up with the home cheer pervading the old 
homestead, but also that larger equipment for 
service which we hoped against hope to use 
for the neediest people of our district among 
whom we have obtained a hard-earned foot- 
hold these seven years past. However, we are 
determined to maintain it by renting for next 
winter smaller and cheaper quarters for kinder- 
garten, mothers! meeting and boys' and girls' 
clubs at least, as near the old residence as we 
can secure them. Who will help us to do so? 

The balance of the work at the old center 
is being surely and safely, though gradually, 
transferred to the new building, five blocks 
west. But the work for the little children and 
the care-restricted mothers cannot transfer its 
constituency even so short a distance. 

The removal of even the reduced force of 
residents and of the belongings of the settle- 
ment to the temporarily contracted quarters 
under the new roof is an undertaking, the 
task and fun of which can only be appreciated 
by those who have been in residence. 

The Tuesday evening Free Floor Discus 
sions for May have been marked by a series 
of lectures and discussions upon The Function 
of Competition in Modern .Industry of excep- 
tional ability and interest. 

Editor A. M. Simons of the International So- 
cialist Review, Dr. Lewis of the Anthropologi- 
cal Society, Louis F. Post, editor of The Pub- 
lic. Thomas J. Morgan. Esq., and Prof. W. 
Douglas Mackenzie of the Chicago Theological 
Seminary, have contributed toward the eluci- 
dation and comprehending of this theme. The 
latter ably presented the evolutionary aspects 
of the subject. 



One of the expert manual trainers at work 
in one of Chicago's best manual training 
schools offers to reside at Chicago Commons 
and gratuitously supervise this needed depart- 
ment of our Social service on one condition, 
viz., that we equip it as well as our Cooking 
School. Only $500 is thus needed for an equip- 
ment which secures its best use without cost. 
Who will invest this capital for dividends in 
trained eyes, skilled touch and disciplined char- 
acter before fall? 



The camera for which we asked in December 
was given by a good reader of THE CONIMONS 
in May, and has been put to work in ways 
which will enrich our pages and lantern slides 
with pictures of real life. 



TKe Commons 

A MontHIy Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 60 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. July. 1901. 



Brotherhood. 

BY E. S. MARTIN. 

That plenty but reproaches me 

Which leaves my 'brother bare. 
Not wholly glad my heart can be 

While his is bowed with care. 
If I go free, and sound and stout 

While his poor fetters clank, 
Unsated still, I'll cry out, 

And plead with Whom I thank. 

Almighty: Thou who Father be 

Of him, of me, of all, 
Draw us together, him and me, 

That whichsoever fall, 
The other's hand may fall him not, 

The other's strength decline 
No task of succor that his lot 

May claim from son of Thine. 

I would be fed. I would be clad. 

I would be housed and dry. 
But if so be my brave heart is sad, 

What benefit have I? 
Best he whose shoulders best endure 

The load that brings relief, 
And best shall be his joy secure 

Who shares that joy with grief. 

Scribner's Magazine, May, 1891. 



Head of Oxford Hovise ma.de 
Bishop of London. 

SKETCH OF DR. WINNINGTON INGRAM. 
BY PROF. WILLIAM DOUGLAS MACKENZIE. 

An event recently occurred in London which 
has deeply interested social workers every- 
where. It was the appointment of the Head of 
Oxford House, one of the greatest social set- 
tlements in that city, to be the Bishop of Lon- 
don. The present prime minister, the Marquis 
of Salisbury, once said that the Bishop of Lon- 
don is "the hardest worked man in the world." 
It is certainly a position of enormous influence, 
and much depends upon both the character and 
ability of the man who holds it. The new 
Bishop of L-indon is ]>r. Wilmington Ingram, 
a man of over forty-three years of age. He 
has not passed through the usual steps to that 



throne of power, but by a way much more 
worthy of the spirit of Jesus than those which 
some of his predecessors trod. 

About thirteen years ago Mr. Wilmington 
Ingram decided to go down to the weary and 
downtrodden region where the Oxford Settle- 
ment does its work and live there. He found 
that organization in a very poor condition and 
the field of work around it immense. But he 
set himself to the stern task without flinching. 
He succeeded in attracting the interest of pow- 
erful friends, among them the great and ancient 
house of the Cecils, of which Lord Salisbury 
is the head. His enthusiasm and self-sacrifice 
drew a noble baud of workers around him. His 
splendid combination of gifts as a popular 
speaker and a thorough organizer won the ad- 
miration and confidence of the people among 
whom he worked. He seems to have concen- 
trated attention upon two aims, viz., to win 
the working classes around him to the religious 
life and to make life, as far as he could, sweet- 
ter and happier for those who were in poverty 
and misery. In 1895 the burden and the op- 
portunity of Mr. Wilmington Ingram was great- 
ly increased by his appointment as Rector of 
the Parish of Betlmal Green, in which Oxford 
House is situated. The large parsonage he sim- 
ply used, to the indignation of many, as an ad- 
junct to the Oxford House, and filled it with 
his settlement workers. Then he was made 
Bishop Suffragan or assistant to the Bishop of 
London for that district. As these offices added 
to his work he essayed still to be diligent in 
personally relieving and visiting the poorest 
of the poor. The result was that in ten years 
he made himself the most beloved man in that 
part of the large metropolis. The workingmeu 
with whom he discussed the evidences of Chris- 
tianity so skilfully and courteously knew that 
he loved them, and that he would toil for their 
good, night and day, without any parade or 
pretence, for the mere love of doing good. It 
is said that on one occasion, when a great 
crowd, looking like a mob, had gathered around 
him and made movement almost impossible, the 
police were foolishly summoned. This was an 
insult to their love of him, and the crowd cried 
out: "We will not have our Bishop interfered 
with. We will see you safe home." 



THE COMMONS 



This good "toiler of the deep" has published 
his favorite motto, which is as follows: 

"So might I, striving from morn till eve, 
Some purpose in my life fulfill, 

And ere I pass away some work achieve 
To live and move when I am still. 

I ask not, with that work combined, 
My name shall down the ages move; 

But that my toil some end may find, 
That men may see and God approve." 

The books which the new Bishop of London 
has written are not, like his predecessors', in- 
quires into the life and work of past genera- 
tions, but direct, practical utterances for the 
history that is being made today. They con- 
sist largely of sermons and addresses. But one 
of them is of another kind and is much read 
by those who would lead in such work as his 
has been. It is entitled "Work in Great Cities." 
The elevation of a man like this to the great 
see of London is indeed a most significant event. 
It surely means that the leaders of the Angli- 
can Church see where and how the greatest 
work of the church is to be done and are de- 
termined to do it. 



Apa.thy of Miners 

BV BERT M. HOGEN. 

To one at all observant of conditions of 
society and labor the situation In the mining 
camps in the great inter-mountain district is, 
to say the least, striking. The laborer of the 
East is alert. He feels the dignity of his posi- 
tion and is wont to assert the same, on the 
whole, in a dignified manner. Discussion, sym- 
pathy, union in the interests of labor are the 
order of the day. Much in this way is ac- 
complished in checking encroachments upon 
the interests of the laboring man. 

Very different is the attitude of thousands 
of the miners of the West. To be sure there 
are labor unions, but in some districts their 
actions are extreme and violent; in others their 
existence is merely nominal. In many places 
they are entirely defunct. And this is not 
evidence that there is no place for such organ- 
izations. Existing statutes are violated fla- 
grantly. Boarding houses are operated by 
mining companies at enormous profits the 
Jews' "vone perzent" Is not a comparison. The 
miners "rest not day and night." Sunday rest 
for man or beast is unknown. 

Many conditions under which the miner 



works present occasion for great improvement. 
Not that nothing has been accomplished; 
whether it can be credited to the efforts of 
organized labor, however, may fairly be ques- 
tioned. In Utah, five years ago, the Eight 
Hour Law for miners and mill men was en- 
acted, and this year the Boarding House Bill 
was passed by the Utah legislature and the 
Eight Hour Law by Montana. But in Utah 
the Eight Hour Law has been constantly and 
openly violated never, however, in case of 
"men underground" and the Boarding House 
Bill is already fast becoming a dead letter. 

The reason for this want of alertness is not 
hard to find. It lies not in the want of energy 
and ability. To be sure there has entered the 
mining industry in many districts a class of 
men who intellectually are not up to the grade 
t>f the miner of a quarter of a century or even 
of a decade ago. But the latter class are still 
here. 

The reason for this inaction lies in the grow- 
ing apathy of the miner. Work is- plentiful; 
wages, on the whole, are high. The men simply 
settle down contented, or, if not contented, 
willing to appear so. But for this appalling 
apathy much could be accomplished. Herein 
lies the problem and those whose interests are 
greatest are least interested in the solution of 
it. How shall this apatny be dispelled? 



A Laboratory Experiment in 
Domestic Science. 

"The Evangel" for April, gives us, under this 
caption, a picture of the solution of the domes- 
tic problem as a "broad-minded woman in the 
quiet of her own home is practically solving 
it in her daily life." 

The main points gathered from this article 
as to the treatment of the domestic in this 
household are, first, the servant is not spoken 
of as a servant. She is called the housekeeper. 
and really carries the responsibility of the 
household to a very large extent. Second, she 
is allowed to plan her own work, because she 
is expected to take as much interest in the 
home as though it were her own. The mistress 
will plan the meals, though often receiving and 
approving the suggestions made by the house- 
keeper, but all the other work ef the house- 
hold is arranged to suit the housekeeper's ideas 
of convenience. Thus it is that she is able to 
arrange for a morning down town, the mistress 
knowing that, in spite of her temporary ab- 
sence, the meals and. all other important mat- 
ters will be properly attended to. Third, she 
is never spoken of or to by her first name. 



THE COMMONS 



She is always "Miss - ," thus retaining Im- 
personality and her dignity before children, and 
guests to whom she is introduced. This gives 
her a standing as a member of the family. 

In this particular instance the housekeeper 
is the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, has had 
a common school education, and is not without 
refinement, which many would say make it 
possible for such plans to be pursued. But 
would not such consideration tend to raise the 
standard and bring into domestic service mure 
girls of this type? 

Often this housekeeper is invited to take tea 
with the family and to sit with the mistress 
during an evening, joining in the conversation 
and games. Once her cousin came to attend a 
convention in the city in which this family 
lives. She was given the use of the horse and 
sleigh with which to entertain her cousin, 
and when she brought him "home" to tea with 
her, expecting that lie and she would eat when 
the family were through, the mistress invited 
them both to eat with the family, though there 
were other guests. 

On Sunday, work is arranged so that she can 
attend morning service at church, and nothing 
Is expected of her after the dinner is over. 

Do not these many little things cause 
much of the discontent and annoyance that 
complicate this problem, and would not this 
practical application of the golden rule mean 
the solution of it? 



The Students' Association at Vassar College 
Is trying this summer to raise $20,000 with 
which to erect a club house for the maids who 
serve them in the many capacities required 
by their great household. A site will be pro- 
vided on the campus by the college trustees, 
who have hitherto made little or no provision 
for the social necessities of their large force 
of helpers. The club house will contain social 
parlors, class and club rooms. The students 
belonging to the 'College Settlement Association 
will co-operate with the maids in putting the 
building to the largest use. These students re- 
cently entertained a party of New York City 
tenement house children sent up the Hudson 
by the Rivington street Settlement. 



Richard P. Rothwell as a memorial to Sophia 
Braeunlich, contributed $25,000 to start a fund 
the object of which is to remove friendless lit- 
tle girls from dangerous and demoralizing sur- 
roundings and place them in desirable private 
families, and, where possible, to have them 
adopted. Not limited as to residents and non- 
sectarian. 



Loving My Neighbor. 

"Who is my neighbor?" 
"If I should see 

A brother languishing In sore distress, 
And I should turn and leave him comfortless, 
When I might be 

A messenger of hope and happiness- 
How could I ask to have what I denied, 
In my own hour of bitterness supplied? 

"If I might sing 

A little song to cheer a fainting heart 
And I should seal my lips and sit apart, 
When I might bring 

A bit of sunshine for life's ache and smart- 
How could I hope to have my grief relieved, 
If I kept silent when my brother grieved? 

"And so I know 

That day Is lost wherein I fall to lend 
A helping hand to some wayfaring friend; 

But If It show 
A burden lightened by the cheer I send, 

Then do I hold the golden hours well spent, 

And lay me down to sleep In sweet content." 

Bradt. 



South End House Fellowships. 

One of the most notable of the year's gains 
at South End House, Boston, has been the es- 
tablishment of fellowships at Harvard, Dart- 
mouth and Amherst. In the ninth annual re- 
port of the settlement, Mr. Woods speaks as 
follows: 

"The holders of the South End House fel- 
lowships that have been established at Har- 
vard, Dartmouth and Amherst colleges during 
the past year, came into residence at the 
House last autumn, and are making gratifying 
progress with their work. The Dartmouth fel- 
lowshipthrough the influence of President 
Tucker, the founder of this settlement has 
been provided for as part of the scheme of a 
new graduate school of economics and politics 
which has been opened at that college. For 
Harvard and Amherst the fellowships have 
been guaranteed for two years by groups of 
alumni living in Boston. The condition in all 
these cases is that the incumbent, while still 
under the direction of his faculty and regis- 
tered as a graduate student, shall be in resi- 
dence at the South End House. Appointments 
are made on the basis of special distinction in 
sociological study, and the time spent by the 
appointees at the South End House may count 
toward an advanced academic degree. The 
chief interest of each of these men is in some 
specific line of social investigation and analy- 
sis, but they all take active share in the prac- 
tical round of settlement interests. 



THE COMMONS 



"This plan, whose success already seems To 
insure its permanence, means that the House 
will have continuously, as part of its force, 
picked representatives from among the recent 
graduates of these three colleges. As time 
goes on, therefore, the House will be able to 
send forth young men of special capacity, 
combined with practical training and experi- 
ence, along those new lines of social service in 
which there is an ever-growing need of prop- 
erly equipped men." 



In the following statements, published in the 
same settlement report, the holders of the fel- 
lowships have described their work: 

WOKK UNDER THE HARVARD FELLOWSHIP. 

Associating daily with other residents who 
are active workers and students, engaging in 
practical researches in the fruitful social labo- 
ratory such as the South End affords, and 
profiting by the counsel and direction of mem- 
bers of the House and of the Economic De- 
partment of Harvard Universitf, I feel that I 
enjoy advantages which a student of social 
science should prize very highly. 

In the course of an investigation such as that 
upon which I am at present engaged "the 
CM uses of congestion of population in factory 
districts 1 ' many interesting facts present 
themselves which a theoretical student would 
hardly anticipate. In theoretical discussion 
one is inclined to single out certain particular 
facts from which to draw general conclusions, 
but in practice one is surprised to find how 
intimately correlated are the social pfoblerns, 
and to see how comprehensive a view of all 
social factors must be taken before one can 
arrive at a true conclusion upon even a small 
theme. One great difficulty in carrying on my 
investigations has been just this inseparable- 
ness of correlated problems. But these discov- 
eries of new relations, although complicating 
the problem interest because of their nov- 
elty and unexpectedness. 

At present, although I have arrived at no 
definite conclusions as to the causes of con- 
gested population in factory districts indeed, 
my present ideas on that subject are held less 
confidently than my preconceived opinions 
my work seems not to have been entirely fruit- 
less, because eperience has taught me better 
methods, and developed in me some tact in 
gathering information tact which was sadly 
lacking in my first attempts. 

My investigation has Led me into examination 
of municipal reports, statistics and wage lists 
into conference with municipal officers and 



with managers of various industrial enter- 
prises, and into personal relations with em- 
loyes in a large number of manufacturing 
industries. To ascertain even approximately 
tlie proportion of laborers in the South End 
residing in the district where they work lias 
made necessary an extensive canvass of facto- 
ries and workshops in order to obtain lists of 
employes and their addresses. Such informa- 
tion, if carefully determined, represents a large 
amount of investigation. 

One of the most interesting results of my 
researches so far, while but indirectly related 
to the main question at hand, resulted from the 
examination of the wage list of city em- 
ployes. These 'lists, giving the addresses of 
alll city employes, showed an undue proportion 
of laborers from certain wards which are espe- 
cially prominent in city politics. Whether this 
fact is due to abuse of political power by cer- 
tain politicians in those wards, or -to other 
causes, is a matter for future consideration. 

It is a great privilege to be permitted to 
engage also in the active work of the House. 
Associated with one of the residents. I feel in 
part responsible for the success of the Men's 
Free Reading Room on Harrison Avenue. It is 
my purpose to come into friendly relations with 
the men who frequent the room, that mutual 
good may result. In conversations with them, 
and by observation of their industrial and so- 
cial life, I receive many valuable impressions 
of aid to me in gaining a knowledge of indus- 
trial conditions. 

Thursday evenings I meet with a club of 
a dozen boys, who average about fourteen 
years of age. It is my desire to influence these 
boys rather as an associate member than as an 
appointed leader, and to encourage them to 
make of themselves not only a permanent, but 
a self-managing and self-supporting club, and 
to prepare themselves for membership in a 
club of older boys, which has been very suc- 
cessfully conducted on this plan. 
It lias been my object to state briefly a few 
of the privileges which I enjoy as a resident 
here: further, I wish to express my apprecia- 
tion of them, and my gratitude for the kindness 
of those who have made my residence here 
possible. 

ROSWELL F. PHELPS. 



WOKK UNDER THE DARTMOUTH FELLOWSHIP. 

The college man. as he takes his place among 
the residents of a social settlement, endeavors 
to make the whole --cope of settlement work 
amenable to the problems which he purposes 



THE COMMONS 



to solve. The boy's clubs, men's reading-room, 
home libraries, and the other larger interests 
of the House offer, if used aright, fruitful Jields 
for practical investigation. 

In tile case of juvenile employment, the prob- 
lem which I am studying, all these different 
agencies co-operate to a greater or less degree 
in making the investigation of real value. My 
work with boys' clubs, while its real end is to 
promote a genuine interest among the boys in 
the more wholesome things of life, yet by its 
opportunity for personal friendship enables me 
to get some information in regard to the juven- 
ile as a wage-earner from the earner himself. 

In obtaining data for the solution of such a 
problem it is very necessary to mingle freely, 
and be very frank with those whom the prob- 
lem especially concerns. And to this end the 
Newsboys' Kt'ading Room on Howard street is 
a very good field, for here from one to two 
hundred newsboys and bootblacks gather each 
'veiling to read and play games. One can drop 
in there of an evening and play games with the 
bins, and so get to know many of them inti- 
mately. 

In studying the newsboy as a juvenile wage- 
earner, it is well to obtain some idea of him 
from the school principal's point of view. Al- 
though results gained in this way are only 
approximate, yet much light is thrown upon 
newsboys as a class, and some results which 
follow from the 'traffic of newspapers on the 
streets and the violations of the license law are 
shown very well. If the number of newsboys 
is desired and other interesting facts concern- 
ing them personally, one can go to the office of 
the Superintendent of Licenses, where all ' 
license duplicates are filed away. 

Tne newsboys, while they form an important 
division of wage-earners, yet in point of num- 
bers are few compared with the great mass of 
juveniles found in our large department stores 
and in factories. Boys or girls as soon as they 
pass the limit of school age or are graduated 
from the grammar school invariably apply for 
work. In order to work, a child, provided he 
or she is under sixteen years old, is required 
by law to obtain a certificate from the Super- 
intendent of Schools. A duplicate of this cer- 
tificate containing a large amount of informa- 
tion in regard to the children is kept on file, 
and so here is most reliable data for the stu- 
dent of the problem. 

Another source of information about this 
class of juvenile is the records kept by the 
large mercantile firms. These will frequently 
verify the data obtained from the certificates 



of employment filed in the office of the Super- 
intendent of Schools. Then the investigator, 
through the clubs and other agencies of the 
Settlement, lias personal friends among this 
class of wage-earners. 

And last of all, the records kept of families 
by the Associated Charities and the knowledge 
of families one gets as a friendly visitor for a 
district conference add a new source from 
which valuable information may be obtained. 

All these agencies shed a great deal of light 
on the problem, and allow the investigator to 
obtain important data, but after all the worker 
goes in and out of the homes as a friendly vis- 
itor and engages in boy's club work not that 
he may get data solely, but that he may aid in 
the uplifting of human lives. 

EVERETT W. GOODHUE. 



WORK UNDER THE AMHERST FELLOWSHIP. 

The activities made possible by my fellow- 
ship have taken shape as an attempt to appre- 
ciate the workingman's standard of life; what 
are the habits, the likes and dislikes, the ambi- 
tions which most powerfully mould his life? 
And on the other hand, in what does it most 
need modification, and how can the change be 
most successfully accomplished? The complex- 
ity of such a problem necessitates approaching 
it from many different sides at once. 

Of the ways chosen, two are in connection 
with a working people's organization, the Wells 
Memorial Institute. A prominent feature of 
the Institute's work is a series of educational 
evening classes; those for the men are in elec- 
tricity, steam engineering and mechanical 
drawing. The members of these classes attend 
for the most part either because their work is 
already such as to demand that sort of knowl- 
edge, or because through the training they 
gain there they hope to get better places. The 
latter class, especially, I try to assist. A young 
fellow who goes to work immediately on leav- 
ing the grammar school often finds himself in 
a place which affords him no opportunity for 
advancement. If he remains there, he will be- 
fore long lose ground before the constant ac- 
cession of younger energy; but if in an effort 
to fit himself for some more skilled trade he 
meets with encouragement, the result may be 
his permanent elevation to a higher industrial 
level. It is not easy for him. however, even 
when he has attended these classes for some 
time, to discover .a place such as he is seeking; 
he often needs the help of somebody with a 
wider acquaintance among employers. 

There is also under consideration the estab- 



6 



THE COMMONS 



lishraent of a department at the Institute with 
the purpose of rendering legal services avail- 
able to workingmen at a minimum expense. 
The operation of such a device would be, so 
far as successful, to remedy numerous minor 
injustices that might otherwise persist. 

Other phases present themselves through as- 
sociation with a club of young men just reach- 
ing the age when serious, steady work is 
expected of them; through participation in the 
routine of the Associated Charities, which deals 
with the failures iu the struggle for livelihood; 
and, finally, In the trade union world, an un- 
derstanding of whose spirit, present policy and 
future possibilities I try to gain by regularly 
attending the Central Labor Union meetings, 
and by acquaintance with individual members. 

Such work is supplemented on the theoretical 
side by the acquaintance with literature, both 
permanent and transient, which comes from 
the care of the House library. This is now 
being enlarged and reclassifled. Groups of 
books on general sociology, democracy, social- 
ism, muuicipal questions, economics pure and 
applied, labor problems, co-operation, and other 
more special subjects indicate our effort to 
make the library broadly representative of cur- 
rent issues. Until this year our collection has 
been composed chiefly of the older, standard 
works; but we now hope to add from time to 
time, as we have already twice done, the newer 
publications in each of these subjects. Besides 
this formal literature, a systematic filing of 
government reports and bulletins, reports of 
commissions, other settlements, etc., and even 
of clippings, is carried on. Publications of the 
House, for which there is constant request, are 
kept at hand. All of these resources are at the 
service not only of residents but of associate 
workers and others who may find them of 
value. RUTUS E. MILES. 



College Settlements Association 
Fellowship 

The College Settlements Association has es- 
tablished a Fellowship of $400 for the year 
1901-1902, and Invite application therefor. 

The object of this Fellowship is to open to a 
well-qualified person the opportunity afforded 
by settlement life for investigation of social 
conditions or for training in philanthropic and 
civic work or for both. 

No requirements are made beyond residence 
in a settlement during the aca'demic year and 
the pursuit of some clearly defined line of 
work, scientific or practical, under the general 



guidance of the undersigned committee of this 
Association and of the Headworker of the Set- 
tlement selected. The choice of residence 
should depend on opportunities for the work 
to be undertaken, and need not be limited to 
the houses belonging to this Association. The 
time may, with the approval of the committee, 
be divided between different settlements. 

The basis of award will be solely promise of 
future usefulness. A college education is re- 
garded as desirable but not essential it' some 
compensating form of intellectual discipline 
has been enjoyed. Applicants should preferably 
have had some experience, and very recent 
college graduates would be eligible only in ex- 
ceptional cases. 

Applications should be sent before July fif- 
teenth, to Miss E. G. Balch, Prince street, 
Jamaica Plains, Mass. These should include all 
data that might be of use to the committee. 
Applicants should give age, some account of 
previous education, and state the future work 
to which they are looking forward. They 
should also describe as specifically as possible 
what topic or line of work they have in mind 
for their fellowship year. Applications should 
be accompanied by credentials bearing on 
character, on ability,' practical and scholarly, 
and on health. 

It will be regarded as a service if those to 
whom this notice comes will bring it to the 
attention of persons who might care to apply. 
. Chairman, Miss E. G. BALCH, 

Wellesley College. 
DB. S. M. LINDSAY, 

University of Pennsylvania. 
MRS. HERBERT PARSONS, 
112 East 35th St., New York City. 
Committee on Fellowship College Settlements 

Association. 



The Manufacturers' Association of New York 
has contributed $2,000 for an industrial schol- 
arship. Applicants must be residents of New 
York and at least seventeen years of age, who 
have spent three years at a high school, or 
have an equivalent education. It will be grant- 
ed only to those who are unable to pay their 
own expenses. The candidate can have his 
choice of college from an approved list. 



In nothing do men appi-oach so nearly to the 
vrods as in doing good to men. Cicero. 



To cure is the voice of the past; to prevent 
Is the divine whisper of today. 



THE COMMONS 



A Noble City 

Take heart. Have faith. Our blood Is red and 

strong; 

In* spring is early and the year is long. 
I see a Maytlde rich in gentle hearts; 
A June made glad by sweet, unselfish arts; 
A month of Julius bright with bird and bee 
And honey-sweet with dear tranquillty; 
An August blest with herds and yellowing corn, 
Hands quick to aid and hearts exempt of scorn; 
A noble city, as the days increase, 
Flash like a gem upon the brow of Pence; 
And when the year shall whiten to its rest, 
A happy people gazing on the West. 
A kindly power prevails; the god of morn, 
Free from a touch of horror or of scorn, 
On park and slum, on ditch and lake and lea, 
On tramp and kin, with sweet amenity, 
His golden shafts and glittering diamonds flings; 
From blackest soils to the tallest corn upsprings. 

The Inlander. 



Some Ways Settlements a.re 
Taking 

SETTLEMENT CONTRIBUTIONS TO LEGISLATION. 

The investigation of social, industrial and 
educational data having a bearing on legisla- 
tion, is a form of settlement service which is 
receiving more and more official recognition. 
The New York City University Settlement has 
distinguished itself time and again by contrib- 
uting to the results of important legislative 
commissions which have been incorporated 
into the law of the state. It obtained much 
data for the Tenement House Commission of 
1894; for the Reinhard committee it investi- 
gated the condition of working women in New 
York, and made special study of sanitary con- 
ditions of the lower East Side tenement 
houses. 

Residents' testimony was given at the hear- 
ing of Legislative committees on the Mercan- 
tile Inspection Bill, the bill for the abolishment 
of school trustees, various tenement house 
measures, the Drug Clerk's Bill, and many 
others relating to social reform. 

The Settlement is in close co-operative rela- 
tions with the Factory Inspector's department, 
and recommendations to the Governor by the 
Head Worker of the Settlement, Mr. James B. 
Reynolds, were subsequently incorporated into 
the factory law. 

The South End House, Boston, has rendered 
continuous and invaluable service to the munic- 
ipality along these lines. The warden reports, 
"In several instances during the past year, use- 
ful measures before the city government and 
the Legislature have been aided in their prog- 



ress through conference and joint action with 
local, political, and trade-union leaders. 

The Dover Street Bath House, in which this 
settlement has been so deeply interested from 
its first inception up to the present time, has 
closed its second year with another phenom- 
enal record of nearly 300,000 baths taken dur- 
ing the year. The Ward Nine Gymnasium, with 
which the House is also specially concerned, 
has opened its career of service very satisfac- 
torily, amid great enthusiasm on the part of 
the children and young people of the neighbor- 
hood. Two days in the week are reserved for 
women and girls. The instruction is in skilled 
hands, and there is painstaking expert medical 
supervision. The instant effect of the gymna- 
sium in improving the order and morale of the , 
streets about it has been more obvious and 
striking than one would have dared to predict. 

Two other municipal enterprises have for 
some years been strongly urged by residents 
of the House an adequate playground and an 
institution somewhat of the character of the 
London polytechnics or people's palaces. The 
appropriation for the playground is not yet in 
sight, but the pressure for it grows stronger 
year by year, both among the people of this 
part of the South End and among public-spir- 
ited citizens throughout the city." 

Hull House, Chicago, has achieved its most 
marked success in promoting the enactment 
and enforcement of legal provision for the in- 
spection and betterment of factory conditions, 
especially with reference to child labor and 
woman's work. The service rendered the 
state by Mrs. Florence Kelley's factory inspec- 
torship abides in the better laws and conditions 
effected by her. The late Mrs. Alvina P. Ste- 
vens gave her life to the parental school law 
and Chicago has given her name to the school 
provided for by the act. 



In February, Prof. Graham Taylor, of Chi- 
cago Commons, testified before the Congres- 
sional Industrial Commission on the building 
trades lockout in Chicago. He was among the 
very few witnesses whose testimony was not 
ex parte. It covered these four points: (1) 
The probable effect upon the Building Trades 
Council of the agreement between the carpen- 
ter contractors and unions, if ratified by the 
latter; (2) the right of the public to interfere 
for the prompt settlement of such differences, 
including the efforts made to arbitrate the dif- 
ferences at issue in the building trades lockout; 
(3) some causes of the disturbance of the in- 
dustrial relations in Chicago; (4) the encourag- 



8 



THE COMMONS 



ing efforts being made by employers, in bor unions, 
social settlements and other movements to bet- 
ter the relationship of the industrial classes; 
and promote the social unification of the peo- 
ple. The last point was covered by special re- 
quest of the commission. 

HULL HOUSE SUMMER SCHOOL. 

July 6-26, 1901. 

For nine years a summer school has been 
held at Rockford College, which is situated on 
twenty acres of ground on the banks of the 
Rock Rivei- at Rockford, 111. It has been pos- 
sible to combine the pleasures of a vacation 
with a slight routine of morning study and 
afternoon reading. Stress is laid upon the out- 
door study of botany and birds, but the college 
collections and laboratories are open to the 
students, and lectures take the place of excur- 
sions on rainy days. Tennis, picnics and row- 
ing upon the river occupy the summer even- 
ings, varied by dancing, charades, tableaux and 
other entertainments in the large gymnasium. 
Good country roads in the vicinity give oppor- 
tunity for pleasant bicycle trips and parties 
are frequently arranged for half-day or all- 
day excursions. 

In addition to the courses in nature study, 
classes will be formed in the following sub- 
jects: History of Education, Chaucer and 
Early English, Argument and Theme Writing, 
Biology, Readings in French and German Lit- 
erature, Drawing and Sketching, Needlework, 
Embroidery, Gymnastics and Choral Work. 

Lectures will be given by Mr. T. H. Briggs, 
of the University of Chicago, on "The Develop- 
ment of the Drama," and "Signs of Social Un- 
rest in Recent Verse," and by Miss Addams, 
on "The Play at Ober-Ammergau." and "Social 
Ideals and Social Ethics." 



RIVINGTOX STREET, NEW YORK. 

Miss Elizabeth S. Williams, the present Head- 
worker of the New York College Settlement, 
says in regard to the growth of the work: "So 
far as numbers are concerned we have reached 
our limit, for our house is filled to overflowing: 
we cannot accommodate any more clubs or 
classes. Every available spot is used all of 
the time, and we are obliged continually to 
turn away those eager for the privileges." The 
summer work of the Settlement is carried on 
at Mount Ivy, in Rockland county, N. Y. At 
this home 200 children and working girls spend 
a delightful vacation during the heated term. 
And through the Flower and Fruit Guild a 



breath of the country is brought to many 
others. 

The Nurses Settlement is one of the most 
unique settlement households in New York 
City. While its chief duties consist of profes- 
sional nursing in the neighborhood, there is 
also a marked activity in numerous lines of 
outreach in the community, including clubs, 
classes, kindergarten, and a reference library. 

Miss Lillian Wald, Hie founder and present 
Headworker, and Miss Mary Brewster secured 
Board of Health badges, explored the tene- 
ments to find the sick and offered their aid in 
a natural, friendly way. From this beginning 
the work has grown. Two auxiliary branches 
are now in successful operation, and sixteen 
trained nurses comprise the residential staff. 
Service is usually free, but in cases where 
patients are able to pay, a small charge is 
made. Visits to the sick are made daily, at- 
tendance not being constant except in serious 
cases, when nurses from the outside are called 
and paid from the emergency fund. At South 
Nyack a country house is open all the year, 
where the hospitality of the settlement is ex- 
tended to the ailing and convalescent, to whom 
a few weeks in the country might be a restor- 
ative. 



M* Seigfried of the Universite Populaire 
(Belleville, Paris) gave an interesting report on 
the aim, methods and progress of the Social 
Settlement idea in France to the residents of 
the Commons on the afternoon of May 12th. 

In 1898 Social Settlements were unknown in 
France: today there is hardjy an industrial 
center without its Universite Populaire. 

M. Seigfried graphically described the interest 
of the workingmeu of Belleville in the various 
subjects of the winter course of lectures in 
this Peoples University. Each evening of the 
week had its appointed subject for study and 
discussion, and an interesting trait of the 
French mind is disclosed in the fact that 
philosophy, among the many subjects consid- 
ered, was by far the most popular. M. Sieg- 
fried commented regretfully upon the indiffer- 
ence of the French workingman to the practical 
questions of even his most immediate social 
concerns. 

The Universite Populaire resembles more 
closely University Extension Lectures with free 
discussion, for working people under friendly 
social auspices, than the distinctive social set- 
tlements of England and the United States. 
Nevertheless the principle of sympathetic inter- 
course between the Knight of Learning and the 



THE COMMONS 



9 



Knight of Labor, the meeting on equal social 
terms to learn and teacli. of men nurtured in 
the house of Have with men reared in the 
house of Want, is the chief characteristic in the 
service of the University Populaire as in that 
of the social settlement. This is something 
new under the sun. a fact of modern social 
evolution big with promise of the coining of 
that better day when mutual sympathy and 
service, if not entire understand ing, will re- 
place the pride anil bitterness that in all the 
yesterdays has divided the brotherhood of man.. 



Sharing a Priva-te Library with 
a. Neighborhood- 

In "Summer Idyl of City Life," which ap- 
peared in the September number of THE COM- 
MONS, it is shown what oue family is doing in 
a way rare as it is beautiful, to make its home 
the social center of the neighborhood. 

During the summer months bevies of little 
children were invited to gather each Wednes- 
day in the garden and lawn surrounding Mr. 
Chas. A. Joslyn's home on South Troy street, 
where he distributed his flowers among them. 
But not alone to the beauties of the garden 
were they invited. They were shown into the 
tine library and lent suitable l>ooks. An hour 
of story and song followed, and when the 
merry little visitors left for their homes each 
carried a card bearing a cordial invitation to 
the grown members of the families to come 
and freely enjoy ''Joslyn's Golden Rule Park." 
"Seats are iu shady places, the flowers are in 
bloom, the grass is green, and the latch string 
is always out. * * * Come and enjoy the 
fruits oi' my labor." That was the spirit of 
the message, and it needs not the eye of a 
seer to discern iu such the thought and plan of 
One who taught the doctrine of love and 
service. 

In November Mr. Joslyn issued a catalogue 
of the Golden Rule Park Library, on the first 
page of which is the following greeting: 
FOREWORD: 

TO NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS GREETING. 

In order to make our world happier each .of 
us should live our lives in the spirit of that 
immortal precept of the Master: "Do unto 
others as ye would have them do unto you." 
In this spirit of good fellowship this little cata- 
logue is presented. 

I want my books to be useful. It will be 
a very great pleasure to me to loan any book 
appearing in the catalogue, under certain com- 
mon-sense rules that have been established. 



To friends who were supplied with a tormer 
catalogue, and who may note the large increase 
in the stock since then, I wil! say, aside from 
the natural increase by purchase, the library is 
indebted to the kindness of a friend for some 
sixty odd volumes. 

The catalogue is compiled and arranged In 
such a way that additions can be made from 
time to time. Please occasionally bring it for 
completion to date. 

To quote once more from invitations of sea- 
sons past, which I wish to stand as long as 
my life shall last: 

"Golden Rule Park and Library is open at 
all times to friends, seats are in shady spots, 
the grass is green, the flowers are in bloom, 
the library is stocked with good reading and 
the latch-string is always on the outside." 

Come and pull the latch-string. 

Very truly your friend. 

CHARLES A. JOSLYN, JR. 

November, 1900. 



Our California correspondent writes: "Every- 
where hearts are breaking for lack of human 
sympathy. Some mouths ago, when helpless 
in bed, a tramp came to my screen-door. He 
was so hungry and dirty, but human. I said: 
'You see I am helpless and alone. Sit down 
and let me think. I talked then of his mother, 
his childhood, of Jesus who had no where to 
lay his head. His heart was touched, and 
tears were free. I sent him to my pantry; told 
him to light a lamp and make coffee, to find 
bread and butter, cold meat and milk; gave 
him towel and soap aud comb, and let him 
take of his full meal what he left. I believe 
he took counsel how to earn a home and make 
himself a useful citizen. Never have I had 
such a one take any advantage of me, and 
many have said: 'Your words made me feel 
as if I could be somebody.' It rains tonight. 
The gentle rain calls to the lilies all over the 
land, bids the poppies marshal their hosts, 
coaxes the buds of ten thousand flowers to 
show their banners of rose and gold from the 
high terraces of the desert sands." 



The charitable women of Cleveland have 
formed a Society for the Relief of Crippled 
Children which furnishes practical surgical as- 
sistance to crippled children of the poor. The 
society has a surgeon and a private hospital 
under contract, sustained by private donations. 



10 



THE COMMONS 



Bettering Conditions of Labor 

THE CONSUMERS' LEAGUE. 

BY MRS. CHARLES HENROTIN, PRESIDENT OF THE 
ILLINOIS BRANCH. 

This comparatively modem movement has re- 
cently made great advance in the Eastern 
States and is rapidly becoming one of the in- 
dustrial and ethical forces which is forming 
public opinion. 

The visit of Miss Pauline Goldmark, Secre- 
tary of the New York Branch, has aroused a 
siren t interest in those members of the Illinois 
League who have been so fortunate as to hear 
her account of the work accomplished on these 
lines in New York. 

The New York Branch was organized about 
ten years ago. Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell 
was the first president, and was succeeded by 
Mrs. Frederick Nathan, who still holds the po- 
sition. The secretary gives her entire time to 
furthering the interests of the League and the 
active propaganda of the League has resulted 
in encouraging progress in bettering the condi- 
tions of employment in stores and factories. 
The principles which underlie the work of this 
association may be condensed into the follow- 
ing statements: first, that the consumer, or 
Vuyer, is practically the producer; second, that 
the consumer has therefore an ethical respon- 
sibility for the conditions under which the ar- 
ticles are made which he purchases and that to 
recognize this responsibility is a part of his 
civic duty. The New York City League con- 
fined its first efforts to bettering the condi- 
tions of working women and children, with the 
result, after long continued investigation, that 
the League is now able to publish a "White 
List" of forty-four re'commended retail stores. 

The movement has spread all over the coun- 
try and a National League has been organized, 
with Prof. John Graham Brooks as president, 
and Mrs. Florence Kelley as secretary. Affili- 
ated with the National organization are thirty 
local leagues. The headquarters are in New 
York, in the United Charities Building, East 
23d street. Anyone desiring information on the 
work of the National or New York City Branch 
can obtain it by writing to the above address. 
New York is the stronghold of the sweating 
system, whose products are bought and dis- 
tril nited all over the country. In order to 
enable purchasers to discriminate against gar- 
ments made under these bad conditions, the 
Consumers' League label was adopted, which is 
attached only to garments made in factories 
approved by the League. No factory is allowed 
the use of this label unless the State Factory 



Laws are obeyed; overtime not worked; chil- 
dren under sixteen are not employed. 

Twenty-eight factories are now authorized to 
use this label, and several manufacturers have 
frankly admitted that they find it commercially 
advantageous to them. It is used for women's 
and children's underwear alone, as the League 
Is careful not to invade the domain of any 
union which has its own label in the field. 

The public exhibition of garments bearing 
the label which was recently held in New York 
disclosed the interesting result that goods of 
all grades and prices can now be produced un- 
der fair conditions. A few weeks ago fifty- 
cent nightgowns bearing the Consumers' 
League label were offered for sale at a leading 
store in New York City, thus disproving the 
idea that only high-priced goods can be man- 
ufactured in model factories. 

This movement has had a perceptible effect 
in furthering the early closing of stores. In 
several Wisconsin towns, where leagues have 
been formed, the agitation has resulted in se- 
curing the Saturday half-holiday during the 
two summer mouths for about 5,000 employees 
in retail stores. 

While the principal sweating trade center is 
New York City, Chicago perhaps ranks second 
as a producer of sweated goods. It is esti- 
mated by the Factory Inspector that 25,000 
people in Chicago, including men, women and 
children, are engaged in the garment trades. 
Many of these people are working under sani- 
tary conditions quite as bad as anything that 
New York can show. The League has therefore 
a large field of work right in this city. The 
Illinois Branch was organized about two years 
ago and has conducted a propaganda of the 
principles underlying the League so that near- 
ly everyone has some conception of what the 
League stands for, but the active membership 
has been disproportionately small. Its adher- 
ents have determined no longer to content 
themselves with mere applause. In the com- 
ing autumn active work will be inaugurated. 
With the aid of the Womens Clubs it is hoped 
that local leagues will be formed all over the 
sta.te, of which Chicago is the great shopping 
center, for it is only by the combined efforts 
of a large body of members that merchants can 
be induced to carry goods made in factories 
recommended by the League. 

Literature on the subject of the League can 
be obtained at Hull House and the Commons. 
The annual membership fee is $1.00, which 
may be sent to Miss Juliet Wall, Secretary, 
Greenwood avenue, Evanston. 



THE COMMONS 



11 



LOCAL OPTION IN TAXATION. 

The Bucklin tax amendment which authorizes 
"any county in the state, at any general elec- 
tion, not oftener than once in four years, on 
petition of 100 tax payers, to vote on the ques- 
tion of exempting personal property and landed 
improvements from local taxation, and deriv- 
ing all local revenue from land values Irrespect- 
ive of improvement," has passed the Colorado 
lower house and senate, and has gone to the 
governor for his signature, which it is certain 
to obtain, since he recommended its adoption in 
his inaugural message. It then must be voted 
upon by the people. 

This will be a great advance in Colorado to- 
ward the adoption of a sound fiscal and social 
system. The system of local option has been 
adopted in New Zealand and some other parts 
of Australasia, and a home rule amendment, 
similar to that which the Colorado legislature 
has just passed, is pending before the Texas 
legislature. New York in the Elsberg bill, Il- 
linois in the Crafts bill, also Delaware and 
Kansas and other states in similar bills pend- 
ing, give promise of the establishment in this 
country of the local option principle of taxa- 
tion, and the consequent speedy exemption 
from tax burden of industry, enterprise and 
thrift, and the taxation exclusively of land 
monopoly values. 



"The Associations of Workingmen and Em- 
ployers." In calling attention to a recent publi- 
cation under the above title by Monsieur P. 
Hubert Valleroux, of Paris Social Service, says: 
"According to M. Lyon-Caen, this is one of the 
ablest presentations of the subject which has 
appeared. The author has divided his material 
into three parts. The first deals with those as- 
sociations which have for their object the in- 
crease of gain, such as Co-operative Societies 
for Production, Industrial Syndicates, Associa- 
tions for Buying and Selling. The second per- 
tains to Consumption and to Construction of 
Cheap Dwellings, while the third deals with 
provision against illness, pensions, associations 
for the prevention of accidents from work. 
Each part contains a short historical sketch, a 
statement of the present situation and of the 
methods of legislaion employed by each asso- 
ciation. 

Throughout, the author has had a practical 
end constantly in mind. He has not tried to 
make a complete history of the movement, but 
simply to show clearly what methods have, in 
the past, been successful, and which have been 
unsuccessful. 



The International Labor Bureau opened Its 
office doors on the first day of May at Bazel, 
Switzerland. It will publish a code of existing 
labor laws in the English, French and frorman 
languages, an international bulletin and an in- 
ternational Annual of labor movements and 
measures throughout the world. This signifi- 
cant step has been taken by the little Swiss 
Republic that appropriates 8,000 francs an- 
nually for this world-embracing cause. Will 
not the Bureau of Labor of the first industrial 
nation of the world co-operate in this noble and 
beneficent service? 

SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER. 

New Zealand is divided into "Industrial Dis- 
tricts." The day of Barony, Lordship,, Earl- 
dom, Dukedom, Kingdom and the like is draw- 
ing to its close. Our fathers had outgrown the 
delusion ^of hereditary right to the powel'S of 
government, and we are rapidly outgrowing 
the no less delusion that mere artificial lines 
of township, county, and state, shall interpose 
barriers to the rights and obligations, the in- 
dustry and sympathy of men. It requires no 
prophet to foretell the end of this beginning 
in the little island in the South Pacific Sea. 

New Zealand has planted a mustard seed and 
the weary toilers of the world shall yet rest 
beneath its generous shade in the four corners 
of the earth. "Behold, there ariseth a little 
cloud out of the sea like a man's hand." 

Victor Emmanuel III., King of Italy, lias 
done more for human freedom in this new year 
of a new century, than Napoleon accomplished 
in the name of Liberty by fifty battles whose 
thunders shook the world. This boy ruler has 
given royal recognition and the title and in- 
signia of office, to an order of nobility more 
ancient than the Manetho Dynasty and more 
glorious than the House of David. Most hon- 
orable of all titles yet bestowed by human 
hands, it is to be conferred (so the kingly edict 
ran) only upon persons distinguished for their 
knowledge and service in the art and theory 
of Industry, and any man in Italy may enter 
the lists for this exalted honor, from peasants 
of the hill country to princes of the realm. 

These are indeed stirring times. Is Labor, 
after waiting fi.OOO years or so, to have its 
day in court? An international Order of the 
Knights of Industry would do more to realize 
"the Parliament of man and the Federation of 
the world" than all the benevolent despots in 
Christendom, with their Hague Conferences 
and Programs of Peace. 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.4- Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 

A dramatic incident took place at our Freo 
Floor Discussion recently. An able address on 
Competition had been delivered in which was 
emphasized the supreme value of the individ- 
ual and his right to free competition, limited 
only by the social adjustment of common 
rights. The most prominent Socialist in the 
city asked the speaker, "What place do you 
give to the teachings and example of the Mas- 
ter?" adding that he did not ask the question 
as an orthodox believer. The rejoinder was 
made, that if he did not ask honestly, It was a 
moot question not worthy of a serious answer. 
Instantly the reply flashed back, "Then I ask it 
as an -orthodox, for I believe that Christ was 
the best and the wisest man of all time and 
that all that is good and unselfish in the world, 
since his time, has come through those who 
have been moved by his spirit. What place, I 
ask, do you give to the teachings and example 
of the Master?" 



College Training for Social Service. 

The College Settlement Association lias in- 
stituted a most significant inquiry into the 
best ways to provide training for social service. 
Kvery college graduate is said to find herself 
"confronted by social problems, either in the 
organized work of a community, or in the 
myriad personal phases of such problems." It 
is admitted, however, that "the average col- 
lege graduate has almost no knowledge of the 
proper means of rendering useful service to so- 
ciety." The college thus fails, in the estimation 
of theSe investigators, if it does not fulfil its 
function in meeting "this scientific necessity 
to the welfare of the country." On the other 
hand it is said that "it certainly would not 
seem advisable or desirable, either to turn our 
colleges into training schools for social work, 
or to convert our settlements and charity or- 
ganizations into nothing but laboratories for 
such work." 



"To discover the attitude of authorities, on 
both sides, and form plans for mutual benefit," 
is the helpful purpose of this inquiry. 

The most significant answer to the questions 
of demand and supply thus raised are the an- 
nouncements by the Universities of Pennsyl- 
vania and Wisconsin of the opening of courses 
of training for social work, with laboratory 
practice in the surrounding city field work. The 
University of Chicago lias for some time had 
in contemplation the establishment of a more 
or less detached school to tit men and women, 
with academic thoroughness, for effective so- 
cial service in every needed Hue. Divinity 
schools, notably the Chicago Theological Sem- 
inary, are beginning to supplement their cur- 
ricula with such courses for lay-workers, 
aimed to train them especially for the educa- 
tional and institutional work of the churches. 
The Young Men's Christian Association Train- 
ing Schools, at Springfield. Mass., and Chicago, 
have long led the way to this end by provid- 
ing their secretaries with technical training 
for their work. The Bible Normal College, at 
Springfield, Mass., is in its work in religious 
pedagogy, perhaps the most advanced of: these 
pioneer schools. Among them all, of course, 
the Pratt Institute, of Brooklyn, X. Y., easily 
leads in the highly specialized training it offers 
within its chosen sphere of splendid popular 
service. The Settlements, being In reality edu- 
cational agencies more than anything else, can 
render no higher service than by continuing 
to co-operate, to the full extent of their oppor- 
tunity, yet strictly within the limits of their 
own legitimate scope, with these academic in- 
stitutions in their new outreaching toward more 
practically democratic influence and effective- 
ness. 

13he End of our Beginning. 

The Williams Residence Hall is rising at the 
rate of a story each week. At this pace of 
progress it will reach the roof line the middle 
of July and may, without unforeseen delay, 
be ready to receive our household life by the 
early fall. The entire cost of this Grand ave- 
nue section of the new building, $20,000, has 
been provided, as announced in our May num- 
ber., by the Williams family, the sons and 
daughters having offered to add $12,000 to 
the $8,000 already given by their father, on 
condition that the whole amount be devoted 
to the erection of the Residence Hall, which is 
to bear his name. To replace the $8,000, which 
had been expended in erecting the Morgan 
street wing, and to meet the final payments for 



THECOMMONS 



13 



completing :ii)d equipping it, require $15,000. 
Of this sum ?5,000 have been subscribed since 
iveeiviiift tin- offer of the Williams jrift. It 
now remains to secure the subscription of $10.- 
000 in order to fulfill the conditions upon which 
this generous contribution of over cue-third of 
the entire cost of the building was niiiU>. When 
this sum is in hand, Chicago Commons will 
hold in trust for tiie whole cosmopolitan popu- 
lation of the most populous ward in Chicago 
this unencumbered, well adapted building 
equipment for the educational, social, civic and 
religious service of tl.e common life. 

The end of our beginning will then be 
reached. It is with great relief that we hail 
at least the beginning of the end of the long. 
hard struggle for foothold and shelter. The su- 
preme satisfaction of Hie retrospect and the 
. prospect is the fact that the load has been 
lifted once for all. Whatever additional build- 
ing we may need, we can wait for until indi- 
vidual friends of the work are prompted to pro- 
vide for its future growth. 

What lias been so well done by the man.v 
makt s surer and easier what still remains for 
all of us together to do in Helping support and 
develop the work. By relieving us of the ex- 
cessive rental of the old building and by divert- 
ing the outgo of what the residents pay for their 
acrrmniodations to the income for the settle- 
ment work, the new building will at once prove 
to be the beginning of an endowment for the 
perpetual maintenance of the social and re- 
ligious service of this ever-increasing and in- 
creasingly needy community. To this income 
from the building is to be added the growing 
share of maintenance expenses which is being 
cheerfully offered by all the settlement clubs 
and classes, and nl! the church organizations 
using its privileges. 

Our readers who have shared so patiently 
with ns the tension of this prolonged appeal 
will help ns heave a sigh of relief in the pros- 
pect of giving ourselves and them a rest from 
the burden of living under the stress of a per- 
petual financial crisis. It will, however, never 
be possible, as it ought not to be, either to 
maintain or, much more, initiate such s.icriiicinl 
service without an expenditure of money and 
of manhood and womanhood that will be felt 
by all whose privilege and duty it is to make 
it. If the settlement service ever offers privi- 
leges without obligations, pleasure without 
pains, opportunity without burden-bearing, a 
"soft-snap" instead of strenuous struggle, it 
will lose its soul. 



T5he New Fourth Edition S College, Social 
arvd University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 



Mr. Lex. By Catherine We^gh McCvjHoch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature. " Price cloth 35C. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology, By Gra.Ke.rn Ta.ylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for soc of THE COMMONS. 
Church in SociaJ Reforms 



By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
15he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL. 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFER HEONER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ot view, ft is published monthly at Chicago 
Commoi-s. a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.* Morgan St.. 
Chicago, III., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

Tne Subscription Price Is Fifty Cents a Year. 
(Two Shillings. English; 2 50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for S2. 50. Send" check, dtaft. P. 'O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cfnt d nomina ton., at our risk. 
Advertisements in the Commons During 19O1. 
One Page. $2.VOO; Half 'age. $15 00; Quarter Page, <S.OO;One 
Inch, 52 00. For each insertion. 

Special Rates for Special Numbers of the Commons 

Any number under twenty-five copies, five cents each; over 
twenty-five and under one hundred, three cents each; over 
one hundred, two and one-half cents each. 
CKanges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for nny 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address untilnotified 
to the contrary. . 



14 



THE COMMONS 



T5he Month at Chicago Commons- 

From the happy indoor work of the winter 
we turn to the happier outdoor work of the 
summer. Camp Commons, in the Penny 
' meadow near Elgin, is in successful operation. 
To see the joyous groups of boys or girls start 
from our front door for their fortnight's outing, 
is one of the keenest delights of settlement ex- 
perience. To keep a boy or girl a week at 
Camp costs only $2.00, including transportation, 
in addition to the fifty cents which each of 
them pays toward the expense. Should not the 
"summer" girl and boy share their vacation 
pleasures with the less fortunate children of 
their own age by providing one or more of 
them with an outing of at least a week? 



KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION. 

The Pestalozzi-Froebel Kindergarten Training 
School, at Chicago Commons, happily closed its 
fourth year this month. The settlement audi- 
torium was beautifully decorated with wild 
flowers, gathered by the young ladies, five of 
whom were graduated. An appreciative au- 
dience of friends enjoyed the songs, games and 
handiwork of the school and the speaking of 
its teachers, who were most happily supple- 
mented by Miss Amalie Hofer, editor of the 
Kindergarten Magazine, and sister of the prin- 
cipal, Mrs. Bertha Hofer Hegner. Mrs. Heg- 
ner's success as a distinctive kindergarten con- 
ductor and trainer has received deserved and 
generous recognition from the other training 
schools, with which ours is happy to be on 
terms of friendliest fellowship. More appli- 
cants for admission have been registered al- 
ready for next year than have ever been re- 
ceived at this season. The kindergarten at the 
new building is supported financially and in 
service by the tuition of the training school. 
Two of its students will conduct the summer 
kindergarten there, opening its session the sec- 
ond week in July. 



OUR BOYS AND GIRLS' CELEBRATE. 

The close of the club season was enthusiasti- 
cally celebrated by the members of our boys' 
and girls' clubs in mass meeting assembled. 
Supplemented by the Chicago 'Commons Or- 
chestra, the "home talent" of the clubs proved 
entirely adequate for the program, which was 
well received by a large audience of parents 
and friends. Although only a small admission 
fee was charged the proceeds provided $50.00 
toward the expenses of Camp Commons. 



PROGRESSIVE CLUB'S COUNTRY HOUSE. 

The young women of our Progressive Club 
have rented for the season a beautifully lo- 
cated and well adapted house of seven rooms at 
Gleucoe, on the north shore of the lake. The 
shorter distance and less expensive transporta- 
tion will place an outing within the reach of 
a far larger proportion of the club members 
and their friends than could possibly take ad- 
vantage of the Michigan City cottage last year. 



We are glad to co-operate again with our 
neighboring Northwestern University Settle- 
ment in furnishing for the use of babies and 
invalids sterilized milk, at two and a half 
cents for a two-ounce bottle. The settlements 
meet the cost of sterilizing and bottling and the 
consumers pay only a trifle more than the 
milk dealers charge for the ordinary supply.. 



A CLEAN CITY RAIXY. 

The Men's Community Club and our Woman's 
Club contributed their members and their fn- 
flueuce to a Clean City Rally, at wiich an ani- 
mated discussion of street paving and cleaning 
and of garbage collecting methods was partici- 
pated in by several neighbors. Our new alder- 
man was most helpfully encouraging in his 
view of the situation. Our streets are being 
cleared of the unsightfully and ill-savored 
old wooden boxes by the ward superin- 
tendent. Cans, in accordance with the new 
regulations, are replacing them. But where, in- 
side the building lines, to keep these separate 
receptacles for ashes and garbage be- 
tween the calls of the collector, which 
are made only twice each week, is a se- 
rious question for the owners and occupants 
of tenement houses. With no frontage space 
and all too little back yard, many tenants may 
be obliged to resort to the unsanitary neces- 
sity of utilizing hallways and cellars for the 
storage of waste. Fatally defective are build- 
ing ordinances, which make no compulsory pro- 
vision for such dire necessities. The hope of 
better things lies wholly in just such friendly 
conferences of neighbors and co-operation with 
the city officials in their very seriously difficult 
duties. 



OUB MUSICAL INTERESTS. 

Our Chicago Commons Choral Club, under 
the direction of its conductor, Miss Mari Ruef 
Hofer, achieved its greatest triumph in the 
smooth and spirited rendering of the opera 
"Pinafore." It means much to this great com- 
munity to have its own capacity developed to 



THE COMMONS 



15 



the point of providing innocent and attractive 
recreation to its heavy-laden people. 



In addition to adult and children's choruses, 
and the Chicago Commons orchestra, we are 
glad to report considerable work in violin, 
mandolin and piano. The demand has been 
stronger and readier for violin and mandolin 
and the interest in these instruments steadier 
than in the piano. The causes may be as fol- 
lows: necessity for several changes in teachers 
in the piano department; few families can af- 
ford pianos, practicing in such cases having to 
be done on the Commons piano at odd times 
between classes, the comparative cheapness 
of mandolins aud violins; an evident preference 
for stringed instruments among Italian people. 
The violin and mandolin work has been con- 
ducted by Mrs. Gordon, a pupil of the Kelso 
School of Musical and Dramatic Art. One of 
her pupils of special talent has been trans- 
ferred to Mr. Gordon, head of the violin de- 
partment of this school. In all these classes 
the charge has been the same as that of our 
neighborhood teachers in order to avoid the es- 
tablishment of unjust competition. 



Found: A Trainer- Wanted: A 
ManueJ Training Equipment 

An expert teacher in one of the best of our 
city manual training schools offers his gratui- 
tous service to Chicago Commons as resident in 
charge of our manual training department on 
only one condition, namely, that we equip it as 
well as the Cooking School is equipped for its 
work. The cost of this manual training equip- 
ment he estimates at not more than five hun- 
dred dollars. The shop room stands ready. A 
capable volunteer trainer is at hand. Young 
men aud women in many lines of educational 
and ivligious effort seek to combine the advan- 
tage of manual training with the Social Settle- 
ment spirit and service. Boys aud girls by the 
score await the sense culture and character 
value of this training. The following plan of 
action, suggested by the trainer who offers his 
time and skill to carry it out, should tempt 
one or more of our friends to supply tools and 
benches to work with. One hundred dollars 
have already been offered. Who will secure 
the other four hundred.? 

VKOPpSED PLAN FOR NORMAL AND CLASS WORK 

The plan is to start first a normal depart- 
ment, in which teachers will be trained in all 
forms of manual work suitable for children 
and young people from six to eighteen years 



of age. A one year course is contemplated for 
the present, but opportunity for further study 
will be offered to those who desire to continue, 
and we shall encourage all who can to do so. 

We hope to interest the students of this de- 
partment in our settlement work so that they 
will assist us in our efforts for the neighbor- 
hood. If any preference is shown it will be 
to those who promise thus to further our work. 
We shall equip this department for fifteen stu- 
dents, attempting only so much as can be done 
well, and will endeavor to add inspiration by 
having lectures given from time to time by 
some of the most successful specialists in man- 
ual training. 

When our normal work is fairly started we 
will turn our attention to the cTaildren of the 
neighborhood. We intend to form classes of 
sixty, divided into three sections of twenty 
each. Instruction will be given in drawing, 
clay-modeling and carving. The sections will 
follow one another in rotation through the three 
departments, and later, the shop of the normal 
department will be opened to tne young peo- 
ple of the neighborhood. After the plant is 
once installed, we hope to make it self-support- 
Ing. The students in the normal department 
will always pay a small tuition fee and we 
hope to secure a slight revenue from the sale 
of some of the articles made. 

It seems hardly necessary to speak of the 
great value in some form of rudimentary 
manual training among the children of the 
poor, who get little of it in the public schools 
and to whom the higher grade manual schools 
are out of reach. 

We do not expect any very astounding re- 
sults to follow upon our efforts. We do feel. 
however, that no one can draw well, or model 
in clay, or cut a design in wood, or make a 
box, while his mind is wandering at large; all 
of these forms of work require the attention of 
the worker. Again, in all but the first, there 
is some resistance to be overcome. It requires 
persistency and self-control to continue the 
work until finished; no one can carve a design 
in wood or make a joint without coming to 
know that design or that joint as never before. 
At the same time it opens the eyes of the 
worker to a world of beauty and interest never 
before seen. Manual Training thus creates 
a new interest in life, quickens the imagination, 
develops self-control and the habit of attention, 
gives a new knowledge of the dignity of labor 
and a very real sense of power and self-reliance 
which comes from the mere ability to use the 
hands as the mind directs. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Fa-rewell to the Old Commons 
b\it not to Its Neighborhood 

To be in the last mortal acts of moving for 
the best i>art of a whole month is the experi- 
ence of a lifetime'. The "Old Commons" fully 
sliiirecl in the desolation of the dissolution. 
Our lingering sentimental regrets at leaving the 
hospitably spacious and homestead-like old 
house have been somewhat rudely disillusion- 
ized by the dilapidation into which it is sud- 
denly falling. When the pictures came down 
from the walls and even the plain furnishing 
left room after room bare, the imtenableness 
of the mournfully decadent old mansion in its 
present state became all too manifest. And 
yet there is, "to us at least, and we fain would 
hope to many of our friends and neighbors, 
more than a touch of pathos In abandoning the 
old Commons to its lonesome, if not direful 
fate. The neighborhood, and even the home- 
ward-bound thousands who sweep past it every 
evening, cannot fail to miss the life-light from 
its open door, the happy throngs of playful 
children ever on porch or steps, the merry 
young lift- flowing in and ebbing out with every 
eventide, the groups of brotherly laboring men 
and the flock of hard-working women, to say 
nothing of the incoming and outgoing of the 
residents on their neighborhood errands, and 
the strain of the vesper hymns floating over the 
clang and clamour of the street. While almost 
all of these groups have already followed us - 
to the new building, only five blocks west- 
ward, yet our hearts yearn over the littlest 
children and their careworn mothers, who can- 
not wander even so short a distance from what, 
by a license hardly poetic, may be called their 
'home." Where can they center when the only 
bit of ground common to them all no longer 
extends to them a welcome? Where else can 
they look for the scant privileges with which 
we enabled them, these seven years, to sup- 
plement the all too little equipment and cheer 
of their dreary tenements? Where can these 
little children be childlike and play, if not on 
their play-ground in our side yard? It has 
never been In our hearts to deny the needy 
neighborhood of the old Commons any com- 
fort or privilege that we could afford it. Hop- 
ing against hope we have pleaded for means to 
retain and repair the home-like old mansion. 
in which a group of our residents would glad- 
ly have remained to serve their old neighbors. 
But this hope, it seems, was not to be real- 
ized. So we present for the last time the pic- 
ture of our dear old home, where we have hap- 



pily lived between a buzz-saw and a sausage 
factory these seven years and around which 
cluster so many associations, tender and tragic, 
tar-reaching and intense, lightsome and deep- 
tuned, shadowed with disappointment and de- 
spair, yet sunlit with a far more exceeding 
success and an ever-abounding hope. It must 
go, but we must not. Neither the more invit- 
ing accommodations, nor the equally needy 
neighborhood of the new building must be al- 




lowed to allure us to leave the long struggled 
for and hard earned foothold we possess amidst 
the harder conditions surrounding the old Union 
street house. May its familiar front, as it 
faces some readers for the last time, prompt 
some compassionate hearts and glad hands 
to spread another, even though a smaller roof, 
at least over our kindergarten, mothers' meet- 
ings and junior clubs, which otherwise we must 
leave behind us. Only fifty dollars a month 
will be required to rent, light, heat, and care 
for quarters adequate for this purpose in the 
immediate vicinity of the old Commons. Where 
will such an investment yield larger or surer 
returns in civic, social, moral and religious bet- 
terment? Can the city afford the improvident 
waste involved in abandoning such a costly 
vantage point of all that makes for righteous- 
ness, peace and patriotism? Who will buy up 
this opportunity to serve God and the city in 
the persons and the homes of the poorest of the 
poor? One man stands for half the kinder- 
gartner's support. Who will supply shelter- 
ing roof and walls? 

Since 1883 the brotherhood of carpenters and 
joiners has expended over a million dollars for 
charitable and benevolent purposes. 



TKe Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 61-Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. August. 1901. 



Teachings of a Da.y. 

MORNING. 

What's tlu- text today for reading 
Nature and its being by? 

There is effort all the morning 
Through the sea and windy sky. 

All, intent in earnest grapple, 
That the All may let it be; 

Force, in unity, at variance 
With its own diversity. 

Force, prevailing unto action: 
Force, persistent to restrain: 

In a twofold, one-souled wrestle, 
Forging Being's freedom-chain. 

Frolic! say you, when the billow- 
Tosses back a mane of spray'. 1 

Xo: but haste of earnest effort; 
Nature works in guise of play. 

Till the balance shall be even 
Swings the to and fro of strife; 

Till an awful equilibrium 
Stills it, beats the Heart of Life. 

What's the text today for reading 
Nature and its being by? 

Effort, effort, all the morning 
Through the sea and windy sky. 



AFTERNOON. 

Purple headland over yonder 
Fleecy, sun-extinguished moon 

lam here alone, and ponder 
On the theme of afternoon. 

Past has made a groove for Present, 
And what fits it, is: no more. 

Waves before the wind are weighty; 
Strongest sea-beats shape the shore. 

Just what is is just what can be, 

And the Possible is free; 
'Tis by being, not by effort, 

That the firm cliff juts to sea. 



With an uncontentious calmness 
Drifts the Fact before the "Law" 

So we name the ordered sequence 
We, remembering, foresaw. 

And a law is mere procession 

Of the forcible and fit; 
Calm of uncontested Being, 

And our thought that comes of it. 

In the mellow, shining daylight 

Lies the afternoon at ease, 
Little willing ripples answer 

To a drift of casual breeze. 

Purple headland to the westward! 

Ebbing tide and fleecy moon! 
In the "line of least resistance" 

Flows the life of Afternoon. 

TWILIGHT. 

Gray the sky, and growing dimmer, 
And the twilight lulls the sea; 

Half in vagueness, half in glimmer, 
Nature shrouds her mystery. 

What have all the hours been spent for? 

Why the on and on of things? 
Why Eternity's procession 

Of the days and evenings? 

Hours of sunshine, hours of gloaming, 
Wing their unexplaining flight 

With a measured punctuation 
Of unconsciousness, at night. 

Just at sunset was translucenee, 
When the west was all aflame; 

So I asked the sea a question 
And an answer nearly came. 

Is there nothing but occurrence? 

Through each detail, sum and Act, 
Is this whole we deem so pregnant 

But unemphasized Fact? 

Or, when dusk is in the hollows 
Of the hillside and the wave, 

Are things just so much in earnest 
That they cannot but be grave? 



THE COMMONS 



Nay, 'the lesson of the Twilight 
Is as simple as 'tis deep. 

Acquiescence, acquiescence, 
And the coming on of sleep. 



MIDNIGHT. 

There are sea and sky about me, 
And yet nothing sense can mark; 

For a mist fills all the midnight, 
Adding blindness to its dark. 

There is not the faintest echo 
From the life of yesterday: 
Not the vaguest stir foretelling 
Of a morrow on the way. 

'Tis < negation's hour of triumph, 

In the absence of the sun; 
'Tis the hour of endings, finished, 

Of beginnings unbegun. 

Yet the voice of awful silence 
Bids my waiting spirit hark; 

There is action in the stillness, 
There is progress in the dark. 

In the drift of things and forces, 
Comes the better from the worse, 

Swings the whole of Nature upward 
Wakes and thinks a Universe. 

There will be more life tomorrow, 
And of life more life that knows; 

Though the sum of force be constant, 
Yet the Living ever grows. 

So we sing of Evolution, 
And step strongly on our ways, 

And we live through nights in patience, 
And We learn the worth of days. 

In the silence of murk midnight 
Is revealed to me fhis thing: 

Nothing hinders; all enables 
Nature's vast awakening. 



t5he Church a.rvdthe Laboring 
Ma.n- 

BY AKTHUB E. HOLDER, PRESIDENT OF THE IOWA 
TRADES AND LABOR FEDERATION. 

My definition of our subjects are these: The 
Church It is the House of the Lord, a con- 
gregation of people who collectively worship 
God, most generally termed Christians, and 
without a doubt the most beneficient and influ- 



ential institution on earth, no multiplication 
of words can make it clearer or njore em- 
phatic. The Laboring Man: It is he, who by 
any exertion of mind or body produces wealth, 
adds to the sum of human knowledge, or who 
satisfies human desires, whether he be a phil- 
osopher, merchant, teacher, preacher, or poet, 
or whether he be a man with a hoe, hammer 
or machine, he Is, in the full meaning of the 
term, a laboring man doing honest work and 
earning honest wages. If, on the other hand, 
any man who does nothing to make mankind 
richer, happier, or wiser, but lives on the toil 
of others, he, if you analyze him far enough, 
will be found to be a beggar man or a thief, 
no matter under what spurious name he may 
be existing. 

Under natural conditions, the Church and the 
laboring man should be one, united, happy, and 
devoted to the interests of each other, and 
every member of the human family. For the 
first 300 years after the birth of its great foun- 
der this was so, absolutely, but during the last 
sixteen centuries a division has gradually 
grown, wider and ever wider, between them. 

The Church now, through its officials, charges 
the laboring man with being too materialistic 
and indifferent to spirituality, and the labor- 
ing man counter-charges that the Church lacks 
practicability and is inclined by word and deed 
to class consciousness, favoring special inter- 
ests, to the detriment of the material and spir- 
itual welfare of humanity. 

No subtle compromise will settle such gravf 
charges; they must be examined closely, fear- 
lessly, prayerfully, also remembering that we 
are living in an age when ridicule is the cheap 
weapon of offense and defense, and that any 
radical proposition advanced for the true in- 
terests of either the church or the laboring 
man will immediately be assailed by the time- 
worn epithet Utopian. 

Let us here lake a hurried review of the 
greatest issue ever drawn on earth;- with rever- 
ence and adoration, we picture the scene in 
the judgment hall in Palestine. Two men stood 
face to face, one was Pontius Pilate, official 
representative of Tiberius Caesar, harsh, se- 
vere, implacable; his position meant just one 
thing, and that was bald brute force; he ad- 
ministered justice, but only at such times when 
it appeared plausible for the further projec- 
tion of Caesarism. The other man was Jesus, 
a poor man, the son of a poor man; he was 
on (rial for sedition, he was a prophet with 
hardly a following, a preacher without a 
church, a man without a country, a mere fleck 



THE COMMONS 



iu the current of Unman Supremacy. His per- 
sonal appearance has never been recorded, 
either, except as a meek, humble workingmau. 
My ideal of Jesus pictures him as a splendidly 
developed physical creation, supreme in his 
magnificence, not of the character that induces 
fear 01 awe, but of that superb magnetism 
which says on first sight, I am your friend, be 
you my friend. 

What was the charge against him 1 .' Conspir- 
acy'.' No! Perjury? No! Abuse of others for 
his own gain? No! Had he taken the fruit 
of others' toil? No! What, then, was his 
crime'.' Why lie had taught a new command- 
ment and advocated other rules Tor the reform- 
ation of human conduct. Said he: 

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his 
righteousness, and all other things shall be 
added unto you." 

Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
to you do ye even so to them." 

"A new commandment give I unto you, that 
ye love one another as I have loved you. By 
this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples if ye have love one to another." 

Here, then, was the issue between Jesus and 
Pilate, for the first time directly drawn in this . 
world. Love versus Force. Outlined with 
[iciTi-ct accuracy and glittering distinction. 

A -a hist this grand personality and this beau- 
tiful doctrine of the undying law of love, 
what position did Pilate assume? Said he 
with all the intolerance and injustice that 
Caesarism stood for "Speakest thou not to 
me! Knowest thou not, that I have 'the power 
to crucify thee and the power to release thee!" 
Absolutism was seemingly secure in its posi- 
tion and wasted no words; arguments were 
not weighed, principles were not measured. 
This lone Nazarene was one man against a 
vast empire which said, you are helpless in 
my hands; to live on this earth you must gain 
the good will of Caesar, in his hands hangs 
your destiny. Love on trial, with Brute Force 
occupying the throne of judge. This is the 
eternal significance of Jesus before Pilate; and, 
glory to God, Lc;ve that day came out con- 
queror, although for the time being delayed. 
From the lips of Jesus came the chiding re- 
buUi : "You, Pilate, have no power at all, ex- 
cept what is allowed you from above." But 
what did the Jewisli-Uoman world think, a 
few hours afterwards the bleeding, mangled 
body of the humble Nazarene hung lifeless on 
the cross, the world of terror and force cried 
out in triumph: "Caesar is King, Jesus is 
vanquished: Force is sovereign: Love is dead." 



But under the directing influence of an all- 
wise God, the crusade of extermination was 
doomed to failure, the whole army of the Ho- 
man empire was not large enough to crush 
out the growing multitude that in some meas- 
ure, small though it may have been, repro- 
duced the life and spirit of the teachings of 
Jesus and his new commandments. 

Tiiis brief glance at the scene enacted in 
Jerusalem, 1900 years ago, and the results, are 
of little importance unless we discover that in 
that scene we have only a glimpse of a con- 
flict which then commenced, and which will 
continue until the divine law of Love is posi- 
tively established. 

Is Christianity, with Love as its foundation, 
supreme in our modern church, or does Pagan- 
ism still exercise its baneful influence and dic- 
tate by act, deed, and insinuation, what men 
shall think and what men shall do? 

From statements which come from many 
pastors, and evidence which forces itself upon 
our attention, we must in candor admit that 
it does, but let us hope, and pray, and work to 
force it to a closing issue, and instead of al- 
lowing the church to be an instrument of sup- 
port for a class conscious element it must be 
brought back to its old moorings and set upon 
a strictly social conscious basis. 

The great issue of the rights of man is still 
an unsettled one in practice; the question is 
now more actively discussed than ever before; 
it will not down; the date for a positive de- 
cision cannot be much longer delayed. We 
must see our position clearly and decide where 
we propose to stand; with Jesus or with Cae- 
sar, with Love or with Greed. 

Now. let us take up th6 position of the la- 
boring man. But right here we must diverge 
from our former description of him and leave 
that portion composed of the professional ele- 
ment that, up to date, have been a little bet- 
ter able to take care of themselves, and re- 
fer specifically to those whom everybody recog- 
nizes as the laboring men the manual toilers, 
those who handle the hoe, wield the hammer 
and direct the machines, the great conservative 
force of humanity what of them? Are they 
an ideal element of society? Far from it. But, 
we add. are they thinking and uniting, and 
have they faith in the omnipotent love of God 
to humanity? That question can be joyfully 
answered in the affirmative and with empha- 
sis, yes and it can be safely added that the 
manual toiler is by far a more religious mem- 
ber of society to-day than he was twenty-five 
years ago. Not as a church-going person, how- 



THE COMMONS 



ever, for the laboring man, especially he who 
spends his living moments in the great indus- 
trial hives of to-day, called factories, is, as you 
are fairly well aware, separated from the 
church. The idea that the church had used its 
influence against his fathers came upon him 
suddenly, and he resolved to have nothing 
more to do with it, practically speaking, a boy- 
cott, and as a consequence, what effect is it 
having upon his children? Words fail me to 
tell you. Who knows what is its effect better 
tluii: you? 

To those servants of Christ who administer 
spiritual blessings in the busy marts of life 
it is a question of grave import; to you, 'who 
are blessed with a residence in fair Iowa, 
these conditions are not yet found to exist so 
apparently; you do not*kno\v and scarcely will 
yon be made to believe that such a serious 
situation confronts you. But laboring men are 
thinking to-day as they never thought before, 
earnestly, courageously, piously; they revere 
the name of Jesus and a newer and larger con- 
ception of practical Christianity is taking hold 
of their minds like leaven hidden in the meal. 

A golden opportunity is open to the church 
to work for the glory of the new command- 
ments which Jesus laid down, and make them 
the motto of life for all. Will the chasm be 
crossed or will pride and greed and technical 
ecclesiasticism stand as a formidable barrier 
between these mighty forces for good? The 
Christian church and the trade union must 
unite in establishing that Christianity which 
has for its object the right relation of man to 
man in his pursuit of a living. Rituals, creeds, 
ceremonies, holy days, and fast days will not 
save us either from misery in this world or 
the anxieties of what we are to meet in the 
next, if we do not love our neighbors as our- 
selves in the great struggle of the battle for 
bread. 

Every church which honors the name of 
Jesus must bear its part and must seriously 
grapple with our industrial problems, must 
measure the practice of men with men without 
favor, by the simple words of Him who gave 
us the Golden Rule, the parable of the Good 
Samaritan, and His precious life, and while 
the laboring man is not inclined to scold or sim- 
ply be a faultfinder, it still will be supposed 
that the church which fails to do this, stands 
in the position of a caricature of Christianity 
and can make no reasonable excuse for exist- 
ence, or ask for the attendance and support of 
thoughtful, earnest men. 

To those who are inclined to think pessimis- 



tically and who fear that religion is in danger, 
let us say it is not 'so; a few churches may 
get empty, but that does not signify that the 
human heart is empty and does not long for 
peace and the joy which passeth the under- 
standing of man. 



The Tradegy of Education. 

It was in January, 1897. The dread silence 
of a frozen world brooded over the Yukon and 
the long Arctic night wrapped the earth in 
gloom. Two weary Argonauts, snow-shoing 
over the trail to the Klondike, stopped at an 
Indian village near the bank of the "great 
river." The simple natives received with kind- 
ness the tired travellers, and the chief of the 
tribe welcomed them to his royal dug-out. Af- 
ter a dinner of dried salmon, tea and flapjacks, 
the Argonauts and the Indians formed in a 
circle around the generous fire of sputtering 
pine and rich birch coals and forgot in its 
genial warmth the bitter winds and the hard- 
ships of a thousand miles over ice and snow. 

Choosing one of tho Argonauts as story-teller, 
after the custom of the Northland, he began 
a wonderful tale of the world across the moun- 
tains and beyond the big water, where villages 
are great and white men are many as salmon 
in the Yukon in the spring. As the marvelous 
story unfolded, an Indian maiden drew closet 
to the group about the flickering embers and 
gazed into the eyes of the pale-faced story tel- 
ler so intently that he paused to ask what she 
would have. 

She answered in excellent English "nothing," 
and withdrew half frightened into the shad- 
ows of the wall. Later in the evening the 
story-teller sought out this maiden, and by 
kindness, mixed with tobacco and tea, drew 
forth her story. After this manner it ran: "I 
am Ingrahamute, daughter of the chief of 
Koserefsky. My mission name is Koserefsky 
Mary and I was taught the white man's speech 
and ways at the Mission of the Holy Cross. 
After a blessed time with the good sisters of 
St. Ann, my father came and brought me back 
to my native village. I do not love my peo- 
ple any longer. I am not happy in my father's 
home. I have seen pictures of a great village; 
it was called San Francisco, and the dug-outs 
are very tall and big as steamboats and white 
men are so many you cannot tell their num- 
ber. The trails are wide betwoen the great 
dug-outs and strange sleds fii.cd with many 
people go up and down these trails. I love 
best the music the sisters made and I am al- 



THE COMMONS 



ways sorry until I hear the mission music and 
see the beautiful village. The sisters say there 
is uo long night and awful cold in that great 
village. Is it true?" And the Argonaut an- 
swered: "It is true." Tears came to the eyes 
of the Indian maiden, aud after the manner 
of tlie blind that Argonaut tried to comfort her 
by telling tales of- the great village for he 
knew it fairly well. 

So passed the evening, and when the Argon- 
aut made known he must sleep the maiden 
drew forth from her fur parka a pair of moc- 
casins, wrought with consummate art and dec- 
orated after the manner of her people, saying, 
"I give them to you," turned and was lost iu 
the night. 

On the morrow the Argonauts went on their 
way over the wind-swept tundra toward the 
rainbow's end. The second night out from that 
village the Argonauts were awakened by howl- 
ing dogs. Hastily crawling from sleeping bags 
and fastening snow-shoes, they are startled in 
that wilderness of ice and snow by the sound 
of a human voice. A fur-clad figure approaches 
and by the faint gleam of the dying aurora is 
distinguished the face of Koserefsky Mary. 
To the query: "Why have you come," she an- 
swered: "Squaw help white man; Squaw make 
fire; make white man good chi; white man take 
squaw see big village, hear music like sister 
made at Holy Cross." Back to the camp they 
walked in silence. Into their sleeping bags 
crawled the Argonauts, for the night was bit- 
terly cold. 

Iu the morning after breakfast the Argon- 
auts tell the maiden she cannot go with them, 
but must return to her home. Then she un- 
folds her heart's tragedy. As she tells her se- 
cret with the abandon of fearless simplicity, 
you hear again the story of Eden and witness 
the universal allegory symbolized by the for- 
bidden fruit. Educated out of sympathy with 
her tribal life, charmed by cleanliness, en- 
tranced by music, her childish heart vibrating 
with wonder aud the love of beauty, she is tak- 
en back by the old chieftain to the hut in the 
mountains and to-morrow was to have been 
her wedding day. She loathes the young Indian 
buck that has bought her from her father for 
a squirrel parka, fifty marten skins and some 
bits of ivory. To the appeal of duty she an- 
swers with the ruldlo of the universe. In re- 
sponse to the mandate of her Christian teach- 
ings, this same teaching seems rather vague, 
the heart-hunger real aud consuming. She 
asked for bread and received a stone. [Beware 
good wise men in your condemnation of those 



Argonauts' poverty in holy writ lest thou 
shouldst also come to judgment.] That day the 
maid and the Argonauts travelled together 
merrily over the boundless snow. Late in the 
eventide another village is reached. Here the 
Argonauts tell Koserefsky Mary, kindly but 
firmly, that for her to go further with them is 
impossible. The agony of that heart-break iu 
the little village amid the Alaskan hills typi- 
fies in the memory of one man the extreme of 
human woe. 

Seventeen months passed rapidly away. It 
was midsummer, the glorious, swift passing 
summer of the far north. Down the mighty 
Yukon comes a passenger steamer and on her 
deck are our Argonauts of the overland jour- 
ney in the mad rush of '97. The vessel stopped 
at an Indian village for wood. It is the vil- 
lage of Koserefsky Mary. Eagerly the Argon- 
auts question the old chieftain for news of his 
daughter. He points blankly toward a little 
grave on the mountain-side above the strag- 
gling huts. There a mound of earth tells the 
old story of the suffering and the labor and the ' 
ending in nothing. A rude birch cross marks 
the head of the grave. How did it happen? The 
old chieftain was taciturn, doubtless because 
he had to give back the squirrel parka, the 
marten skins aud the bits of ivory. Her little 
sister told the Argonauts a strange tale. After 
they left the Indian maiden that winter morn- 
ing many moons ago, she waited in silence, 
weaving baskets, until her father and lover 
came in search for the truant bride. They 
bound her with thongs and carried her back 
through the biting cold. When they reached 
the village, she could not stand. They laid 
her, wrapped in fur robes, by the fire. That 
night she called to her little sister and, half 
rising from the floor, bade her listen to the mu- 
sic, the mission music, and, swaying to and fro, 
sang the weird chant of her tribe to the meas- 
ure of strains heard by uo mortal ear. In this 
ecstacy she fell forward and died. When the 
good father from the mission came that way 
in the springtime, he ordered a cross put at 
the head of her grave. The irony of that cross 
cannot be spoken in words. 



Think you that only in Alaska, among the 
children of the forest, education takes such 
tragic form. This is the story of many an 
artisan's home. Wise men wonder at the so- 
cial ferment, at the discontent of men. Yet 
they endow free universities and advocate com- 
pulsory education. Children educated to hun- 
ger for the melody of the Messiah, and to en- 



THE COMMONS 



joy the symmetry of the Apollo Belvidere are 
sent home to be happy in a crowded tenement, 
amid hand-organ music and bill poster art. 
Thousands of men and women are being edu- 
cated to the tastes that only wealth and lei- 
sure can satisfy with an income of nothing a 
month. 

This is the tragedy of education, not only in 
the Koserefsky chieftain's dug-out in far-away 
Alaska, but in the homes of the working poor 
in the city of Chicago. Suicfdes, socialism and 
Dayton strikes are but the many voiced ex- 
pression of this conflict between democracy in 
education and aristocracy in industry. Eco- 
nomically, as politically, the nation cannot en- 
dure half slave half free. Adjustment in the 
distribution of wealth to the ever-increasing 
desires of the working people is inevitable. By 
evolution, if we will, by revolution, if it must. 

R. R. 



Don't Do for Others thatt which 

Others Should Do for 

Themselves. 

The model factory has gone the way of the 
model town. Neither Pullman in Illinois nor 
Patterson in Ohio have solved the labor prob- 
lem. This is as it should be. 

The failure of the National Cash Register 
Company to avert a strike by paternalistic 
treatment of its employes is a triumph for hu- 
man freedom. Liberty, not ease, private rights 
rather than institutional benefits is the desire 
of the human heart. We are not unmindful of 
the service and worth of much that has been 
done in the model factory at Dayton for the 
comfort of the operatives. Neither are we in- 
different to the arrogance and unreason of some 
of the demands of union labor. Reviewing 
this matter impartially we believe that in this 
instance the labor leaders were in fault and 
that this strike was unwarranted. However 
the truth of this matter be, the strike at the 
N. C. R. emphasizes a great social fact often 
obscured. 

This fact is the individualistic character of 
private life. Any effort to substitute for the 
privations of a poverty-stricken home the bene- 
fits of a 'public institution is foredoomed to 
failure. It is safe to say that there is not a 
working man in Chicago who does not value 
the half dozen books upon his home table more 
than his right to the use of the public library. 
A little garden about the home is more deeply 
vela ted to his life and hope than the most spa- 
cious public park. 



A good meal is an excellent thing, but we 
would prefer l>eans and brown bread in our 
own home with those we love than stuffed 
capon and eight courses among strangers or 
from the hand of those that would "help the 
poor". 

This is the difference between the spirit of 
a man and the desire of a brute. One of the 
employes of the N. C. K. is reported to have 
said: 

"You know the allusion to the Dead Sea 
apples fair to the eye, ashes to the tongue? 
Well, that's the 'model factory of the world' 
situation summed up. We couldn't eat the 
beautiful flowers, we couldn't wear the fine 
books, we hated to have it understood we were 
so dirty we needed signs reading, 'This way 
to the bath-rooms,' in front of our work- 
benches; we hated to be expected to go to the 
religious services willy nilly. We are almost 
all of us born and bred Americans sober, de- 
cent, and industrious, as our late employers 
will tell you, but we are not inmates of an 
institution, even if it is the model one of the 
sort in the world. We are sick of cant." 

This sounds as an echo from the ancient 
prayer of Agur, "remove far from me vanity 
and lies, feed me with food convenient for me." 

The ground of a man's pleasure is often 
hard to hit. Difficult as it seems, we must 
learn the reason of individual liberty. Men 
persist in taking their recreation even as their 
salvation in their own peculiar way. It is 
hard to think that we cannot make brand new 
human desires from our ideals, backed with 
cash, but it is even so. To the excellent people 
of the earth who would write charity In the 
place of justice we recommend the history of 
the rise and fall of the model town of Pullman 
and the model factory of the N, C. R. 

R. H. 

Ameteur Journalism a.s a.n 
Educator. 

JAMES F. MORTON, JR. 

The great aim of life may be said to be a 
rounded development of the whole nature. The 
axiom that all growth must be from within 
out, as evidenced everywhere in organic life, 
lias become an accepted commonplace in the- 
ory, but is still mainly ignored in actually ex- 
isting methods of education. Our schools and 
colleges teach a large body of facts, and fill 
the minds of pupils with the received opinions; 
but their main tendency is not, as it should be, 



THE COMMONS 



to stimulate original thought to create merely 
well-informed men and women, but vigorous 
and independent thinkers. Rosseau, Froebe.1, 
Pestalozzi, Spencer, are still as voices crying 
in the wilderness. 

DEVELOPS THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION. 

If the youth of our country are to become 
more than memory machines, it is plain that 
the ordinary processes of school education re- 
quire to be thoroughly supplanted by influ- 
ences which will call into activity the dormant 
faculties of thought and expression. The de- 
bating society, for instance, is worth more to 
many a student, in a fundamental sense, than 
any university course. The best results in any 
department are gained when the student learns 
by doing, not by being taught by another. 

Hence it is that the results of amateur jour- 
nalism have been such as to entitle it to the 
attention of all who are concerned in the de- 
velopment of the mind of the young. It is an 
exceedingly interesting institution, in its evo- 
lution from a boyish pastime to a journalistic 
sch.iol and literary inspiration. The beauty of 
it is that it is spontaneous and voluntary from 
the very start. No red tape, no conventional 
rou line, no officious control by superiors, come 
in to check the natural play of youthful en- 
thusiasm. It may be taken up or dropped at 
pleasure, casually dabbled in or followed with 
absorbing interest. It is fun, work, companion- 
ship, education, self-expression, all combined, 
in a sense and to a degree that is true of no 
other youthful occupation. 

The essence of amateur journalism is the 
publication by young people of small periodi- 
cals, for the entertainment of themselves and 
iheir friends. There is no mystery about the 
process. Any boy or girl with a printing press, 
or ri little spare cash to pay for hiring a printer, 
can issue an amateur paper. It may be of any 
size, shape, or number of pages. I have seen 
four-page papers no bigger than a postage 
stamp, blanket sheets of the size of a daily 
newspaper, and magazines as large as Harper's 
or Scribner's. The most common size, how- 
ever, is a paper of four or eight pages, of or- 
dinary magazine size and shape of page. The 
paper may appear as an occasional issue, at the 
whim of its editor, or at regular intervals. 
Monthly publications are most favored, al- 
though a few appear more frequently, while 
many are issued bi-monthly, and some quar- 
terly. To obtain second-class postal rates, the 
issuance must be regular. Otherwise, the size 
and frequency of issuance depend entirely on 
the taste and pocketbook of the editor. 



SIMPLE AND INEXPENSIVE. 

The contents of these publications are varied. 
They may contain whatever the editor ple.isrs 
to publish editorials, discussions of amateur 
or public affairs, sketches, stories, poems, es- 
says, reviews, criticisms, special departments, 
and the like, either written by the editor him- 
self, or secured from others. Some editors pay 
their expenses by means of advertisers and 
subscribers, while others reject both, and re- 
gard the pleasures and benefits of amateur 
journalism as full compensation for the finan- 
cial outlay. 

Of course, there are many of the young with 
whom pocket money is too scarce to allow of 
the publication of even the smallest paper. But 
nobody is elbowed out of amateur journalism 
on account of poverty. To make the papers 
interesting, many contributors are required; 
and the amateur author is in great requisition. 
Those who write for the amateur press share 
the privileges of their comrades who publish 
the papers. 

Each editor makes out his own mailing list, 
placing on it his subscribers, if any, his ex- 
changes, in which he endeavors to include all 
amateur papers published, the amateur auth- 
ors known to him, and such of his personal 
friends as he chooses to remember. Thus, ama- 
teur journalism forms a little social and lit- 
erary world of its own. The quality of its 
product is exceedingly crude in many in- 
stances, but there is a constant tendency to im- 
provement, stimulated by practice, comparison, 
and friendly criticism. Honorary titles are an- 
nually awarded by the National Amateur Press 
Association for the best edited papers and the 
best written articles of the year. 

There are many sectional and local organi- 
zations, which have grown up in connection 
with amateur journalism. The oldest and most 
important body, however, is that just men- 
tioned. ' Membership in the N. A. P. A. is nom- 
inal, but every true amateur soon learns the 
desirability of connecting himself with it. The 
annual fee is only a dollar, including a sub- 
scription to its official organ. It tends to pro- 
mote the closer intimacy of members, and to 
further in a systematic way the interests and 
purposes of amateur journalism. Its annual 
convention, held by turn in different cities of 
the country, are occasions of great jollity and 
sociability, as well as of serious discussion and 
parliamentary training. A lively skirmish for 
the offices often lends spice to the occasion. 
Absent members participate in the elections, 
by sending proxy ballots. 



8 



THE COMMONS 



A FKEE FIELD. 

There is no age limit in amateur journalism. 
Boys and girls of ten or twelve often enter 
it, while men and women of thirty-five or forty 
not infrequently linger within its charmed pre- 
cincts. The majority of its devotees, however, 
range between the ages of sixteen and twenty- 
flv3. Many enter it when young, drift out of it 
for a time, and then return to the ranks, more 
enthusiastic than ever. 

Its beneficial results are of various kinds. It 
develops skill in writing, without becoming 
burdensome or pedantic. The youth is work- 
ing out his crudities of style, and having 
a good time while doing so. It fits for many of 
the larger duties of life, and inculcates a sense 
of responsibility, which proves of the great- 
est value. It is humanizing, and of incalcul- 
able service in developing the social instinct. 
It cultivates breadth of view, and an extreme- 
ly wide range of thought. It stimulates all 
the intellectual faculties, and quickens the 
imagination. It makes for character-building, 
in the largest sense of the word. I am firm- 
ly convinced that parents and educators, and' 
all who have the interests of the young at 
heart, will do well to bring amateur journal- 
ism to the attention of the youth under their 
care, and to encourage them to try their hand 
at it. It will prove an auxiliary of incalculable 
value to the other methods for advancing the 
highest welfare of the young people of Amer- 
ica. And it will do all this, without ceasing 
for an instant to appeal to the boys and girls 
as a delightful recreation, and a means of spon- 
taneous self-expression. 



The Instinct of Workmanship. 

The analysis of instincts from a purely physi- 
ological point of view will ultimately furnish 
the data for a scientific ethics. Human hap- 
piness is based upon the possibility of a natural 
and harmonious satisfaction of the instincts. 
One of the most important instincts is usually 
not even recognized as such, namely, the in- 
stinct of workmanship. Lawyers, criminolog- 
ists and philosophers frequently imagine that 
only want makes man work. This is an er- 
roneous view. We are instinctively forced to 
be active in the same way as ants or bees. 
The instinct of workmanship would be the 
greatest source of happiness, if it were not 
for the fact that our present social and economic 
organization allows only a few to satisfy 
this instinct. Robert JIayer has pointed out 
that any successful display or setting free of 



energy is a source of pleasure to us. This is 
the reason why the satisfaction of the instinct 
of workmanship is of such importance in the 
economy of life, for the play and learning 
of the child as well as for the scientific or 
commercial work of the man. 

It is rather remarkable that we should still 
be under the influence of an ethics which con- 
siders the human instincts in themselves low 
and their gratification vicious. That such an 
ethics must have had a comforting effect upon 
the Orientals, whose instincts were inhibited 
or warped through the combined effects of an 
enervating climate, despotism, and miserable 
economic conditions, Is intelligible, and it is 
perhaps due to a continuation of the unsatis- 
factory economic conditions that this ethics 
still prevails to some extent. 

The greatest happiness in life can be obtained 
only if all the instincts that of workmanship 
included can be maintained at a certain opti- 
mal intensity. But while it is certain that 
the individual can ruin or diminish the value 
of its life by a one-sided development of its 
instincts e. g., dissipation, it is at the same 
time true that the ecomonic and social con- 
ditions can ruin or diminish the value of life 
for a great number of individuals. 

It is no doubt true that in our present social 
and economic condition more than ninety per 
cent of human beings lead an existence whose 
value is far below what it should be. They 
are compelled by want to sacrifice a number 
of instincts, especially the most valuable among 
them, that of workmanship, in order to save 
the lowest and most imperative, that of eat- 
ing. If those who amass immense fortunes 
could possibly intensify their own lives with 
their abundance, it might perhaps be rational 
to let many suffer in order to have a few cases 
of true happiness. But for an increase of hap- 
piness only that amount of money is of service 
which can be used for the harmonious develop- 
ment and satisfaction of inherited instincts. 
For this comparatively little is necessary. The 
rest is of no more use to a man than the sur- 
plus of oxygen in the atmosphere. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the only true satisfaction a multi- 
millionaire can possibly get from increasing 
his fortune, is the satisfaction of the instinct 
of workmanship, or the pleasure that is con- 
nected with a successful display of energy. 
The scientist gets this satisfaction without 
diminishing the value of life of his fellow- 
beings, and the same should be true for the 
business man. Prof. Jacques Loeb in "The 
Physiology of the Brain." 



THE COMMONS 



9 



Wa.yma.rks of Socia.1 Progress. 

DEMOCRACY AND UNIVERSITIES. 

No thoughtful person cau read the many 
able baccalaureate addresses of the commence- 
ment season, just closed, without'beiug deeply 
impressed by the remarkable harmony in their 
central thought. All the varied lines of ap- 
proach, from the extreme radical to the ultra- 
conservative, converge to this .common center 
the necessity for social service. 

Utilitarian and idealist unite in justifying the 
individual life only as it reacts by "the struggle 
for the life of others" upon the life of a com- 
munity. 

The second note in this season's baccalaur- 
eate wisdom is Democracy. 

The old spirit of the Kepublic dammed up by 
the autocratic power of commercialism in the 
government, the church and the press, has 
broken out with augmented strength in the uni- 
versities of America. Not without reason do 
the privileged classes of Russia and Spain re- 
gard the universities as culture beds of social 
ferment, religious heresy and political revolu- 
tion. 

To those excellent, though sometimes violent 
persons, that discover in the founding of great 
institutions of learning by the capitalist class, 
a shrewd and selfish move to perpetuate their 
power, we recommend the reading of the mes- 
sage from the presidents for the commence- 
ment season of 1901. Every dollar Mr. Rocke- 
feller plants in universities and Mr. Carnegie 
in libraries, even were it admitted ill-gotten 
seed, and sown with a malevolent purpose, is 
destined to feed the brains of men that will 
s\ve<>p their empires from the map of indus- 
try. In the lecture hall and the library men 
do get training and some facts, their original 
power comes into action, the professor, for 
revenue only, loses his authority; the student 
takes his trained intellect and his facts and in- 
terprets them in his own way. And this is in 
the nature of a cosmical necessity, as far be- 
yond the help or hindering of millionaires as 
the procession of the equinoxes or the sweep 
of the last cornel. 

BOY CULTURE. 

This long-neglected, ibut most fertile of all 
the fields of human endeavor, is at last go- 
ing under the plow and harrow of scientific 
method. 

The recent International Convention of the Y. 
M. C. A. that was a veritable jubilee, adopted 
this resolution: 

''That all possible endeavors be made to fos- 



ter and stimulate the work among boy sin recog- 
nition of the fact that there is no more import- 
ant work before the associations. The work 
among boys was never sff strong and so prom- 
ising, and the convention heartily approves the 
engagement of a special secretary for the boys' 
work." 

Dr. Caufield touched the heart of this matter 
and of the convention also in these words: 
"There has come to be a very general recogni- 
tion, and a more intelligent recognition of the 
value and power of youth. That recognition 
has come to us in all undertakings and along 
all the departments of life. The kindergarten, 
for instance, has come within the last few 
years into the prominence which it deserves, 
and as yet is not fully recognized to the limit 
of its power. 

We are coming to understand in the church 
that there is something more for the boy to 
do than to blow the organ and hang up greens 
on Christmas. We have reached the point in 
temperance, for instance, when we know that 
in a certain sense it does not pay very large 
revenues to spend our time with the older 
men who are set in their habits of intemper- 
ance, but we begin with the boys. 

This work has come to the association as so 
much of its work has come, rather experimen- 
tally. In a certain sense it is true that the at- 
tention of the association has been forced to 
boys' work. The child age is one in which the 
sou! finds itself. An American boy is a prince, 
and should be treated as the young princes of 
Europe are trained and reared. The Amer- 
ican boy has a noble heritage. And only as he 
recognizes this vast heritage of responsibility 
that lies in front of him, is he going to bring 
himself to the full measure and stature of the 
man, which in this country at least is a kingly 
citizen and the citizen king." 

Already the use of fertilizers in barren spots 
and the destruction of noxious weeds has giv- 
en good earnest of a bountiful harvest in re- 
deemed and righteous manhood that awaits 
the wise husbandman in this great field. 

This is the most significant forward move- 
ment the Y. M. C. A. has taken in its honorable 
history of conservative advance from a mere 
gospel mission to a wide-reaching plan of con- 
structive social service. 



SOCIALISM IN JAPAN. 

Of late it has been observable that socialis- 
tic ideas have been slowly but steadily gaining 
foothold in a section of the rising generation, 
as shown by the favorable reception of the 



10 



THE COMMONS 



translations of Bellamy's Looking Backward, 
Kidd's Social Evolution and some other publica- 
tions of the same character, The propagation 
and study of socialistic theories have been 
earnestly taken in hand by a number of young 
thinkers, among whom we notice not a few 
men of respectable characters and excellent 
education. They have hitherto confined them- 
selves to the holding of lecture meetings and 
the occasional discussion of their favorite top- 
ics through newspapers and magazines. But 
encouraged by the apparent success their efforts 
in these lines have met with, they recently de- 
i-ided upon carrying their campaign into the 
domain of practical politics by organizing a 
political party under the name of Shakai Min- 
shu-to (Social Democratic Party). But their 
manifesto embodied a formidable list of politi- 
cal, social and economic reforms of so radi- 
cal a character that the Imperial Authorities 
have thought it necessary not only to prohibit 
the publication of the document but to order 
the dissolution of the newly formed pary. This 
measure may appear rather hasty and unnec- 
essarily severe in view of the peaceable and 1 
orderly manner in -which the organizers of the 
dissolved party have thus far conducted them- 
selves. 

AVe reprint the above translation from an 
editorial appearing recently in the Japan Times, 
a conservative paper of Tokyo. We place it 
in this column advisedly. No better evidence 
of social progress in Japan could exist. Have 
these Japanese censors never heard that a 
band of Social Democrats in Germany, perse- 
cuted by Bismarck, grew into a great party 
even under his iron hand? Are they ignorant 
of the fact that with complete immunity for 
their persons and doctrines in England and 
America, Social Democrats fight each other to 
the death and split their party into diverse and 
perverse factions? The stupidity of rulers 
seems perennial. The Social Democratic Party 
may become a great power in Japan. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

The referendum is one of the big, forward 
steps of political betterment throughout the 
world. Without display, with little noise and 
shouting, it is slowly being adopted as the bul- 
wark of Democratic government. Firmly es- 
tablished in South Dakota, its thin edge has 
entered into the legislation of many other states 
and in most civilized countries. The last legis- 
lature of Wisconsin provided for the applica- 
tion of the referendum to determine the grant- 
ing of franchises in every city of that state. 



Several city charters have adopted this prin- 
ciple in municipal legislation and an amend- 
ment of the Constitution making direct legisla- 
tion a part of the fundamental law, is pending 
in the state of Oregon. 

The history of the referendum, since its adop- 
tion by the Swiss Republic, has been the re- 
cord of a triumphant progress. The mere ex- 
istence of this right of appeal to the people 
has in practice proven sufficient to cut the roots 
of vicious legislation. So potent is its power 
for prevention that it is seldom needed as a 
cure. The boodler goes out of business, when 
his corrupt schemes are subject to cancellation 
by the people. Tfiat far-heralded condition of 
prosperity, "the confidence or" business men," 
is a very real part of the boodlers' capital, and 
business men lose confidence even in bood- 
lers when they cannot deliver the goods. 

The referendum is just, scientific nud practi- 
cal, and its application gives the only possible 
test of the wisdom or folly of Democracy as a 
system of government.* 



Social Literature- 

The Practice of Charity, Individual, Asso- 
ciated and Organized, by Edward Thomas De- 
vine, P. H. D., New York. Lentilhon and Co., 
60 cents. 

The general secretary of the Charity Organ- 
ization Society of the city of New York, has 
furnished practical workers with a hand-book 
worthy of the position from which he writes, 
and of his reputation for scholarly and practic- 
ally efficient work. In short compass but in 
a very thorough way, the author grapples with 
euch fundamental problems as underlie the in- 
telligent practice of charity in the definition, 
defense and elementary principles of its aim 
and method. In defense of charity, he justi- 
fies its necessity and value, on the one hand 
against the denial of its right to be, by the radi- 
cal reformers who demand "not charity but 
justice", and on the other hand against the 
claim of those who insist that relief should be 
furnished not as a charity but as a business. 
With reference to the former he does not deny 
the validity of their ideal, but stoutly maintains 
that with the right spirit and administration 
charity may promote tbte realization of this 
very ideal. "Social progress would be enor- 
mously advanced by the transformation of all 

*"The Direct Legislation Record" is the offi- 
cial publication of this movement in the United 
States. Eltweed Pomery Editor, 44 Hill St., 
Newark, N. .T. Yearly subscription, 25 cents. 



THE COMMONS 



11 



of the improvident and inefficient members of 
society into persons who provide for their own 
future and share in the product which they 
have helped to create." For \n hi* view, 
"charity is more than a palliative. It is the 
means by which a countless number of indi- 
viduals are rescued from ignorance, destitution 
and crime. It is the means by which an insup- 
portable burden is lifted from the shoulders 
of the weak and incapable. It is the means 
by which education and industrial training are 
put within the reach of many who would other- 
wise miss them. Without charity, competition 
and natural selection might eliminate the un- 
fit but it would be with enormous waste of 
human life and energy which through intelli- 
gent charity may be saved and utilized. Char- 
ity reasonably bestowed does not perpetuate 
but does transform the unfit into that which 
may profitably survive. The absence of char-, 
ity, which is brutality, perpetuates not only 
the unfit but tlio environment in which the un- 
fit flourishes." 

In the same thorough-going way he treats 
the complaint against the secularizing of char- 
ity. While giving full recognition to the nec- 
essary function of the religious motive and the 
indispensible agency of the churches in prac- 
Tic;il charity, he clearly and firmly shows the 
inadequacy and limitation of church-charity, 
and conclusively argues for the larger co-oper- 
ation between public and private instrumen- 
talities, promoted by the principle of associa- 
tion, which alone is adequate to meet the de- 
mand. The emphasis which the author's wide 
experience has led him to place upon thorough 
organization and the most business-like method 
does not minimize his appreciation of spon- 
taneity of personal service, which he regards 
;is the very soul of charity. Moreover his re- 
cognition of the charity of the poor as ranking 
"first of all among the means for the allevia- 
tion of distress," and as being the most gener- 
ous "in proportion to what they have" is note- 
worthy in this connection. Settlement workers, 
teachers and all whose spirit or callings bring 
1 horn into contact with the problems of relief, 
restorative and preventive effort, will find this 
little volume not only corrective, but illuminat- 
ing and inspiring. The friendly visitor and 
tin- paid charity worker can hardly fail by the 
use of this hand-book, to realize the qualifica- 
tions which its brotherly author, in the dedica- 
tion of his book, attributes to his fellow work- 
ers "who, in the discharge of their daily duties, 
add to sympathy, knowledge; to zeal, common 
sense; and to humility, courage." 



Dependents, Defectives and Delinquents, by 
Charles Richmond Henderson. D. C. Heath 
and Co. 

The fact that the first edition of this pioneer 
work has for some time been out of print is 
evidence of the widely felt want which it is 
aimed to fill, as well as the satisfactory way 
in which it has met the need. The author has 
taken occasion, in publishing a second edition, 
to revise, enlarge and virtually rewrite, the 
volume, making it almost entirely a new book. 
If for no other of the many reasons which 
might be cited to prove the value of Prof. 
Henderson's work, his references to the reports 
of the National Conference of Charities and 
Corrections make the volume invaluable to all 
who would find readier access to those volum- 
inous sources of original information. For its 
very careful bibliographical references and 
summaries of the conclusions of eminent au- 
thorities, the book is uniquely serviceable. 
There is not only no better introduction to the 
study of the dependent, defective and delin- 
quent classes and of their social treatment, 
but none that even claims the comprehensive 
scope which this volume fulfills with a con- 
ciseness which is as remarkable as its thor- 
oughness is satisfactory. 



A Book of Common Worship, Prepared under 
direction of the New York State Conference 
of Religion by a Committee on the possibilities 
of Common Worship. G. P. Putman's Sons. 

As an aftermath of the Parliament of Re- 
ligions, held in connection with the Columbian 
Exposition, this volume is worthy of its origin 
and the catholic purpose and spirit which find 
expression in its pages. In its compilation, 
Dr. R. Heber Newton represented the fellow- 
ship of Christian churches, Rabbi Gfustav Gott- 
heil, the Semitic spirit and the Rev. Thomas R.' 
Slicer, the liberal faiths. Ample use is made 
alike of the Ethnic scriptures, the ancient. Jew- 
ish ritual, the early liturgies of the Eastern 
and Roman churches, and the contributions 
which modern religious affiliations have made 
to the sacred writings and devotional expres- 
sion of the world. As a book of common wor- 
ship it amply fulfills its purpose not only in 
such conferences- of religion as that which in- 
spired its preparation but also in the daily use 
of social settlement, university and such other 
envies of diverse religious constituency as de- 
pend upon their own spiritual unification in 
order to promote social unification of the com- 
munity. 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.t Morgan St., Chicago, III. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



In the sorrow of their bereavement over the 
loss of their youngest little boy, Mr. and Mrs. 
John Palmer Gavit have the heartfelt sym- 
pathy, not only of their former fellow resi- 
dents at Chicago Commons, but of very many 
friends in the constituency of this and other 
settlement and social circles. Through the col- 
umns of this journal many readers have had 
their heart hunger fed by the heart qualities of 
Mr. Gavit's writing and editorship. They will 
know, with us who knew him better, the ca- 
pacity of pain which this bereavement has 
filled. He and his wife know the better the 
cup which their fellows have drunk and can 
better share and help their sorrows. 

Into the larger responsibilities and inspiring 
work of his new position as private secretary 
to the Works' Manager of the Westinghouse 
Air Brake Company, at Wilmerding, Penn., up- 
on the duties and opportunities of which he en- 
tered only last month, many will follow him 
with keen interest and quickened hope. For 
the socal aspect of such an important post in 
the industrial world cannot fail to be seen by 
him or to become apparent to others in the re- 
sults of his influential relationships and his 
practical achievements. 



Our Loss in President Fisk's Dearth. 

In the death of Dr. Franklin W. Fisk, always 
professor and for the last of his four decades 
of service the presiding officer in Chicago The- 
ological Seminary, Chicago Commons loses one 
of its very first and most loyal friends. With 
all the enthusiasm which he ever had for every 
interest of the Seminary, he hailed the propo- 
sition to establish the Settlement -as a most 
valuably desirable adjunct to the advantages 
offered by the Seminary not only to its stu- 
dents but to the churches of its constituency, 
and to the city which he desired it to serve. 
Although the settlement methods and ideals 
must have been verv novel to him in his old 



age, yet he hospitably took them into his 
roomy heart, scarcely ever failed to include 
the Commons among the objects for which he 
fervently prayed In chapel prayers, and fre- 
quently inquired at faculty meeting how its 
burdens were being borne and its objects were 
being accomplished. When he heard of the 
misinterpretation of its aims and the misunder- 
standing of its methods, he not only never wav- 
ered in the support which he publicly and priv- 
ately gave, but rathev increased the assurances 
of his personal sympathy and co-operation. His 
last words to his faithful wife, who has ever 
shared his interest and helpfulness in the work 
of Chicago Commons, strike the key-note at 
once of his own fraternal spirit and of the set- 
tlement service. When asked by her what more 
she could do for him, he cheerily replied, "Only 
stand by me and love me." This is what he 
himself did for us all, what each of us needs 
at least one other to do, and what the settle,- 
ment service tries to give to all within its 
reach, someone to stand by and love every 
hungry-hearted one. 



An Irreparable Loss to the Philosophy of 
American History. 

To lose full twenty years of such work as 
John Fiske might yet have done in the social 
philosophy of American history and the theis- 
tic evolution of the evolutionary philosophy, is 
an irreparable national loss, in which the whole 
world's Republic of Letters shares. In writ- 
ing our history he bore present problems in 
mind, and in discussing our present problems 
he never failed to view them in their historical 
and philosophical perspective. He was the 
foremost interpreter of the evolutionary phil- 
osophy to the American, if not also to the Eng- 
lish mind. A better synthesis of the Synthetic 
Philosophy is to be found in the pages of John 
Fiske than in those of Herbert Spencer him- 
self. As the first to lay emphasis upon the so- 
cial significance of the length of human in- 
fancy, he demonstrated his capacity to make 
the most original and profoundly suggestive 
contributions to sociological literature. In 
fearlessly applying the principle of evolution 
in the study of the philosophy of religion he 
steadily evolved the substantiation of his own 
and very many others' faith in the everlast- 
ing reality of the religion of Theism. While 
reaching up to tlie highest range of thinking, 
he touched and profoundly influenced more and 
more readers of average mind. We deem it 
not an incongruity but rather a tribute to his 
to add, that one of our settlement 



THECOMMONS 



13 



boys' clubs, when given the privilege of nam- 
ing the volume, duplicate copies of which a 
friend offered to contribute to their library, 
freely chose John Fiske's school History of 
the United States. 



Success of Vaca.tiorv SiKooIs Demonstrated. 

The opening of the vacation schools in Chi- 
cago last month was significant of many 
things. The slow growth of the means char- 
itably furnished to support this greatly needed 
work, stands iu strange contrast with the 
quick and wide demand for it which the offer 
of its advantages prompts. The appeal of the 
woman's clubs scarcely elicited $5,000, with 
which only two schools could be opened. Cards 
of admission were issued only to the poorest 
of the pupils in these poorest districts. When 
the enrollment of 1,500 boys and girls filled the 
capacity of the buildings, seven hundred appli- 
cants had to be refused admission. Prece- 
dence was given to the crippled, deaf and blind. 
One of the questions which each applicant 
answered inquired, "Why do you wish to at- 
tend the vacation school?" The replies furnish ' 
high endorsement, both of Its purpose and 
method. "Because I want to see the lake," 
wrote a nine-year-old tenement-house boy, thus 
giving the endorsement of his own need to the 
outings which are given three days each week 
to four hundred .children at a time. "I have 
no way to play," replied a cripple boy of 
twelve, emphasizing the value of teaching the 
children how to play in the recreation hour. 
"I like to ride in the bus," another cripple boy 
of fourteen made answer. "I want to hammer," 
was the appeal of empty hands for tools and 
training. "I have no mamma and papa's away 
all day," is just one sentence which measures 
the length of the vacation day, not only to 
the child but to the parent In the home with- 
out equipment and the neighborhood without a 
playground. Parents and children to whom 
the summer vacation means joyous freedom 
under the open sky, by shore, in the woods, or 
on the mountains, should share with their less 
favored but more needy neighbors such sum- 
mer privileges as these bookless nature schools 
benignly afford. The practical demonstration 
of the need for and success of the vacation 
schools should not need to proceed any further 
to warrant the Board of Education to provid^ 
for and manage them wherever needed 
throughout the city. 



Institutions and men that live in their past 
have passed the time that they ought to live. 



Help Educate the intended Victim of Conspiracy. 

The over-ruling by Judge Tuley of the mo- 
tion for a new trial brings the "Mother Lyons" 
case to a just conclusion by her commitment 
to the penitentiaray. Her co-conspirator 
against the innocent and unwary is still a 
fugitive, and escapes the punishment which 
would surely have been meted out to him had 
be been apprehended. The penalty from which 
nothing can shield him has, however, been al- 
ready long since inflicted in the pitiful loss of 
reputation and business position. It has, more- 
over, unfortunately in large part been borne 
in silent agony by innocent hearts of hitherto 
untarnished name for whom nothing but the 
sincerest sympathy has been felt, and the ut- 
most consideration possible under the circum- 
stances has been shown by us throughout this 
terrible tragedy. 

It remains for us to make only one more 
suggestion to those who have extended their 
sympathy and co-operation in this sternest and 
most painful experience of our whole settle- 
ment service. Happily, it is a suggestion 
which appeals only to the tender and gentler 
motives, by way of grateful contrast. If one 
hundred and fifty dollars are offered for the 
purpose during the year we propose to give the 
intended victim of this dreadful conspiracy, 
from the toils of which she was rescued by a 
remarkable combination of strenuous efforts, 
the advantages of a more liberal education, 
which she is very desirous and fully capable 
of improving. If the expense of her first year 
is thus provided, the excellent school which of- 
fers to receive her will probably be able to 
furnish her opportunity to work her way 
through the remainder of the course. Let all 
of us who have been interested in her deliver- 
ance now give her the chance for development. 

We weathered the extreme heat, even under 
the burden of moving, safely and happily, by 
the grace of good humor and the forethought 
of considerate management. But when the 
toils of the day were well over the residents' 
roof-garden parties, five stories above the dust 
and clamor of the crowded streets, afforded 
grateful relief during the late evenings. 

The new building proves to be airy, comfort- 
able and convenient and home-like withal for 
residence purposes, despite the many tempor- 
ary makeshifts necessary until the new wing 
is ready for occupancy. 



Hazen S. Pingree of Detroit is dead, but Tom 
L. Johnson of Cleveland still lives. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



at Chicago Commons- 

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD FOURTH OF JULY RALLY. 

The possession of our new auditorium gave 
ns our first opportunity to rally the neighbor- 
hood for the patriotic observance of Horn th of 
Tulv Whether the people would devote any 
part 01 their only mid-summer holiday to an 
indoor occasion was a question. But 
found the hall filled by an audience, princi 
pS composed of adults and representative 
of many nationalities, sects and parties. The 
program represented the unification of as many 
elements as the audience. Our Protestant 
choir-master, Theodore Falk, who suggested 
tuc celebration, furnished and directed the mus- 
ical parts. The Reverend Father Thomas 
ox. assistant pastor of St. Jarlath's Roman 
Catholic Church, roused the patriotic fervoi 
alike of native and foreign born citizens, o 
Protestant and Catholic creed. Wisely t 
wittilv, he emphasized two reasons for pal 
ism 'As a physical reason he argued, worthily 
of Genuine Irish wit. that since <*ch particle 
of one's body is changed every seven years no 
oue who has lived in the country that length 
of time has anything in him that he did not de- 
rive from it, and therefore owes everything he 
is and has back again to it as his only real 
Fatherland. The point and humor of t 
expected appeal met with much laughter and 
applause. The spiritual reason was urged wit! 
C reat moral earnestness and religious enthus- 
iasm Since God's will is to be seen in the will 
of the whole people, the Flag stands for every 
man's equal right to manifest the will of God 
Nothing is worse than to fall under the do- 
minion of the few. No national curse couU 
be "i-eater than to divide the people into two 
classes, those who do nothing and take every- 
thin- and those who do everything and 1 
nothing. It is a question whether lie who 
works injustice upon another is worse than 1 
who lets him do it. Only when the citizen 
is free can the individual reach what God 
tended him to be, and only when the individual 
has this equality of opportunity to reach his 
irteal can the country fulfil what it stands for. 
Patriotism aims higher than to make one' 
country a restaurant-keeper to feed the peo 
pie or a tailor to clothe them. It is the serv- 
ice' of God as it realizes the divine ideal < 

man. 

Through the co-operation of the principals 
and pupils of our two neighborhood public 
schools some of the most interesting features 
of the program were furnished. Four 1 
irls dressed in the costume of the Novselaml. 



sang a Norwegian song. The prize essayists 
In each of the schools read their essays on pa- 
triotism. Recitations, songs, and a beautiful 
"Flag Drill" by sixteen little girls, together 
with the rousing singing of "My Country 'Tis 
of Thee" rounded out the joyous and inspir- 
ing occasion. 



HELP IN MAKING MEN. 

Camp Commons is in full running order with 
forty boys, who are having a most interesting 
time. The Fourth of July was celebrated by a 
flag raising in the early morning, a ball game 
with the Elgin boys in the afternoon, fireworks 
in the evening and best of all to the boys, a 
big dinner with lemonade and ice cream. 

The Elgin people are more than ever inter- 
ested in -the Camp. The different churches are 
giving support, though our fund is yet too 
small, and many boys whom we cannot take 
to camp must be disappointed. The plea of 
the boys, "Can I stay the next two weeks V 
must necessarily be met with the reply, "No, 
others must have their turn." and it is even 
more sad to be obliged to say to so many boys 
with eager faces and dwarfed lives, "There 
is no room for you." There should be two 
camps, one for boys and one for girls, our ap- 
plications being double the number we are 
able to accommodate. As.it Is now, on Au- 
gust 9th the boys must give way to the girls. 



THE PICNIC SEASON. 

The No'yes Street Mothers' Club of Evauston, 
gave their annual picnic to about one hundred 
of our mothers and children Friday, July 1 
The excellent management by the women, to- 
gether with the perfect weather, made it a day 
long to be remembered by all for its rest and 
happiness. The new feature in this year's pic- 
nic was the entertainment of the Evanston 
mothers' children as well as our children, their 
ide-i being to initiate their boys and girls into 
the sharing of their privileges, this was done 
with rare spirit and the games and marches 
were thoroughly enjoyed by all. When we left 
the train, at the end of the day, each was 
given a bnnch of flowers-a climax to a happy, 
happy day. 

We are placing at the disposal of our children 
our kindergarten bath tub, and we anticipate 
many a happy and much needed splash this 1 
weather. 



THE COMMONS 



15 



FOR THE LITTLE PRISONERS. 

Tlie summer kindergarten opened its session 
Monday. July 15th, with two kiudergartuers of 
our own training school in charge, and a goodly 
group or children happy to be back. It will 
continue for six weeks until the first of Sep- 
tember. 



ECHOES FROM THE GIKLS' CLUB AT THE GLENCOE 
COTTAGE. 

Wednesday night I was out buggy riding 
with a lady and her husband. This lady came 
over here to our cottage and asked if one of 
the girls wanted to go out riding with her. They 
ma do a motion that I should go, so I went. 
We rode up four miles, so that was a very nice, 
long ride. Such a pleasant evening we had. The 
moon rose and the stars shone out very nicely. 
I went in the water yesterday for the first time. 
It was line. While we were sitting nicely on 
the raft a big wave came in and washed our 

Tares." 

"Our cottage is about eight blocks from the 
lake and we go down there two times most 
every day. I cannot swim but am trying to 
learn to, and think that I shall soon be able 
to swim across to you. When we sit on the 
cduc of the walk we can see the lake from our 
cottage. The woods are close to our cottage, 
too, in which we find berries and flowers of 
every sort. The water is warm sometimes and 
sometimes it is cooler, but we use it just the 
s.-uiif. A little matter like that wouldn't both-' 
er us, for we are here for fun and not to look 
for the faults of the water. We were sitting 
on a raft yesterday and the waves dashed up 
and splashed all over our faces, which made us 
laugh so heartily that we almost fell off. The 
waves were high yesterday and we certainly 
did have fun. Yes, we keep going from one 
end of the day to the other, and besides go- 
ing we lie in the hammock, too." 

"I suppose you are thinking that we do 
not care for you because we did not answer 
your letter sooner. You must excuse us be- 
cause wo are so busy having a good time that 
we forget to answer our letters." 



FOR THE UNION STREET KINDERGARTEN. 

The promise of half the support of one of 
the two kindergarteners whom we hope to 
place in charge of the school, mothers' meeting 
and other settlement work in the old Union 
Street neighborhood goes far toward assuring 
the continuance of our work for the neediest 
of our old neighbors who cannot follow us to 
the now building. The warm-hearted manu- 



facturer, who is the first to step into the breach 
between them and their deprivation of these 
scanty privileges, was met more than half way 
by the two kindergarteners, who offered to 
risk their support in volunteering this service 
among the most destitute of the city's poor. 
There must be others to join them in this labor 
of love for the little ones by providing at least 
$100 a month for the rental and maintenance 
of the most modest shelter for the school and 
for the balance of the kindergarteners' sup- 
port. 



FOB THE MANUAL TRAINING EQUIPMENT. ' 

To secure the gratuitous services of the ex- 
pert manual trainer who offers to head up our 
manual training department we need the sub- 
scription of $400 to equip with benches and 
tools the shop room which awaits this practical 
use. Normal courses for the training of club 
leaders, charity workers, teachers, church 
helpers, and students for the ministry are pro- 
posed to meet a very marked demand that has' 
all along been made upon us. By putting to 
service those who are willing to pay something 
to acquire this teaching art, the expense of 
supplying manual training to our settlement 
classes will soon be met and the whole depart- 
ment will speedily become self-supporting. Here 
is a chance to make an investment once for all 
which will return a fierpetual dividend. 



The Progressive Club cottage at Glencoe not 
only affords a pleasant vacation home to the 
young women within its membership, but gives 
a pleasant outing to not a few older women 
and younger girls with whom the club gener- 
ously shares its spare space. Copies of the 
Ladles' Home Journal, the Youth's Companion, 
or the illustratetd weeklies, together with in- 
door and outdoor games are needed to com- 
plete the equipment of the cottage. Address, 
"Progressive Club Cottage," Park Av. and 
Bluff St., Glencoe, 111. 



A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATION. 

We gladly welcome to our club rooms the 
meetings of the "Montifiore Social Club," the 
new organization composed not only of the 
alumni of our neighboring public school, but 
also very wisely of all its scholars who have 
left school after entering seventh grade. The 
club is purposed to promote the intellectual and 
social development of its members after leav- 
ing school as well as their loyalty and co-oper- 
ation with their Alma Mater. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Notes from the Settlements. 

The Robert Browning Hall settlement in 
South London make.s a special feature each 
year of celebrating the American Fourth of 
July, a description of which we have invited 
the warden, Rev. Herbert Stead, to write for 
an early number of The Commpns. 



NEW BUILDINGS FOB THE CHICAGO SETTLEMENTS. 

The confidence which the Chicago Settle- 
ments have inspired in the need and perma- 
nence of their work is being attested by the 
funds which the community Is investing in 
their building equipment. At Hull House the 
completion of the new coffee-house and theatre 
is followed by the. remodelling of the gymna- 
sium. On Ewing Street, which the Municipal 
Art League is beautifying with curbstone gar- 
dens, a $50,000 tenement building is being 
erected by a generous West Side manufacturer, 
to accommodate scores of women with their 
fatherless children for whom special nursery 
and playground provision is to be made. While 
the ownership of the building is not to be 
vested in Hull House, its management is to be 
entrusted to the hands of the residents. An- 
other building is soon to be erected near by, 
in which one of the resourceful friends of 
Hull House will provide a flat for her own resi- 
dence a part of each year. The University of 
Chicago settlement came into the possession 
of its new gymnasium and assembly hall, cost- 
ing about $8,000, only a year ago. The North- 
western University settlement is erecting on a 
new site several blocks northwest from its 
present location a building which will provide 
accommodations for fifteen residents and its 
neighborhood work at a cost of $50,000, more 
than half of which sum has already been pro- 
vided. 



Gad's Hill settlement is succeeding in its ef- 
fort to raise at least $25,000 for a building 
equipment near the McCormick Harvesting 
Works. Dr. Gunsaulus and members of Cen- 
tral Church, together with manufacturers on 
the field, are co-operating in the development 
of this settlement. 



The Forward Movement settlement has se- 
cured for $32,000 a site for its proposed build- 
ings on Van Buren Street, between Morgan and 
Aberdeen, upon which a beautifully designed 
series of buildings facing three sides of a court 
open to the street are planned to cost $100,000. 



New Fourth Edition of College. Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 



Mr. Lex. By Catherine WixvigK McCvilloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un- 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature." Price cloth 350. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblical Sociology, By Graham Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for 500 of THE COMMONS. 
T3he Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 



Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
Handbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL, 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFBR HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 



The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ot view. It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.* Morgan St.. 
Chicago. 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofnce as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

TKe Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2 50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $'2.50. Send check, diaft. P. "p. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above $-cent denomination ., at our risk. 
Advertisements in the Commons During 1901. 
One Page. $25.00; Half Page, $15 00; Quarter Page. <S.OO; One 
Inch, S2 00. For each insertion. 

Special Rates for Special Numbers of the Commons 

Any number under twenty-five copies, five cents each; over 
twenty-five and under one hundred, three cents each; over 
one hundred, two and one-half cents each. 

Cna.nges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



TKe Commorvs 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 62 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago, September 1901. 



A Pra.yer. 

By Theodore Parker. 

"Give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth; 

A seeing sense that knows the eternal right; 
A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth. 

A manly faith that makes all darkness light. 
Give me the power to labor for mankind: 

Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak; 
Eyes let me be to groping men and blind; 

A conscience to the base, and to the weak 

Let me be hands and feet.'' 



15he Settlement in the Small City 

X. H. Weeks Warden, Roadside House, 
Des Moines. 

With the name "Social Settlement" we mis- 
takenly identify the idea of the "slums" of a 
great city. The settlement is thought of as an 
institution existing in the midst of such a dis- 
trict for the purpose of working some improve- 
ment in the surrounding conditions. 

While this idea of the settlement fits the 
facts in some cases, to limit the scope of set- 
tlement activity to such a field and such a 
purpose is to give it far too narrow bounds. 
The social movement has already proven it- 
self potent to remedy existing wrongs and to 
reclaim neglected fields. It has a further mis- 
sion in occupying and holding fields now be- 
coming neglected and in checking wrongs now 
gaining strength. 

It is on this side of its work that the settle- 
ment may exert its strongest influence for good 
in the small city. Conditions are not yet at 
the point which the larger city presents. The 
line of separation between the districts where 
dwell the rich and the poor is not so clearly 
drawn. The social distinctions which divide 
class from rliiss are not so strongly established. 
The various privileges of education and cul- 
ture are more fully shared by all. The church 
lias a relation more or less closo with the 
laborer. There is not yet a complete division 
of society into two widely separated classes. 

But one who studies the tendencies of pres- 
ent city growth cannot fail to discover that the 
trend is toward a more marked division. The 
poorer congregate fh one section while tho*o 



who can select their home in another. Social 
lilies are established more widely separating 
district from district. Privilege and opportu- 
nity become more and more the possession of 
the one class while denied the other. The 
movement of the. church is away from the 
needier districts and its influence with the la- 
borer is lost. Unchecked, this tendency moves 
onward until the city awakes to find itself 
confronted with the problem of a slum dis- 
trict. 

In such a city the settlement comes to meet 
in advance these forces of deterioration. It 
seeks to exercise an efficient preventive force 
that shall render remedial measures unneces- 
sary. It aims to arrest these tendencies before 
they become powerful. It stands for a com- 
mon meeting place where rich and poor may 
come together and in the meeting may 
strengthen the bonds of sympathy and broth- 
erhood. It stands for the sharing of privilege 
and opportunity, to make education and cul- 
ture a possession common to all. It stands for 
a practical teaching of the gospel of love and a 
living witness to the power of love as a ruling 
force in all the relations of life. 

That amid the relations of life gradually as- 
suming fixed form* there is need for such an 
influence must be apparent. Equally apparent 
must be the wisdom of exerting that influence 
early, before this separation of class from 
class becomes hard and fast, rather than wait- 
ing i.ntii the evil becomes so great as to de- 
iv.and a remedy. In many fields it is too late 
to avert the evil, but in the small city there is 
still opportunity to meet the difficulty in ad- 
vance and to a degree prevent the conditions 
toward which it is tending. In this work of 
prevention the settlement finds a most hope- 
ful field for its endeavor toward maintaining 
right relations between man and man. 



What Rev. George L- McNxitt Sees 
while Exploring the Working- 
World a,s a. Day La-borer. 

That which we have heard, which we have 
seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon 
and our hands have handled, of the World of 
I ife, that declare we unto you. I say "we" be- 
cause if I have any message out of the depths 



THE COMMONS 



of the world's life, I owe it to the loyalty and 
the love of a wife and two boys, who have 
shared with me the privation and the privilege 
of that wider touch with the world, so often 
known only to God, the saloon-keeper, the polit- 
ical boss and the undertaker. I put first among 
the things which I have seen that which to my 
mind is greatest. 

A HEALTH-GIVING COMMISSIONER OF PUBLIC 
HEALTH. 

1 have seen a man greater than Carnegie. In 
St. Paul a leading physician of the city has 
given up a lucrative practice in order to serve 
the people as health commissioner. He is ac- 
tually satisfied, in the prime of life, to miss a 
few thousand dollars in order to give, though 
the office in which he is czar, (and there is no 
politics) the nobodies, and the everybodies 
these simple things; a playground, public baths 
and a municipal restaurant. Through his own 
initiative and with his own money in great 
part, he has created an island-park of seventy 
acres, where the law of kindness rules, where 
the birds nest in the trees, and the boys swim, 
but don't swear. There used to be fifteen boys 
drowned every year. Last year and this, not 
a life was lost, thanks to this man's watchful- 
ness. 

A MANUFACTURER'S SEARCH FOR SALOON-PROOF 
HANDS. 

I have seen in a small city of Indiana a man- 
ufacturer with a curious dilemma on his hands. 
The factory is one of the finest of its kind in 
the world. Located in the woods, scientifically 
equipped, he was ready to do business. Then 
came trouble. Of every ten men that he 
brought to the city the saloons get and destroy 
seven out of ten; "and" said he, not so much 
in bitterness as amazement, for he is an active 
churchman, "I find that the only people who 
know the families of my men socially are the 
saloon people and their patrons. The churches 
do not seem to know them." The man actually 
employed a traveling man to search the coun- 
try for two hundred men guaranteed to be 
proof against the seductions of the saloon. 

CONTRAST IN CHURCHES FIFTY MILES APART. 

I have seen in a city of fifteen hundred, with 
four hundred men in a factory, on a bright 
Sunday 120 people at all the churches in the 
morning, 115 at night at a union service, fifteen 
men present from the mills, this considered an 
unusual attendance. On the following Sunday, 
just fifty miles away in the same state, I found 
at the famous Hopewell country church, four 
hundred people. They are old-fashioned enough 
there to have babies, and to bring them to 
church. Hypnotized with Jersey milk and 



clover, nursed by mothers who are not starved 
nor overworked, those babies behaved beauti- 
fully. I saw fifty young men when the service 
was over about the door. "I don't know," said 
the preacher, "anybody who doesn't belong to 
the church." Why is the old-time religion, so 
regnant at Hopewell, and so faltering fifty 
miles away? 

COMRADESHIP VERSUS CONVENTIONALITY. 

I have seen in an Illinois city a church built 
in the suburbs near to a disorderly mining dis- 
trict. They called the church a mission. No 
one came near it. The miners rejected the gos- 
pel by proxy. Then came a little woman, of 
foreign birth, seeing the isolation and the mis- 
ery of the miners, she went among them as a 
comrade for seven months, completely trans- 
forming the community. 

DEFORMING THE "REFORMED." 

I have seen thirteen hundred boys, rated in 
Illinois as criminals, restrained in its reforma- 
tory. I could not detect more than one criminal 
face in five. The superintendent assures me 
that if it were not for the fact that those boys 
go from the state's reformatory into a social 
deformatory, that three out of four would be- 
come useful citizens. 

WHAT COMES OF NEGLECT TO PROVIDE FOR HUMAN 

NECESSITIES. 

I have seen my boy constrained by physical 
distress to break a law of New York city re- 
garding decency. The policeman who shook 
him, and threatened to arrest him, said to the 
boy's plea of necessity, "Don't you see seven 
saloons here inside of a block?" Queer business 
that, for society's uniformed usher to be direct- 
ing n boy to a saloon! Queerer still is the in- 
sanity of society's neglect. 

I have seen my wife, while we were living in 
a tenement house of Greater New York, where 
there is but one bath tub to eight hundred peo- 
ple, longing for the luxury of other days, go 
out in search of a place in Brooklyn, where a 
woman could wash and be clean. She searched, 
but in vain. Turning into the public health de- 
partment she asked: "Isn't there some place in 
Brooklyn, some provision for bathing?" This 
was the middle of April. "Oh yes," said the of- 
ficer in charge, "we have a system of public 
baths. They will be opened the first of July." 

DENYING THE CHILD'S RIGHT TO PLAY. 

Our five-year-old philosopher, Pat's his name 
for short, has a beautiful creed, or, rather did 
have, for he is one Presbyterian that has re- 
vised his creed. I would say to him, "Pattie, 
do you love mamma aud papa, and your broth- 
er?" ''Yes," and then with exquisite beauty 
he would add, "I love everybody." That was 



THE COMMONS 



when be was familiar with birds and trees 
and animals. After a short experience in New 
York the philosopher revised his creed. He 
found a hole where a flagstone was gone, laid 
his little heart down on the face of old Mother 
Earth, dug and played, happy by the hour. 
Then came a man with authority. With a vol- 
ley of oaths he chased Pattle and his mates 
in misery away from his old mother and 
stamped the hole full of ashes and stones. 
Then Pat revised his creed. The attitude of 
society toward the child is that of the woman 
who used to say to the girl, "Go see what John's 
doing and tell him not to do it." 

I have seen a beautiful pile of sand. The 
children were longing to get their hands in it 
and be creators, as a child has a right to be. 
The contractor had posted the elegant sign 
"kids, keep off." I wonder if his soul was as 
large as a gain of sand. 

"ALL TANGLED UP." 

I have seen a man who was so disagreeable 
we wished the conductor would put him off the 
car. Of course he was drunk. When he joined 
me, to help find a depot, he was an unwelcome 
intruder. He said he was "all tangled up." 
He was an ordinary, unskilled, day laborer. 
Of course, I thought I knew why he was tan- 
gled up. In the loneliness of the street at 
night he said, with unspeakable pathos, "boys, 
I've just buried my little three-year-old play- 
mate. I can't go home, I'm all tangled up." 
Walking across the city with us, hungry for 
help and we thought him drunk! I never felt 
meaner in my life. 

WHO TAKE ME AT MY FACE VALUE. 

It has been an absolute necessity to wear 
coarse work clothes, in season and out of sea- 
son, Monday and Sunday, too. There are four 
persons that I find take me at my face value. 
My dog, Pat the philosopher, the saloon and the 
social settlements. 

FAKMKHS l.KARNING THE GOSPEL OF CO-OPERATION. 

I have seen on an Iowa farm a man in over- 
alls and coarse shirt and slouch hat, sitting on 
a mowinjt machine. This man is the president 
of an association of farmers that last year 
transacted a business of seven hundred thou- 
sand dollars. They have learned the Gospel of 
Co-operation. I can't tell the story here, but 
the student of social movements can well keep 
an eye on Rockwell, Iowa, where the Irish and 
Germans have learntd to work together, where 
they have a rattling Fourth of July celebration 
and nobody drunk. 



AGE LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT THE INDUSTRIAL 
DEAD LINE. 

I have seen a fellow workman look at me 
quizzically, "Aren't you over forty years old? 
Well, I thought they didn't employ anybody 
over forty." I dodged the question, but I 
caught a glimpse of what it means to pass the 
industrial dead line at forty, or in the railroad 
service at thirty-five, and what it must mean 
when some new marvelous invention displaces 
the skilled worker whose capital is his skill. 
While the world cheers the march of progress, 
one of the brigades In the world's army of 
workers stacks the old tools and marches out 
into the wide world, "too old" to work, though 
in the prime of life, beyond the dead line. 

SOCIAL REDEMPTION OF DOMESTIC SERVICE. 

I have seen in the city of Wilmerding, Pa., 
a most delightful expression of social democ- 
racy. I have seen a girl, a piece-worker In a 
factory, come under protest, to do housework, 
vowing she wouldn't stay, only just as long as 
the factory was closed. She was illiterate, not 
peculiarly companionable, but the strange 
woman of the house didn't call herself "mis- 
tress" nor the girl "servant," nor "maid." That 
woman is actually queer enough to regard any 
other woman as her sister. She treated this 
girl just as if she had been stolen from her own 
home and deprived of culture, consideration, 
love. In such an atmosphere the girl's aborted 
heart began to open. She grew happy; wouldn't 
go back to the factory; makes fun of the other 
girls who work there. In time there grew up a 
club of twenty-five girls around her, who met 
in this house. The change in that girl's face 
when I saw her six months afterwards was 
like the change when a bud in the clasp of 
winter has opened into an American Beauty 
rose. Readers of the Commons will not be sur- 
prised when they learn that this miracle of 
grace was in the home of those two genuine 
social democrats, Mr. and Mrs. John P. Gavit. 



A Good Story with a Settlement 
Application. 

In the Independent for August 8th, Miss Jane 
Addams, of Hull House, closes an article on 
"The College Woman and Christianity," with 
the following good story and her incisive appli- 
cation of it: 

"Long ago a brilliant woman came to call 
at Hull House and flatly announced that she 
did not believe in settlements. She said that 
they were all nonsense, and that this convic- 
tion had come to her at the tender age of four. 



4 . 



THE COMMONS 



She related an experience as follows: She was 
one day playing in her mother's garden when 
she discovered a large and disagreeable toad, 
which frightened her so badly that she hastily 
ran to the other end of the garden. Before she 
had recovered from her first fright she there 
discovered a very small toad which gradually- 
appealed to her pity, it seemed so lonesome and 
forlorn by itself. With much fear and trem- 
bling, borne up only by the desire to be good 
to it, she finally poked the little toad into the 
neighborhood of the big toad, when to her hor- 
ror and surprise the big toad opened his mouth 
and swallowed the little toad. She said that 
never after that had she believed in displac- 
ing people and putting them into the company 
which they did not seek, and into which they 
did not naturally go. It was in vain that I ex- 
pounded, that the little toad might easily rep- 
resent the settlement a group of insignificant 
young people, only too anxious to be swallowed 
by the larger toad, representing a large group 
of working people that if we could be swal- 
lowed and digested and contribute anything to 
the strength or comeliness of the larger group, 
then, indeed, the settlement would be a suc- 
cess. She was skeptical of my interpretation, 
and said so quite clearly. But it is a good story 
and perhaps I may be permitted to give it an- 
other interpretation, which, however, may be 
no more successful. Let us say that the little 
toad represents numbers of college women, the 
Intercollegiate Alumnae Association, if you 
please. The association has been hopping 
about at its own end of the garden with a cer- 
tain sense of aimlessness and without being 
v^y clear as to why it was put there. The 
story f 'may show that the usefulness and mean- 
ing"^? the association can be realized only 
aslt'3 ii'c'iivities are lost in those of the rest 



. .. 
To give up the consciousness of one's own 

identity and achievements is perhaps the hard- 

est jftSWt^IWy J' fe cau make upon us, but 
certainly those w^Ojjcall themselves Christian, 
who are striving to lie of use in this adaptation 
needs, should be ready 



e woman who under- 
cling to the Christian 
training as over against the. college training. 

In" ffil^^'^sfi^'^hWr adjustment she 

ili! J,wJJ Ii'i'iiiiK'unr, /iPn QftH , 
must observe accurately without laboratory 

aid^'nlus? t%W|LMlLe of a 

i^M ''i'" ,f>anV"'* K? - 

WWwwSfcwg her 

ation tfna conclusion. In college she has 
grown accustomed to working upon a motive 



power which had been predetermined when she 
resolved in the beginning to take the course, 
but in this new task she must be able to con- 
stantly extract from the situation itself a mo- 
tive power to feed her energy and to give her 
zeal. Jesus alone of all great teachers made a 
masterly combination of method, aim and 
source of motive power. He alone taught that 
out of broken human nature continually springs 
the great moral power which perpetually recre- 
ates the world. The mystic life of the common 
people may at last touch the learning of the 
college woman and fuse into one her method 
and her aim. She will then for the first time 
be equipped to devote her powers to the adap- 
tation of Chistianity to social needs, and to 
fulfil her obligations." 



Notes of Socia. 1 Progress. 

A SOCIOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT IN A GREAT IN- 
DUSTRY. 

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company has 
recently established a Sociological Department, 
having for its object the betterment of social, 
educational and industrial conditions among its 
employes at its numerous camps and works. 
The Company employs about 15,000 men, the 
foreign element of whom is composed of Ital- 
ians, Austrians, Russians, Germans and Mex- 
icans. The Department purposes establishing 
night schools, kindergartens, cooking schools, 
stereopticon and musical entertainments. It is 
also intended to interest the men in some en- 
tertainments of local talent. 



A TRAVELING LECTURESHIP. 

The League for Social Service announces 
that Dr. William H. Tolman, the director of its 
Industrial Betterment Department, "will visit 
the leading Western and Southern cities on a 
lecture tour, discussing -what has been done to 
improve the condition of the employed. Dr. 
Tolman has had exceptional opportunities for 
studying these problems at original sources, 
having come in personal contact with some of 
the most advanced Captains of Industry in 
this country and in Europe. 

"These studies are richly illustrated by the 
photographs taken especially for him, thus 
thereby presenting actual conditions and suc- 
cessful results. In addition he is able, as a 
Social Engineer, to advise and suggest work- 
ing details for any employer desirous of be- 
ginning some form of Industrial Betterment. 

"The topics to be discussed are Factory Vil- 
lages and Industrial Communities. Factory 



THE COMMONS 



Lunches and Dining Rooms. 1'lay Grounds and 
Athletic Societies. Workingman's Clubs aud 
Club Rooms. Recreation. Educational Work 
of All Kinds, Houses aud Cottages. Adorn- 
ment of Factory Grounds and Buildings. 
Libraries and Their Use in Factories. How to 
Promote Library Efficiency. Systems of Cash 
Awards. More Efficient Fire Protection by Co- 
operation. Publications for Employes. Point 
of Personal Contact. Pension Systems. Mu- 
tual Benefit and Sick Fund Societies. Social 
Secretaries. Labor Secretaries. Prosperity 
Sharing. 

"While these studies are particularly valu- 
able to associations of business men, they are 
also of interest to women's clubs, educational 
associations, young people's societies and 
drawing-room meetings. 

"Requests and inquiries regarding this lec- 
ture tour should be sent in as soon as possible 
to Dr. William H. Tolmau, 287 Fourth Ave., 
New York City." 

All who know, as we do, his capacity aud 
the opportunity he has had for study and ob- 
servation, will join us in lending all help to 
make this tour not only worth Dr. Tolman's 
while, but helpful in the formation of right 
relations at the rapidly developing centers of 
industrv in the West and South. 



Chicago's First Municipal Play Ground 
Opened. 

The Special Park Commission announced 
with justifiable pride the first actual achieve- 
ment resulting from its wisely deliberate 
and patiently prosecuted preliminary efforts. 
While a crowd of happy children danced around 
the May-pole, lead by one of the residents of 
Hull House, to the inspiring music of a baud 
and cheered by the people, the chairman of the 
Commission presented to the city its first 
municipal playground, located on the south 
side at Twenty-fourth Street and Wabash 
Avenue. May it be the precurser of many an- 
other! 



Park Areas in Thirty-Eight Cities 
Compared. 

Prof. Charles Zueblin, of the University of 
Chicago, makes the following decisive contri- 
bution to the discussion of the question whether 
Chicago is adequately provided with park priv- 
ileges in proportion to its population. His com- 
parison of the provision made in thirty -eight 
American cities for their people will prove help- 
ful to settlement workers and others engaged 



in furthering social progress. Prof. Zuebliu is 
one of the most efficient members of the Small 
Parks Commission of Chicago, and by means 
of his University Extension lectures, with stere- 
opticon illustrations has done much to promote 
the betterment of such civic conditions through- 
out the land. His published statement is as 
follows: 

Chicago, July 29. [Editor of The Tribune.] 
Apropos of the discussion of Chicago's park 
system and the frequent contention for Chi- 
cago's superiority, here are the statistics for 
thirty-eight cities having 100,000 or more pop- 
ulation: 

POPULATION PER ACRE OF PARKS. 

Los Angeles.... 27.5 Philadelphia .. 319.8 
Washington ... 77.5 Providence ... 322.9 

Kansas City ... 92.0 Buffalo 343.4 

New Haven.... 98.2 Pittsburg 365.4 

Columbus 113.3 New Orleans. . 371.5 

Minneapolis . . . 130.5 Allegheny 371.7 

Indianapolis ... 133.5 Syracuse 435.2 

Louisville 149.4 Baltimore 446.6 

Toledo 169.9 New York 497.4 

Omaha 172.9 Cincinnati .... 604.8 

Boston 214.2 Milwaukee . . . 655.8 

Denver 234.4 Newark 692.3 

Rochester 248.4 Chicago 789.4 

San Francisco.. 250.0 Scranton 1,049.9 

St. Louis 264.2 Paterson 1,090.7 

Detroit 270.5 Fall River 1.174.0 

St. Paul 272.9 St. Joseph 3.614.0 

Cleveland 287.8 Memphis 7,676.3 

Worcester 304.5 Jersey City... .11,466.25 

If you include Chicago's boulevards it in- 
creases the acreage about 50 per cent and gives 
us 530 people to the acre, so that we rank 
twenty-ninth instead of thirty-second. This 
would be perfectly legitimate if we knew that 
all other cities included their boulevard sys- 
tems, but even then the percentage is not flat- 
tering. It is fair, I think, to say that Chicago 
is the most poorly equipped of all the large 
cities of the country. It is like Mark Twain's 
German singer living on its reputation of 
twenty years ago. 

CHARLES ZUEBLIX. 



The FLeBenera.tion of a Chicago Street. 

A little group of idealists interested in munic- 
ipal art in Chicago have recently demonstrated 
the practicability of their ideals in a way which 
has evidently made a public impression. Around 
the corner from Hull House, and with the co- 
operation of its residents and neighbors, the 
street on which some of the settlement build- 
ings face has been wonderfully transformed by 



6 



THE COMMONS 



the combined efforts described in the following 
editorial in the Chicago Tribune: 

A STREET'S NEW FACE. 

"An entirely new front has been put upon 
that block of Ewing street which extends from 
Halsted street to Blue Island avenue, and the 
transformation constitutes one of the most in- 
teresting and satisfactory events oi this sea- 
son's efforts for a better appearing city. There 
are on this block a small chapel, two or three 
flat buildings, and a co-operative clubhouse. It 
is chiefly occupied, however, by wooden cot- 
tages, which have survived from a past day and 
have tiny yards in front. On the whole, the 
street is rather typical of its general vicinity 
than otherwise, In its availability for decora- 
tion. In the early spring a movement was start- 
ed to see what could be done through proper 
expert direction, concerted effort on the part of 
residents, and the expenditure of a small sum 
of money to introduce the beauty of vegetation 
into this street. A committee set to work on 
the matter, the people came together to arrange, 
and $200 w r as raised, most of it locally, to pay 
for materials and labor. As the summer opened 
this block became conspicuous in its neighbor- 
hood for its protected strips of grass between 
curb and sidewalk, its seventy young elms and 
poplars, its 800 geraniums and petunias in 
yards and window boxes, its barberry, hydran- 
gea and spirea plants, Its Virginia creeper and 
other vines, and above all by the solicitous care 
bestowed upon these by the residents. During 
the dry weather water has been carried in 
buckets and tin cans to keep things green, few 
trees or plants have died, and the block is to- 
day an assuring example of what can be done 
by united effort toward giving a common, dingy 
' street an aspect of taste, coolness and interest. 
Every block in the crowded parts of the city 
would lend itself to similar improvement, and 
Chicago might thus bid adieu to the unrelieved 
barrenness of many of those areas. The ex- 
ample of Ewing street should be multiplied a 
thousand times next season." 



LABOR NOTES. 

The annual report of the Illinois State Fac- 
tory Inspector urges that the legislature pass 
broader child labor laws. Seventy-five per 
cent of the children employed in the state are 
in the Chicago factories and mercantile estab- 
lishments. In this city nearly 11,000 boys and 
girls are employed, all tinder 15 years of age. 
The garment trades, the metal and wood work- 
ing industries and the stores have the largest 



proportion of child laborers. It is recommended 
that the law be amended so as to include ped- 
dlers, venders, newsboys and telegraph messen- 
gers. 

The Railway World reports that the Chicago 
& Northwestern road and the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul are about to establish pen- 
sion systems for employees similar to the sys- 
tem in operation for some time on the Penn- 
sylvania road. The Pennsylvania system is, 
briefly, to pension officers and employees who 
have either reached the age of seventy years 
or who are physically disqualified after thirty 
years in the service of the company, at the age 
of sixty-five years. A pension department has 
been created, classifying the men in t> 
service of the company. Henceforth no one* 
will be taken into employment on this system, 
with a few exceptions, who has passed the age 
of thirty-five years. An exception is made in 
favor of professional men and those having 
special qualifications. 



THE ABDICATION OF JUDGE LYNCH. 

Lynch law and the increase of mob violence 
has suffered a telling blow in the decision re-' 
cently delivered by the Supreme Court of Ohio. 
This court has held valid the state law provid- 
ing for the recovery of damages by the heirs 
of the victim of public murder against any 
county within whose borders a lynching occurs. 
This simple but potent method engages in the 
defense of law and order all the property in- 
terests of a county. To make human life 
worth money is to place the highest practical 
safeguard upon its preservation under the 
present commercial regime. 

The enactment of similar laws in every state, 
especially In those south of Mason and Dixon's 
line, will go far to remove one of the foulest 
blots that now disgraces our civilization. 



We are in receipt of the second annual re- 
port of the National Boys' Club Association, 
whose headquarters are in the Besse build- 
ing, Springfield, Mass., with branch offices In 
Philadelphia and New York. 

Ten clubs are now included in the associa- 
tion, eight in New England, one each in Phila- 
delphia and New York. The Association is 
carrying on a propoganda in favor of boys' 
clubs in the various cities of the country. The 
idea is to federate the various clubs together 
for mutual benefit, the local clubs being en- 
tirely under local management. 



THE COMMONS 



Tenement House R-eform. 

At the third monthly conference held under 
the auspices of the New York Charity Organ- 
ization Society, the evils of pauperism and the 
possibility of their amelioration by religious 
and charitable organizations, was the general 
topic for consideration. Mr. de Forest, presi- 
dent of the society, discussed the topic "Can 
earners of low wages be comfortably housed in 
New York City tenement houses?" He said, 
"Society owes to the wage earners the duty to 
surround them with such conditions that, by 
their own effort they may secure for themselves 
a reasonable degree of comfort. In no other 
way can permanent improvement be secured, 
for such results depend primarily on self-inter- 
est and self help. There is a further duty to 
make conditions such that the wage earners 
may be able to maintain their health, and that 
disease and contagion shall not be spread 
abroad in the community." 

In respect to the draft for a new law present- 
ed by the Tenement-House Commission, he 
s.-ivs. "It aims to secure the proper sanitary 
construction of tenement-houses in the future, 
and to remedy so far as possible, existing evils 
by the improvement of such tenements as can 
be made habitable, and the destruction of those 
that are beyond repair. To secure enforcement 
of this law, provision is made therein for a 
separate tenement-house department in the city 
government. The object of this change is to 
secure the centralization of municipal duties 
relating to tenement-house construction and in- 
spection as well as the centralization of re- 
sponsibility. It is not intended that the new 
department shall usurp the functions of the 
Building Department, but that it shall have 
supervision of the sanitary features of the 
building particularly of light and ventilation, 
as well as the power to issue certificates that 
the buildings are built in compliance with the 
law before they can be occupied." 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
15he Handbook of Social Settlements 
By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 

PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL, 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
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BERTHA MOFER HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave., 

Chicago. 



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Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
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statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
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says of it: "The book is well written and will un 
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A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
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ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers. we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



THE COMMONS 



From the Settlements. 

"Ghe Road Side Settlement of Des Moines, Iowa. 

The Roadside Settlement of Des Mniues, 
Iowa, is now entering on its fifth year. It has 
had the usual vicissitudes and discouragements 
incident to all new work, but it has particu- 
larly felt the need of more resident workers, 
it having seldom had more than one or two 
at a time. 



and sincerity. The burden coupled with ill 
health, however, proved too great, and she 
was obliged to take up work elsewhere. In 
the discouragement over losing her the Road- 
side board was tempted, at first, to place a 
'Hie jacet" over that which was once an ac- 
tive though very small settlement, but fortu- 
nately, as in most things worth while, new 
workers have come to take the place of the old, 




ROAD SIDE HOUSE, DES MOINES, IOWA. 



The resignation of Miss Clara L. Adams, in 
May last, who was the head, and in fact, with 
the exception of the nurse of the day nursery, 
the sole resident, was a serious disappointment 
to those interested in the development of the 
work. That there is today so large a group 
of neighbors who feel, as some have expressed 
it, that ''the Roadside is just like another 1-ome. 
only larger and more sociable", is due almost 
entirely to her untiring devotion, simplicity. 



and there is promise now of larger development 
for the Roadside House. 

Mr. and Mrs. X. H. Weeks, for several years 
residents at Chicago Commons, are to be head 
n sidents at Des Moines and there will be as- 
sociated with them in the house Mr. and Mrs. 
Charles E. Lynde and Mr. Lynde's mother. 
Mrs. M. F. Lynde. The former, now president 
of the settlement board, was also for two 
years associated with the work of Chicago 



THE COMMONS 



9 



Commons, during one of which he was a resi- 
dent.. In addition to this family of five there 
will be the nurse from the day nursery and a 
resident nurse who will visit and cart; for the 
sick in the neighborhood. 

Already there are some 120 members en- 
rolled in clubs and classes including women, 
young men and children, while fully five hun- 
dred persons at least come in direct contact 
with settlement activities. There is the usual 
combination of social and educational features 
in the work. There are cooking and sewing 
classes. There is the penny provident savings 
bank, most largely patronized by the news- 
boys. In the women's club, music, history and 
art jostle in democratic fashion the more hum- 
ble topics of how to make a good dinner out 
of uninviting scraps, the care of children or 
the proper management of a husband. But 
aside from all this the workers have always 
felt the most essential fact of the settlement 
to be the genuine spirit of comradeship found 
among all those who gather there, whether to 
give or receive. Not in vain will The Road- 
side have lived, if in the future as in the past, 
the residents aim to carry out the tribute 
to Homer, chosen as the motto for the house, 
"He was a friend to man, 
And he lived in a house by the side of the 
road." 

All the friends of Roadside House will be 
glad to share these excerpts from a private 
letter written by Miss Clara L. Adams, former 
I load-Resident: "I am glad to feel that I am 
not to be forgotten as a settlement worker, for 
I never intend to drop the work even if I am 
not connected with it in its institutional form. 
I shall conduct this coming year a domestic 
science school, teaching cooking, sewing, and 
various other lines of work. Associated with 
me will be two or three ladies who will fol- 
low out their own individual work, but to- 
gether we will form a home life and do work 
among the people. I already have my hands 
full of work, having taken a class of sixty 
young men and women in Sunday School, who 
need faithful help as much as any class of 
people I ever worked among. I shall never 
forget dear old Roadside and the pleasant asso- 
ciations I enjoyed there, and shall always en- 
deavor to keep in touch with it as a member 
of the association. I am sn glad Mr. and Mrs. 
Weeks could go there. I remember having met 
them while I was at the Commons." 

The article in another column by the new 
Head-Resident. Mr. Nathan H. Weeks, will be 
read with inteest. 



Playground Work at Hiram House. 
Cleveland. O. 

BY GEO. A. BELLAMY, HEAD RESIDENT. 

A valuable and successful feature of the 
work at Hiram House is the playground. In 
this district, as in all such districts, the street 
life educates with fatal precision. The loose 
life of the gangs and cliques allows all kinds 
of rowdyism. The jokes, the games, the ten- 
dency to ridicule and make light of every- 
thing, results in disrespect, lawlessness, cruelty 
and the development of the destructive spirit. 
It means a wrecked conscience, a shiftless la- 
borer and an irresponsible citizen. The prob- 
lem of substituting a constructive, responsible, 
law-abiding spirit for the destructive, irre- 
sponsible, lawless life of the streets Is most 
pressing. The clubs, classes and industrial 
training furnish a good substitute, but only 
to a limited extent. To find the best and most 
effective remedy we must enter the play of the 
children. On the playground there are a few 
rules which are obeyed. Leaders of gangs are 
in responsible places, and all are given an 
opportunity to surpass in skill. The play time 
is filled with constructive games. Rowdyism 
and loose jokes are gone, while the struggle 
for victory inspires the whole group. The 
boys' pride makes them banish their lazy, shift- 
less feeling, and substitute an active energy, 
developing accuracy, precision, endurance, 
courage and many of the nobler virtues. The 
playground means better morals, better hearts, 
better bodies, fewer arrests, less stealing, 
gambling, and mischief. Our neighborhood 
policeman remarked the other day .that the 
Hiram House playground was as good as ten 
policeman. Since it was opened he said he 
had not been called down once to drive the 
boys from the opposite corners, while former- 
ly it was his daily task. 

During vacation the grounds are open from 
8:30 a. m. to 9:00 p. m. except during meal 
hours. On school days from 4:00 p. m. to 9:00 
p. in. They are well lighted at night witii 
electricity. There are three directors. A lady 
resident has the morning work, carrying on 
chiefly creative work. The children have not 
only had their usual playtime, but have also 
made from raffia hats, boxes and mats. They 
are now planning to make door-mats from corn 
husks a very practical and original idea. Two 
men residents have charge of the afternoon 
and evening work. Field day contests are held 
every Friday night, and as much Interest as 
possible is aroused in the group games. Karh 
week an effort is made to give a concert. Dif- 



10 



THE COMMONS 



ferent brass bands are requested to spend one 
evening with us during the summer. It is a 
happy picture to see the old folks listening to 
the music while the little children are frolic-ing 
running and dancing around. The spirit of 
cheer and pleasure manifested by the crowd 
is one of real inspiration. 

In winter time, when the weather is favor- 
able, the place is used for skating. Every day 
but one during last February found a most 
good natured crowd, averaging from 100 to 
1,000 daily. 

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Mather, of Cleveland, 
have met all the expenses of this work. By 
the end of the year the ground, equipment, and 
directors will have cost about $11,000, but it 
has been a good, paying investment. It is now 
used as a model for other play grounds in the 
city, and has resulted in the establishment of 
three under private control, and three under 
city control. As yet politics have not entered 
into this city activity. That the mayor might 
keep these from political influence, he request- 
ed the head residents of Goodrich House and 
Hiram House to appoint the directors. 

The playgrounds in Cleveland have been so 
well started and are managed with such suc- 
cess that they are given an important place in 
our city equipment and are a real benefit in 
developing a higher expression of civic life. 



Settlement Rsvts. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson's apotheosis of the rat 
in the following poem will certainly appeal to 
att who have resided at the Old Commons, and 
perhaps to residents of some other settlements. 
The contention of at least one of the former 
group that rats have some rights that residents 
bound to respect thus finds justification 
nfon unexpectedly high authority. 

LIMITS. 
BY RALPH WALDO EMERSOX. 

Who knows this or that? 

Hark in the wall to the rat; 

Since the world was, he has gnawed; 

Of his wisdom, of his fraud 

What dost thou know? 

In the wretched little beast 

Is life and heart, 

Child and parent, 

Not without relation 

To fruitful fleld and sun and moon. 

What art thou? His wicked eye 

Is cruel to thy cruelty. 



The Fourth of Jxily a.t Browning 



From Report of First Year: The unity of 
all who speak the English tongue as a great 
step to the eventual unity of mankind is sedu- 
lously advocated. The "Glorious Fourth" of 
July was commemorated by a great "Dem- 
onstration of Desire for the Unity of the Eng- 
lish-speaking world" the first of the kind it 
seems ever held in this country at which Mr. 
W. T. Stead presided, and speeches were made 
by Miss Willard (United States), Rev. C. S. 
Pedley (Canada), and Rev. L. M. Isitt (Aus- 
tralasia). Letters were read from the Ameri- 
can Ambassador (then the Hon. Mr. Bayard) 
and Charge d' Affaires, and from the Imperial 
High Commissioner of Canada. 

From Report of Second Year: The Interna- 
tional celebration of the 4th of July which was 
commenced in Browning Hall in 1895, set a 
precedent followed this year by the Rt. Hon. 
James Bryce, M. P., at the American banquet, 
and once more in Browning Hall, where Mr. 
W. T. Stead presided, and addresses expres- 
sive of a common desire for the unity of 
'the English-speaking world were delivered by 
Sir Walter Besant, Dr. Simeon Gilbert of Chi- 
cago. Dr. Bentley (California), Dr. Duncan 
(Toronto), Hon. W. P. Reeves, Agent General 
for New Zealand, and the Bishop of Rock- 
hampton (Queensland). A letter was read 
from Mr. Samuel Helm (Cape Colony) and a 
telegram from Miss AVillard. Mrs. Lawrence 
Briant sang Russell Lowell's "The True Man's 
Fatherland" to music specially composed for 
the occasion, by Mr. Lawrence Briant. The 
meeting joined in singing Prof. Huntingdon's 
international anthem, "Two Empires by the 
Sea," to the music common both to American 
and British national authems. The celebra- 
tion was very widely reported, a lengthy ac- 
count appearing in a Hindu newspaper. 

From Report of Third Y'ear: The anniver- 
sary of American Independence falling on a 
Sunday, our annual "Demonstration of Desire 
for the Unity of the English-speaking world" 
took the place of the ordinary PSA. Mr. W. 
T. Stead again presided. The Hon. W. P. 
Reeves spoke on behalf of our colonies. The 
United States were represented by the Rev. Dr. 
Milburn, the blind chaplain of their Senate, 
whose prayer for peace after President Cleve- 
land's bellicose message anent Venezuela fell 
like the storm-stilling voice of the Christ upon 
the troubled waters. His rapt oration at the 
hall, in which he glorified the Christ ns the 
One Hope of the world's peace, will probably 



THE COMMONS 



11 



never be forgotten by those who heard it. At 
the evening service Miss Kront and Mis* 
Brodligue presented on behalf of the Chicago 
Woman's Press League, portraits t)f George 
Washington and Abraham Lincoln, which Mr. 
Bryan accepted in the name of the Settlement. 
In these various ways the Settlement en- 
deavors to promote that unity of nations and 
churches which is a principal feature of the 
Evangelic Kingdom of God. 

On the 13th of June the Browning Garden 
was opened by Miss Hay, Col. John Hay at- 
tending and speaking in the warmest terms of 
the sympathy between L'nited States and Great 
Britain. 

From Report of Fourth Year: The anniver- 
sary of American Independence was again duly 
honored. July 3rd was kept as Anglo-Ameri- 
can Sunday, Mrs. Ormiston Chant speaking 
on the story of Cuban wrongs. The "annual 
Demonstration of Desire for the Unity of the 
English-speaking world" on the 4th was ren- 
dered jubilant by the news of the American 
naval triumph of the day before. The speak- 
ers were Henry George, Jun., (United States), 
Dr. Duncan (Canada), Arthur Clayden (New 
Zealand), and the Hon. Ananda M. Bose, presi- 
dent of the Sadharan Brahrno-Somaj (Eng- 
lish-speaking India). Important letters were 
read from W. T. Stead and Justin McCarthy, 
both absent through ill health. This British 
celebration, derided as a "fad" four years ago, 
was now felt to touch on the supremely im- 
portant international Question of the hour. 

From Report of Fifth Year: The programme 
of British and American music which the band 
gave at the garden party (in Browning Gar- 
den) on the 4th of July formed, with the 
Warden's address at the PSA, our only cele- 
bration of English-speaking unity on Indepen- 
dence Day. (The Countess of Aberdeen, who 
promised to come, being detained.) 

In 1900 the ill health of Charles Sheldon, 
who promised to speak at the hall on the 4th 
of July, caused the celebration to be no more 
than a selection of American and British airs 
by the band in Browning Garden. 

In 1901 the Warden's absence through ill 
health prevented more than the same sort of 
musical celebration in the Garden. 

Mr. F. Herbert Stead adds to the above re- 
port, which we requested him to send, the fol- 
lowing personal note: 

"25 Grosvenor Park. SE. 
"July 25, 1901. 

"We have been less careful to maintain the 
celebration in recent years because the pio- 



neer work has been done and what we were 
mocked at for setting up six years ago has 
now become almost a general national festi- 
val. So far as I am aware there never was 
a British Minister or eminent public personage 
on the British side invited to your Ambassa- 
dor's banquet on the Fourth, until the year 
after our meeting had set the precedent. Now 
the Fourth is widely an Anglo-American cele- 
bration from highest to lowest. 

"I am delighted to see that you are building 
on the basis of common Christian citizen- 
ship a true Catholic fellowship. 

"With cordial greetings, yours heartily, 

"F. Herbert Stead." 



Prof. Thaddeus P. Stevens of the Woman's 
College, Baltimore, is preparing a bibliography 
of settlement literature on hygiene, temper- 
ance, social purity and civic purity, for the use 
of social workers. 



The following story, which is going the 
rounds of the English press, will be recognized 
as true "for substance of doctrine" by settle- 
ment workers, without criticism of the allega- 
tion as to the fact from which it is said to be 
based : 

A little girl from the slums was invited with 
others to a charity dinner at a great house. In 
the course of the meal she startled her hostess 
by asking: 

"Does your husband drink?" 

"Why, no." 

"How much coal do you burn? What is your 
husband's salary? Has he any bad habits?" 

By this time the astonished hostess found 
breath to inquire how her little guest came to 
ask such strange questions. 

"Well," was the innocent reply, "mother told 
me to behave like a irtdy, and when ladies call 
at our house they always ask mother those 
questions." 



MARRIED. 

HILL-ANDERSON At Neighborhood House, 
Louisville, Kentucky, Aug. 15, by the Rev. Dr. 
Hemphill. Archibald A. Hill, Head Resident 
of the Settlement House, Tenth Ave. and Fif- 
tieth St., New York City, and Miss Mary D. 
Anderson. Head Resident Neighborhood House, 
Louisville, Kentucky. 



Mackinaw, Mich., Aug. 20, 
Gerard Swope and Miss Mary I). Hill, recently 
of Hull House. 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.& Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 



Final Issue of the Steel Workers' Strike. 

The easy-going assumption is on its rounds 
again that the very existence of trades union- 
ism, at least in the steel industry, depends upon 
the issue of the present strike. It is very wide 
of the mark which past experience has set for 
us to judge by. From what industry in which 
trades unionism has once become well in- 
trenched has it ever been permanently ban- 
ished? Strikes fail, they almost always do 
when the single issue oil which they seek to 
justify themselves is -not the immediate, con- 
crete concern of every unionist in the trade. 
But unionism, as a matter of fact, has a way 
of rising, later if not sooner, into a new life 
out of the very ashes of such failures. Should 
uot its persistence and steady development 
through what Prof. Alfred Marshall calls its 
"brilliant though checkered career," raise the 
question of its right to be and its legitimate 
function among its foes, as well as among all 
thoughtful observers of current life? Should 
it not occur to such to inquire. "What would 
rise in the place of trades unionism if its en- 
emies succeeded in destroying it?" 

There is but one answer given by experience. 
Wherever trades unionism weakens, at least at 
the larger centers of industry, the ever present 
uud alert appeal of Radicalism receives imme- 
diate response in increased adherence to tne 
ranks of either an extreme socialism or a 
dogged anarchism. Capital will surely have to 
reckon with these more formidable and less 
compromising forces if it succeeds In seriously 
impairing the force of the" really conservative 
influence of trades unionism in the workers' 
world. Villari, in describing the downfall of 
Florence, accounts for the difficulty in organiz- ' 
ing a new government in a way which should 
warn us against a too hasty judgment averse 
to the organization of labor. "The ancient 
trade associations or guilds, once the centers 
of industrial and political life, whose work- 
shops had supplied the enormous wealth ex- 



pended on long and difficult wars, and which 
had formed the Arena wherein artisans had 
been trained in politics by their struggles 
among themselves and learnt the art of giving 
good counsel and brave service to the State- 
all these ancient associations now existed only 
in name." 

Anything that threatens the disruption of 
these great craft brotherhoods, despite all their 
class divisiveness and the frequent abuse of 
their great power, menaces one of the element- 
al forces upon which the hope of social unifica- 
tion and progress must depend. Back to the 
"good old times" when "every man did what 
was right in his own eyes," on both sides of 
the line of industrial cleavage, it is impossible 
to go. Surely Labor cannot be driven out of 
its right to associate the workers in united ac- 
tion for "collective bargaining," while Capital 
is forced by its own interest to combine in or- 
der to bargain collectively. Neither can af- 
ford to disband, not only because one is afraid 
of the other, but because in each the instinct 
of self-interest forbids. By their very existence 
both the Steel Trust and the Amalgamated As- 
sociation proclaim the fact that co-operation is 
the life of their trade. For the trust to com- 
pel the members of the unions to compete with 
each other in the labor market is to deny the 
application to them of the very instinct of its 
own self preservation whereby competition has 
become to its investors the death of trade. 



Wisconsin University's Settlement Fellowship 

In maintaining for the past five years their 
social settlement fellowship at Chicago Com- 
mons, the students and faculty of the Univer- 
sity of Michigan have set a type of service 
which other institutions are beginning to fol- 
low. In the last number of The Commons we 
printed the reports which the incumbents of 
the Harvard, Dartmouth and Amherst fellow- 
ships at South End House, Boston, gave of 
their first year's work. We are now happy to 
note that the University of Wisconsin has es- 
tablished at the Northwestern University set- 
tlement in Chicago an annual fellowship of 
three hundred dollars, which will be awarded 
by the department of Economics. The man or 
woman receiving the award will reside one 
year at this settlement to engage in its general 
activities and at the same time prosecute such 
original personal investigation as will be of 
academic grade and of practical worth. 

In commenting editorially upon the signifi- 
cance of this movement, the Chicago Tribune 
says: 



THECOMMONS 



"It has long been felt that the colleges and 
universities situnted in the country were uu- 
fortunate in being deprived of the opportunity 
to support social settlements. It would be un- 
wise for a university at a distance from the 
city to attempt to establish a settlement of its 
own, but by uniting with some one that is 
already established the same results can be se- 
cured. The University of Wisconsin will have 
the benefit of the experience of the Northwest- 
ern Settlement Association, and it will have the 
benefit of the moral and financial support of 
the University of Wisconsin in general and in 
particular will derive considerable additional 
strength from its connection with the admir- 
able department of economics, of which Pro- 
fessor Richard T. Ely is the head. 

This idea of bringing surrounding colleges 
into contact with the social reform movements 
of Chicago is worthy of fur.ther development. 
If the other colleges near by were to take sim- 
ilar action the result would be a vast increase 
of strength and energy in the social settle- 
ments of the city. The University of Illinois, 
Knox, Beloit, Illinois Wesleyan, Purdue, De 
Pauw, the University of Indiana, the Univer- 
sity of Michigan all these institutions could 
take their fair share of settlement work by 
uniting with some of the settlements that are 
already in operation. They might choose to 
direct their attention to other cities Detroit, 
perhaps, or Indianapolis but the principle 
would be the same, and the same beneficent re- 
sults would flow from their enterprise. 

The Northwestern-Wisconsin alliance is in- 
dicative of the prosperity that at present reigns 
among the settlements of Chicago. Next win- 
ter ought to be the most successful in the his- 
tory of social settlements in Chicago." 

The success of the pioneer university fel- 
lowship experiment at Chicago Commons is 
developing a desire at the University of Michi- 
gan to establish or adopt a settlement of its 
own in Detroit, which being less than forty 
miles away from Ann Arbor, is well within 
manageable distance of the university. 



Shall Public Charities be Partisan Spoils? 

Among the many humiliations which the 
self-respecting citizens of Illinois have suffered 
at the rude hand of a succession of Governors, 
none is more mortifying and disheartening than 
the reasons for the resignation of Miss Julia 
C. Lathrop from the Board of Public Charities. 
For more than eight years, not only her leisure 



but the best of her marked executive abilities 
and the untiring toil of her quietly energetic 
life, have been, with rare intelligence and rarer 
devotion, entirely at the service of the State. 
Of the responsibilities involved in this great 
public trust, which she has all along so self- 
exaetingly interpreted to herself, she thus re- 
minds the Executive: "The control of the ex- 
penditure of $2,500,000 yearly and of thousands 
of appointments would be a responsible task in 
any purely commercial undertaking. But when 
the money is to be spent and the people hired 
for the great function of humanely, wisely and 
economically caring for 10,000 sick and help- 
less human beings, it is certainly worthy of 
skilled and disinterested attention." 

It is as marked an evidence of her almost in- 
dispensable value to the legitimate and neces- 
sary work of the Board, as it is of its ruthless 
subordination to mean little partisanly person- 
al ends by successive Executives, that she has 
served under no less than three administrations. 
With their partisan exploitations she firmly 
faces the Governor in these words: "Since my 
first appointment on this Board, rather more 
than eight years ago, there have been two ad- 
ministrations in this State, one of each political 
party. During all that period the institutions 
have been used for party ends, although the 
growth of political control has never been so 
apparent as now, when there is another change 
of administration without a change of party." 

In view of the explicit provision of the law 
creating the Board, which guarantees the free- 
dom of its members from political interference 
with their own acts or with the choice of their 
subordinates, she pertinently asks the Execu- 
tive who presumes to dictate the selection of 
its secretary, "Why should the members of an 
unsalaried Board be asked to place their per- 
sonal reputations in the keeping of any officer 
whom they have no voice in choosing?" 

While this over-riding interference is the spe- 
cific occasion of the resignation of both Dr. 
Emil Hirsch and Miss Lathrop, there is yet a 
deeper reason why she could no longer serve 
under such conditions. For all these years 
she has not only officially participated in the 
management of the greater institutions for the 
care of the defective classes, but has also per- 
sonally visited each one of the ninety alms- 
houses maintained by the widely scattered 
counties of the State. In this steadily prose- 
cuted visitation she has not only come in to 
helpful, sympathetic contact with the keepers 
and managers of these county poor-houses, but 
also in to more or less confidential relations 



14 



THE COMMONS 



with both their inmates and the family or 
friends of these unfortunates. There is, there- 
fore, the protest of the heart underlying her 
words in the closing paragraphs of her letter 
of resignation: "The Board has no significance 
unless it serves as a safeguard and guarantee 
to the public that the institutions are well man- 
care. On the assumption of this guarantee 
aged and that the patients are receiving proper 
friends of patients constantly appeal to me as 
a member of the Board. Upon the helpless 
patients and inmates comes the final weight of 
every unnecessary expense or extravagance 
of every counterbalancing effort to economize 
unduly.. .1 am not willing longer to appear 
to the public, and far less to the anxious 
friends of patients, to give an assurance which 
no members of such a Board, however far they 
may exceed me in capacity, can give under the 
present system." 

It is nothing less than a tragedy that such 
chivalrous relations and such universally ac- 
knowledged efficiency in the service of the 
State should count for so little with the small 
man in whose hands such great interests have 
been entrusted. In strange contrast with his 
pettifogging partisanship, as well as with his 
grotesque play at gallantry in refusing to enter 
into controversy with Miss Lathrop, or make 
reply to her stinging letter of resignation, be- 
cause "she is a lady," stand her own closing 
words: "The work of the Board has become 
a matter of the warmest personal interest to 
ino, and I leave it with pronounced regret, and 
only under a conviction that it is my plain 
duty at this time to make such protest as I 
may against the continuance of a system which, 
from the Board of Charities to the last servant 
of the smallest institution, leaves no one free 
to ilo his task regardless of all save its faith- 
ful performance." 



HELP THE GIRL TO SELF-HELP. 

In faith and hope that $150 will be forthcom- 
ing to give a year's schooling to the young girl 
rescued from the toils of her infamous old cap- 
tornow a prison convict application has been 
made and accepted for her admission to the 
school which affords her the best opportunity. 
Surely among the many who were interested in 
the criminal prosecution and swift punishment 
of those long guilty of such infamy, enough 
will respond to this appeal to help the innocent 
child to a life-long self-help, and thus warrant 
this further venture of confidence in following 
up what was well begun. 



Mid-Summer a.t Chicago 

Commons 

We have averaged fifteen in residence all 
summer, eight women and seven men. In ad- 
dition, six have been in charge at Camp and 
two at the Glencoe Cottage, twenty-two in all, 
at work. 



Summer life at the settlement, tho busy, is 
less strenuous than in winter. The groups are 
smaller. Individual contacts ripen into more in- 
timate personal relationships, both within the 
settlement group and in the neighborhood. There 
is more time to cultivate the amenities and rec- 
iprocities of life. Out-of-door leisure brings 
the neighbors out from behind closed doors, in 
family and neighborly door-step or side- 
walk groups, wide open to acquaintancesh'ip or 
fellowship. The summer affords a unique op- 
portunity for service which no settlement can 
afford to lose. 

INDOORS. 

Indoor occasions, while fewer and smaller in 
attendance, are successfully maintained. Some 
of the clubs continue their- regular meetings. 
The gymnasium has not been deserted. The 
bathing facilities, while far from being com- 
pleted or in good working order, have been 
used as fully as was expected. 



The religious occasions have been sustained 
without break, fully as well as those of a so- 
cial or educational nature. The Tabernacle 
Sunday School has been well maintained in 
number and regularity of teachers and schol- 
ars. The Sunday services and weekly Fellow- 
ship meeting have weathered the extreme heat 
encouragingly. 

A group of Armenians, averaging thirty or 
more, mostly men, meet for worship and re- 
ligious fellowship at Chicago Commons every 
Sunday afternoon. 

OUT-OF-DOORS. 

The out-of-door occasions have the right of 
way. Every morning little groups of children 
gather to pass muster in person and clothing, 
to wash up, and get a clean bill of health be- 
fore starting for their outing. Under the es- 
cort of a resident they soon are off to the rail- 
road station, some for the Elgin camp, others 
for the Glencoe Cottage, still other groups for 
the suburbs or the friendly homes awaiting 
their arrival in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin 
and Indiana towns and villages. It is the 
girls' turn at Camp in August. Fifty of them 
:it a time gather under the canvas and around 
the camp-fire for a fortnight. How much it 



THE COMMONS 



15 



means, only we, who watch through the year 
the difference it makes in their lives, realize. 
The policy of Chicago Commons to confine it- 
self to only so many outings as can be well 
managed and made the most of in each indi- 
vidual's case is amply justified. The two weeks 
of such continuous influence as is exerted by 
the natural and personal surroundings of the 
camp often seem to make more for character 
culture than a whole winter of once-a-week 

club work. . 

The picnic of the Tabernacle Church and 
Sunday School to the Pottawattornie Park, on 
the Great Western Railway, rallied 525 from 
the neighborhood, fully half of whom were 
adults. A delightfully cool, bright, long sum- 
mer day was quietly and joyously passed un- 
der the trees and on the river, in family lunch 
parties and frolicsome games. Such a picnic 
takes on more important aspects when middle- 
aged people tell you that they have never been 
out of the city in all their lives, excepting a 
day at a time on some such excursion. The 
low charge of twenty-five cents paid all but 
$15 of the expenses incurred. 

For the Eighth Winter's Work of 
Chicago Commons- 

TOOLS FOB MANUAL TRAINING $340 STILL 
LACKING. 

Of the $500 needed to supply our manual 
training equipment, and thus secure the 
gratuitous service and residence of a compe- 
tent trainer, three friends have subscribed 
$160. This leaves $340 still to be provided in 
order to fulfill the condition upon which de- 
pends the establishment of this much needed 
department of work. While the work with the 
classes will be as rudimentary as the demand 
calls for, the normal training proposed will fit 
settlement workers and club leaders to teach 
in the several lines of work most practicable 
and valuable in similar classes anywhere. Xo 
further reaching investment of such a small 
sum can be made. It is an opportunity for 
service that ought to be bought up without 
delay. 

FIFTY DOLLARS PER MONTH SUSTAINS THE WHOLE 
COOKING SCHOOL. 

An experienced cooking-school teacher, at 
the sacrifice of one-half the salary offered her 
elsewhere, is to enter residence and service 
at Chicago Commons in the autumn. She is a 
graduate of Mrs. Rorer's school in Philadelphia, 
in which she also taught. Fifty dollars per 
month will lay the foundation of home-making 
and housekeeping in scores of eager young 
people. Boys, as well as girls, apply to be 



taught the arts of living. Such prepossession 
of lives with good is not only the best way of 
overcoming evil, but the surest means of es- 
tablishing home virtues and developing success- 
ful family life among the people. 

OPENING THE FIFTH YEAR OF THE KINDERGARTEN 
TRAINING SCHOOL. 

The Pestalozzi-Froebel Kindergarten Train- 
ing School at Chicago Commons has assumed 
permanent proportions and new importance in 
the perspective of our settlement work. It was 
started primarily with the purpose of training 
the assistants for the Kindergarten at the 
Commons, and of sharing the settlement out- 
look and spirit with those who came to us to 
be trained for this fundamental social service. 

Ever since it started, four years ago, it has 
not only been self-supporting, but has supported 
one of our kindergartens. The co-operation of 
the parents of the kindergarten children has 
been sufficient to provide the material used by 
them. Upon the achievement of this *result, 
and the establishment of the school upon stand- 
ards which have commanded not only the re- 
spect, but also the cordial fellowship of the 
older training schools in the city, Mrs. Bertha 
Hofer Hegner is gratefully congratulated ty 
the residents and all the friends of Chicago 
Commons. For seven years she has wrought 
out with untiring energy, tactful skill, and the 
sweetest spirit her beautiful work with and 
for the children of our needy and cosmopolitan 
neighborhood. Skilled service, for which she 
trained at home and abroad, and which would 
have commanded its own price if offered to 
the highest bidder, she has lavished with moth- 
erly devotion and sacrifice upon the children 
of the poor. As the training school enters up- 
on its fifth season's work; the prospects for 
attendance and quality of work were never 
better. The convenient and attractive quarters 
provided for the school In the new Chicago 
Commons building have greatly increased the 
facilities and efficiency of its work. This first 
educational venture in the enterprise of our 
settlement faith has already been followed by 
important developments and promises to lead 
to still wider pedagogical relationships. 



WANTED A position as Head Worker. 
Treasurer, or Secretary of a Social Settlement. 
Charity Organization, Children's Aid, or kin- 
dred organization, by an American aged thirty- 
nine years, educated, experienced, devoted. 
Best of references. Position in the East pre- 
ferred. Address D. G.. Chicago Commons, 
Chicago. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Last Lift on the New Building 

WILLIAMS RESIDENCE HALL TO BE FINISHED NEXT 
MONTH. 

As we go to press the exterior of the Wil- 
liams Residence Hall stands completed. The 
steam and gas fitters, and electricians have all 
their pipes and wires laid, the lathing and 
plastering have been in progress a fortnight, 
and the woodworkers only await the drying of 
the walls to put up the casings and make the 
finishing touches. So that by the middle of 
October the new home of Chicago Commons 
will be all ready for its house-warming. 

$10,000 NEEDED TO COMPLETE THE PLANT FREE OF 
DEBT. 

The gift of the Williams family has made 
the rapid progress on the building possible. 
To fulfill the condition upon which their gen- 
erous erection of the residence wing was made, 
and to leave the entire plant unencumbered, 
two things remain to be done before the close 
of the year: First, the $8,000 given by the 
late John Marshall AVilliams to the building 
fund, which was expended on the Morgan St. 
wing and was afterwards added to the $12,000 
given by his children for the erection of the 
Residence Hall, must be replaced by the sub- 
scription of other friends. Second, at least 
$2,000 additional is needed to cover supple- 
mental contracts for fire escapes and necessary 
interior equipment in both wings. Even this 
does not provide for the elevator much needed 
by the residents, decoration of walls, the organ 
for the auditorium, and the Men's Club House, 
which it is hoped will be subsequently pro- 
vided by single individual donations. 

The contribution of $10,000 before the close 
of the year will, however, practically complete 
this effective building equipment for the wide, 
varied, and far-reaching work awaiting it, 
not in its great neighborhood only, but also 
wherever its successful experiment w T ill demon- 
strate the practicability of similar agencies 
adapted to differing surroundings. 

NEW PLAYGROUNDS FOR THE NEW BUILDING. 

While awaiting the Men's Club House, the- 
lot adjoining the new building south on Mor- 
gan Street can be put to better use than to be 
rented for tenement purposes. The two small, 
frame houses on this lot are not nearly up to 
the standard which the settlement insists upon 
as fit for habitation. Their demolition will be 
both consistent with settlement principles and 
will be something of a protest against the in- 
creasing tendency in our district to make more 
money out of tenement house property in pro- 
portion as its condition is allowed to de- 



teriorate, and helplessly poor or careless ten- 
ants can be crowded into it. Our use of even 
this little strip of land, 20 feet wide by 160 in 
length, as a playground for the children who 
have nowhere else to play than the dusty 
streets, will be appreciated by the neighbor- 
hood. Many will be grateful for the relief it 
will afford the street life in the increased quiet 
and gentleness which the organization of play, 
and the offer of playthings never fail to ef- 
fect. More will be thankful for some place 
to send their children where they will have 
a right to play. 

The fifty dollars received for the salvage 
from the wreckage of the old houses will drain 
and enclose the lot. We need at least $150 
added to this sum with which to equip the play- 
ground with swings, see-saws, sand-piles and 
out-of-door games and gymnasium apparatus. 

The investment of $250 immediately in even 
this scanty concession to the liberty of child- 
life will yield ample returns. The children who 
come back from the freedom of camp-life will 
have at least something to take its place. The 
pathetic enjoyment which our little neighbors 
have had in playing on the builders' saud, and 
with the bricks, and around the lumber pile, 
during the erection of the building, will not be 
suddenly taken from them with the completion 
of the work. If any of our friends could real- 
ize with us what a God-send these building 
materials have been to scores of little children 
for nearly two years, they would not be slow 
to join us in providing them with this tem- 
porary place to play, and thereby hasten the 
provision by the Small Parks Commission of a 
permanent Public Play-Ground for our neigh- 
borhood. 

To SAVE OUR OLD KINDERGARTEN. 

The continuance of the kindergarten in the 
neighborhood of the old Commons ought to be 
assured. The thoroughly competent leadership 
which has been volunteered should guarantee 
the balance of the support still needed to main- 
tain the school. Miss Anna McClaury, former- 
ly director of the Elm street Settlement kin- 
dergarten, and Miss Myrtle Wallace, who was 
trained in the T'nion Street school and was its 
director last year, have taken all the risks of 
their own support in offering to lead the branch 
work in the old neighborhood. 

For rent, light, heat and service, $100 per 
month remain to be assured. Who will step 
into this breach with us to save the neediest 
of our little ones from being deprived of their 
one privilege and highest hope? 



TKe Commons 

A MontKIv Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 65 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. October 1901. 



From Martyr Lips. 

"\Yith malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to 
see the right, let us strive on to finish the work 
we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to 
care for him who shall have borne the battle 
and for his widow and children: to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace 
among ourselves and with all nations." Closing 
words of Lincoln's second inaugural. 

"God reigns and the government at Washing- 
ton still lives." Garfield when Lincoln died. 

"I have faith." "It is leaving you that hurts 
most." "If it is God's will, so be it." President 
Garfield's last words. 

"Good-bye, all ; good-bye. It is God's way. His 
will be done." President McKinley's last words. 
"Let no one hurt him." President McKinley's 
protest against the attempt to lynch his assassin. 



Issues at Stake in Legislating 
Against Arva.rchism- 

BY GRAHAM TAYLOR. 

To hedge the lives of our public officials with 
what protecting divinity the law can provide, is 
the duty of the nation not only to 'them but to 
itself. For su.-h a blow as has fallen upon all 
our hearts is struck at the sovereignty of The 
People. Between this duty of the hour and the 
"Lese majeste" ' which is making ( German Im- 
perialism oppressive at home and ridiculous 
abroad, American common sense ought to be suf- 
ficient to discriminate. President Roosevelt has al- 
ready shown enough of it, in any event, not to 
place srch dependence upon the efficacy of legis- 
lation to this end, as would lend his influ- 
ence to the manifest tendency to carry it to ex- 
tremes. To have lost by assassination three 
such presidents as Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley 
within the life-time of a single generation is a 
national experience that is sure to make it more 
justly dangerous to attack, or conspire against, 
the life of a public official. 



To reaffirm and vindicate the supremacy of law 
is the second issue at stake. But this lies less 
within the province of legislation than with the 
spirit of the people. "The recovery of Law*' was 
not long ago affirmed to be "the task of the twen- 



tieth century," by an eminent educator and pub- 
licist. To recover it from the fanatical attacks 
of its few avowed enemies, may prove to be a 
less serious task than to defend it from the wounds 
it is receiving in the house of very many of its 
most loudly professing friends. Who can meas- 
ure the effect of the widespread contempt for the 
rights of life under the law, shown by the 2,516 
illegal executions by the most atrocious mob 
violence, which, during the past sixteen years, 
have stained the soil of every one of the United 
States, except five? 

The law-breakers share their treasdnableness 
with the law-makers. For the open, defiant viola- 
'tions of the law are- self-corrective when justly 
punished. But incalculably more aggressive upon 
the law abiding spirit of the vast majority of our 
people, is the perversion of the law-making power 
to serve the interest of the few at the expense of 
the many. Special class legislation has been so 
freely "sown to the wind" by many a state legis- 
lature and city or town council that it was sure 
to "reap the whirlwind." The notoriously cor- 
rupt practices of the justices of the peace and the 
police courts in all our greater and many of our 
smaller cities, have placed the whole process of 
law a,t a fearful disadvantage just where the 
common people have their only personal point of 
contact with it. Indeed their a'.most unbroken 
loyalty to law, in spite of these heavy strains upon 
it, is the wonder of those who best know the 
facts. 



Naturally now in this hour of the nations' 
righteous indignation not only are hot-headed 
bids made for lynch law, but cooler demands 
come, from more responsible quarters, to supercede 
the civil law by the "Military Code." To suggest 
this at such a time is like moving a vote of lack 
of confidence in the common law itself, or in the 
ability of government to execute it. All such re- 
course to extra legal measures may be extenuated 
by the justly agitated state of public opinion. 
But the calm reliance upon the majesty of the 
law and the stern front against anarchistic meth- 
ods of dealing with Anarchism will shortly be , re- 
garded simply as sanity, however, for the time 
being it is branded as "social sentimentality," if 
not "apologetic" for heinous, crime, by those who 
ought, and, in the judgement of charity, will yet 



THE COMMONS 



be ashamed of themselves for such reckless ac- 
cusations. 



To conserve the people's hard earned, long 
awaited liberty of thought and freedom of speech 
in the face of the too passionate, panic-stricken 
demand for the most drastic legislation against 
anarchism, will tax the vigilance and power of the 
really conservative element in every legislative 
body and in the constituency of every legislator. 
Any special class legislation is dangerous enough 
to the community, in its liability to be applied at 
random to general interests after the specific 
needs that call it into existence have been met. 
The very freedom of the English working classes 
was imperiled for half a century by such a per- 
version of the "Conspiracy" laws to apply to the 
"restraint of trade." There is graver danger that 
the impending legislation, aimed to silence the in- 
cendiary utterance of the infinitesimally small 
faction of fanatics among the American people, 
may constitute a precedent, if it does not itself 
ever prove applicable, for the abridgement of 
that "right of private judgment" and that free- 
dom of speech upon which more than upon any- 
thing else our religious and civil liberties and 
social progress depend. While therefore the 
Anarchists may justly be required to choose be- 
tween respecting the rights of the great majori- 
ties who choose to live under law, or to betake 
themselves where law does not obtain, yet the 
people should be on guard lest the liberties dearly 
bought by the best blood and treasure of the An- 
glo-Saxon race after a thousand years of struggle 
should be imperiled by the power invoked at the 
awful deed of a crazy fanatic, and applicable at 
most to a few scores of sympathizers, and a few 
hundred more who dream of "voluntary associa- 
tion" as a substitute for coercive law in the ulti- 
mate ideal society. 



The Attitude of Settlements 
Toward Radicalism- 

[Editorial] 

The severe strictures of one of the Chicago pa- 
pers upon Hull House and Chicago Commons for 
having had anything whatever to do with any 
one claiming to be an "Anarchist," is based upon 
such a manifest misapprehension of facts that it 
calls for a word of explanation. 

In the report of the "Committee of Fifteen" 
upon the moral condition and social needs of New 
York City, it is shown that much harm to the 
common welfare and not a little menace to pub- 
lic safety come from the lack of provision for 
social centers, where all classes of the people 



may freely meet and mingle to learn how to live 
and act together. In summarizing the most ex- 
haustive reports that have ever been made of 
the actual provision for the social necessities of 
the people in ten of the principal American cities, 
Dr. Raymond Calkins affirms that the Social Set- 
tlements "possess a knowledge of the field not 
possessed or obtainable by any others than actual 
residents and trained observers." They have he 
adds "a habit of mind which precludes the pos- 
sibility of any taint of patronage in their several 
undertakings." And he sums up his recognition 
of their very real and unique service by attribu- 
ting their influence to the fact that "the settle- 
ment no matter of what name or kind, realizes the 
ideal of a social democracy." 



Now to attempt to promote the social unifica- 
tion of the cosmopolitan, and often seriously di- 
vided population of our great cities, the settle- 
ments must have a broad enough basis and a tol- 
erant enough spirit to bring about the confidence 
and co-operation of all the people, regardless of 
nationality, sect, party and social or economic 
distinction. The frank and practical recognition 
of social equality has been found to be an indis- 
pensable prerequisite. All have been welcomed. 
None have been ostracised or slighted. Among 
the many people of many minds who share this 
all too rare hospitality a very few are so extreme 
in their individualism as to avow Anarchism as 
their ideal of social order. But in meeting and 
comparing views with many of widely differing 
theories on industrial, economic, political, social, 
ethical and religious, interests, these people who 
have been dreaming alone or only with each 
other, find their "voluntary association" often for 
the first time, to be only one of many competing 
social ideals. They are confronted by the Socialists 
with their opposite ideal for the extension of the 
sovereignty of the State. They are laughed at as 
visionaries by the trades unionists who have lit- 
tle sympathy with either of these opposite ex- 
tremes. They are taken seriously by those who 
have studied their history and philosophy, and 
reasoned with personally. If, as only rarely hap- 
pens, one of them privately defends the use of 
violence the wrong and folly of it are urged upon 
him. In six years of "free-floor discussions" 
held weekly at Chicago Commons, appeals to vio- 
lence have never been publicly offered. When 
ever casual allusion has been made to it, the 
crowd has never taken the speaker seriously and 
laughed, or argued it away. Not a few anarchists 
have denounced the resort to force, among them 
some of the men recently arrested as "suspects." 
In the give and take of this unfettered fellow- 



THE COMMONS 



ship the conservative has the same right and 
opportunity to maintain his convictions as the 
radical, the lawyer as the anarchist, the manu- 
facturer as the trades unionist, the churchman 
as the secularist. Only twice during these six 
years has the chairman had any occasion to ap- 
peal to the house against the interruption of the 
speaker. Perfect order has been maintained, un- 
failing good nature has held sway. 



Now, it is confidently submitted, that no harm 
and very much good comes from such a wisely 
tolerant freedom of intercourse, and that it would 
be a very great blunder to deprive of it just those 
who need it most. To drive them behind their 
own closed doors either by social ostracism or 
drastic legislation would put a premium upon 
secrecy; would magnify their ego-mania which is 
minimized by contact with other and opposing 
views; would tend to compact their organization, 
which is otherwise very loose ; and would tend 
to drive their intense individualism into conspir- 
acy. In supplying this safety-valve, the settle- 
ments risk being misunderstood and misinter- 
preted. Some of them have not escaped the abuse 
inflicted by those who editorially attributed the 
interpretation of radical opinion, drawn out by 
their own interviewer, to be the personal belief 
of the interpreter. For merely gaining access to 
the accused in order to offer to help them obtain 
legal counsel, two settlement workers were ac- 
cused of being "Apologists for Anarchists." 
Against the charge of the prisoners' friends that 
they were being deprived of their rights, was it 
not loyalty to Law to assure them "all the law 
allows?" Until proven at least probably guilty 
of the awful charge of which they were accused, 
had they forfeited all claims upon those who 
knew them as men, even though avowed oppo- 
nents to their views? (See Note at conclusion.) 



Unless human nature has ceased to react and 
the Christian spirit is false, we submit this to be 
"the more excellent way" to supplement the re- 
straints of law and obviate the resort to force, 
to say nothing of it as the only way of really 
counteracting the ever active propaganda. A simi- 
lar friendly conference was publicly maintained 
for a winter or more several years ago by Lyman 
J. Gage and other public spirited citizens of the 
great value of which to very many people of 
differing views there is still much evidence. 



This liberty ctf discussion should never be 
allowed to run into license. The best preventive 
is to avoid organizing the free-floor meeting, if 
any such feature is maintained. Let it start and 



continue as a simple conference of friends. The 
settlement should supply its share of topics and 
speakers and keep the chairmanship in its own 
hands. The chair should be rilled by a firm, toler- 
ant, brotherly spirited man, who personally 
knows the men participating. Parliamentary pro- 
cedure should be freely followed. If such con- 
ditions of success are not at hand the settlement 
should not initiate, or should abandon such a 
gathering. Such an occasion, if it exists, is how- 
ever only an incident in the attitude of the settle- 
ment toward radical or other views of life. Its 
group of residents, however diverse their indi- 
vidual opinions, should serve as a social "clearing 
house," through whom all classes may meet, min- 
gle, exchange values and learn the art of living 
and working together. 

Note 

*Since writing the above an unexpectedly com- 
plete and final vindication has been given to these 
views and efforts by the solemn judgment of the 
Superior Court of Cook County. 

In the hearing that has just finished (as we 
go to press) before Judge Chetlain on a suit of 
habeas corpus, all the citizens of Chicago arrest- 
ed as suspect conspirators have been uncondi- 
tionally released. And this upon the motion of 
the City Attorney setting forth that no legal evi- 
dence existed against the Anarchists of Chicago 
that wouhd point toward their complicity in the 
frightful crime committed at Buffalo. 

When it is remembered that only a few years 
ago Chicago was noted as the hotbed of terrorist 
anarchy in the United States, the ameliorating 
influence of fellowship and free discussion such 
as Chicago Commons and Hull House have pro- 
vided, can be in some measure estimated. If 
the intelligent citizens of Cleveland will meet 
with freedom, reason, and the spirit of a manly 
fellowship, their anarchistic fellow-citizens, they 
will save their fair city from the morbid type 
expressed in the dangerous personality of Czol- 
gosz. Repression followed by a brooding bitter- 
ness over fancied injuries is the mother of terror- 
ist anarchists. We unite with all intelligent citi- 
zens and officials of Chicago in a common satis- 
faction over this vindication of our city's name 
and fame. 



St. Petersburg, Sept. 9. The pupils of a young 
women's school, near Count Tolstoi's residence, 
at Yasnaia, who, with their teacher and other 
young persons of the neighborhood, called upon 
him and presented the Count with flowers, have 
been arrested and their teacher has been dis- 
missed. 



THE COMMONS 



An Effort for Incuratble Poor. 

By Mother M. Alphonsa Lathrop, Oblate St. 
Dominic, Rosary Hill Home. 

I do not know that charity is ever looked 
upon as a pleasant pastime. It is usually taken 
with a large amount of seasoning, such as fairs, 
sewing-bees, church suppers, and all that sort 



some of us would be very apt to say, that there 
were not certain conditions of sin which a long 
life brings to notice. 

The subject about which I write, and which I 
would gladly make interesting to the general 
public, is one that can hardly be made agree- 
able; but, nevertheless, I can testify that such 
a life as I lead with a few companions in a poor 




St. Rose Free Home for Incurable Cancer. 



of thing; and even then the real work is done 
by persons at the seat of war, so to speak. 
When the idea is suggested, to people who do 
not even attend sewing-bees or affairs in aid of 
the poor, that one should diligently labor for 
the destitute in the worst condition of disease 
and want known, the response is one of gen- 
uine horror. It is sometimes said that there is 
no such condition of things, just as I fancy 



district, among the sick, has many agreeable 
points. 

NO DANGER TO HEALTH OR SAFETY. 

There is absolutely no stifled air or loss of all 
particularly flue outlooks in going to "work for 
the poor on the East Side of New York. The 
melancholy notion that in living among ttfe poor 
one is in constant danger as to life and property 
h:is given place in our minds to considerable 



THE COMMONS 



doubt as to whether there is any really danger- 
ous place where people can live. 

I pass through the streets all around here, 
some of them with murderous reputations, and 
were I not alone I would laughingly discuss the 
wonderful neatness and quiet, and sufficiently 
patroled condition, of these alarming streets. 
One house in which I lived, a tumble-down 
tenement, has its front door always ajar, and 
the windows of our rooms on the first floor 
were not locked until a nervous patient came 
to us. 

Ill MAX XOISES THE MOST TRYING FEATURE. 

There is, of course, some difficulty to the 
nurses in exchanging a style of living which is 
orderly and comparatively quiet for the turmoil 
of a pauper district. I rank my sufferings in 
regard to noises with the other two trials of 
sleepiness not indulged in and weariness not 
rested. I really thought at one time that I 
should not be able to bear the constant uproar 
of the children and the midnight revels of the 
drunkards, but I must confess that I scarcely 
perceive now, after four years of what is. called 
the noisest street in New York, the rollicking 
or brawling racket always going on. It would 
seem that the human frame is really a slave 
whom it is possible to subject at every point 
and that the strength of the slave is herculean 
when once the creature is fully conquered. 

THE YOKE WHICH IS EASY. 

Somehow the determination to carry the work 
of charity on with completeness and adequate 
help to the poor is the dearest aim for any one 
who has once tasted the nectar of a self-denial 
which does not limit itself in idea, however 
weakly human nature cringes at some steps 
to be taken. I doubt if any district nurse, or 
nurse in a hospital in a poor district, who has 
laid out for herself a plan at all in keeping with 
ths commands of the New Testament, would 
feel so much at ease in her old surroundings of 
rest and amusement as under the yoke of char- 
itable labor. 

TOKENS OF REMEMBRANCE FROM THE BRIGHTER 
WORLD. 

Nevertheless, the glimpses of friends which 
she gets, through their generous pilgrim- 
ages over unfamiliar streets in order to 
see her and cheer her, are like refreshing 
draughts on a long journey afoot. The post- 
man's budget of letters is beautiful with hand- 
writing that is precious, and the words of en- 
couragement brought by mail or spoken during 
a rapid call are found simply indispensable to 
her courage. It must also be noted that the 
humble appreciation and cordiality of the poor, 



sometimes awkward, sometimes refined and 
beautiful because of the naturally gentle nature 
of many of the poor, are a very sweet daily ele- 
ment in district work. 

ROOM FOB NEW CHARITY. 

In regard to starting a new charity, there is 
an opinion prevalent that nothing will be met 
with but discouragement from those who are 
expected to be charitable. A very rich man 
has not only his city and country house, per- 
haps somewhat multiplied also, but he will be 
sure to tell you that he has two hospitals on his 
hands. In short, an Egyptian hieroglyphic of 
one of the Pharaohs is the only thing that could 
illustrate his hampered condition. You are told 
that the well-to-do have spent their pin money 
upon the foreign missions, and that in a year's 
time you will cease to exist as a new charity. 
The fact is, that a new charity which is as 
much needed as that dealing with orphans, a 
charity dealing with women destitute of care 
and unable to support themselves, yet in the 
grasp of a terrible disease, is responded to with 
the depth of cordiality which greets a call to 
arms if one's country is in danger, supposing 
the responder to be capable of nobility. The 
methods of securing aid and manipulating re- 
sources in charity are by no means as exquis- 
itely finished and effective as those used in 
national defense, but let me prophesy that they 
will be one of these days. 

WHO BEST MAY WITHDRAW TO SERVE. 

The first thing to do, in my opinion, is for 
those who can best afford the time to give 
themselves to the labor of so perfecting the 
science of charity that it may become adequate, 
instead of being as it is at present, often ridic- 
ulously defective. Who are these members of 
the race who have the most time to give, and 
who will least be missed. in withdrawing them- 
selves from "the world," so called? They are 
women who have no indissoluble ties, and who 
have the good sense to realize that the life of 
an earnest woman, wherever she is, is one of 
suffering. T'hey are the women who choose to 
do with less of the ameliorations of life to 
this good end of nursing destitute women, 
which I have stated to be, in my opinion, of 
equal importance with patriotism. 

APPEAL OF INCURABLE CANCER SUFFERERS. 

I was informed about a French charity which 
takes care in a number of hospitals, both in 
France and England, of incurable cancer pa- 
tients. I was told that in America these, in- 
curable cases, when destitute, are terribly neg- 
lected; and, if attended to at all, are dismissed 
from hospitals after six months, whether death 



6 



THE COMMONS 



soon steps in as a relief or years of suffering 
must ensue. I felt that, as I had time to give 
to charity, this was the charity I would take 
up, in the hope of assisting to repeat here the 
success of the charity in France. Doctors told 
me that there was great need of the work, as 
a large number of cases existed among the poor 
and were increasing constantly. Most of my 
friends begged me not to enter into such a 
loathsome occupation. I persisted; took a few 



SHARING THE CONDITIONS OF POVERTY. 

Our peculiar trait will be, that we dwell close- 
ly among the poor, sharing as much as possible, 
if the expression can be permitted, their de- 
privations, and also their cold and heat, their 
laborious effort to exist, and their old-fashioned 
harshness of conveniences, in order that these 
things may be remembered and done away 
with. We trust that our own laborious effort 
will help to elucidate the difficult question of 




Relief Room 

rooms in the poorest district; immediately 
found myself appealed to by persons afflicted 
with the disease; soon had several patients liv- 
ing with me in my little rooms, and was joined 
by a few women as interested as myself in the 
scheme. 

AFTER FIVE YEARS. 

At the end of 'five years I find myself 
more strenuously encouraged by the sym- 
pathy of others than at the beginning of my 
work. Once in awhile I fortify my finances by 
appeals in the daily press for money, clothing 
and medicines for the sick we care for, and 
immediately there is a moderate response from 
charitable persons. 



Cherry Street House. 

how a charity hospital may be a kindly home. 
As soon as a woman is incapacitated for self 
support she should be given a home by those 
who are capable of giving it to her; and that 
home should not be a travesty, but worthy of 
the sacred name. 

We have no object in life but to supply this 
need, in one line of its outreaching growth from 
the central root of destitution; and as women 
never turn aside from misery without assist- 
ing it, and as we have hundreds of letters from 
men and women which express entire enthusi- 
asm for our budding endeavor, we believe that 
both women's work and men's money will en- 
rich this charity for the immediate help of des- 
titute souls. 



THE COMMONS 



ST. ROSE'S FREE HOME IS THE HEART OF THE CITY. 

We have been able to secure and entirely pay 
for a nice house, St. Rose's Free Home, at 426 
Oherry street, New York, and when the last 
payment was made we instantly proceeded to 
secure another home, into which male patients 
could also be received. This second piece of 
property had to be found in the country, as city 
property required a large immediate consign- 
ment towards the full purchase. 

ROSARY HILL HOME IN THE COUNTRY. 

Sherman Park, Westchester County, N. Y., 
contained a wooden monastery, which French 
Dominicans desired to sell, and this building 
has been bought, after that fabulous fashion 
which is sanctioned by a heavy mortgage. In 
very brief time our first group of patients for 
the second home were collected, a male patient 
being among them, and we are now cheerfully 
carrying on a farm hospital, in a superb region 
of hills and bracing air, with fourteen poor, de- 
lighted, cancerous sick people to nurse, and 
seven of us nurses detached from the little city 
home to work in this big branch from a very 
young tree. 

SONO OF CONTENT. 

If we were not now Dominican religious we 
should be singing like birds in the foliage, but 
our contented hearts are satisfied with a few 
peals of laughter during "recreation," and with 
the countless beloved Paters and Aves, 
which we say either in unison, or in a whisper, 
as we work. We have spread out into two 
homes, to be sure, and hope for fifty patients 
at a time during the winter, but we have al- 
most no money. 

SHADOW OF THE BRIGHT LIGHT. 

That side of the problem is its perpetual 
shadow, nor can a bright light be free from it. 
We are willing to bear the anxiety if the pub- 
lic will bear the expense, and we think they 
will. Our work in our home and outside of it 
has cost us about $5,000 a year, with the 
real estate purchase. Now we shall need $10,- 
000.00 a year for both homes, though they are 
carried on with entire simplicity, since our pa- 
tients are principally of the destitute class, and 
all are destitute in present circumstances. No 
money comes to us from them, but they pray 
for us, that it may come. 

Neperau P. O., Sherman Park, N. Y. 



Mr- Gossard a.nd His Work. 

BY FRANCIS W. WHEELER. 
A large bare room in one of the crowded dis- 
tricts of Chicago, half filled with the sauntering, 



bent, frowsy figures of saloon habitues ; lists of 
places where work may be obtained pasted upon 
the wall ; and at one end of the room a small 
table at which is seated a young man, well- 
dressed, keen, aggressive, business to his finger 
tips. To him one by one come the men, each 
with his story, each seeking help. Woe to the 
man who tells a fable rather than the truth, for 
a few searching questions demolish his sand 
founded structure; but to him who needs work, 
work will be given, and if he has no place to 
sleep a room is provided free until he is able 
to pay, and meals are likewise given, always with 
the condition that self support must come within 
a few days. 

A strange picture? Utopian, perhaps? Some 
prophecy ? No ! An assured fact, a living reality, 
a sociological feature of Chicago life which is 
pregnant with future greatness. If, as Leigh Hunt 
has voiced, the tribe of Abou Ben Adhem may 
be desired to increase, surely in this stalwart 
champion of work "as one who loves his fellow 
men," the race will receive a new impetus. 

SO MUCH FOR THE P(CTURE. Now FOR THE MAN. 

Mr. J. W. Gossard is a wealthy importer of 
Chicago who has earned for himself a place 
among the successful business men of the great 
metropolis. Entering life with no other capital 
than a keen American commercial spirit he is 
already, though quite a young man, sufficiently 
possessed of this world's goods hot (o greatly 
miss the expenditure of several thousand dollars, 
in purposes which he refuses to call either chari- 
table or philanthropic but which are the best 
cf both. 

Having attained this desirable position. Mr. Gos- 
sard next undertook to solve the problem which 
has puzzled the world's greatest thinkers in all 
cycles of history. This is the problem how to 
manipulate the affairs of modern life that there 
need not be any men unemployed, and that every 
man employed may earn sufficient to keep himself 
and an average family. It is a large question, 
and its solution is only to be found by experi- 
ment. 

The first great desideratum for the solution of 
this complex problem was, evidently, the time 
needed for its consideration. With keen insight, 
and withal such a touch of the common sense 
wh'ch has made all his ventures throughout so 
successful, Mr. Gossard decided that no man could 
d.o two things at the same time, and do both 
well. His business was flourishing, and therefore 
he decided in taking up the work of helping those 
who had been less successful than himself, to 
give one day a week to that work, and that alone. 
and that upon this certain day he would not 



THE COMMONS 



even consider the affairs of his mercantile busi- 
ness no matter how dire the need. 

ONE SEVENTH OF His TIME. 
Here then was the first step. A man, competent 
to handle a large business, of marked ability 
in the reading of character, wealthy enough to be 
able to sink a little money in the furtherance 
of his designs, was willing to give absolutely one 
seventh of his time to aiding others. The First 
Ward of the city, which contains the levee, one 
of the worst districts, and which, by the way, 




W. J. Gossard. 

was the section taken by W. T. Stead in his no- 
torious work as an example of what Chicago at 
it? worst could be, was chosen for the beginning 
of work. 

The first two or three weeks were given to 
visiting the saloons and the dives in the dis- 
trict, and wherever Mr. Gossard saw a man drunk 
or going to the dogs who appeared to have some 
manhood left in him he went up to the man per- 
sonally and by careful talking led him along the 
desired lines. Before a month had passed there 
were a number of these men well on the way to 
self respect. 

Soon the number of men grew too large to be 
handled personally and the inevitable result was 
that a hall was hired and the personal talks 
developed into a course of lectures. These were 
upon the most simple and needful subjects, such 



for instance as "How to take a bath," "How to 
get a job and hold it," "Food .values," "What 
is a lady and a gentleman in the American sense 
of the term" and so forth. These were addresses 
by Mr. Gossard and generally also by some expert 
upon the topic under discussion. Nearly a dozen 
of the mose eminent medical men in Chicago gave 
their services in the form of these lectures, and 
the hall was crowded every Thursday evening. 

The movement grew. At the close of these 
lessons more men came up and announced their 
readiness to leave the old ways if they cculd 
be helped to obtain employment. This evident 
need that the men after being reclaimed from 
sodden ways should be set to work, was the cause 
of the institution of a free employment agency, 
which has already been the means of providing 
a large number of men with positions. 
THE H. P. E. SOCIETY. 

So far the movement had been gradual. One 
other feature was introduced during the course 
of the lectures, and that was that every man taken 
in hand and set upon his feet again, should be 
required to become a member of the Higher Prac- 
tical Education Society, known as the H. P. E. 
Society, and to that end must sign the pledge. 
This pledge was peculiar in that it needed two 
to sign it, firstly the man who was reforming, and 
secondly either an officer of the society or after- 
wards another member. Thus it happened that 
every man became responsible for someone else 
and the thought of the responsibility was a great 
aid in keeping the pledge inviolate. 

The close of the lecture course marked the end 
of the second cycle. A number of men had be- 
come members of the society, had taken the 
pledge, and were being kept and provided for by 
their patron until a position should be ready for 
them through the employment agency. 
THE FIRST SET-BACK. 

Then came the first serious set-back. It was 
tolerably easy if a cook sought employment and 
there was employment for a cook to put the 
two together, but often it happened that the 
man who had been reclaimed either had no trade, 
or he was so out of touch with the work that he 
was almost useless, or else his trade was one in 
which few vacancies occurred. 

How TO FIND EMPLOYMENT. 

Work must be found for these men. The so- 
ciety must not be allowed to die because its own 
weight and strength was crippling it. Here was a 
force which should be able to keep in motion if 
only it could once be started in the right direction. 
But how to start it. The answer was not far to 
seek. If the society was responsible for these 
men the society must find employment, and if 
the agency was not sufficient for this purpose it 



THE COMMONS 



must give them work itself. The Salvation Army 
wood camps solved this question many years ago. 

But the founder of the society was a business 
man who knew nothing of wood camps, or in- 
deed of ought save commerce and its methods, 
and the line of development the society took un- 
der his hand was to form it into a company, the 
H. P. E. Company, which bought articles from 
the manufacturers and disposed of them direct to 
the consumer thus making 'the middlemen and the 
merchant's profit at the same time. The brighter 
men handled the work of disposing of lines of 
goods to the trade, the men of lesser ability went 
from house to house with samples of the goods 
canvassing and delivering. Thus, theoretically, 
every man who sought employment could be given 
it, and ;he profits of the goods sold would reim- 
burse the society for the original money spent 
on each man and thus it became self supporting 
in some degree. 

A DIFFICULTY NOT YET SOLVED. 

But a difficulty arose, which to the present time 
has not yet been solved, and the solution of which 
means the final success or failure of the whole. 
This is the difficulty that every man is not a 
salesmar by nature. It has been found to be a 
mistake that every man can go from house to 
house and sell goods, for less than half the men 
who need the work are so fitted. Many have not 
a sufficiently good appearance or address, others 
lack the commercial instinct, and others again 
have a feeling of personal pride which galls 
them every time they go to the back door. It 
is to be deplored, but facts which are to be de- 
plored are the very things which most constantly 
confront the sociologist. 

Then the men began to be dissatisfied. They 
found the work progressing but slowly, they 
found that the money they earned for the society 
was expended almost as much upon the bad sales- 
man as upon the good and though like th hus- 
bandmen in the parable, they each acknowledged 
the justice of "every man a penny" they grumbled 
amongst themselves, and viewing human nature 
as it is rather than as it ought. to be, they cannot 
be blamed. 

There is not the slightest doubt but that the 
movement will prove an overwhelming success if 
sufficient perseverance, time and capital be given. 
A commercinl business, equipped wi!h ?11 the 
most modern me'.hods and the most efficient help, 
is a difficult thing to set going successfully, to 
which let the wrecks of small merchants testify, 
and in this day of competition it is the man with 
large ideas who goes to the front. It is easy to 
prophesy great things, and it is even easier to 
plan them, but to work the small details of small 



things is beyond the power, very often, of the 
Napoleon of commerce. 

EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES. 

It is the intention of Mr. Gossard to open an 
employment agency in every ward of this city 
and in every ward of every city in the United 
States. It is designed to let the ministers of the 
cities be in close touch with the movement to the 
end that they may send all cases of need to these 
employment agencies. It is intended to purchase 
factories for the manufacture of the goods which 
are sold by the H. P. E. Company. It is then 
the intention to publish a large and well equipped 
magazine which shall not only deal with the work 
of the society and company but which shall be 
the organ of the Social Settlement work of the 
world. 

But these must wait. Mr. Gossard has laid 
this fact down as a foundation, "That each branch 
and each root of the society must be self support- 
ing and that no steps onward will be made, until 
each is so determined." 

Such is the brief history, briefly told, of the 
work of the H. P. E. Society of Chicago, and 
its work, such still more briefly sketched, is the 
personnel of the man at its head. Far more pleas- 
ant would have been the task simply to have told 
of all the good accomplished, to have painted 
glowing pictures of the future, to have described 
a winter at hand when every man would be labor- 
ing with satisfaction to himself and all the world, 
and to have ended in a pean of triumph, but 
much more important is it to know the exact con- 
dition and to show the difficulties as well as the 
golden deeds. 

But under and above and through it all, whether 
the society rise to greater heights or share the 
doom of many another worthy movement, is the 
living growing, vital fact, that out of Chicago 
has arisen a young man of wealth, in whom it 
is a passion to do for others that which he would 
wish done for himself. 

THE GOOD OF IT ALL. 

Can any good come out of Nazareth? An old 
question, and the answer to it is yet the greatest 
force in the world to-day. Can any good come 
out of Chicago? A new question, and the answer 
to it is just beginning to appear. It may be that 
this is the dawn of some vast crystallization of the 
unused force of the unemployed reaching out and 
enfolding all its predecessors in its giant grasp, 
it may be that it will live its homely, useful life 
in its own little district acting as. a beacon to 
guide others. 

Final results, which can only be seen by the 
test of centuries of time, can perhaps decide which 
is the greater, Protestantism or the mother of 



10 



THE COMMONS 



the first Reformer, the Sociological movement or 
its humblest disciple, and by this test alone shall 
it be seen what is the place that J. W. Gossard, 
and the members of his society bear in the scheme 
of the industrial salvation of the world. Not to 
the most successful is the greatest honor, but in 
the world of men equal honor must be given to 
every man and woman, who, standing for the 
principles of Godhood, Womanhood, and Man- 
hood, lives, works and dies consecrated to their 
support. 



Impressions of the Greact Steel 
Strike. 

BY ONE STANDING NEAR BY. 



In the fiirst place, it puts to a severe test 
one's sense of the' ridiculous to attempt to dis- 
cuss the relations of the Billion-Dollar Steel Trust 
with anybody or anything from the standpoint 
of "right" or "merit." The genesis and record 
of that mighty solution of steel and water its 
very existence, in fact precludes the possibility of 
raising with any enthusiasm the question of morals 
in any of its bearings. So- let us abandon buncombe 
about the matter. Between the United States 
Steel Corporation and its employes thus far no 
issue has been joined the discussion of which 
calls for the use of any vocabulary of abstract 
right or justice. To an unusual degree the bat- 
tle is cleared of involved issues, and becomes 
largely one of brute force and dogged endurance 
which can win? 



It was foreordained, so to speak, that such a 
battle should ensue. The erection of a vast 
structure of capital under private ownership, the 
abolition practically of competition from a com- 
plete branch of industry, the removal of waste- 
ful duplication of machinery, material and effort 
and the systematization of production and sale 
with reference to visible demand, made it inevit- 
able that sooner or later there would be an attack 
upon the citadel of capitalism thus exposed. 
Rightly timed, shrewdly managed, and adequately 
supported by public sentiment through the exist- 
ence of an issue clear and conclusive, it would 
seem that a strike against a single, closely-unified 
organization of an industry requiring so large a 
degree of skill on the part of so large a propor- 
tion of its force as does the manufacture of steel, 
must win at last. 



But the strike that will win must have several 
sure characteristics. It must represent a prin- 
ciple which is not only right, but clear; and not 



only clear, but right. Public sympathy is notori- 
ously fickle and capricious, and can be held for a 
long struggle only by a firm and sustained ap- 
pe.il to what the average man's imagination and 
intelligence can readily grasp, his emotions cling 
to, and his self-interest recognize as in the last 
analysis his affair. Sympathy in large measure 
awnited the first great assault upon any of the 
great Trusts. Whether rightly or not, the people 
increasingly feel that these vast concentrations of 
power in private hands involve menace to the 
rights. ?ml even to the fundamental liberties of 
tile common people. They were ready to accept 
the first issue that should be raised. In the 
present battle thus far at least, the Trust has 
made rather the best appearance in the field, has 
succeeded in occupying (albeit by factitious 
means) the position of injured innocence, and the 
average man is still asking in bewilderment, after 
all this time of palaver and counter-claims, What 
is it all about? 



The genius of fair play is still in the Ameri- 
can shrine, though somewhat battered and shame- 
faced by reason of happenings connected with the 
conversion of the corners of the earth to thir- 
teen-inch. breech-loading Christianity and strenu- 
ous civilization. And an appeal which is based 
upon a question of fair play will always command 
sympathy. It is a pity that the question of fair 
play, or some aspect of it, can hardly be found 
in the present contest. There is no question 
of wages, at least none immediately involved; nor 
of hours, nor of individual rights. There is no 
fundamental human appeal from wrong. There 
is no clearly-defined assault upon the Trust as 
a principle or an institution. The rallying-cries 
in this contest are those in which the average 
American never had interest, or if so, long since 
lost what he had. 



Few things are clearer than that the single 
issue of "organized labor," however loudly shout- 
ed, will never again rally enthusiasm, even so 
much as it has rallied, in this country. Organiza- 
tion of labor, as an abstraction, needs no de- 
fense. In the self-consciousness of the laboring 
class, and in its action for its own recognized 
interests, and in large measure for the interests 
of all of us, to a great degree lie the hope and 
progress of the future. But no intensity of public 
interest responds, or will respond, to the effort to 
compel the Steel Trust or any other corporation 
to enforce unionism upon its employes. And it 
is not true that the Steel Corporation is attempt- 
ing to overthrow the organization of labor in any 



THE COMMONS 



11 



large sense. It is highly probable as a matter of 
fact, that Mr. Morgan, Mr. Schwab and their 
confreres would much prefer to deal with a re- 
sponsible body representing their employes. They 
have indeed all but said so. But the trouble is 
that there is no such responsible body in exist- 
ence. And the one juncture in which that re- 
sponsibility might have appeared was the junc- 
ture which the organization selected as an oppor- 
tune time to declare that agreements with this 
corporation were void as compared with their 
pledge to their organization. 



The margin of unemployment, vast and in- 
creasing, on the whole, is too great to make pos- 
sible an enforcement of any particular brand of 
unionism upon any large class of labor. The un- 
employed or casually employed laborer, holds the 
balance of power, and the battle against the 
"scab" by organized labor is the cutting of its 
own throat. The movement of labor in this coun- 
try, and in the world, must be a Movement of 
Labor, and not a self-interested agitation by the 
Amalgamated This or the Federation of That or 
the Brotherhood of the Other. These organiza- 
tions and their like have never been truly class 
organizations. Most of them have been more 
effective in behalf of the employer than of the 
men. They have kept Cerberus comparatively 
quiet with relatively insignificant sops while great 
issues slipped through from time to time between 
suspiciously greasy fingers. It will take some 
time, yet, and much suffering, too, to teach the 
workingmen of the world that their interests are 
one and the same, and the present issue to this 
writer at least, involves no opportunity to make 
clear the common cause of Man against Property. 

The final issue will demand well-laid plans, 
vast resources of loyalty and enthusiasm, and un- 
paralleled leadership. None of them appear in 
the present conflict. Here is one who, passion- 
ately sympathetic with the wrongs and the as- 
pirations of the laboring class, yet sees in this 
conjuncture no one of the characteristics which 
must be discoverable in the* Great Struggle which 
yet shall come. It this strike "succeeds", why, 
well and good, though at best no point will have 
been gained worth what it will have cost. If it 
fails, it will have been a crime. A strike is civil 
war, and for civil war there must be for its justi- 
fication a clear issue of right and lasting principle, 
the right time, and reasonable assurance of vic- 
tory. To one sitting close by, with opportunities 
of hearing both sides and to some degree knowing 
the issues at first hand, all of these essentials 
seem to be lacking. 

Pittsburg, Pa., September 10. 1901. 



"She Men of To-morrow. 

DR. FORBUSH'S CALL FOR BOY CONFERENCE. 

The fifth General Conference about Boys under 
the auspices of the General Alliance of Workers 
With Boys, known as "The Men of To-morrow," 
will be held in Boston, Oct. 29 and 30. The special 
theme will be "The Boy and the Home." Among 
the topics and speakers will be: The Street Boy 
and his Home, by Jacob A. Riis; the Working 
Boy and his home, by a Y. M. C. A. leader ; the 
School Boy and his home by Principal Endicott 
Peabody; The Kind of Home to Make the Right 
Sort of a Boy, by Prof. Francis G. Peabody of 
Harvard: The Home .as a Factor in Social Work, 
by S. W. Dike, LL. D. ; Child Saving Agencies 
and the Home by Hugh F Fox, President of the 
N. J. Board of Children's Guardians ; The Pas- 
tor and Boys by Rev. v/. H. Culver, Boys' Pas- 
tor of the Jefferson Ave. Pres. Church, Detroit ; 
The Neighborhood as a Center for Work with 
Boys by Ambrose Page of Haverhill, Mass.; and 
topics dealing with the village life, the recreations, 
the reading, etc., of boys by speakers to be an- 
nounced later. Perhaps the most useful portion 
of the Conference will be the free forum for 
question, answer and discussion on the rationale 
and method of work with boys. The moving 
spirit of the Conference is Dr. William Byron 
Forbush of Winthrop Church, Boston, president 
of the Alliance and author of "The Boy Problem," 
to whom should be addressed inquiries. 

The Conference is open to all. It is conducted 
on the self-entertaining plan. The sessions will 
be held in the Winthrop Church and the Bunker 
Hill Boys' Club Building in the Charlestown dis- 
trict, which are on adjoining streets and both 
very accessible from the hotels and railroads. 



All the Improvement Societies of Cook County 
are invited to hold an all day public conference 
in Fullerton Hall, Art Institute, Chicago, to dis- 
cuss civic improvements by private initiative in 
the morning and improvement by corporate action 
in the afternoon. In the evening Public School 
extension is to be considered and urged. Oct. 5. 



ENFORCE THE TENEMENT LAWS. 
Has every settlement in this city copies of the 
codified tenement legislation of Chicago? Are 
residents and sanitary inspectors informed and 
do they endeavor to enforce the provisions of the 
statutes regarding old dwellings, rear tenements, 
and new flat buildings? There is probably no 
more important service the settlements can ren- 
der humanity than in standing between ignorance 
and greed and the rights of the Home in the 
housing of this city's poor. 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point af View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.&- Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, .etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 

The comradeship betokened by President Mc- 
Kinley's "Good bye all, good bye," is as exalted 
as the faith expressed in his reverential recogni- 
tion, "It is God's way," and the uncomplaining, 
iinrevengeful courage of his soldierly obedience. 
"His will be done." What a pitiful parody on the' 
term it is that the awful crime should have been 
committed by one who claims to be a "comrade!" 

The interesting and unique experiment in help 
to self help by a Chicago business man enthusi- 
astically reported in another column, has met with 
a surprising success, which however, time is yet 
to test. But even Time will have to reckon with 
the perseverance of a determined man who seems 
entirely willing to learn by experience and prof- 
it by his losses in his philanthropy as well as in 
his business. But in any event the significant 
fact in this and other enterprises of Social faith, 
is that such men are undertaking them. 

Beneath her religious title readers of The 
Commons will recognize Rose Hawthorn Lath- 
rop. It may be with surprise, or even shock, 
that some will discover Nathanial Hawthorn's 
daughter to be devoting herself to what may 
seem to be the menial service of the helpless- 
ly poor, and repellently afflicted under the 
garb of the Dominican Order. If so," can they 
fail to see, gleaning all through her words, 
the light of her father's own idealism, which 
transfigured .not only the most common experi- 
ences of ordinary life, but also its most ostra- 
cized disabilities and defaults with the glory 
that excelleth. 

Her ministry to the "incurable poor" reminds 
one of the call to the lepers which Francis, 
that Saint of Saints, who belongs to us all, ut- 
tered in behalf of his Brothers Minor: "We 
are come to live among you and be your ser- 
vants, and wash your sores, and make your 
lot less hard than it is. We only want to do as 
Christ bids us do. We are beggars, too, and 
we, too, have not where to lay our heads. 



Christ sent us to you! Yes, Christ crucified, 
whose we are and whose you are. Be not 
wroth with us. We will help you if we can." 
Surely those who do not go to such, should 
help send those who have gone never to re- 
turn from their service. 

Logal Responsibility of Trade Unions. 

The complaint made in the article on the steel- 
workers strike, which we publish in this number, 
that there is no responsible body representing the 
employes with which the Steel Company may deal, 
raises a crucial question regarding the whole labor 
movement. How may labor organizations be 
made legally, as well as morally, responsible for 
the acts of their officers and members? 

It is not the exception, but the rule we believe 
that the unions keep their formal agreements with 
their employers. 

Such a spirit is, of course, a better guarantee 
than any legal sanction and penalty. Neverthe- 
less combinations of capital exact of each other 
forfeiture to bind their bargains and are begin- 
ning to extend the exaction to the organizations 
of labor with which they consent to deal. The 
recent Taffe-Vale decision of the House of Lords, 
holding labor unions legally responsible for the 
acts of their members and officers and making 
their funds liable to suit for damages is deeply 
agitating English Trades Unionism. Already suits 
for damages against the unions for losses entailed 
by "picketing" in time of strike, threaten their 
reserve funds. The British Labor Congress at 
Swansea, Wales, has just decided to test the legal 
definition of "picketing" and the extent to which 
it could be carried on without rendering the funds 
of the unions liable for damages. Without pre- 
suming upon the very imperfect knowledge of 
this decision yet obtainable in this country, or 
anticipating the full interpretation of it by a com- 
petent English authority which we expect soon 
to publish, we venture the opinion that some just 
and well-guarded legal responsibility must be" ac- 
cepted by Trades Unionism, if it is to be a party 
to that collective bargaining, which is the primary 
reason and value of its existence. 



Is there Any Competition with the Saloon as a 
Mea.ns of Socially 7 

The Committee of Fifty for the Investigation 
of the Liquor Problem, is nearing the end of 
its long preliminary inquiry. During the eight 
years of its labors three of its four sub-commit- 
tees have reported the results of their patient, 
painstaking search for facts. First "The Liquor 
Problem in its Legislative Aspects," was pre- 
sented in 1897 by Frederick H. Wines and John 
Koren, two of the most experienced and able 
statisticians of the country, under the auspices 



T HECOMMONS 



13 



of a committee headed by Presidents Eliot of 
Harvard and Seth Low of Columbia Universi- 
ties. 

Then John Koren, in 1899, finished his investi- 
gation of the "Economic Aspects of the Liquor 
Problem," and it was published with the author- 
ization of Carroll D. Wright, Prof. Henry W. 
Farnam, \varden Z. R. Brockway of Elmira Re- 
formatory. Prof. John Graham Brooks, Dr. E. R. 
L. Gould and Prof. J. F. Jones. 

Now comes the third volume, which is of the 
most direct interest and value to those engaged 
in social service. It is to be followed soon by a 
fourth on the results of the chemical analyses and 
pathological researches of the sub-committee on 
Physiological aspects. On the bases of 
these four reports, setting forth "a body 
of verifiable truth," the sub-committee on 
Ethical aspects promises a fifth volume in 
which they will attempt to formulate some brief 
and general summary of the conclusions of the 
Committee of Fifty. This third volume of the 
series on "Substitutes for the Saloon," is issued 
under the direction of the last named sub-commit- 
tee, consisting of Francis G. Peabody, professor of 
Ethics at Harvard, Dr. Gould, formerly of 
Johns Hopkin's, now president of the City Homes 
Association, of New York, and Prof. William M. 
Sloane. The late Charles Dudley Warner served 
on its membership from the beginning, until 
his death deprived the general committee and this 
group of one of their wisest and most actively 
interested associates. 

No one man, or even as many men as com- 
posed the sub-committee, could have furnished the 
contents of this remarkable volume. For to it 
were contributed the personal observations of 
twenty-two investigators in sixteen of the prin- 
cipal American cities, while fifteen special con- 
tributions were added by men who had first-hand 
knowledge of the phases of the subject assigned 
them. Chicago Commons was gratified to be able 
to contribute Mr. Royal L. Melendy's report of his 
five months' investigation at Chicago, which was 
published in full in the American Journal of 
Sociology for November, 1900, and January, 1901, 
and was summarized in THE COMMONS for No- 
vember 1900. It is copiously quoted in the text 
and appendix of the volume. The very difficult 
work of superintending these widely scattered in- 
vestigations and of reducing their vast mass of 
data to readable form and practical inductions, has 
been extraordinarly well done by the Rev. Ray- 
mond Calkins, of Pittsfield, Mass., in the. won- 
derfully brief compass of 300 pages. 

With the special contributions to the valuable 
appendices, this remarkably comprehensive yet de- 



tailed volume is of encyclopedic value upon the 
unique social data it presents. There is not only 
no source of information on the subjects which 
it covers that can compare with it, but there 
can be none, in the nature of the case, with- 
out an equal, if not greater outlay of expert toil 
and expense in gathering similar or additional 
facts. The liquor problem cannot be understood 
or stated, much less intelligently treated, by legis- 
lator, police, prohibitionist, moral suasion re- 
former, or personal worker for individuals, with- 
out squarely facing the facts and the substitu- 
tionary principles and methods exploited by this 
volume. 

It deserves to be numbered among the very 
few volumes which may serve as hand-books for 
Social Settlement workers. To other lines of 
church, or social service, its use and suggestive- 
ness will be found to be most helpfully adapted. 
Even experts in such problems as the housing of 
the industrial classes, popular education, the 
amusements and recreations of the people, and the 
social unification of our cosmopolitan popula- 
tions, will find uniquely valuable discussions of 
such phases of these questions as are not present- 
ed elsewhere. 

These five volumes will rank high not only 
among' the original sources for the study of de- 
scriptive sociology, but as practical hand-books 
of reformatory, or, better still, formatory effort. 
Houghton, Mifflin and Co. publish the series 
in the best form and at reasonable price. $1.30. 



'She Elements Needed to Create a Social Center 

"The absence of any time limit, some stimulus 
to self-expression, and a kind of personal feel- 
ing toward those into whose company one is 
thrown, which tempts one to put away reserve 
and enjoy their society. Where these three ele- 
ments coexist, however imperfectly, they create 
a social center, a situation, that is, in which the 
social instincts find their natural expression. 

Tne leisure problems equals in importance the 
labor problem, and surpasses it in difficulty. 

If the enormous profit from the drink traffic 
could be diverted into the legitimate work of 
establishing centers of recreation for the peo- 
ple, an immense progress would be made towards 
social reform. 

Men will not largely patronize a place where 
the feeling prevails that some one is doing some- 
thing for them." RAYMOND CALKINS in Substi- 
tutes for the Saloon. 



Kindness a language which the dumb can 
speak, and the deaf can understand. Bovee. 



14 



THE COMMONS 



U/>e Month at Chicago Commons 

NEIGHBORHOOD MEMORIAL SERVICE. 
The flag at half-mast, the mourning draperies 
and furled national colors, a large transparency 
and hand-bills scattered on the streets and in the 
houses, through the stores and the saloons were 
the invitations issued to the neighborhood to ral- 
ly at Chicago Commons to pay the last tribute 
of patriotic loyalty to the memory of President 
McKinley. No assembly which ever gathered un- 
der the new roof has been as representative of 
all elements of our population as that which ral- 
lied by common consent and filled our auditorium. 
All nationalities, sects, parties, classes and con- 
ditions of the people were represented in the 
silent, serious, united throng. Voices of many 
tongues joined as best they could in singing the 
Christian hymns which the lamented President 
loved. The warden convened the assembly by 
reading President Roosevelt's proclamation. The 
story of William McKinley's life was simply told 
by Dwight Goddard of Massachusetts, who ap- 
plied its lessons to the lives of all of us. Royal 
Loren Melendy of Colorado showed how the 
blow of the assassin was struck at the heart 6f 
the nation, chosen of God to establish 
democracy among men. Raymond Robins, recent- 
ly of Alaska, now of Chicago Commons, gave no- 
table expressed to the loyalty to law, for which 
the common people, here as everywhere, are noted 
The sympathy of foreign nations and the patriot- 
ism of the foreign elements of our country's citi- 
zenship was manfully voiced by Rev. James Mul- 
lenbach, new associate pastor of the Tabernacle. 
Words from the lips of the martyr presidents, Lin- 
coln, Garfield and McKinley were read by the 
chairman. All joined in "America," and each 
one went his own way a better American and 
more of a Christian. 



A LAST LIFT NEEDED. 

The long stress and strain under which our 
Chicago Commons finances have struggled, ever 
since the double demand for building equipment 
and maintenance has taxed its generous constit- 
uency, will continue to embarrass the settlement 
work until the building is paid for. We need 
$10,000 to enable us to enter the completed build- 
ing without encumbrance upon it. We shall 
make every effort to achieve this result before the 
close of the year. Meanwhile the problem of 
providing for the maintenance of the work during 
the last three months of every year is one of the 
hardest we ever meet. This year it is obviously 
doubly difficult. Will not our friends, who have 
already given to the support of the work this 



year, remember its final exigencies and help us 
meet it by additional gifts? The force of workers 
is more efficient than we have ever had. The 
response of the surrounding community is greater 
than ever before. The promise of reality and use- 
fulness in the human service to be directly ren- 
dered the people about us and to influence reflexive- 
ly other workers, far and wide, is such as has 
never before greeted the opening season's work. 
If those who are co-operating with Chicago Com- 
mons by supplying its financial support could 
share the satisfaction of those of us who are giv- 
ing our lives, as well as our money, to it, they 
would believe with us that all it costs is well in- 
vested. 



The annual illustrated survey of the progress 
and prospects of Chicago Commons will be pre- 
sented in the December issue of The Commons. 
Friends will render valuable service, not only to 
this settlement but to the cause which all settle- 
ments serve, by helping us circulate the Chicago 
Commons Number of this journal among those 
who may thus be enlisted or made more efficient 
in social service. They will confer a favor by 
sending us in advance orders for as many copies 
as they can gratuitously circulate to advantage. 



WINTER'S SCHEDULE TO OPEN IN THE 

COMPLETED BUILDING. 

Owing to the confusion incident to building 
operations and the consequent overcrowding of 
the finished wing, the complete winter's schedule 
of work cannot be put into operation until Nov. 
I, when the new Residence Wing will be ready 
for use. The Kindergartens, Training School, 
many clubs and other settlement functions how- 
ever open Oct. i. 



QUARTERS FOR OLD COMMONS 

KINDERGARTEN. 

We are so fortunate as to find just the quar- 
ters we need for continuing our kindergarten 
and other settlement work in the neighborhood 
of the Old Commons. Only a block away from 
the Union Street house, on the sunny side of 
the street, in the heart of the most densely crowd- 
ed, poorest population of the river districts of our 
ward, we have leased for a year a double store on 
the first floor of 73 and 75 Grand Ave. The build- 
ing is being thoroughly renovated, with new plas- 
ter, paint, plumbing and cement side-walk. The 
floor contains one large room about thirty-five feet 
square and two smaller rooms. The rental is 
$24 per month, which with the expense of light- 
ing, heating and care, and the cost of maintaining 



THE COMMONS 



15 



the Kindergartners and supplying their material, 
will bring the amount needed to support our work 
there up to about $125 per month. In this ven- 
ture of faith for our old neighborhood, we de- 
pend upon the support of the friends of the need- 
iest, and therefore re-open the work there Sep- 
tember 30. i 



OUR MANUAL TRAINING EQUIPMENT ASSURED. 

An old friend of Chicago Commons responded 
to our appeal last month by authorizing us to 
equip our manual training department without 
waiting for further subscriptions. This assures 
the opening of this branch of our work when 
the completion of the building permits us to start 
all our winter's work on Nov. 18. While this 
generous assurance of the balance needed equips 
us with tools and benches, and fulfils the con- 
dition upon which the competent trainer offered 
his services and residence gratuitously, we need 
the contribution of between $25 and $50 per 
month toward material that the poorest pupils 
may not be able to pay for and also to provide 
some instruction in the arts for which the girls 
are best adapted. 



OUR NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH. 
The Tabernacle Church has had the privilege, 
the pleasure of which the residents of Chicago 
Commons have shared with its members, of the 
ministry and fellowship of Rev. Dwight God- 
dard all summer. His brotherly spirit, earnest 
words and manly ways of real service among us 
have left their mark for good on each and all. 
To his eastern home and work he carries hearts' 
full of friendship and God-speed. His work in 
the Associate pastorate has already been taken 
up by Rev. James Mullenbach, who has just re- 
turned from two years of study in the University 
of Berlin, Germany, on the fellowship awarded 
him at his graduation from the Chicago Theolog- 
ical Seminary. Of ,his cordial welcome by the 
people of the church and the residents of the 
settlement he has already received abundant as- 
surance. Professor E. T. Harper, of the Semi- 
nary has been elected Superintendent of the Tab- 
ernacle Sunday-school and assumed its leadership 
upon his return from his summer's study abroad. 



GREETINGS TO THE OPENING SCHOOL YEAR. 
Chicago Commons greets with heartfelt joy 
and the right hand of goodliest fellowship, the 
teachers of the Montifiori and Washington 
Schools as they return, with their troops of neigh- 
borhood children to brighten and better the life 
of our ward. We look upon them as our associ- 
ates in the service of the people and extend to 



them whatever privilege or use our new building 
may afford them. 

To the new president, the professors and the 
students of the Chicago Theological Seminary we 
extend our greetings as they come back to their 
halls of learning and to the fraternal fellowship 
and service which they have ever extended both 
to the Tabernacle Church and Chicago Commons. 
To this and all the other professional schools 
and universities the settlement extends all its 
courtesies and whatever advantages it has to offer. 



The Chicago Veterans of the War with Spain 
are making their headquarters at the Auditorium 
of Chicago Commons. 



The gladdest happening of the past month at 
the Commons was the opening of the playground. 
Into the little yard provided with swings, teeter 
boards, horizontal bar, quoit and bean bag games, 
the little ones have gathered, some days two hun- 
dred strong. 

Their joyous shouts and happy faces repay 
with interest compounded for the cost and labor 
of its preparation and superintendence. To make 
glad the life of little children surely this is a 
commerce that makes all parties to it rich. 



Mrs. Simkhovitch on City Noises 

To the Editor of the Chicago Commons, 

Dear Sir : 

Since you have been so kind as to open the 
columns of your paper to any stray Settlement 
contributor, I should like very much to write 
just a few words in regard to the noise of our 
great cities. 

I live on the corner of Second Avenue and 
Thirty-fourth Street, one of the noisiest places, I 
suppose, in the world. At all events, I have never 
been in a noisier place, except at a recent visit to a 
girls' college dining hall. Two lines of elevated 
roads cross at right angles, and three lines of 
trolley cars meet at the corner. Thirty-fourth 
Street is moreover a general thoroughfare for 
all the Long Island railroad traffic, as well as 
the highway for all the Island market produce that 
lumbers in at early morning hours. A big milk 
concern is situated opposite the House with ad- 
joining stables, and if the market garden teams 
should cease for a moment, the milk carts allow 
of no pause in the procession. A piano factory 
directly behind the house keeps up an untuneful 
wail in the morning hours, an excellent alarm 
clock to wake up any stray sleepy residents. 

In winter we can sacrifice hygiene, and shut the 
windows and get what one of the minor poets 
calls a "hissing silence" but in the summer time, 



16 



THE COMMONS 



we open the windows, shout, and grow deaf. 

The worst of it is that although we fancy we 
live at an especially noisy corner, there are many 
other places in New York quite as noisy if not 
more so. ' 

The fact is, big cities get noisier and noisier all 
the time. 

Some of us think we don't mind it, but does it 
seem irrational to believe that shouting to kinder- 
garten children doesn't fit in with the rest of the 
kindergarten theory and practice? 

If the thing we regret most among tenement 
house children is the increasing nervousness oc- 
casioned by the complex conditions of tenement 
house life, is not noise a very considerable fac- 
tor? 

What I want to ask is why should we not all 
unite and see if there are not some practical 
steps that can be taken to mitigate to some ex- 
tent at least the horrors of city noises. 

Would it not be a good idea if in each great 
city where there are Settlements in Chicago, in 
New York, in Boston, in San Francisco some 
one Settlement should make it one of its duties 
this winter to investigate the matter thoroughly? 
The Boards of Health have as a general thing 
large discretionary powers to abate public 
nuisances and there are special city ordinances 
that cover special nuisances such as the carriage 
of heavy steel girders on the public highways, 
etc. The cries of hucksters, proper pavements, 
regulations in regard to steam whistles, rubber 
tires, oiling of tracks all these suggest that it 
would really be a useful thing to bring together 
all the information there is about city noises and 
their remedies. 

We shall be glad at our House to investigate 
fhe question for New York this coming season. 
Perhaps Chicago, Boston and San Francisco are 
so quiet they don't need to be worried about ! 
Yours sincerely, 
Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch. 
Friendly Aid Settlement, 

248 East Thirty-fourth St., New York City. 

Send 60 centS to THE COMMONS for 
"Ghe Handbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 



LAWN SWINGS 



MAY POLES 



PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL. 

Kindergarten Training School at 
Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFER HEQNER, 363 N. Winchester Avo., 

Chicago. 



W. S. TOTHILL 

Manufacturer 

Play Ground, Park, Gymnasium and Athletic Field 
Equipments. Write for anything you want. 

126-128 West Webster Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. 

Orders for New Edition of 

FORBUSH'S BOY PROBLEM 

will be filled on receipt of the boks early in September 

AT 75 CENTS PER COPY 

Order of "THE COMMONS." Grand Ave. and Morgan 
Street, Chicago. 

Mr. Lex. By Catherine W&ugK McCulloch. 

Of the Chicago Bar. The legal status of mother 
and child stated in story form, with full citations of 
statutes and decisions. Published by Fleming H. 
Revell Co. The American Journal of Sociology 
says of it: "The book is well written and will un 
doubtedly find many readers who do not otherwise 
care for legal literature. " Price cloth 35C. Address 
the author, Room 1104, 135 Adams St., Chicago. 

Biblioa 1 Sociology. By Graham Taylor. 

A syllabus of lectures on the social teachings of the 
Bible. Printed for use in the class-room. A limited 
number can be obtained for SQC of THE COMMONS. 
15he Church in Socia.1 Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 



15he New Fourth Edition f College. Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view. It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at Grand Ave. A Morgan St., 
Chicago. 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 

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one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above j-cent denomination. , at our risk. 

Advertisements in the Commons During 1901. 

One Page, $25.00; Half Page. $15.00; -Quarter Page. SS.OO; One 
Inch, 52.00. For each insertion. 

Special Rates for Special Numbers of the Commons 

Any number under twenty-five copies, five cents each; over 
twenty-five and under one hundred, three cents each; over 
one hundred, two and one-half cents each. 
CKangos of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



TKe Commons 

A MorvtKIy Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 64 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. November 19OI. 



God's Requirement. 

We live by faith, but faith is not the slave 

Of text and legend. Reason's voice and God's, 
Nature's and duty's, never are at odds. 

What asks our Father of His children save 

Justice and mercy and humility, 
A reasonable service of good deeds, 

Pure living, tenderness to 'human needs, 
Reverence and trust and prayer for light to see 

The Master's footprints in our daily ways? 
No knotted scourge or sacrificial knife, 

But the calm beauty of an ordered life, 
Whose very breathing is unworded praise, 

A life that stands, as all true lives have, stood, 
Firm rooted in the faith that God is good. 

John G. Whittier. 



Civic Betterment in'Chicago. 

ALL-DAY CONFERENCE OF COUNTY IMPROVEMENT 
SOCIETIES. 

The awakening social conscience of this city has 
never before spoken with each comprehensive in- 
telligence as marked the many important papers 
and addresses delivered at the Fullerton Hall con- 
ference of the Improvement Societies of Cook 
County. Saturday, October 5th will long be re- 
membered as a red letter day in the forward 
movement toward a better educated, better gov- 
erned and more beautiful Chicago. 

The morning session devoted to civic im- 
provement through private local initiative 
was rich in testimony for the past help- 
fulness and future promise of this field 
as a primary cause of intelligent social ac- 
tion. The service rendered Chicago by the pa- 
triotic action of such organizations as the Mer- 
chants' club, the Civic Federation and the Muni- 
cipal Voters League, was ably discussed by Presi- 
dent La Verne W. Noyes. After urging speciali- 
zation and federa-tion among the many societies 
and clubs engaged in civic betterment Mr. Noyes 
said, "The Merchants Club of Chicago has given 
us our system of bookkeeping, the Civic Federa- 
tion a civil service system and the Municipal 
Voters League an honest majority in the city 
council. Every social club should take up some 
phase of civic improvement and would be better 
and stronger for accomplishing some such task. 
Political clubs should realize that the greatest 



service they can render their party is to advocate 
the most needed public improvement." 
SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS. 

That most unique and vital of the many forms 
of private initiative manifested by the Social 
movement throughout the world the Social Set- 
tlement was represented by Prof. Graham Tay- 
lor of Chicago Commons. Setting forth the three 
chief functions of the settlement as, first a social 
centre for the unification of neighborhood life, 
secondly as a laboratory for the study and ana- 
lysis of social and industrial problems and thirdly 
as a common meeting place for mutual interpre- 
tation between men of widely differing ideals eco- 
nomic conditions and standards of living, he con- 
tinued : 

"Improvement societies and social settlements 
are born of the same spirit. Both are indicative 
of an awakening social and civic conscience. 
These two lines of effort may cordially and help- 
fully co-operate. Districts that should be fore- 
most in the representation of these improvement 
societies need initiative given them in order to 
see the opportunity and seize the chance of self- 
betterment. It is not in any lack of confidence 
in the spirit of the people that we say private in- 
itiative must be given to secure public improve- 
-ments. There is need in this country for that 
by which England has profited so much an in- 
telligent and patriotic leisure class devoted to pub- 
lic progress and social unification people that 
have time to think consecutively, time to act in- 
telligently not so much for others as with others, 
and will operate as the something to bind together 
upon more or less common ground, those that 
otherwise would not be likely to meet, mingle and 
co-operate. There is also pressing need for origi- 
nal investigation and some scientific tabulation 
of the great body of facts, the product of our mod- 
ern industrial life that are new forces in Sociology. 
In all these social centers there are persons of 
more or less trained capacity for observation and 
co-operation in lines of civic improvement. In 
London, Boston, New York and Chicago, investi- 
gations of specific social problems have been care- 
fully and intelligently made and data of the high- 
est scientific and practical value has been collected 
and tabulated. Wood's "The City Wilderness," 
"Hull House Maps and Papers," Melendy's "Sub- 
stitutes for the Saloon" and many tenement house, 



THE COMMONS 



sweatshop and sanitation reports afford original 
sources of information upon questions of immedi- 
ate civic concern. These little groups that can com- 
mand more time than those engaged in the com- 
petitive world should be responsible for practical 
literature upon such subjects. As they gain in 
resources these centers will surely supply these 
investigators and literature. We cordially invite 
our friends of the improvement associations to 
make all the use they can of the plants or the per- 
sonnel of these centers called social settlements. 
We will supply literature, invite correspondence 
give information regarding books or public docu- 
ments or other sources of information or inspira- 
tion. We also pledge that we will make all these 
centers in congested districts just so far as we 
can, self-improvement associations of the peopl" 
surrounding us, who work with us. and with 
whom it is our high and happy privilege to work. 
It seems as though this was) the birth of a 
new era in Chicago. I congratulate the National 
League of Improvement Associations upon the 
fine initiative they have taken and I bespeak for 
them a hearty co-operation in their broad work 
throughout the country. There could be no bet- 
ter national leader for this movement than our 
own Prof. Zeublin." . 

THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. 

Speaking to the topic of "Municipal Art," Mr. 
Dwight Perkins said "It is a common mistake 
to think that art is something we can take off or 
put on as one's coat. Let us understand positively 
and definitely that art is the manner in which we 
do the things that we must do. We should culti- 
vate the sense of including in 'our judgments and 
exacting in all work the artistic element. Princi- 
ples apply to communities exactly the same as to 
individuals. As a community in the furtherance 
of our community needs it depends upon us wheth- 
er there will exist or will not exist the artistic 
element. The first work in order to bring about 
some realization of our dreams is the work of 
the iconoclast. The smoke nuisance is the first 
move. Until smoke is done away with nothing 
can be beautiful. Then we come to the evils of 
our political system. The evils of city govern- 
ment are our evils. A greater necessity than for 
private initiative demands that we go into city 
politics. We cannot bring an artistic city out of 
this mudhole until we educate even aldermen to 
some sense of decency and beauty. Art is funda- 
mental, ethical, and if anywhere must be every- 
where. We must work through political channels. 
Now let us take the positive side. What shall 
we do to make Chicago beautiful. First must 
come a knowledge of conditions. Nothing would 
be more interesting than to take the people in 



this room around Chicago. Doubtless not more 
than three persons here have been in every ward 
of this city. When we know our 'city as k stands 
then let us get an idea of the situation of Chi- 
cago in its worldwide relations. First Chicago's 
position in regard to nature's supply of beauty. 
Next the industries that cause us to live here. 
Chicago is fast becoming the largest iron and 
steel centre in the world. It is known to Euro- 
pean investors that as a distributing centre we 
have but begun. Having an adequate knowledge 
of our city as it is and an appreciation of its rea- 
sonable future the next step is a plan. No in- 
telligent and consecutive effort can be made with- 
out carefully prearranged, thoroughly studied con- 
stantly revised plan. No artistic elevation can 
come out of a poorly arranged plan. This plan 
should consider greater Chicago and a complete 
dock system for Chicago harbor. South Chicago 
should take from our Chicago river the heavy 
freighting. This plan would change the river 
wards, include lighter and permanent bridges and 
make of this neglected district the most beau- 
tiful part of our city. Intramural transportation 
must finally be underground. The top of the 
streets must be eventually clear for pedestrians 
and driving. Recreation parks, baths and public 
buildings should be provided for in a compre- 
hensive and related scheme. The cities of Wash- 
ington and Paris present the models for this plan." 
Mr. Perkins concluded with a sympathetic re- 
view of the work done by private efforts in se- 
curing small parks and playgrounds in the con- 
gested districts of Chicago. 

ORGANIZED CHARITY 

Superintendent Ernest P. Bicknell of the Chi- 
cago Bureau of Charities said : "There should be 
specialization on one hand and co-operation on the 
other. Eight years ago the Bureau of Charities 
ivas organized. Its processes are to assist in es- 
tablishing organized effort to take the place of 
disorganized efforts, and to give each charitable 
society a clear field in its district and a chance to 
do that thing it can do best. There are in Chi- 
cago some five hundred or more organized agen- 
cies that work in friendly relations with each 
other through this common centre known as the 
Bureau of Charities. The Bureau serves as a sort 
of general agency or instrument in getting the 
sense of charitable opinion in the city and it gath- 
ers together and concentrates public sentiment. 
When this general Bureau was established it was 
found that there were many bare spots and much 
overlapping. This has practically ceased through 
the general oversight of a central related agency. 
By concentrating in the hands of the Bureau, the 
outing work this summer was done in a much 



THE COMMONS 



better and less expensive way and upon a greatly 
larger scale. With the co-operation of many 
agencies nine thousand mothers and children were 
given outings this season." 

LOCAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS. 

Mrs. Gertrude Blackwcldcr spoke of the his- 
tory of the movement and told of the first Im- 
provement Society organized at Stockbridge. 
Mass., fifty years ago. Over five hundred societies 
are now registered with the National League. The 
story of the work done by the Morgan Park So- 
ciety was typical of this field of endeavor. First 
a pretty park was made of the grounds about the 
railway station, next the streets were cleaned and 
sidewalks improved, and even the hideous posters 
were replaced by three public bulletin boards in 
the most frequented parts of the town. A Mor- 
gan Park Day has been established as the an- 
nual muster of the forces of civic progress in tliat 
community. 

PUBLICITY. 

1 he afternoon session devoted to "Improve- 
ment through Citizenship" was marked by several 
notable addresses. Mr. Wiliam Kent of the Muni- 
cipal Voters League described the uses and power 
of "publicity" in removing social evils and purify- 
ing municipal administration. He contended that 
the chief source of the corrupt politician's power 
lay in the ignorance of the facts of venality, on the 
part of the mass of the people and their conse- 
quent seeming indifference to social and political 
wrongs. The keynote of this able paper was 
"turn on the light." 

TAXATION. 

The problem of taxation is the common root 
to which an analysis of all municipal wrongs and 
remedies inevitably leads. This is the source of 
our civic .ancemia. Insufficent school accommo- 
dations, lack of parks, playgrounds, and baths, 
filthy; streets and alleys festering with garbage 
and disease, have a common excuse in the chro- 
nic depletion of the city treasury. This is not 
because we are poor. Chicago is a city of vast 
wealth. Neither is it because we have no remedy 
under the law. Shortsighted and unscientific as 
is our revenue system it would if enforced, give 
ample funds for the present needs of our city. 
'I he simple fact is that dishonest corporations, in- 
dividuals and public servants perjure themselves 
annually and corrupt with one hand the heart of 
our civic life, and' with the other rob little chil- 
dren iif their birthright. Margaret Haley of the 
Teachers Federation that most aggressive and 
effective enemy of the tax thieves yet developed 
said in part "For twenty-eight years there has 
been no enforcement of the law taxing the fran- 
chises of public service corporations. Two hun- 



dred millions of dollars have been lost to the 
city treasury within that period from this neg- 
lect alone. Five corporations holding franchises 
granted by the city of Chicago annually steal three 
million dollars from die public schools. Until the 
tax laws are enforced we will have corrupt pub- 
lic servants and we will not have parks, play- 
grounds or baths. The co-operation and organ- 
ized attack by all the Improvement Societies of 
Chicago upon this central abuse, would stamp it 
out, educate our children, and change the face of 
our city." 

WlNNETKA TOWN MEETING. 

The return by the citizens of Winnetka to the 
old custom of New England towns in the matter 
of public meetings of all citizens in the interest 
of public affairs was interestingly told by Mr. 
Frederick Greeley. In 1890 Henry D. Lloyd and 
Rev. Q. L. Dowd began this movement. Schools, 
parks, and all matters of public concern are dis- 
cussed by all the people and a civic conscience 
has been developed fruitful in good works. The 
town meeting is now an established and powerful 
feature of Winnetka's social and political life. 
PUBLIC BATHS AND GYMNASIUMS. 

Miss Mary McDowell of the University of Chi- 
cago settlement whose untiring zeal in the cause 
of vacation schools, playgrounds and free baths 
has won for her the respect of indifferent alder- 
men, the esteem of all patriotic citizens and the 
love of hundreds of little children, said in part ; 

"At the small public bath in our neighborhood 
with only twelve showers for a population 
of thirty thousand, fourteen thousand baths 
were taken in the month of July. There 
are no bath rooms in houses in our com- 
munity. Swimming pools are educational 
and social and mean something more than 
just a chance to keep clean. There are two in- 
stincts given to all of us. The instinct of associ- 
ation and the instinct of play. Within walk- 
ing distance of the settlement there are twelve 
boys clubs. The influence of some of these clubs 
is demoralizing because of their location and sur- 
roundings. We need local centers, and there 
should be a People's Palace in every neighbor- 
hood." 

PuBLic'ScHooi, EXTENSION. 

1 he evening session devoted to consideration 
of ways and means for social and civic service 
through the public schools, was the most largely 
attended meeting' of this inspiring conference. 
Superintendent Orville T. Bright speaking upon 
the question of free text books said "An order 
was given this year by our Board for the pur- 
chase of $40,000, worth of books for the supply 
of the first four grades in the public schools. No, 



THE COMMONS 



one ever gave this subject much thought who did 
not come to believe in free text books. There was 
a time when I thought I was opposed to the 
city furnishing books free. But that was before 
I had studied this question. I was then an ig- 
norant opponent. I am now an intelligent advo- 
cate for free text books. What is the sense of 
furnishing the schools with the apparatus maps, 
reference books, supplementary books and equip- 
ment of all kinds and then draw the line at the 
text books? Our schools rnt a Km it nitjht million 
dollars a year or forty thousand dollars a day. 
The delay in getting books always means a loss 
of from one to three days at the beginning of 
each term. The text books only cost about forty 
thousand dollars. The conclusion is obvious. If 
free school are good, free text books are simply 
common sense and business principles in their 
administration. Chicago is the only first class 
city in the United States to-day that has not 
free text books." 

ART IN THE SCHOOL. 

Miss Ellen Gates Starr of Hull House spoke of 
that work in which she was a pioneer for many 
years the bringing in and bringing out of the 
artistic element in the public schools. The sense 
and power of beauty in color and form to shape 
ideals and habits of thought for these she plead- 
ed with the deep persuasion of an abiding faith. 
SCHOOLS AS NEIGHBORHOOD CENTERS. 

Miss Jane Addams spoke briefly for a larger use 
of the public schools for clubs, lectures and neigh- 
borhood entertainments. "These wider functions 
should not mean more work for the school teach- 
ers. There would be a large body of volunteer 
workers to help supply every district. The public 
school is the typical democratic institution and it 
should be made the center of our collective life." 
PROGRESS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL EXTENSION. 

Prof. Zeublin, President of the National League 
of Improvement Associations provided a fitting 
and inspiring close to the proceedings of this re- 
markable conference. His illustrated lecture upon 
Public School Extension throughout the United 
States, with striking pictures of model kindergar- 
tens, manual training and cooking schools, lec- 
ture halls and playgrounds, carried us into the 
van of the world's progress and crystalized into 
definite aims the growing purpose of the day. 



"Co-operation can go on in America, Great 
Britain and on the continent only fty the help 
of men of means, culture, and good will." 

"What co-operation needs here, as elsewhere, 
is not philanthropy, but leadership; not en- 
dowment, but initiative." 



Friedrich Naumann. . 

LEADER OF THE NATIONAL SOCIAL UNION OF GER- 
MANY. 
BY PROF. CASPAR RENE GREGORY. 

South of Leipzig, on the rolling ground rising 
fr.om the North German plain towards the Ore 
Mountains of Saxony, is a little village Storm- 
thai, that lies quite at one side from the great 
roads and is never seen by the passing traveler. 
In this village Friedrich Naumann was born as 
the son of the pastor. His maternal grandfather 
was the famous Leipzig preacher Ahlfeld, the cen- 
tre of a large and intelligent circle of Christians, 
some twenty-five years ago. Naumann went to the 
old Fuerstenschule at Grimma ; it will be remem- 
bered that Saxony counted three such schools, at 
Meissen, Grimma, and Pforta, of which Pforta 
now belongs to the Prussian province Saxony. 
These schools with a large number of boys, many 
of them picked fellows, are celebrated for the 
wonderfully good training which they give. No 
less are they celebrated for the friendships that 
arise between the boys within their walls and 
for the results of these friendships in the after 
lives of the men. Naumann here became warmly 
attached to Paul Goehre and Martin Wenck, and 
many an impulse started there that continued its 
influence in after years. 

At the university of Leipzig Naumann devel- 
oped more clearly his unusual powers. He fell 
in with the great current that started the "Union 
of German Students" (Verein Deutscher Stu- 
denten) and he became one of the leading spirits 
in it. This drew him out beyond the university 
of his home and attached him to the Prussian 
preacher Adolf Stacker by ties of friendship and 
of devotion to the patriotic movement. In the 
first years this movement was unfortunately large- 
ly anti-semitic in its aim. As Stoecker went on 
with his great plans and descended to the working 
classes to lift, and to help them socially, the 
young pastor Friedrich Naumann, now in the hills 
of Saxony, in the first district that the Social 
Democrats had secured for their party for the 
Imperial Parliament, entered into his ideas with 
youthful fire. 

One of the results of Stacker's efforts was the 
Evangelical Social Congress, begun at Berlin in 
the year 1890. Naumann was asked to read an 
essay at the first meeting but he suggested 
a postponement. His friend Goehre became 
the first General Secretary of the Congress. 
Nearly at the same time the Evangelical Work- 
men's Unions were started, of course under the 
active participation of Stacker, Naumann, Gcehre, 
and Wenck. In the sequence, year after year, the 
Evangelical Social Congress and the Evangelical 



THE COMMONS 



Workmen's Unions met usually at Easter in Ber- 
lin or in some other large city, and year after 
year Stoecker and Naumann, backed up by Gcehre 
and Wenck, drew great crowds of enthusiastic 
hearers. Naumann became the pastor of the Un- 
ion for Inner Mission at Frankfurt on the Main, 
Wenck the pastor of the same Union atDarmstadt, 
and Goehre pastor at Frankfurt on the Oder. 

Stacker started a political party, the Christian 
Social Party, and in consequence was asked to lay 
down the presidency of the Evangelical Social 
Congress, which after some hesitation he did, but 
he at the same time left the Congress. Naumann 
on the contrary stayed in the congress. Naumann 
had gathered a group of friends and helpers about 
him by means of a small weekly paper called 
"The Help" (Die Hilfe.) His own contributions 
to this paper centered in a weekly short sermon 
and these sermons attained such renown that they 
were year by year printed afresh in a separate 
volume. To the Naumann Group, as we may 
now call the friends gathering around him, the 
action of Stacker did not seem to come so far 
down to the needs of the workmen as was to be 
wished. Stacker allowed his feelings as a former 
member of the Conservative Party to influence 
him to such an extent as to prevent his entering 
into the very core of the workmen's difficulties. 
Naumann, Goehre, and Wenck thought that the 
only way to get hold of the workmen a.nd to 
help the workmen, was to go straight into the 
discussion of their condition from their side and 
with them as helpers. 

The Friends of "The Help," those who read 
and agreed with Naumann's paper had long since 
begun to hold meetings in various towns, and they 
now spread more and more and made it a point 
to confer with him. It was thought best to or- 
ganize the groups and to combine them. After 
a meeting or two of a more intimate kind at 
Erfurt, in which men from different parts of Ger- 
many talked over the whole situation, it was de- 
termined to summon a number of delegates to a 
general meeting at that city. It seems to me that 
the first meeting was in 1896. This meeting dis- 
cussed at length the question of the union of re- 
ligion with politics. Professor Sohm pleading for 
the union, others, like the undersigned, against it, 
and finally it was agreed that religion was not to 
be made a part of the new party programme. An- 
other subject of discussion was whether the move- 
ment should remain a Union or try at once to be 
a political party. It was decided to remain a 
Union, and the undersigned's suggestion, to call 
it the "National Social Union," was agreed to. 

The elections for the Imperial Parliament in the 
year 1898 found the young Union really still too 



weak for a decisive political action, since there 
was neither enough money at command nor were 
public speakers for election purposes to be had to 
the extent that was necessary. However, it was 
determined to try in several districts to gain some 
experience in election technics and to see how far 
the general public might be relied upon for sym- 
pathy. The result of the election in eleven dis- 
tricts was so far encouraging as to count up 
twenty-seven thousand votes. But no candidate' 
was elected. Humanly speaking it seemed as if 
Naumann wotrid have been elected in one dis- 
trict, had not the National-Liberals of that dis- 
trict, Jena, spread false reports about him in a per- 
fiidious manner on the eve of the election, a trick 
that in Germany is considered very low. 

The National Social Union sustained for a 
short time a daily paper at Berlin called "The 
Time" (Die Zeit. ) It is remarkable what a high 
reputation this journal secured for itself within 
the brief space of its existence. One thing it 
made a regular business of, and that was always 
to print as fully as possible the attacks made up- 
on it by its enemies. But aside from that the 
little sheet was recognized on all sides as an un- 
usual contribution to pure journalism. The ques- 
tion of its resuscitation has again and again been 
mooted but thus far (he financial difficulties have 
seemed to be insurmountable. Perhaps a maga- 
zine may this fall be started that will help further 
the aims of the Union. 

The greatest loss that the Union sustained was 
early in the year 1899 when Gcehre decided to go 
over to the Social Democratic party. His friends 
feel sure that this step was a mistaken one and 
that it was due to misconceptions and misappre- 
hensions, the consequences of a severe nervous 
prostration of that year, during which he had com- 
pletely forgotten what he had done during the 
election of the year 1898. He had then accepted 
two candidacies and had stumped for them till 
his throat gave out, whereas he declared in the 
year 1899 that he had accepted no candidacy in 
1898 because he was out of sympathy with the 
other leaders of the movement. It is a question 
whether he and the Social Democrats will long 
continue to agree to disagree with each other 
under the flag of the one party. 

The Union had from the first the invaluable 
services of Martin Wenck as its Secretary. Now 
it has been possible to find a younger man for 
that place, and Wenck takes up the editorship of 
one of the journals of the party at Marburg. In 
this position he will be able to place more freely 
at the service of the Union his unusual powers 
as an orator and especially as a dialectic orator. 

The young man who succeeds to Wenck as Sec- 



6 



THE COMMONS 



retary is Dr. Max Maurenbrecher, one of the 
most talented writers and orators of his age. He 
has passed through an apprenticeship in the edi- 
torship of the "Hilfe" under Naumann, and it is 
now intended so to reorganize the Secretaryship, 
that the more mechanical work shall be given 
to an assistant, the higher, organizing work 
falls to Maurenbrecher. The purpose is to make 
him like a General-Adjutant to Naumann. What 
the action of the fall meeting of the delegates at 
Frankfurt on the Main may be, I cannot at this 
distance learn till later. 

Beginning 1 with Naumann's person we have 
passed to a view of his work as a social reformer. 
Let us return to him. He is a tall man, extremely 
stout, with a persuasive and farreaching voice. 
One of the opposing journals, a Hamburg organ 
of the imperial government, said a short time 
ago that he was the most talented political speak- 
er of the day. It was right. Naumann speaks as 
if he had each of his hearers by the button and 
his quiet sentences enter their ears with unusual 
force. He has not been satisfied to acl 
as an agitator, to speak and not to learn. 
He has entered upon studies in political eco- 
nomy and in social science. He has visited for- 
eign cities, for example Vienna and Paris, for 
the purposes of studying social problems there. 
He journeyed to the Holy Land and wrote a fas- 
cinating book on "Asia" about his travels, every- 
where trying to delve into the reason for the so- 
cial phenomena ; in a parenthesis we may add 
that the illustrations in that book are largely 
from his pencil. 

One of the most valuable contributions from 
his pen is his book "Democracy and Imperialism," 
the most masterly political treatise of the day. 
This book brings us to his main point' in all his 
work. He insists upon it, that Imperialism and 
Democracy can unite, that the German emperor 
might find in the German workman a firm ally, 
and the German workman find in the emperor a 
fast friend. Naumann yields in care for the 
workman to no man of any party and he insists 
upon it in contradiction to the Social Democratic 
party, that the betterment of the workman is 
to be sought at once, under the present conditions, 
under the present government. The Social Demo- 
crats concede that they are not prepared at this 
moment to assume the reins of government, even 
supposing that the nation should place these reins 
in their hands. Nevertheless they refuse to unite 
with other parties and with the present govern- 
ment in measures ' for alleviating social distress. 
They delay their participation in such measures 
until that uncertain future in which they shall 
attain unto power. Naumann declares this un- 



practical and false. A politician is a man of his 
day. He must think of the moment as well as 
of the future. We have no part in the discussions 
at the end of the twentieth century. We have to 
look out for our day. Therefore Naumann calls 
upon the workmen to follow- him, to give up the 
thought of warring upon the government and to 
join with the government in social measures which 
shall take effect at once and be the earnest of 
further relief in the future. 

On the other hand Naumann knows well that 
the educated part of the community must be en- 
listed to join with the workman and help them 
get their dues. In many of the universities of 
Germany important men are openly or in a quiet 
way showing that they agree with Naumann or 
at least sympathize with him in his main views. 
A number of Naumann's writings have aimed es- 
pecially to enlighten the educated and to draw 
thorn to his side in the contest. Thus far he 
has met with much success on the one side and 
on the other, in spite of all bitter opposition. May 
he finally achieve his ends to the weal of the 
whole nation. . 

Settlement Service An Apprecia- 
tion. 

BY DWIGHT GODDARB. 

All summer I spent in the heart of Chicago. 
I had stood on Milwaukee Avenue and watched 
the crowds, at early morning, go hurrying city- 
ward and at even-tide stream homeward, tired 
and dispirited. I had trodden the interminable 
streets that branch north and south and east and 
west from this great artery, each walled in by 
three and four deckers and every corner guarded 
by a saloon. Here and there great six storied 
factories made the streets more repulsive and 
their towering chimneys belched forth clouds of 
soft coal smoke. Not far away the vast railroads 
with their incessant traffic added their quota of 
soot and noise. The fresh winds from Lake 
Michigan were all too quickly loaded with smoke 
and dust and soot and only made more grimy 
these dun colored blocks that crowded each other 
street beyond street. There were no parks, no 
greensward, no trees ! Only here and there a lit- 
tle patch of starved, spindling flowers, where some 
brave attempt had been made to transform the 
barrenness of it all and had failed. Nothing to 
cheer ! simply a monotony of dreary, uninviting 
streets, a wilderness of irregular roofs, and dirty 
chimneys. Then the noise ! the dull, heavy roar 
of the city. Shrill* cries of children, the banging 
of heavy drays on the pavements, the screech of 
the trolley cars, the roar of the elevated roads, all 
mingling into one distracting, deafening, inde- 
scribable clangor. 



THE COMMONS 



That was last summer ! Now in the beautiful, 
early fall, I am spending a few days in dear, old 
New England. The early frosts have glorified 
the forests that border the still, smilling meadows 
and pastures. The horizon is limited by the si- 
lent grandeur of the eternal hills. Here the still- 
ness is very restful, the little sounds that come 
and go only serving to add to its charm. The 
rustle of wind in the trees, the twitter of birds, 
the chatter of a sociable squirrel, the call of crows 
and the voices of men mellowed by the distance. 

How attractive life seems in these surroundings ! 
How delightful ! Under its benign influence how 
naturally one wants to be a better man, to be 
more patient, happy and helpful ; to be more grate- 
ful to the good God who has made it all so beau- 
tiful and so fruitful. I am ashamed when I think 
how unworthy I am compared with many of the 
people I met last summer in the crowded Seven- 
teenth Ward of Chicago. Day after day I entered 
the homes of my people and found so many of 
them cheerful and hopeful in spite of their dreary 
surroundings. The closing of the hall door so 
often shut me in to the cheeriest of homes. Of- 
ten in the homes of those I thought to be the 
very poor, I found a little cottage organ and 
the walls made bright with pictures hoarded from 
the Sunday newspapers. So often, I found the 
bravest facing of life's struggle by the ones most 
handicapped by a drunken father, dependant rela- 
tives, or a long drawn-out sickness. There always 
seemed to be something to inspire me, even in 
the homes of the deepest poverty, a dear little 
child, the brave helpfulness of a son or daughter, 
the self sacrifice of some mother. There were 
all too many scenes of brutality, pathetic pictures 
of earthly sorrow, but in those narrow flats I 
found so many and it made me thankful to God 
so many who were happy and contented, undis- 
mayed by the obstacles and limitations that 
hedged them in, unconquered by the grinding 
poverty and endless, relentless round of the years. 

Ah, that is the secret of the noblest living! 
To be brave, cheerful, triumphant, wherever our 
lines are cast, and if there is given to us a richer 
measure of strength or opportunity, to use it in 
kindly service for our fellow men. 



Settlements in Philadelphia. 

ANNA F. DAVIES, HEADWORKER, COLLEGE 

SETTLEMENT. 

The small number of Settlements in Philadel- 
phia may be suggestive of various ideas. The fact 
has been used as an argument that the city's 
need of such agencies is comparatively slight, 
and it has been offered on the other hand as proof 
of the general slowness of the place. The indubita- 



ble fact that settlement interests seem to be 
"looking up" at present as never before, may seem 
to justify the latter view. To find the settlement 
stock rising is gratifying, for on some accounts 
Philadelphia offers especially satisfactory ground 
for the working out of the settlement forms of 
life. It has not the overcrowding, the insuffer- 
able high tenements, the abnormal speed and 
"smartness" that to its temperamental citizen seem 
symptoms of acute social disease in New York 
and Chicago. One feels in Philadelphia that the 
processes of civilization are killing people less 
rapidly than elsewhere, if not less surely, and 
that it may prove more rewarding in the long 
run to be a live man in a "dead city" than a 
dead man in a "live city." It seems natural here 
for Settlement living to have a domestically so- 
cial flavor that is more difficult in other places. 
This gives a definite charm, and, to many visitors 
and residents, has seemed characteristic and some- 
what unique. 

The College Settlement, under the College Set- 
tlement Association, is the oldest of the Philadel- 
phia Settlements. A new house opened by the 
Episcopalian deaconesses within the past month 
is the youngest. The Lighthouse, the Eighth 
Ward Settlement, and the University Christian 
Settlement under the management of the Y. M. 
C. A. of the University of Pennsylvania, fill in 
the years between. The different houses touch 
widely differing neighborhoods. 

THE EIGHTH WARD SETTLEMENT. 

The Eighth Ward Settlement attracts especial 
attention because it has the rare distinction of 
adapting itself to a negro population, and sec- 
ondarily because it has a fine new building. Not 
a great deal of money has as yet come into Settle- 
ment use in our city, but this building, while not 
large, has been planned for its present use, and 
is a fine example of what ought to be done in 
many needy localities. It has baths, laundry, gym- 
nasium, club rooms, and appartments for resi- 
dents on the top floor. The head of the house 
once said they issued no reports because they had 
so many discouragements they could not make 
them read well. After four years' experience, 
however, confidence has increased, and progress 
is plainly visible not only in the development 
of individual lives but in the condition of the 
neighborhood to eye and nose. A certain area 
has been deeply reformed in the sanitary sense. 
The curse of surface drainage has been largely 
subdued. The broom brigade sweeps the alleys. 
What was dirty has been made clean, and is kept 
so by devoted visitation and all kinds of care. 

Up to this time the work has been almost ex- 
clusively with children, but this winter is to in- 



THE COMMONS 



augurate a campaign for organization among the 
women. One of the trying experiences of the 
days in the old house was in the musical line. 
Rooms were occupied in a building used in part 
as a mission of the Orthodox Friends. No music 
was the rule ; and that rule, inflicted on colored 
children, went far towards destroying the beauty 
of many days. 

A SOCIAL LIGHT HOUSE. 

The Lighthouse and the interests associated 
with it have never called themselves a Settle- 
ment, and they have no place in "the Biblio- 
graphy." They have grown from the simplest 
beginnings to be an important factor in the life 
of Kensington, "that district of Philadelphia 
which is the center of the textile industry in this 
country." During the past six years a more than 
self-supporting restaurant has developed, a large 
men's club has been organized which has a fine 
and strong 1 social life, a library has been main- 
tained, lectures, concerts, debates, etc., have en- 
livened the winter nights, and recently a roof 
garden has provided a resource for the summer. 
THE BOYS' CLUB. 

The Boys' Club of the Church Club of Phila- 
delphia has been under the charge of Miss Kelly. 
who has lived in the district for some time, 
and last year moved into a beautifully appointed 
building erected for its special use. From the 
stamp savings center has grown a full fledged 
Savings Bank. The Visiting Nurse Society has 
sent resident nurses to the district, who work 
under Miss Kelly's direction. "The work is be- 
coming more and more important as its influ- 
ence steadily intensifies.- The constant testimony 
of the men themselves is that even apart from 
the benefit to those who are directly dentified 
with it, no other measure of equal value to the 
neighborhood could well be adopted by those who 
are interested in the problems of workingmen's 
lives." In short the Lighthouse .is genuinely a 
settlement in spirit and work. It has come to a 
point where it must establish a wider basis oi 
support, since the funds of the Union Benevolent 
Society, which has been its main financial sup- 
port, are no longer available. It is no great 
amount that is needed from year to year to a's- 
sure the permanence and growth of its work, 
and there can be little doubt that the interest 
of the community will be more than sufficient to 
meet the impending need. 

THE UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT. 

The University Christian Settlement has taken 
a house in an Irish and American neighborhood 
within easy distance of the University. As yet 
no continuous resident force has developed. A 
considerable work has been done in a boys' club, 



a summer camp has been opened, and last winter 
corresponding work for girls was undertaken. 
This beginning is good and the house will doubt- 
less grow into an all-around settlement in the 
near future. The early days with the Irish gangs 
tested the mettle of the students. The athletes 
were the most potent factor in the conquest of 
the street. One of the leaders in the movement 
for the settlement, who was strong on the theory 
of religious influence, does not hesitate to say 
that his present steady pull with the boys was 
secured by playing the foot ball heroes as lead- 
ing attractions for many weeks. 

The necessity of moving two years ago be- 
cause of the opening of the Starr Garden Park 
lost the College Settlement some of the advan- 
tages of age. It has gained in other ways, how- 
ever, more than enough to offset the loss. The 
larger and better house has made possible a 
greater number of residents, and has increased 
greatly the opportunities of social intercourse. 
The organized activities of the house are fairly 
covered by the following enumeration. 

Stamp Savings' Bank. 

Childrens' Clubs and public meetings for chil- 
dren, especially the clubs using various manual 
occupations, stories, games, music, dancing, and 
gymnastics. 

Study rooms for "home study" especially de- 
signed to supplement the work of the public 
schools among foreigners. 

Small neighborhood Library. 

Circluating Picture Library of the Civic Club. 

Literary, Social, and Dramatic Clubs among the 
young people. 

Classes in almost any subject demanded, pro- 
vided other agencies do not already offer satis- 
factory opportunities. 

Lectures, musical and dramatic entertainments, 
etc., during the winter months. 

A tiny roof garden is constantly in use through 
ihe summer. 

A Country Club, for the last two years almost 
self-supporting, is managed by settlement resi- 
dents whenever a suitable house can be obtained. 
A permanent country house is a crying need. 
A SCHOLARSHIP. 

A scholarship of three hundred dollars per year 
is maintained by general subscriptions, on the 
plan of a College Scholarship, for the training 
of social workers in both theory and practice. 

Volunteer Sanitary Inspection within a limited 
area. 

Co-operation with Juvenile Court by supplying 
one Probation Officer, who resides in the Settle- 
ment. 

The Settlement carries on its work at two cen- 



THE COMMONS 



ters, 433 Christian street, and 502 South Front 
street. The latter house is managed by the Set- 
tlment, part of the rooms being retained t 
snci.-il work, the rest rented as tenements. It is 
proposed to establish residents in this house, and 
to increase considerably its usefulness to the river 
front population. 

The overwhelming need of the College Settle- 
ment is an extension of its plant. Within a month 
it could easily use twice its present space. Nearly 
everything it is doing in the way of neighborhood 
organization is being done in miniature as com- 
pared with the possibilities. Many demands are 
made upon it which it is entirely unable to meet, 
ar.d vliich suggest a thoroughly modern build 1 . ;g 
and an athletic field as the logical next step. May 
it be taken at an early date! 

While Philadelphia Settlements are strong on 
the side of a full and genuine social life, the 
side of civic work seems weak. Possibly, if more 
men would apply themselves to social service 
of the Settlement type, this line of effort could 
be strengthened. Possibly the deadly miasm of 
indifference and inertia so prevalent in state and 
city politics may be too pervasive to counteract, 
belonging to the climate and in a sense a normal 
local evil. If this be true Heaven help Philadel 
phia, for it promises to become a sort of civic 
Campagna, politically uninhabitable except at the 
inevitable sacrifice of moral health. 
Philadelphia, October 10, 1901. 



College Settlement Association. 

EDITED BY 
MRS. CAROLINE WILLIAMSON MONTGOMERY. 



Over J3hf Open Hearth at Denison House. 

Burn, Fire, burn ! 
Flicker, flicker, flame ! 
Whose hand above this blaze is lifted 
Shall be with touch of magic gifted, 
To warm the heart of chilly mortals 
Who stand without these open portals. 
The touch shall draw them to this fire, 

Nigher, nigher, 

By Desire. 
Whoso shall stand 
On this hearth-stone, 
Flame- fanned, 

Shall never, never stand alone. 
Whose home is dark and drear and old, 
Whose hearth is cold, 
This is his own. 
Flicker, flicker, flicker, " flame ! 
Burn fire, burn ! 

Florence Converse, Oct. MDCCCXCVI. 



ANNUAL MEETING AT BOSTON. 

The College Settlement Association held its 
eleventh annual meeting at Denison House, 93 
Tyler Street, Boston on Saturday, October twelfth. 
Miss Katherine Coman presided over the sessions 
of the Electoral Board. 

Among the items of public interest was the re- 
port upon the exhibit of the College Settlement 
Association at the Pan American Exposition, 
which took the form of an album of settlement 
photographs that at the close of the Exposition 
will be on exhibition in turn, at each of the three 
settlements under the care of the association, in 
New York, Philadelphia and Boston. 

In response to the offer of the settlement 
monthly, THE COMMONS, to add a department to 
be devoted to the interest of the College Settle- 
ment Association, the Electoral Board voted to ap- 
point an editor to have charge of it, and also 
appropriated the sum of fifty dollars toward the 
maintenance and development of the paper. Mrs. 
Caroline Williamson Montgomery has accepted 
this appointment and enters upon the editorship 
of this deparment of THE COMMONS at once. 



THE COPLEY HALL MEETING. 

The public session of the Association in Copley 
Hall was very well attended by the residents and 
constituencies of the several settlements. Welles- 
ley College students served as 'ushers. Miss 
Katherine Coman, professor of Economics and 
Sociology in Wellesley College and president of 
the Association, was chairman of the meeting. In 
her introductory remarks she traced the influence 
of residence upon those who had during the past 
decade constituted the three settlemnt households 
under the care of the Association. Forty-seven 
per cent, of their three hundred residents re- 
mained actively identified with varied lines of 
philanthropic work after leaving the settlements. 
Twenty-three had become Head Workers. So 
pervasive have the settlement spirit and way of 
working come to be, that under the general recog- 
nition and adoption given the movement in many 
influential quarters, it has ceased to be a new evan- 
gel and become an accepted method on many 
and varied lines of social service. Fifteen col- 
leges are very actively represented in the Associa- 
tion. 

The Rivington street settlement in New York 
was represented by its Head-Worker, Miss Wil- 
liams. With discriminating comparison, she showed, 
the marked advance made in the recent tenement 
house legislation, which was initiated by the Char- 
ity Organization Society committee on the regu- 
lation of such buildings and was formulated by 
the legislative Commission of the New York state 



10 



THE COMMONS 



legislature. The law abolished the prevailing twen- 
ty-eight inch ''air-shaft," which almost always 
proved a conduit for foul air, instead of a fresh- 
air ventilator and substituted the peremptorily re- 
quired court, twenty-four feet square. Not more 
than seventy per cent, of the city lot may be cov- 
ered by the building, and at least twelve feet rear 
space must be kept clear. Tenement houses over 
five stories high must be fire-proof in construction. 
Every room must include 70 feet of air space and 
one room in each suite must contain 120 square 
feet. In addition to exacting provisions for super- 
vision and certificates of inspection, a card cata- 
logue record of the deaths, diseases and arrests in 
each tenement is to be statedly made and filed for 
public reference. While the law is being opposed 
and some of its impracticable features may be 
modified by the building contractors, yet forty-one 
permits have been issued already under the law as 
it stands, which is encouraging in view of the fact 
that i, too had been issued just previous to the 
supercedure of the former lax regulations. The 
improved tenements will be at a premium so that 
the poorer people must long continue to live under 
the old conditions. To test their danger and dis- 
comfort, four residents lived in two three-room 
apartments for seven months. So dark and either 
dangerously drafty or close were the rooms that 
they were abandoned as unfit for habitatipn. 

Miss Davies, Head-Worker of the Christian St. 
Settlement, Philadelphia, incisively argued for the 
non-scholastic educational opportunities, agencies 
and results emphasized by the settlements. In 
their constituencies, as in the school of life, re- 
sults are neither exclusively mental nor the prod- 
uct of books. As in the economic and industrial 
organization of the day, so in the settlement edu- 
cational effort with working-people, the agency of 
association is chiefly depended upon for practical 
effectiveness. The philosophy underlying this as- 
sociative method to which our educational work 
with adults is in large part restricted, demands 
conscious effort to define and develop it. 
. Denison House, on Tyler St., Boston, was spo- 
ken for by its Head- Worker, Miss Dudley. Briefly 
reviewing the past two years, she regarded their 
greatest advance to have been made in industrial 
work. The older boys had raised $365 by their 
very creditable rendering of "The Merchant of 
Venice" $200 of which they had contributed toward 
manual training for the younger boys. A wom- 
en's study club had given $90 toward the equip- 
ment of the gymnasium the conduct of which had 
been turned over to the city. The registration of 
women to vote on educational interests had been 
furthered by the settlement. Much encouragement 
in promoting an enlightened civic conscience 



among the well-to-do was experienced in the in- 
creasing recognition of unjust conditions and co- 
operation in improving them. 

Professor Graham Taylor of the Sociological 
department in Chicago Theological Seminary and 
Resident Warden of Chicago Commons spoke, as 
the guest of the Association, upon "The appeal of 
(he social ideal for an intelligent plan of action." 
A quarter century has passed since the fore-run- 
ner of the settlement movement went from 
Oxford University to the city wilderness of 
White Chapel. Sixteen years have elapsed since 
the first settlement was established to com- 
memorate and carry on the prophetic labor 
of Arnold Toynbee's luminous life. We may 
well inquire what accounts for the persistence 
and progress of the groups centering their serv- 
ice around his formative motive. When arousing 
himself and others to pay the obligation which 
academic culture owes to common capacity and 
the honest debt which privilege and leisure owe to 
labor, he wrote : "Languor can be conquered only 
by enthusiasm and enthusiasm can be kindled only 
by two things,- an ideal which carries the imag- 
ination by storm and a definite intelligent plan of 
action to carry it out." 

Plato's imagination was stormed by "The Re- 
public," that of St. John and Augustine by "The 
City of God," Sir Thomas More's by his dream 
of "Utopia," John Ruskin's by the priesthood of an 
Art which will join together conscience and craft, 
beauty and duty so that no man can put them 
asunder. But it remained for The Son of Man 
to invest his vision of "The Kingdom of The 
Father" with a social faith adequate to 
inspire undying sacrifical struggle to realize 
it on earth. It was by his spirit that 
Arnold Toynbi-e was moved. By his social faith 
in the ideal and in the duty and privilege of carry- 
ing it into action, Toynbee Hall and every settle- 
ment, worthy to be in the succession, came to its 
birth and success. The appeal of the social ideal 
to the imagination, which is closely akin to faith, 
accounts for the settlement movement and is the 
dynamic of its method, the soul of its service. 
The ideal of equality of opportunity, of a co-op- 
erative commonwealth, of the Association of the 
Peoples, of "the union of all who love in the serv- 
ice of all who suffer" should never fail to carry the 
imagination of settlement people by storm. That 
granted, the duty of this second decade of the 
movement is the intelligent plan and scientific 
method of social action. Exactness of our knowl- 
edge of conditions and thoroughness in what we 
undertake toward improving them are demanded, 
to justify the avowed purpose and all the personal 
and pecuniary cost of the settlements. 



THE COMMONS 



11 



NEWS NOTES FROM THE COLLEGE SETTLEMENTS. 
The friends of Miss Carol Dresser, who has 
been in residence in both Denison House and 
the Rivington street settlement, and latterly has 
been headworker at the Elizabeth Peabody House, 
a Kindergarten Settlement in Boston, will be in- 
terested to hear of her marriage August ist to 
Dr. Witheile of Portland, Maine. Address, 77 
Park street. 



Each of the three settlements of the C. S. A. 
is now fortunate in having a valuable assistant 
headworker. Miss Machintosh has assisted Miss 
Dudley at Denison House, Boston, for a year. 
Miss Hubbard, who was last year with Miss 
Davies in Philadelphia, has now gone to 95 
Rivington street, New York, to assist Miss Wil- 
liams, and Mrs. Bates of the Unity Social Set- 
tlement in Minneapolis is assisting Miss Da- 
vies. 



Last spring the college settlement association 
offered a fellowship for the two-fold purpose of 
giving opportunity to some person to live in a 
settlement, share its life and to investigate settle- 
ment problems. 

The committee of award, having also direction 
of the work of the Fellow, consists of Miss Emily 
Green Balch, of Wellesley College, Prof. Samuel 
McCune Lindsay of the University of Pennsylva- 
nia and Mrs. Elsie Clews Parson, of Barnard Col- 
leg*. 

About thirty candidates applied, both men and 
women, and the fellowship has been awarded to 
Miss Mary B. Sayles, Smith College, 1900, who 
will live at Whittier House in Jersey City, N. J. 

Her subject will be the investigation of tene- 
ment house conditions in that city, a subject 
which needs immediate attention. 



Christodora. House Settlement. 

FRIEDA E. LIPPERT, HOUSE PHYSICIAN. 

Christodora House was opened in 1897 as a 
Social Settlement, in one of the most crowded 
districts on the east side of New York. With 
the idea of meeting the needs, social, educational, 
and spiritual, of the overcrowded homes of its 
neighborhood, it has grown year by year, steadily 
supplying these needs. 

Until it existed, the dance hall, the saloon and 
the street corner, were the only rendezvous for 
the boys and girls, young men and young- women 
of an immense tenement population. Now, these 
young people not only spend their own evenings 
in the homelike rooms of Christodora House 
but others in their families, their mothers and 



fathers are easily persuaded to spend their other- 
wise prosaic moments in the new atmosphere 
of an evening "At Home" with their friends, the 
residents and workers of the settlement. 
THE SOCIAL BOND. 

Even more easily are the mothers lured by 
the desire to see the place where their wee ones 
have their own delightful times, for the children of 
the neighborhood are well provided for, by "bank" 
and library, by club and class and play room, 
at Christodora. 

EDUCATIONAL WORK. 

The educational needs of these young people, 
most of whom being in business, have had to 
leave the public schools too soon, have been met 
by evening classes. The public night school with 
its obvious lack of adaptability to individual 
needs, is not an ideal arrangement, in its place. 
The small groups or classes possible in the Set- 
tlement, offer an attractive and practical means 
by which many a hardworking sales-girl and 
factory worker, may continue her interrupted 
studies, or may fit herself for other lines of busi- 
ness. 

THE RELIGIOUS SANCTION. 

The spiritual needs "of the multitude," finding 
its way to Christodora House, are remembered 
and are provided for as they would be in any 
ideal family life. The educational curriculum al- 
ways includes special opportunity for Bible 
study; moreover the boys and girls, the young 
men and women, even the children, gather Sunday 
after Sunday in the bright, cheerful rooms of 
the House, for their devotional meetings. This 
feature of the work is more and more faith- 
fully recognized by the people of the neighbor- 
hood as the true foundation of all .the happy 
success of Christodora House. They come to it 
from all classes of belief Hebrews, Roman 
Catholics and Protestants mingle here; foreign 
born and native American touch hgnds; yet they 
are all learning one language, that born of the 
simple, steadfast, loving desire to obey and fol- 
low the One in whose name Christodora House 
has "set up its banners." 

THE SPIRIT AND METHOD. 

Let me quote a description by Mrs. Margaret 
Sangster, the President of its Board of Man- 
agers. "Four years ago, two young women 
rented an ordinary five-roomed flat, a cellar and 
a little room back of a delicatessen shop, and 
went there to live. Their- only furniture was at 
first, an iron bedstead, a mattress, without pil- 
lows, a common kitchen table and a few wooden 
chairs. After paying the first month's rent they 
had only fifteen dollars in their purse, but with 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



calm confidence, they began their work. "They 
looked unto Him and were lightened, and their 
faces were not ashamed." 

To-day Christodora House owns its home a 
commodious one, (not of five rooms) of five 
floors, and pays all of its salaries. It employs a 
resident physician, thus trying to reach the 
starved soul through the too often starved body. 
It stands for all that is of practical help to its 
neighborhood. Many a mother comes, not al- 
ways to borrow clothes for the last new baby, but 
to tell simply of the burden of its advent and 
to explain why the next older small girl has not 
attended "club" regularly during the eventful 
fortnight. 

WORK DONE. 

For the year ended in December, 1900, there 
was a club attendance at the House, (n clubs 
meeting each, once a week) of over fifteen thou- 
sand. The devotional meetings brought an at- 
tendance of nearly nine thousand. There were 
made twenty-five hundred neighborhood calls 
(those paid to the homes of the people). By 
one way and another, through all the instrumen- 
talities of the House, there came in personal 
touch with it, through the year, more than seven- 
ty-three thousand individuals. 



An Old SociaJ Shrine Burned- 

The destruction by fire on Oct. 12, of the old 
Stepney parish church in London, removed not 
only an old land mark of the fifteenth century but 
a historic memorial marking the initiation of the 
social settlement movement. It was to the help 
of John Richard Green, then the young rector of 
this old church, that Edward Denison came from 
Oxford in 1860. From the same parish the Rev. 
A. F. Winington Ingram, also Warden of Ox- 
ford House, was elevated by King Edward to be 
Lord Bishop of London. To the Boston Tran- 
script we are indebted for this charming bit of 
description. The East End of London is dull, 
and unpicturesque even in its poverty; but it has 
many surprises for those who do not know it well. 
No more commoplace section can be found than 
Commercial road, opening out of Whitechapel 
near Oldgate, and piercing a swarming Jewish 
quarter; yet at its far end is Stepney Green, the 
strangest surprise of this benighted section. It is a 
beautiful old church-yard, eight acres in extent, in 
the heart of the Hebrew quarter. A gray church 
tower, among sycamores and surrounded with 
leafy verdure, was old Stepney Church, with its 
sweet chime of bells. Flanking the Green are 
rows of rusty, red-brick houses built as long ago 
as the time of the Georges and Queen Anne. This 



oasis of verdure in the centre of the dull and 
unpicturesque East End is a strange survival of 
village life. Stepney, with its ancient church and 
quaint mansions facing the Green, was once a rus- 
tic village, tenanted by rich men and people of 
quality. Now its church is the centre of religious 
effort in a vast area swarming with dense popula- 
tion. 



View-Points A-Field- 

The Social trend of the legendary embellish- 
ments wrought into the architecture of the Pan- 
American Exposition buildings at Buffalo may be 
indicated by these from the exterior friezes of the 
Hall of Ethnology : "The Weakest among us 
has a gift," "Speak to the earth and it shall teach 
thee," "All are needed by each one," "What a 
piece of work is man." 



The mayoralty campaign in New York City is 
significantly hopeful of better things even in the 
picturesqueness of its political devices. Even 
Tammany has been forced to claim and promise 
the municipal promotion of the higher life of the 
people. On every elevated railway station and 
many banners and stereopticon slides are in- 
scribed: "What Andrew Carnegie said" about 
the management of public libraries and parks; 
and "What Andrew Carnegie did" in giving $S>- 
500,000 for the Public Library "under the present 
administration." The conclusion to this syllo- 
gism" to vote for the Democratic party," is some- 
what impaired by the fact that it was to the Pub- 
lic Library Trustees that he gave the money, tak- 
ing good care to see that the "present administra- 
tion" would have nothing to say or do about it, 
except to appropriate a further sum to be expend- 
ed by the aforesaid trustees. 

Meanwhile the citizen's union and Mr. Low ex- 
plicitly promise an administration chiefly devoted 
to civic improvement, and make rejoinder to the 
Tammany boast by this "What" placard of their 
own: 

WHAT SHEPARD SAID: 

"The most burning and disgraceful blot on the 
municipal history of the county is the career of 
Tammany Hall. * * * If you put Tammany into 
power, Tammany will give you the same kind of 
government it gave you in 1894 and the years 
preceding the Lexow investigation. That is the 
sole recommendation which Tammany Hall and 
the Tammany orators give for their ticket. They 
are the same men, the same bosses. 

WHAT SHEPARD DID: 
He accepted the Tammany nomination for May- 



THECOMMONS 



13 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Socia.1 Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR, - - - Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.* Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 

EDITORIAL. 

The adoption of The Commons by the College 
Settlement Association, as a medium of its com- 
munication with its own constituencies and the 
public, is gratefully recorded in the report of its 
proceedings in another column. This official ac- 
tion is the first formal recognition which The 
Commons has received that it is fulfilling the 
broader purpose for which it was started. Without 
any capital except credit at the printer's, it has 
been maintained these six years, not without se- 
vere exactions upon the very restricted settle- 
ment income and the still more limited time of an 
overcrowded life. But in this service to the whole 
settlement cause, which has been far costlier than 
would have subserved the local interests of our 
own settlement work, we have been sustained in 
heart and hand by the sympathy and gratuitous 
co-operation of some of the busiest women and 
men in other settlements at home and abroad. 
Despite its many limitations, its frequently morti- 
fying evidences of extreme, though unavoidable 
haste, its necessary devotion of an undue propor- 
tion of its sparse enough space to the struggle 
of the Chicago Commons settlement for foothold 
on the earth, The Commons circulates a monthly 
average of 4,000 copies, 3,000 of which are sub- 
scribed and paid for by those enlisted or inter- 
ested in settlement or kindred lines of social 
service, all over the English speaking world. The 
remarkably wide diffusion of its circulation en- 
hances its influence, but hinders its self-support 
through advertising, which would sustain it if 
even half of its subscribers lived in one locality. 
So the Chicago Commons settlement has thus far 
borne the burden of the slowly, but surely decreas- 
ing deficit in this paper's accounts as a part of its 
contribution to the cause for which all the set- 
tlements stand. This has been done in the hope 
which at last seems about to be realized, that 
The Commons will receive the additional co- 
operation in contributions to its columns and ef- 
forts to extend its circulation, which will enable 
it to serve the whole settlement contstituency, 
better perhaps than any other single journal has 
the opportunity to do. The informal expression 



of opinion by neighborhood workers in New York 
City, alluded to elsewhere, gives reason to hope 
that at the next meeting of their Conference they 
may take essentially the same action as the Col- 
lege Settlement Association, in furnishing another 
page or so of information, comment and criticism, 
written from their own point of view and circu- 
lated also among their own constituency. The 
friendly co-operation of these two most power- 
ful centers of social activity, with the al- 
ready enlisted groups at Chicago, Cleveland, 
Cincinnati. San Francisco and London, England 
promise the prompt and steady progress of The 
Commons in serving its enlarged constituency. 

It is the earnest, desire and hope of all imme- 
diately connected with the management of The 
Commons to receive the freest suggestion and 
friendliest criticism regarding the conduct of the 
paper. For the sole motive and aspiration of our 
gratuitous effort are to make The Commons ren- 
der the truest and best service it may to the cause 
for which all interested in it alike stand the ad- 
vancement of the social condition and unification 
of the common life. 



A Great Scholar's Championship of the Rights 
of Labor. 

Technical scholarship and special intelligence 
regarding the workingman's world are not often 
found under the same hat. A university profes- 
sor and a labor politician are seldom seated in 
the same chair. Professor Caspar Rene Gregory 
of the University of Leipsic, Germany, is doubly 
distinguished as the only American holding a 
full professorship in a German University, and in 
being actively at work with the National Social 
Party promoting the most practical politics of the 
Fatherland. It is the highest honor to his Ameri- 
can birth and spirit to have become the successor 
of the great Tischendorf as the foremost textual 
critic among New Testament scholars, and to be 
the fearless associate of the bold Pastor Nauman 
in the industrial politics of the Empire and the 
democratic movement for economic justice and 
social peace. 

This University freedom, as it is publicly recog- 
nized and personally exercised in Germany, has 
been inspiringly exemplified at just this crisis 
in American liberty by Prof. Gregory's free- 
spoken championship of the rights of labor at the 
University of Chicago and the Chicago Theolog- 
ical Seminary. 

In his notable lecture before the Seminary on 
"The Social Movement in Germany" he signifi- 
cantly affirmed that workingmen are the first 
to move. This fact he attributed to their dis- 
tress,- not only by reason of long hours, low 



14 



THE COMMONS 



wages and dangerous occupations, but because they 
fail to receive the recognition due them as men, 
whose character and achievement deserve to be 
recognized. They want to be taken for- the men 
they are, neither as slaves nor half-slaves. This 
foremost movement of the industrial crafts is due 
to their superior intelligence. Formerly they were 
too tired to think. Going now from the national 
schools to their work,- German working people 
feel powerful to end the bad conditions under 
which they needlessly suffer. They know what 
progress has been made, is being made and may 
be made. They are moving together, by single 
shops and by trades unions, some of which are 
in the Social Democratic party, others are in- 
dependent, and still others avow a distinctively 
Christian affiliation. Their movements are often 
more intelligent than those of the employing 
class. 

Employers, too. are moving, some of them 
to repress the labor movement, which compels 
them to act, others to realize the unity of interests 
avowedly recognized by them. 

Professors of economics and those in other uni- 
versity departments are also moving. That these 
profoundest students of the facts, as well as 
those devoted to higher social ideals, very gener- 
ally substantiate the claims of the Trades Uni- 
ons and defend the rights of labor was taken 
by Prof. Gregory to be of the greatest signifi- 
cance. 

His summary characterization of the social 
bearings of the political parties in Germany was 
illuminating. To the Conservatives, who are 
mostly agrarian employers, there is no social ques- 
tion. The Ultramontane party is deeply affected 
by the social movement among the working peo- 
ple within the Roman Catholic Church. It has 
spoken more freely and has entered more active- 
ly into social politics than Protestant constitu- 
encies. The Social Democrats, as the opposition 
party, will not unite with other movements, vote 
against the legislative efforts of the government 
or other parties to better conditions, and have so 
persistently repelled the advances of the Emperor 
that he has finally withdrawn his efforts to enlist 
their co-operation. The Free Thinkers, or ir- 
reconcilables, are led by Eugene Richter. The 
National Liberals comprise the industrial employ- 
ers and are as unsocial as the Conservatives. The 
Christian Social Party movement, initiated by 
Dr. Stocker, former Court Preacher, is being su- 
perceded by the more radical "National Social 
Party, led by Pastor Friedrich Nauman. His 
political and social leadership has cost him his 
pastoral standing, and while the most active 
Christian leader of his people, he is ecclesiastical- 



ly designated as "out of charge." His party, to 
which Prof. Gregory and many other Protestant 
ministers and teachers belong, believes in see- 
ing the working people's rights through now by 
national action. 

The social movement in Germany becomes more 
and more reformatory, less and less revolution- 
ary. The duty of the hour in America, as in 
Germany, the eminent lecturer declared, is to 
help labor organize, as the one possibility of so- 
cial progress. 



Coinie's Socl&l Vision Aftr Fifty Years 

It is fifty years ago this very year since August 
Comte added to his "Positive Philosophy" the 
section devoted to "Social Physics, coining, as 
the single alternative title, the term "Sociology," 
which was thus introduced to the language of 
learning. In its original usage it was as specula- 
tive, as it was "barbarous" in the judgment of the 
first Encyclopedia which defined it. It may still 
well be reserved to designate the theory and philo- 
sophy of society and those facts and forces in- 
volved in the statics and dynamics of the whole 
social aggregate. Even in that realm of postu- 
lates and ultimatcs however, it should never in- 
clude, much less chiefly deal in the transcendental, 
to which some of its theorists seem inclined to 
confine it. Although Sociology is not the sum of 
the social sciences, but rather the frame-work 
and basis for their study, yet it is as practically 
barren and useless without their practical arts 
of living and working together, as is a foundation 
or a scaffolding without a superstructure to live 
and work in. 

The scientific progress of these' arts of interre- 
lationship through the past half century, amply 
justify the claim of Sociology itself to have status 
among the real "Hierarchy of the Sciences." to 
which its foster father so pedantically introduced 
it. 

Fortunately for itself as wrll as for the Hu- 
manity it was christened to serve. Sociology has 
proven to belong less to the realm of "Social 
Physics" than to that of social psychology and so- 
cial ethics. 

Far as we may yet be from an all comprehen- 
sive social synthesis, yet the development of the 
science of Sociology has been attended by the 
evolution of a social consciousness, which fur- 
nished both foundation and ideal sufficient for 
reducing to an art our efforts to live and work 
together. In the reduction of common life to the 
beauty, precision and efficiency of the arts, with- 
out the loss of that spontaneity in which life it- 
self, as well as its liberty, consist, the settlements 



THE COMMONS 



15 



with all the other hand-maids of spiritual prog- 
ress, find their exacting and inspiring task. 

In rounding out the first quarter cerituryof their 
history the settlements should lead the practical 
development of the sociological sciences in the 
conquests they are destined to achieve in 'this sec- 
ond half century of their progress. 



The Commons congratulates the London Echo 
upon securing the editorship of Percy Alden. Its 
support of the London County Council policy and 
its advocacy of all the live progressive movements 
among the people will be greatly strengthened 
hy Mr. Alden's social spirit, practical grasp of 
public questions, personal knowledge of the peo- 
ple's need, incisive style and high courage. We 
hope, however, that the gain to the press will 
not cost Mansfield House and the settlement 
movement the loss of his leadership. 



From the Settlements- 

SOUTH END HOUSE, Boston, is about to move 
from Rollins St. to 20 Union Park, two blocks 
South and two West. The extraordinary noise 
of the new elevated railway will thus be escaped 
and an additional center of influence occupied. 
The club house is located in the more densely 
crowded neighborhood on Harrison Ave., where 
one of the resident's rooms. The inadequate tene- 
ment house now used for this purpose is soon to 
be superseded by a new building near by and in 
close proximity to the municipal gymnasium. It 
will contain an assembly hall, club and class rooms 
and a restaurant. The Women's Residence is 
situated in still another neighborhood at 43 E. 
Canton St. In co-operation with the Arts and 
Crafts Society, hand-made lace industry is pro- 
moted. The Penny-Provident Savings books are 
being placed among a large number of girls work- 
ing in neighboring factories and shops. The in- 
vestigations by South End House residents, which 
have been publisned in "The City Wilderness" 
and other briefer monographs are being supple- 
mented by other researches which will be report- 
ed in another volume. 



"The Labor World" edited by S. Katayama 
warden of Kingsley House, Tokyo, has been ac- 
quitted of the charge of violating the Press Law 
of Japan in publishing the recent manifesto of the 
Japanese Socialists. This is a most welcome vic- 
tory for free speech in the island empire of the 
Orient. 

Continued on Page 16. 



LAWN SWINGS MAY POLES 

W. S. TOTHILL 

Manufacturer 

Play Ground, Park, Gymnasium and Athletic Field 
Equipments. Write for anything you want. 

126-128 West Webster Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. 

Orders for New Edition of 

FORBUSH'S BOY PROBLEM 

will be filled on receipt of the boks early in September 

AT 75 CENTS PER COPY 

Order of "THE COMMONS." Grand Ave. and Morgan 
Street, Chicago. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 

PESTALOZZI-FR.OEBEL. 

Kindergarten Training School at 

Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 
BERTHA HOFER HBQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave. 

Chicago 

T5he Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

T5he New Fourth Edition f College, Social 

and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point ol view, It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.* Morgan St., 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 

TKe Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 

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accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $2.50. Send check, draft, P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above^-cent denomination., at our risk. 
Advertisements in tKo Commons During 1901. 
One Page, $25.00; Half Page, $15.00; (Juarter Page. ^8.00; One 
Inch, S2 00. For each insertion. 

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twenty-five and under one hundred, three cents each; over 
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Changes of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
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Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
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ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



Two INTERESTING SETTLEMENT CONFERENCES. 

At Denison House, Boston. Guests of the Col- 
lege Settlement Association, sixty or more repre- 
sentatives of the Boston Settlement. Students 
of Wellesley and other colleges, and representa- 
tives of kindred lines of social service 
gathered in the homelike settlement parlors 
for an informal conference, Oct. 13. Training 
for social service in settlements and educational 
institutions was presented by Professor Graham 
Taylor for discussion. The value of guiding the 
new residents' reading and the educational op- 
portunity of a half hour house-hold vespers were 
emphasized. The courses for social workers of- 
fered by the universities of Pennsylvania and 
Wisconsin were described, as were still larger 
plans for a more elaborate curriculum in 
other institutions. Classes for training club work- 
ers in hand-crafts, supplemented by conferences, 
lectures and reports were reported by Lincoln 
House. Co-operative effort to establish in Boston 
a thorough school for training in social service 
was suggested as feasible. Robert A. Woods of 
South End House discussed the attitude of set- 
tlements toward city politics and municipal im- 
provements. He thought their influence could 
be only indirectly exerted where the party organi- 
zations were so thorough and strong as in some 
eastern cities. If the need of some centralizing 
personality creates the "Boss," then the settlement 
should seek to develop a better type of Boss by 
making the movements for municipal improvement 
an object lesson in democratic city government. 
The policy in New York has been for the several 
groups of social workers to devote themselves to 
the development of specific departments of- the 
city administration. Thus the Public Education 
Association has promoted the extension of pub- 
lic school work. The Out-door Recreation League 
has furthered play-grounds, recreation piers and 
parks, not of the "keep off the grass" type. 

The discussion of the attitude of the . settle- 
ments toward Radicalism turned on the distinc- 
tion between maintaining free-speech and offering 
a free platform. In rejoinder to those who 
thought it no part of settlement service to pro- 
vide the free-platform for either propagandism or 
the modifying effect of discussion, the educative 
value of the "Men's Smoker" conference at Toyn- 
bee Hall and the Free Floor discussions at Chi- 
cago Commons were urged. 

Co-operation with THE COMMONS to make it 
more representative oL the whole field of settle- 
ment operations was helpfully suggested. 



AT FRIENDLY AID HOUSE, NEW YORK. 

A delightful lunch party of twenty-five 
or more guests from the settlements and 
other groups of neighborhood workers re- 
sponded to Mrs. Simkhovitch's invitation to meet 
Professor Taylor. The conversation turned into 
inquiry 1 concerning political, civic and social prog- 
ress in Chicago, and ended in conferring over the 
development of THE COMMONS as the medium of 
intercommunication, criticism and suggestion be- 
tween the social service groups widely scattered 
in the cities of this country and abroad. The 
Conferences of Neighborhood workers may soon 
reach some practical conclusion upon this matter 
which was referred to its next session. 

LINCOLN HOUSE, Boston is to lose its Direc- 
tor in Charge, Mr. William A. Clark, who goes 
to the work of the Settlement at Seventeenth 
Street and Eighth Ave., New York City. He 
will continue his work upon the monographs on 
social service, the publication of which will be 
announced in these columns as they are issued. 

WEST SIDE, NEIGHBORHOOD House, at Fiftieth 
St. and Tenth Ave., New York City announces 
the opening of its fine new building on Tuesday 
evening, Oct. 29, with addresses by Dr. W. H. P. 
Faunce, President of Brown University and Rev. 
R. P. Johnston, Pastor of the Fifth Ave. Baptist 
Church. A description of the thoroughly equipped 
buildings and a report of the opening occasion 
will be furnished by the Head-Worker, Mr. Archi- 
bald A. Hill, for the next number of The Com- 



"Tha most weak-headed men are always the 
most headstrong." 



THE NATIONAL Civic IMPROVEMENT LEAGUE. 

A movement to federate the improvement asso- 
ciations which are becoming increasingly effective 
in the betterment of municipal conditions through- 
out the United States, is a pleasing incident of the 
Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo. "The Na- 
tional Civic Improvement League was initiated 
and did its cause both the honor and the service 
of electing Professor Charles Zeublin of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago as its first president. No 
man has done more' to prompt interest in and- 
promote intelligent study of civic conditions in 
American cities than he, by his university ex- 
tension work throughout many states. We 
anticipate with pleasure his own account of the. 
scope and methods of the League in these col- 
umns. It is already endeavoring to secure at the 
St. Louis Exposition a department exhibit of 
municipal art and the science of modern city- 
making. ' 

But every community stands in need of per- 
sonalities living exclusively for its ends. Adolf 
Harnack. 



SUPPLEMENT 



The Commons 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of and Labor from tKe Settlement Point of View 



Number 64 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Yea^r 



Chicago. November 1901. 



Annual Meeting of Chicago Federation. 

Around the great cheery fire-place in the But- 
ler Building at Hull House, sixty or more resi- 
dents, representing all but two of Chicago's twelve 
settlements, gathered for the annual meeting of 
their Federation Oct. 2. The chairmanship went 
to Miss Nicholes, of Neighborhood House; the 
secretaryship to Miss Clawson of Chicago Com- 
mons, and treasureship to Mr. Price of Gad's 
Hill Settlement. The feature of the delightful 
evening was the share which Miss Mary Mc- 
Dowell gave her fellow-residents in the impres- 
sions she received during her summer abroad of 
social movements in England and France. 

With Toynbee Hall she was impressed "as a 
bit of the University" in the Whitechapel wilder- 
ness. Its "Guild of Compassion," through which 
students lend a helping hand to young children 
and the aged, together with the fine art exhibit 
Toynbee Hall offers to the overwhelming pat- 
ronage of the neighborhood, were the most marked 
features of the work in this mother settlement. 

Passmore Edwards House seemed "so attrac- 
tive that one would never have dreamed it could 
be a settlement." Mrs. Humphrey Ward talked 
only of its school for crippled children, so deeply 
was she interested in it. 

The Woman's University Settlement has be- 
come a great training school for charity work- 
ers. The Church settlements, headed by the 
Church of England work at Oxford House 
and well seconded by the Wesleyan settle- 
ment made an effective showing of progress in 
practically helpful work. Mansfield House seemed 
to be nearest the people, among whose little houses 
and shops its buildings are scattered. 

There was a very deep depression among so- 
cial workers over the South African war expe- 
riences, which have lowered the tone and lessened 
the interest in all the higher and better move- 
ments. In Hyde Park there was free speech on 
every subject, except the Boer war. Yet Canon 
Barnett at Toynbee and Percy Alden at Mans- 
field, by ifoice and pen, are braving the tyranny 
of public sentiment in their advocacy of peace. 

At the Universite Populaire in Paris she found 
a group of working men listening to a paper 
on "Machiavelli." 



In Glasgow, Miss McDowell was one of a 
party of guests who were officially conducted 
through the municipal tenements and then hand- 
somely entertained at a ''municipal luncheon." 
More Scotchmen than Englishmen abstained from 
drinking liquor on this occasion. Thirty-four of 
a group of seventy-six Scotch politicians were 
said to be total abstainers. 

The attitude of settlements toward radicalism 
was briefly discussed by the Federation and was 
chosen as the subject of the next meeting. 



Conference on Rural Conditions. 

The growing social consciousness, in which the 
hope of the world lies., is illustrated by the in- 
creasing emphasis upon the first hand knowledge 
of rural conditions. In connection with the 
beautiful custom of rallying the former and pres- 
ent residents of the town of Morris, Connecticut, 
for the observance of "Old Home Week," an 
informal conference on Rural Conditions was held 
there last August. Its purpose was to consider 
the industrial, educational and religious aspects 
of rural conditions, to prosecute the comparative, 
thorough study of them and to focus more effec- 
tive co-operation for their betterment. Among 
the subjects upon which opinions were sought, 
were these: Can industrial conditions in the 
country be improved and if so how? How may 
rural industry be more intelligently directed? 
How secure better facilities of communication and 
transporation and how will this help to solve the 
problem? Are taxes heavier in the country than 
the city? How may the inertia of rural life be 
overcome? What changes are needed in our 
educational system? Is the concentration of the 
religious life of many country towns into fewer 
churches desirable and how can it be secured? 
The opportunity of the country minister. How 
may efficient men be secured and retained in 
country churches? The interdependence and in- 
terpenetration of city and country. Is there a 
disposition on the part of the city church to ignore 
the country church, and what facts in your ob- 
servation show this? 

We hope to have a report of the best sugges- 
tions offered in answer to these inquires by the 
convener of the conference in an early number 
of THE COMMUNE. 



THE COMMONS 



"Tolstoy and His Problems.'' 
By ALYMER MAUDE. 



The fact that this book js written by the one, 
who above all others in England, is in closest 
touch with Tolstoy's ideas not only, but with the 
man himself indeed he might be called Tolstoy's 
English representative lends a peculiar interest 
to the perusal of it. Mr. Maude appreciates the 
widespread haziness with which to many people 
the teaching of the Russian thinker seems to be 
enveloped and it was -largely with the intention 
of clearing this away that the book was written. 
The essays which form the book seem to be some- 
what loosely thrown together and the chapter on 
"Talks with Tolstoy" is a particularly haphazard 
and unconnected series of conversational scraps. 
It may be. however, that in this essay it is the 
author's intention to let the small "Talks" by 
their very disconnectedness, throw better side 
lights on the man and his teaching. The first 
essay is a biographical sketch which aims not so 
much to give a chronological statement of his 
life as to emphasize the 'more important crises 
and significant seasons of inner doublings and 
questionings amidst outward perplexities that 
mark the road by which Tolstoy traveled to his 
present position. 

But perhaps the more distinctive and interest- 
ing essays of the book are "How Tolstoy wrote 
'Resurrection,' " and "The Doukhobors : a Russian 
Exodus." The former gives us some inside in- 
formation concerning the conflict Tolstoy had be- 
tween strict adherence to the principles he had 
laid down for himself, especially in regard to 
copyrights and pay for his literary work, and, his 
great desire to help the distressed Doukhobors, 
explaining also some of the difficulties which this 
conflict caused in the publication of the novel. 
The latter is characterized by very evident pains- 
taking to be fair and impartial in his account 
of the persecuted sect for which he has so much 
sympathy and admiration, and towards whose de- 
liverance from the land of oppression he did so 
much. It is particularly hard to get informa- 
tion concerning them, as he himself says, which, 
on one side or the other, is not ex parte. This 
effort to give a reliable account which neither 
ignores the limitations and faults of these simple 
and illiterate folk in an extravagant praise of 
their virtues, nor too severely deals with what 
their enemies look upon as a fanatical disregard 
of expediency in their almost obstinate stand for 
their principles and dictates of conscience, will 
supply a much desired need. Let us hope that 
by it Mr. Maude will do much to clear away the 
misunderstanding regarding the Doukhobors. 



which exists not only in European countries but 
even, to a certain extent, in Canada and the Unit- 
ed States, and will show the foolishness of ax- 
pecting the conduct of people who are still with 
us on earth to be in every respect that of saints. 
The book will surely accomplish much of its ob- 
ject in making plainer Tolstoy's problems and 
giving us a better acquaintance with the Douk- 
hobors. (Grant Richards, London. Imported by 
A. \\essels Company, New York.) 



Constructive Criticism of the Church. 

Constructive and friendly treatment of the 
Church from the social point of view is happily 
superceding the uselessly destructive and irri- 
tatingly negative criticism which its constituency 
has long, and for the most part patiently en- 
dured. It is refreshing to read such a plea as 
President Eliot of Harvard recently made in 
the Independent for patience with the deliberate 
adjustment of the churches to the changed mod- 
ern political and industrial conditions. He re- 
minds us that modern democracy and the indus- 
trial system which quickly followed its advent are 
little more than a century old, while the institu- 
tions which are expected to conform to them 
with unreasonable promptness and completeness 
have been for two thousand years developing their 
organization and methods. This conserving spirit 
and constructive development of the church are 
a sufficient answer to the impatient inquiry and 
hasty discouragement of Frederick Stanley Root 
in his recent volume of somewhat disconnected 
chapters grouped under the title, "What is the 
Matter with the Church?" Had he viewed the 
question with more of a time-sense it would 
have been more broadly stated and more ap- 
proximately answered, in accordance with the 
loyal purpose evidently underlying the trenchant 
discussion. (The Abbey Press.) 

Dean Frcmantle has made a valuably useful 
contribution to the social literature of the church 
in his volume of lectures delivered at Harvard 
on "Christian Ordinances and Social Progress." 
Not only are the fundamental social elements 
of Christian worship, sacraments, Scriptures, 
preaching and the pastorate function of the church 
interpreted with scholarly ability, but valuable 
suggestions toward the more effective practical 
use of these ordinances to promote social progress 
are helpfully offered. Like the late Bishop West- 
cott. the author of this volume and of the notably 
influential Bampton lectures on "The World as 
the Subject of Redemption." has rendered great 
service in helping to spiritualize the social move- 
ment, while interpreting the social aspects of re- 
ligion. 



THE COMMONS 



Christian Ministry to the Labor Move- 
ment. 

The following excerpt from a Fall River. Mass., 
paper at the crisis of the then impending strike, 
speaks volumes for the reciprocally helpful rela- 
tions between ministers of religion and the leaders 
of labor, which are possible when the minister is 
a man among men. 

"Sunday evening at the Central Congregational 
church Rev. William Knight preached a short 
sermon bearing on the industrial situation in 
this city. It was learned, Saturday, that Mr. 
Knight had been with the executive committee 
of the Textile council during the morning con- 
ference, after which the postponement of the 
strike was announced. The text of the sermon, 
last evening, was the words of Christ. "Teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you." 

The speaker began by quoting from President 
McKinley's speech at Buffalo the day before his 
assassination the words : 

"Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy 
of good will and friendly trade relations will 
prevent reprisals. Gentlemen, let us ever remem- 
ber that our interest is in concord, not in con- 
flict." 

These words, he said, were a near approach 
to the teaching of Jesus on the plane of prac- 
tical statesmanship. We have seen tne same thing 
recently in the conduct of our city's great indus- 
trial affairs. Self-interest and considerations of 
material welfare have led both manufacturers and 
operatives to courses of action in accord with the 
teachings of Jesus. The Christian minister is a 
man, under orders. While I am a minister here 
it is my duty to teach men to observe the things 
Christ taught. One of the masterly declarations 
of Jesus is that no man lives to himself or dies 
to himself. 

There is probably no city in America where 
the correctness of this view of human life is more 
immediately shown forth than in Fall River. Our 
own vast industry binds us all together in such 
a way that even a dull mind can see the work- 
ing of the underlying life-fact which Christ de- 
clares holds in all life. Master-minds are nowa- 
days tracing out this life-fact in all kinds of hu- 
man affairs. Now. for men in such a city as 
this to adopt any course of action which ignores 
this truth is clearly sheer folly. Christ has stated 
it plainly; human experience has verified it be- 
yond reasonable doubt. To deliberately act in 
li'-regard of it clearly would lie to abandon the 
Christian spirit in dealing with our fellows. 

Hut what is the Christian spirit in dealing with 
our fellows? One of the cardinal declarations of 



it has become known in all Christendom as the 
Golden Rule. 

In the summer there was a vote to reduce 
wages. Evidently in the better judgment of our 
manufacturers this was a mistaken step. As a 
minister of Christ I deelare that it was contrary 
to that consideration for the welfare of all which 
accords with Christian wisdom. However ma- 
terial consideration may have determined the wis- 
dom of those who withdrew from that wrong step, 
it is to be commended. It vindicates Christ's teach- 
ings as practical. Recently by a declaration of a 
strike a smiliar mistake has been made by our 
operatives. Again the better judgment has pre- 
vailed, and a postponement has been announced. 
I am confident that because of the steadied judg- 
ment and cleared view of our forking people 
there will be no strike. Again I commend the re- 
gard for the welfare of all which amid all material 
considerations has played a part. I wish most 
heartily that ^vages could be raised. It is a 
righteous obligation when conditions warrant it. 
But there was no substantial warrant for a de-* 
mand for an increase of wages, and by forcing 
a small gain or attempting to do so, the great 
and well-established results of unionism would 
have been put in jeopardy. So again on the basis 
of self-interest Christ's wisdom in teaching regard 
for others has been seen to be vindicated. I com- 
mend this also. The conferences between em- 
ployers and employes are tangible signs of the 
growth of mutual respect and recognition of a 
community of interest. 

Out of years of close relations with masses of 
working people, I have come to believe profound- 
ly in the wisdom of labor unions. Not to array 
employes to combat their employers, but to con- 
fer and co-operate; not because the relations of 
labor and capital are those of antagonism, but be- 
cause they are those of mutual dependence. The 
combative possibilities of unionism have been 
made the gtiage of the worth of unions all too 
much in the troublous years of the past. The 
educational power of unions, the wisdom of repre- 
sentation, the benefit of conference, these are 
some of the great and most salutary results of 
unionism in the matured form which the years 
of strife have brought us. Out of it all we men 
are learning that Christ's way is practical and 
best." 



One secret act of self-denial, one sacrifice of 
inclination to duty, is worth all the mere good 
thoughts, warm feelings, passionate prayers, in 
which idle people indulge themselves. T. H. 
NEWMAN, 



THE COMMONS 



The Month at Chi<;<i,<Jo Common*. 

If "culture" imagines it has the monopoly of ca- 
pacity for appreciating the beautiful in art, the 
illusion might have been graciously dispelled by 
even a casual glimpse at a quiet scene in the Art 
Institute the other afternoon. In the galleries 
might have been seen a group of thirty-five mem- 
bers of the Chicago Commons Woman's Club, 
eagerly following one of the city's best interpre- 
ters of art, as she gave verbal expression to the 
ideals of beauty which awaited interpretation not 
more truly in the artists' pictures than in the 
womens's capacity to appreciate them. 
PATRIOTIC RALLIES. 

Camp McKinley is rallying to our auditorium 
not only the Spanish War Veterans of the city. 
but many other men every week. A patriotism, 
not less enthusiastic for being more intelligent, 
is being promoted by their public meetings, at 
which the social, civic and industrial aspects of 
American politics, as well as the world-view of 
our country's relationships, , are being discussed 
by capable speakers. 

FOR Civic IMPROVEMENT. 

The Men's- Community Club opened its sea- 
son's work by inviting the neighborhood and 
many other guests to share the suggestion and en- 
couragement given by the finely illustrated stere- 
opticon lecture on "Civic and Industrial Better- 
ment," furnished by the League for Social Serv- 
ice in the highly capable service of Mr. William 
Howe Tolman, its national lecturer. 
OUR FREE-SPEECH POLICY. 

The Free Floor Economic Discussions begin 
their seventh winter's session Nov. nth. The only 
restriction upon the liberty of speed whicli has 
been held in reserve all these years and never yet 
has had to be enforced is the advocacy of violence 
and the defense of assassination. Only twice in 
six years has the chairman been obliged to ap- 
peal to the house against even the interruption of 
speakers, which was instantly suppressed by the 
unanimous support given to the maintenance of 
parliamentary order. Never have these discussions 
been interrupted by any one under the influence 
of liquor, although admission has been absolutely 
unrestricted, and a more or less shifting crowd of 
men has always been in attendance. While re- 
cent events have presented no reason for changing 
our free speech policy, yet they have impressed 
upon even the more radical participants a marked- 
ly increased sense of responsibility for a construc- 
tive and educational use of the great opportunity 
afforded by this unique occasion. 

A GREAT ACCESION TO OUR WORKING FORCE. 

Our neighborhood Tabernacle Church is happy 
in its entirely unanimous choice of Rev. James 



Mullenbadi as its associate pastor. His hearty 
acceptance of his inspiring opportunity for per- 
manent and growing usefulness is the very best 
fortune not only for the encouraging church 
work, but for the continuance of the reciprocally 
advantageous relationships between the organic- 
ally independent efforts of. the settlment and the 
church. The ordination service on Nov. nth will 
be made the occasion for as wide a fellowship 
and as deep an inspiration as possible. 
"AND LEND A HAND." 

We have just begun our last effort to meet 
the final obligations incurred in completing and 
equipping our nearly finished building and in car- 
rying our greatly increased work through these 
hardest three months, closing our fiscal year. We 
residents, who are not only giving our time and 
home life to the work, but are freely risking all 
our financial resources in its support through this 
supreme crisis, feel warranted in personally ap- 
pealing to every friend ot Chicago Commons to 
join us in making the sacrifices necessary to carry 
this enterprise of common faith through to the as- 
sured permanency and success, which now at last 
are at hand. 

Any one who can give anything to the support 
of the work or any special feature of it, to the 
building fund or the final payment upon any spe- 
cific part of the plant and equipment will help 
most by acting quickly. Since the tenure of the 
property prevents mortgaging either the ground 
or the building, friendly loans are our last de- 
pendence in case at least $10,000 cannot be secured 
by subscription within the next two months, and 
$6,000 more by April 1st. In the event of this 
necessity there may be friends who are willing to 
lend collateral on which loans can be negotiated, 
a risk which residents have taken over and over 
again, so far without loss. The somewhat unex- 
pected embarrassment, caused by not being able 
to mortgage the property, is more than offset by 
the guarantee it gives for the perpetuity and solv- 
ency of the work of Chicago Commons. 



SPECIAL FEATURES of the NEXT NUMBER 

"THE ISOLATION OF OUR PUBLIC CHARITIES." 
BY Miss JULIA C. LATHROP. 

Miss Lathrop, for many years the most active 
member of the Illinois State Board of Charities, 
and a resident of Hull House, furnishes a most 
illuminating article on a subject of fundamental 
importance to public and personal interests, which 
has received all too little attention. 



The Boston Conference on the Boy Problem, 
fully and critically reported by representatives 
both of the Conference and Chicago Commons. 

The new department, edited by Mrs. Caroline 
Williamson Montirnmery for the College Settle- 
ment Association. 



SUPPLEMENT 



TKe Commons 

A Mont My Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point of View. 



Number 65-Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. December 1901. 



Chicago Commons 

EightH Annual Retrospect and Prospect. 

Reminiscence may well be the starting point of 
this eighth annual review of the work of Chicago 
Commons. For the flames have left nothing of the 
Old Commons residence but a memory and its 
well started work, safely transferred to the in \v 
and well equipped buildings, which now seem, to 
have arisen phoenix-like from the ashes of the 
old home and its neighborhood. 

A RISK OF SOCIAL FAITH. 

"Your references are all right, but we cannot 
Understand what is in our building for you. What 
can you get out of it ?" So answered the land- 
lords of our old Union street house before con- 
senting to rent it to us. Our rejoinder that there 
was nothing in it for us, but everything -'for the 
neighborhood, that we meant to put everything 
into the enterprise and take no money out of it, 
only drew from one brother the naive remark, 
accompanying a half-pitying, half-contemptuous 
look at us, "there arc such people !" 




At no small personal risk the lease was signed 
which called for a rental, rising from $75.00 to 
$160 per month, as we gradually took possession 



-D1MOH5 POND POND ARCHITECT: 




Main Wing. 



Proposed Men's Club House. 






THE COMMONS 



of the forty-four rooms in the entire structure, 
and our growing work was known to be help- 
lessly dependent upon their occupancy. This risk 
was taken, however, as an act of social faith, 
that what ought to be done, could be achieved 
and should be attempted. The sanction which has 
all along been the reassurance of the whole enter- 




THE OLD HOME AFTER THE FIBE, FROM THE SOUTH. 

prise, was the conviction that personal and finan- 
cial resource, would rally to any one who could 
and would, stand in the breach long enough to 
demonstrate the need and practicability of the 
social settlement movement, and that the help to 
self-help, which it offered the community, would 
create the demand for its service, and would meet 
with all the response we could provide for. In 
both respects our faith has been amply justified. 
In evidence of this claim, we need only point to 
the contrast between our arrival upon the field 
with only bare hands and a heart-full of purpose, 
and the seven years' growth of the work of Chi- 
cago Commons in manifold neighborhood cooper- 
ation, effective building and other equipment, and 
in the even more inspiring reflex influence which 
this enterprise of social faith is exerting far and 
wide in our own country and abroad. 
RESIDENT-WORKERS READY AS SOON AS THE RESI- 
DENCE. 

No ?ooner had we spread the old roof over the 
prospective work, than the original group of 
twelve residents stood ready to take possession of 
the mournfully dilapidated old mansion on the 
first of October, 1894. Three of them had taken 
up their residence on the field in May, and 
brought with them the advantage of their sum- 
mer's acquaintance and experience. Within three 
or four years, all of this original group had scat- 
tered as far as Oklahoma to South Africa. But 
the warden and his family, who entered upon 



their residence in June, 1895, have been at home 
at Chicago Commons through these seven years, 
and other residents have been in the settlement 
household as long as from three to six years. 
The resident-workers, averaging twenty in num- 
ber, devote either all or a large part of their 
time and energy to the settlement work, half of 
them gratuitously and at their own expense, the 
others receiving for long hours and full work, far 
less pecuniary compensation than their expert 
service could command elsewhere now, when the 
demand for trained social workers so greatly ex- 
ceeds the supply. As the permanent group makes 
the work of the more temporary residents pos- 
sible, so the settlement household attracts and 
gives efficiency to the cooperation of non-resident 
workers from the suburbs and elsewhere, upon 




SECOND FLOOR FRONT HALL. 

whose gratuitous and self-exacting service most 
of the club and- class work is dependent and 
some of the door-service. 

THE HOME LIFE AND THE VESPER SERVICE. 

The soul of the settlement is its home life, the 
spirit of which permeates all it attempts to be 
;;nd do. To have a home life with which" to work, 
it must really K' lived. To this end two condi- 
tions are essential. There must be reasonable 



THE COMMONS 



space and equipment to make our household life 
possible and to provide each of its members with 
his or her own place to live, which shall be 
homelike in its comfort and privacy. Then there 
must be a free, bouyant, purpose-possessed, and 
vitally unified family life, to fill the home and 
overflow through all the work. About the family 
board and around the vesper circle, the residents 
will find their center of household unity, if any- 
where. Our hospitable dining-hall. with its ad- 




KlNDERGARTEN AT THE NEW COMMONS. 

joining sitting-room, gathers the group all to- 
gether at least once each day. The vesper half 
hour after dinner, beside the new hearth stone, 
is hallowed in the experience of each one now in 
residence, as it is in the memory of all whom 
it used to encircle in the old Commons' parlor. 
THE LITTLE CHILD LEADS. 

\\ithotit announcement, advertising, or any pre- 
determined plan, of action, the household simply 
Invested its home life in neighborship, purposing 
first of all to be what we could to our neighbors 
and to get them to be all they would to us. 

The appeal of the child life of. the traffic 
crowded streets and ill equipped homes, won the 
first response from our hearts arid home. There 
were then neither place nor provision for the 
littlest children in the public schools. So we de- 
termine'! ta by the foundation- of our work in 
the kindergarten. The fore-token of success in 
our endeavor for the children, which has under- 
laid all our other achievements, came in the prof- 
fered leadership of an expert kindergartner, who 
had just completed her thorough training at the 
Pestalozzi-Froebel Haus, Berlin. Her first tour 
of invitation rallied a pathetic little retinue of 
infantry, whose steadily increasing ranks proved 
to be the vanguard of a multitude of all ages, 
now numbering many hundreds, who have made 
the old house and the new building their social 
center. When the winter kindergarten closed, a 
summer kindergarten was demanded by the 
neighborhood, and when we opened our school 



at the new building, we reopened the kindergar- 
ten for the old neighborhood in the new quarters 
at 75 Grand avenue. At the former place every 
one of our seventy chairs are taken and we have 
a long waiting list, as have also the two public 
schools in the neighborhood. Our circle has be- 
come so full that the three and four-year-olds 
have been put in a room by themselves. Increas- 
ingly steady attendance on cold mornings indi- 
cates ?. growing appreciation of the school in its 
new quarters. The influence of the new environ- 
ment is felt in the sweet, wholesome spirit, which 
has grown during the year and is greater than 
was found possible in the old accommodations. 

In the old neighborhood at 75 Grand avenue the 
double store, which was renovated and adapted 
to the purposes of the school, affords a clean, 
bright and cheery child-garden, at the heart of 
the most dismal and dirty section of the ward. 
Two resident kindergartners are in charge of the 
fifty and more Italian and German childrea in 
daily attendance, and of the Mothers' meetings 
and other settlement work centering at that river- 
district branch. 

The growth of the kindergarten interests, mean- 
while, developed the need of training assistants 
for our own kindred work with little children, 
in which industrial features were emphasized. 
For five . years the Pestalozzi-Froebel Kinder- 




THE MATHEON DAY NURSERY. 

garten Training School at Chicago Commons, has 
flourished. The class-room, kitchen, gymnasium, 
and kindergarten equipment of the new building, 
t adds greatly to the efficiency of the training work 
and to the comfort and inspiration of the stu- 
dent v The training thus afforded an average of 
about twenty-five young women in the industrial, 
educational, social and home work, enables them 
to assist in private and public school kindergar- 
tens and to cooperate in the clubs and classes of 



THE COMMONS 



the settlement. This opportunity for service 
makes their training practical and the social 
teachings of Pestalozzi and Froebel a reality in 
their lives. 

NEIGHBORHOOD NURSERY. 

In cooperation with the settlement work for 
our great neighborhood, the Matheon Club of 
young women has maintained for five years a 



who are old enough are sent from the nursery to 
the kindergartens at Chicago Commons and the 
Washington public school, as well as to the Com- 
mons' playground. 

By the generosity of a lady friend of the set- 
tlement, a kitchen garden is maintained at the 
new building. Not only are the children drilled 
in the principles of house work through their 




BRANCH SETTLEMENT HOUSE NEAR OLD COMMONS. 



Day Nursery. Under its present efficient ad- 
ministration it cares for an average of thirty 
children daily from 6:30 A. M. to 6:30 P. M., 
and is in more or less constant touch with sev- 
enty-five families. It provides a warm lunch, 
sleeping accommodations, playthings and a 
kindergartner's attendance. The nominal charge 
is only five cents for a twelve hour day for the 
care of each child, the Matheon Club meeting 
most of the expense, involved in the rent of the 
premises at 219 Grand avenue and in the main- 
tenance and attendance involved. The children 



songs and play, but also in the practice in the 
kitchen and chamber work of the Commons' 
household. 

CITIZENSHIP CLUBS FOR YOUNG AMERICANS. 

An ascending series of clubs for boys and for 
girls provides play and playmates, education and 
recreation, industrial and moral discipline, higher 
ideal and better purpose for as many members 
as we can furnish with leadership. During the 
past year 325 boys have been enrolled in our 
group-clubs. The basis of the club work has been 
mainly social, giving to every boy for whom we 



THE COMMONS 



could make place, the opportunity for the high- 
est expression of his best self. The "Commons 
Democracy," is being organized, in which a 
mimic city government will be maintained. Each 
group will constitute a ward, which will send its 
alderman to represent it in the monthly meeting 
of the city council. Laws governing the Club 
will be enacted by this legislative body. Commis- 
sioners of the several municipal departments will 
familiarize themselves and their companions with 
the work of the various blanches of the city gov- 
ernment. Club membership is required to admit 
the boys to the privileges of the gymnasium and 
manual training departments. Three large rooms 
on tin basement floor are devoted to the boys' 
clubs. One of them is furnished as their parlor, 
another as a game room and the third for as- 
sembly purposes. 

Group clubs are held at Chicago Commons ev- 
ery evening, except Saturday, and at 75 Grand 
avenue two evenings each week. Properly to direct 
these groups no less than thirty leaders are re- 
quired. 



MANUAL TRAINING NORMAL CLASS AND CHILD- 
REN'S WORK. 
Under great disadvantages and with ridiculously 




ONE OF THE BOYS' CLUB ROOMS. 

little equipment the residents have struggled to 
meet the demand for manual training among the 




6 



THE COMMONS 



children and the young people. The space at 
command in the new building for this purpose, 
and the offer of the gratuitous services of a 
public school manual training director, to head up 
this department, have prompted gifts of $500 
from generous friends of Chicago Commons for 
the purchase of an outfit of tools and furnishings 
adequate to equip twelve benches. 

To meet the demand of public school teachers, 
settlement workers, students for the ministry and 
lay workers, normal instruction will be offered 
to prepare manual trainers, for their work. For 
a course of twelve weeks five dollars will be 
charged. With the help to be developed by this 
normal work, as many children's and young peo- 
ple's classes will be conducted as the equipment 
will allow. 

The instruction will include thorough and pro- 
gressive courses in woodwork, bent iron, raffia, 
hammock making and basket weaving, all aimed 
to discipline the worker in accuracy and self-ex- 
action. 

The loom for Weaving carpet rugs and curtains 
is in constant and eager use by the women. 
FOR GROWING GIBLS.' 

For the girls similar group clubs are main- 
tained, varied in organization and method to meet 
the need and aptitude of. the several ages. The 
work with each club includes some industrial 
feature, such as sewing, basket weaving, crochet- 
ing, physical culture, with breathing exercises, 
Delsarte drills and marching, and opportunity for 




social and recreative expression. While in both 
the girls' and boys' clubs the group method is 
depended upon for the best individual results, oe-.' 
casions are made for gaining the advantage there 
is in the inspiration and enthusiasm of numbers 
by massing the groups together. The influence 
of these clubs is very manifest in the ideals and 
lives of the boys and girls, many of whom are 



completely emancipated from their former idea 
that it was necessary to be bad to have a good 
time. A growing refinement and wholesomeness 
is apparent among them. 

How HOUSE-KEEPING AND COOKING ARE TAUGHT. 
Closely allied with the work for girls and 
reaching up to the work with women, is the de- 
partment of Domestic Science. A sewing room, 
well equipped with cutting t ables and cupboards, 




adequately provides for the instruction of small 
groups of younger girls in plain sewing, and of 
older girls and women in dress-making 1 . To the 
cooking-school, the large, light, airy room occu- 
pying most of the basement of the residence wing 
is devoted. For its fine equipment we ure in- 
debted to the generosity of the Klio Club of Chi- 
cago. The resident in charge of this school is a 
graduate of the Philadelphia Cooking School, and 
has had thorough training, as well as practical 
experience in teaching. Classes have been 
formed, not only for young girls, but also for 
mothers/ house-keepers and cooks. It is hoped 
in time that this school may contribute its share 
of the solution of the domestic service problem. 
WHERE WOMEN MINGLE, SERVE AND ARE HAPPY. 
Through the Junior Progressive Club, the Pro- 
, gressive Club for Young Women, the Woman's 
Club, the Mothers' Meeting, and the Tabernacle : 
Ladies' Aid arid Missionary Society, the work 
with girls merges into that of women with wo- 
men. The kindergarten child is the surest, easi- 
est and most natural access to the mother heart. 
Connected with both kindergartens are success- 
ful mothers' meetings. The kindergartners of the 
neighboring public school hold their mothers' 
meeting at Chicago Commons. Very personal 
and practical, yet cheery and social are these 
gatherings. Their conversational discussions 
range all the way from the minutest points in the 



THE COMMONS 



care of the babe to the highest ethical dealings 
with the problems of adolescence and home life. 
Often children are brought to the meetings by 
their parents and sometimes the Italian mothers 
bring their husbands and older sons and daugh- 
ters, so that the mothers' meetings turn into a 
family gathering. To see the care-burdened 
mothers, light-heartedly engage in the kinder- 
garten games vith their children, while their hus- 
bands and sons look on amusedly is a scene of 
domestic joyousnoss and simplicity never to be 
forgotten. 



the house have profited, combine to make the 
Progressive Club one of the most efficient and 
satisfactory of the settlement agencies. 

The second year of the outings at the cottage 
maintained by the Club has been even more suc- 
cessful than the first. Besides 7-; ^irls who spent 
from one day to two weeks, eight or ten mothers 
and their children had from oi.e to three weeks 
outing there, husbands and friends being their 
guests over Sundays. 

The annual Bazaar, conducted by the Club, for 
the benefit of its furnishing and outing funds. 




PROGRESSIVE CLUB FOR YOUNG WOMEN. 
The young women were among the very first 
to respond to the opportunity offered by Chicago 
Commons. Their Progressive Club has played a 
large part not only in their own lives, but in 
the life of the settlement. Their Monday evening 
gatherings for educational and social purposes ; 
their bright entertainments and their effective 
outing work, by which not only their own mem- 
bers, but so many others in the constituency of 



has become a regular feature of our winter's 
special occasions. 

CHICAGO COMMONS WOMAN'S CLUB. 
While slower to start, the Chicago Commons 
Woman's Club has steadily progressed toward the 
stability of organization, enthusiasm of spirit, 
breadth of interest, power of influence, and gene- 
rous cooperation with the settlement and other 
interests, to which it has now attained. Its mem- 
bership now numbers about 125 women, and in- 



THE COMMONS 



eludes the representatives of twelve or fifteen 
nationalities and many different sects. Its Tues- 
day afternoon meetings, (our flash-light view of 
the latest, gives some idea of their popularity and 
pleasure), is an event each week in the lives of 
its members and the house. The annual cele- 
bration of Chicago Commons' birthday, which llic 
Woman's Club festively commemorates every 
autumn, has always been the occasion not only of 
a delightful neighborhood gathering, but also of 
some valuable token of the appreciation which 
the Club has ever entertained of the settlement's 
motive and method. Its programs are carefully 
arranged not only to provide for the pleasure, but 
also to promote the educational profit and self- 
development of the membership. Last winter its 
series of studies in American history and bi- 
ography were well sustained, many of its members 
furnishing interesting and carefully prepared pa- 
pers upon the leading events and characters. This 
year's series on "The Great Men of Illinois," is 
eliciting equal interest and participation. Art and 
musical interests are carefully cultivated. The 
Club belongs to the city, state and national fede- 
rations of women's clubs. 

The decorations and furnishings, with which 
the clubs and the Ladies' Aid and Missionary So- 
ciety, have equipped the rooms they use, make 
them the most attractive pan of the new building. 
The new piano, recently purchased, will not only 
add greatly to the attractiveness of the programs, 
but to the general cheer of the women's rooms. 
ON THE FREE FLOOR. 

From the beginning of its work, Chicago Com- 
mons has been a center for men. The second 
winter saw the establishment of its Free Floor 
Discussions. In response to a special announce- 
ment in the Daily News that a free floor discus- 
sion of industrial and economic issues would be 
opened at Chicago Commons, where "free speech, 
all sides and no favor" would be the rule, a 
group of twentyrfive or thirty men gathered, 
which now musters an attendance of one hun- 
dred and fifty to two hundred people, four-fifths 
of whom are men, mostly from the ranks of man- 
ual labor. In six years this Free Floor has made 
a remarkable record of never having been inter- 
rupted by any one under the influence of liquor, 
and only in two instances requiring the chairman 
to appeal to the house for its support, in main- 
taining parliamentary order, which was instantly 
and overwhelmingly given him. The occasion has 
always maintained its original character as a free 
and informal friendly conference, over things of 
uppermost interest to those present. No attempt 
has ever been made or desired to organize its 
constituency, consequently there have beer, no 



officers or controlling influences to be struggled 
for. A great variety of subjects has been frankly 
and ably presented by widely representative men 
and women, and as freely and fearlessly discussed 
by any one who felt inclined to participate either, 
in questioning the speaker, or in the discussion. 
While occasionally the radical expression of ex- 
treme views has been tolerantly and good-natur- 
edly endured by the majority opposed to them, yet 




HOME or THE COMMUNITY CLUB. 

very little has occurred in all these years which 
could be regretted by those aware of the large 
interests at stake in this occasion. Its educative 
value, its modifying and counteracting influence, 
its opportunity to interpret to each other, 'those 
in dangerous antagonism, its unfailing good na- 
ture and sense of humor, have won from very 
many representative men of widely differing 
points, of view, the most emphatic attestation of 
the value of this free floor, to the cause of social 
unification, and even to that of public peace and 
safety. 

MEN'S COMMUNITY CLUB FOR Civic PATRIOTISM. 
Entirely independent of this free floor occasion. 
and with a wholly different constituency, drawn 
exclusively from he neighborhood, the Commun- 
ity Club rallies some of the best citizenship of 
the I7th Ward, for social fellowship, the better- 
ment of municipal conditions, non-partisan politi- 
cal education and action, and the promotion of 
civic patriotism. This Club has inherited the 
influence and constituency of two or three men's 
organizations which preceded it. Its member- 
ship, now approaching a hundred men, includes 
some of the best citizens in both the Democratic 
and Republican parties, and representatives of 
different nationalities, and faiths. While seeking 
to hold, and when occasion requires it. to wield 
the balance of political power in the ward, it is 



THE COMMONS 



scrupulously non-partisan in its attitude and 
action. On two or three occasions, its constitu- 
ency has exerted a determining influence in the 
aldermanic nomination and election. One of the 
aldermen, now ably and honorably representing 
the ward in the City Council, united with the 
Club, in recognition of its influence in securing 
his nomination and election. The Community 
Club has this autumn opened its headquarters and 
social rooms at Chicago Commons, which it has 
appropriately decorated and furnished for the use 
of its members and guests every evening, except 
Sunday. 

CULTIVATING THE UNIVEBSAL LANGUAGE. 
Our musical work is widening out to meet the 
increasing demand from our cosmopolitan neigh- 
borhood. The' Chicago Commons Choral Club 
is beginning its fifth season's work under inspir- 
ing leadership. Its sphere of work has been en- 
larged by combining the choral and dramatic ele- 
ments in the scope of its purpose. Last spring 
the opera "Pinafore" was very creditably pre- 
sented, and this winter "The Chimes of Nor- 
mandy" is in preparation. The Club meets every 
Thursday evening, with commendable regularity 
and ever increasing enthusiasm. Under the aus- 
pices of the Choral Club, the oratorio of The 
Messiah is rendered in the Chicago Commons 




THE FIRST VIOLIN LESSON. 

auditorium annually at the Christmas-tide, by the 
generous service of the Apollo Musical Club, 
which gratuitously furnishes from its own mem- 
bership a chorus of seventy or more voices, and 
the soloists and accompanist. The inspirational 
and educative value of this occasion to this great 
community, is such as to amply warrant the very 
generous investment of time and talent which it 



involves. Our auditorium is always thronged by 
a strictly neighborhood audience, four or five 
hundred people paying twenty-five cents each for 
admission. 

A Children's Chorus has for several years ral- 
lied the boys and girls for musical training in 
large numbers. In cooperation with other set- 
tlement choruses, it assisted in rendering "The 
Children's Messiah" in Central Music Hall, furn- 
ishing a program illustrating the Christ-child's 
place in song 1 , story and art. 

A flourishing young Orchestra promises rapid 
development and helpful cooperation in promoting 
the highest musical interests of our community. 

Lessons are given in piano, violin, mandolin 
and other instruments, and it is gratifying to see 
that adults, as well as children, are talcing ad- 
vantage of these privileges. All lessons are 
charged for at the rate of fifty cents an hour, 
which prevents unfair competition with local 
music teachers. 

The Orchestra and The Fram Quartette, consist- 
ing of Norwegian men, are the first local musical 
organizations to seek our hospitality and to be 
welcomed regularly within our doors. 
ART EXTENSION. 

A little loan collection of pictures has done its 
lowly, but beautiful work in supplying the one 
thing of beauty in many a dingy and dull house in 
the neighborhood. Its enlargement is earnestly 
desired. 

PENNY SAVINGS BANK. 

To promote and guide economy and fore- 
thought, we cooperate with the Penny Savings 
Society in securing depositors from the 'consti- 
tuency of our clubs. The need of a wider de- 
velopment of this movement throughout our dis- 
trict and the natural point of contact, which it 
furnishes with individual and home life, consti- 
tute an inspiring sphere, large and important 
enough to warrant the investment of a resident 
worker's whole time. 

THE FOUNDATION IN PHYSICAL HEALTH. 

As large a space as possibly could be spared in 
our new building was devoted to the gymnasium 
and the place for a full equipment of shower 
baths and lockers. A good beginning toward an 
adequate provision of apparatus has been made 
by the gift of some friends representing the Sco- 
ville Institute in Oak Park. The gymnasium and 
baths are greatly in demand, and will lie open 
five days each week from four to nine-thirty 
o'clock every day, under competent directors. As 
we have but two shower baths and only half a 
dozen lockers, the early completion of the equip- 
ment of our bathing floor is necessary to the full 
use of our gymnasium facilities. In view of the 



10 



THE COMMONS 



fact that there are very few bath tubs in the 
houses of this densely populated district, and that 
neither the public schools nor the city afford any 
public baths, this appeal for the completion of our 
lavatories should meet with a prompt response, 
which would surely be followed by a popular de- 
mand for a more adequate provision for healthful 
cleanliness. 




FROM CLOSE QUARTERS INTO THE OPEN. 
The summer activities of Chicago Commons 
have grown very normally in both variety and 
expense. Beginning with a few little Saturday 
half-holiday park-parties, or visits of our kinder- 
garten children to some greensward, the work 
enlarged to include last summer seventeen day 
picnics with an attendance of 494; the sending of 




WASH DAY AT CAMP COMMONS. 

83 adults into the country for periods varying 
from one day to three weeks ; 400 children from 
one to three weeks, one child remaining two 
months ; the establishment of the Chicago Com- 
mons playground (20x160 feet.) open every after- 
noon and all day Sunday under the supervision of 
residents, with an attendance varying from 50 



to 175; the distribution of 1,082 bottles of steri- 
lized milk; the scattering through the homes of 
the neighborhood the flowers, occasionally or 
regularly sent us by city or country friends ; and 
the cooperation with the suburban camps and 
outing work, of the Bureau of Associated Chari- 
ties. 

The plans for our summer campaign found 
their consummation in the Progressive Club Cot- 
tage, for girls at Glencoe. Last year this enter- 
prising club of young 1 women leased and main- 
tained at their own expense a summer cottage on 
the lake shore at Michigan City. This year their 
suburban site attracted not only more of their 




own members, but many of the younger girls who 
were allowed to share its privileges. The -suc- 
cess which has made their outing enterprise self- 
supporting, demonstrates the need and should 
prompt the gift of a country house for the varied 
and continuous self-sustaining use to which it 
could be put by the settlement. 

CAMP COMMONS. 

Again, as last year, we pitehed our tents in the 
Penny pasture just two miles north of Elgin, in 
the valley of Tyler Creek, made beautiful by the 
oak-clad hills on either side and by the stately 
old elms scattered along the creek. Only a little 
way to the west is a deep walnut grove, while 
half a mile to* the east is the Fox River. As we 



THE COMMONS 



11 



emerge from our valley, on either side, \vc find 
ourselves in the green corn or the fragrant mead- 
ows. Is it strange, then, that in such a contrast 
to the city, new faces appear, new thoughts de- 
velop and new lives are lived? 

Our equipment this year was much improved 
by the addition of a larg dining tent, a good 



most economical of its kind. Our expenses this 
year, when all groceries were so high and fruit 
could hardly be obtained, averaged only a little 
more than three dollars for each outing of two 
weeks, including car fare and the cost of our new 
equipment. This does not, however, include any 
paid workers, all except one being voluntary 




CAMP COMMONS, PENNY MEADOW, ELGIN. 



cooking tent, two new sleeping tents and a supply 
of new blankets. Our tents are all floored and we 
sleep upon straw mattresses on the floor, thus 
having the real flavor of camp life. Our fare also 
is very plain. Bread, milk, oatmeal and vege r 
fables make up our regular meals. Meat is not 
a part of our food, except perhaps once a week. 
\Ve have fruit whenever it can be reasonably ob- 
tained. Our Elgin and Dundee friends sometimes 
brought us ice cream and cake, watermelons, 
popcorn, candy or fruit. This fare may seem 
meager, but the scales told of an increase in 
weight of five pounds each during a two weeks' 
outing for some of the children. This inexpens- 
ive, yet wholesome fare, together with our simple 
equipment, made our outing work one of the 



helpers. Too much cannot be said for this compe- 
tent service so freely rendered throughout the 
summer. 

In their happy camp life each child bears his 
or her part of the burden. The garden is planted 
before the camp is begun and when the first boys 
come it is ready to work ; then when the girls 
come, the time! to harvest is at hand. The other 
work is divided equally. Each group has four di- 
visions of "dish washers" and in turn they do all 
the table work. The "milk boys" go morning 
and night for the milk to a neighboring farmer's 
pl;K-e : the "garbage boy" keeps the camp clean ; 
the "towel girls" wash the dish towels after 
each noon-day meal, and the "flag boy" keeps the 
stars and stripes floating over the camp. 



12 



THE COMMONS 



Our time is spent in many happy ways. Often 
in the morning we hear some such call as "Every- 
body ready for Sulphur Springs," and in a few 
moments, forty or fifty strong, we are on our way 




up the creek, noting the geological construction, 
picking flowers, chasing a rabbit, picking berries, 
crawling through fourteen barbed wire fences and 
resting by the creek under some mighty tree to 



tell stories. Or, again, we stroll through the 
fields, learning the difference between corn and 
clover, potatoes and pumpkins, or we walk along 
the road gathering the wild grapes and choke- 
cherries from the hedges. Stopping at some 
barnyard we inspect the great dairy, listen to 
the turkeys gobble, and watch "those sweet little 
pigs" at their morning luncheon. Suddenly we 
hear the whistle of the steam thresher and away 
we go to see this wonder of farm machinery, and 
at last getting home tired and hot, each one is 
ready with three city appetites to do more than 
justice to the cook's morning labor. The real 
value of these walks can never be estimated. 

In the afternoon the "swimming hole" is al- 
ways the center of attraction. Most of the boys 
and a great many of the girls learn to swim, 
dive and float. Do you say the city children are 
dirty? Not naturally. It is only because they are 
deprived of the means necessary to cleanliness, 
which every city should provide. 

Base ball is a great sport with the boys, and 
the playing of "theater" was one of the girls' 
favorite pastimes. Some days the latter would 
spend almost the entire time acting out little 




THE COMMONS 



13 



dramas. Here they would spend nil their energies 
in acting the tragedies of life. Inborn in every 
child is an instinct for heroic life in action. This 
is clearly seen in all their sports and games. 

Sunday is a home day with the working man's 
family. The influence of this custom was clearly 
seen in our camp life. An unmistakable quietness 



The IK-SI part of each day always came at its 
close. After supper we would gather on top of 
the hill for our little vesper service. Here we 
would read or tell some life story, unite in real 
prayer and sing some familiar hymn. These were 
l>cautiful hours. The sky was radiant with sun- 
set colors ; the cows would come grazing Kick 





EVENING SERVICE ON VESPER KNOLL. 



and reverence prevailed. Distance prevented our 
attendance at church, so we went to some favor- 
ite spot and there listened to the stories of David, 
Joseph, Moses and other Bible heroes, -and sang 




from the barn yard and in the stillness we could 
hear the cropping of the grass; the great oaks 
stood silent in solemn reverence. Is it strange 
that when, borne on the glad voices of these 
children, "Nearer, my God to Thee" rolled out 
sweet and clear on the evening air, nothing more 
sublime ever greeted our ears? 

Soon the stillness is broken by the call, 




our favorite hymns. We always took our after- 
noon swin on Sunday and then would gather in 
small groups to talk, read or play. Sunday was 
often the best dav of the week. 



"Every one line up for drill." Then for ten min- 
utes we took a vigorous breathing exercise, end- 
ing with our camp yell : 

"Boom, gig, boom! boom, gig, boom! 
Boom dig a 'rig gig! boom, boom, boom! 

He hi ho ! he hi ho ! 
Camp Commons! Chi-ca-go!" 



14 



THE COMMONS 



And then down the hill we would go to spend 
the evening around a rousing camp fire, singing 
songs and tejling stories. Often our evening pro- 
gram would do honor to the best minstrel band. 
About 8:30 o'clock, as the camp fire burned low, 
we would "turn in" to sleep soundly until the 
light, gray in the east, announced the new day. 

Amid the cares of work in the noisy city we 
will gratefully remember the happy, peaceful 
hours of our camp life, and all winter in little 
groups three hundred boys and girls will talk of 
the joys of Camp Commons. 



largest part of life's culture. Scrupulously care- 
ful only to supplement, and never to duplicate 
the schooling which is so much more, thoroughly 
and economically furnished by public schools or 
privately managed academic institutions, the set- 
tlement endeavors to make all its social affiliations 
educative and to add to these, more or less di- 
rectly, educational features. It, therefore, offers 
its night classes chiefly to those, who by reason of 
their age or limited time and means cannot take 
advantage of other opportunities to secure rudi- 
mentary knowledge, or the culture of the accomp- 




A RARE TALE ON "POINT STORY." 



EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL WORK. 
The social settlement may be truly classified 
as an educational agency, perhaps the larger part 
of its activities and influence may most accu- 
rately -be grouped under this term. Its direct edu- 
cational effort, however, is purposely made secon- 
dary to the social bonds which it is its primary 
purpose to create, and develop. For through this 
associative relationship with one's fellows, every 
one inside or outside of a settlement receives, 
indirectly indeed, but none the less actually the 



lished. Thus foreigners of adult age come to us 
to learn English, writing or arithmetic ; working 
men and women form social groups for the study 
of American history, English literature, and 
Shakespeare's plays. Our Shakespeare Club has 
entered upon its fourth winter's most successful 
work. Not only for its own enthusiastic mem- 
bership, but for the large constituency of its 
friends whom it is trying to interest in the study 
of literature, by inviting them to share with it 
the discussion of literary themes by some of the 



THE COMMONS 



15 



best authorities in the city. The schedule of our 
winter's work published on another page, dis- 
closes; the demands that we not only try to meet 



as made upon us, but which we try to create by 
the offer of the supply. 




CITY FARMERS DIGGING POTATOES. 
15he R~uin of the Old Commons a.nd the RJse o/ the New Building. 



The long dreaded conflagration, which often 
menaced our old neighborhood during the seven 
years of our residence there, at last, on October 




3Oth, quickly and completely destroyed not only 
the old Commons, but also both sides of Union 
street and a section of the south side of Mil- 
waukee avenue. Had we not removed from the 



old house, we would have suffered even a still 
more irreparable loss than our poor neighbors, 
for our manuscripts, records, books and files, could 
not have been saved, so fierce and rapid were the 
flames. Had the fire broken out at night, the 
loss of many lives would- have been inevitable. So 
far as we could we tried to render emergency 
relief, by sheltering two shelterless households 
under our roof, and by providing as best we 
could for the immediate necessities of other fami- 
lies. The interior and exterior scenes of desola- 
tion, within and round a1>out the old Commons 
will have a pathetic interest to many of our read- 
ers, who shared with us the hospitality of the 
old mansion. There is a certain sense of satis- 
faction, however, in that its complete destruction, 
prevents it from becoming such an abode of 
misery as it was before we made it the homelike 
center of neighborhood life and good cheer. Over 
against the pictures of the ruins from which our 
work barely escaped, we gratefully present views 
of the new center we have established in the old 
district for so much of the work as can be effect- 
ively continued there, together with glimpses of 
the New Commons and the happy life with which 
its spacious and hospitable neighborhood house al- 
readv overflows. 



16 



THE COMMONS 



The soul of the social settlement is the home 
spirit at its center. To give this spirit a body in 
which to maintain, express and impress itself in 
the community the John Marshall Williams 
Residence Hall is designed. Its open door-yard, 
with a walk winding, between little lawns and 
flower beds from the street corner to the hos- 



tcrnal fellowship in the sacrament of the com- 
mon meal. Around the vesper circle in the ad- 
joining living-room, the flow of soul will be from 
each according to ability and to each according to 
necessity. Thus the Commons' household will 
live and labor here to make its open hearth the 
warm, free and fraternal home center for the 




WRECK OF THE PARLOR AND DINING ROOM. 



pitable entrance, will show the latch-string ever 
hanging out. The cozy little reception room and 
the spacious public parlor, with its open fire- 
place, on either 'side of the main doorway, will 
meet and greet every incoming guest. 

At the family board in the commodious dining 
hall on the second floor manv will find new fra- 



whole people of its great neighborhood, without 
respect to person, class, condition, sect or parti- 
sanship. Its neighborship will be large enough 
also to include those who come from the suburbs, 
the universities and other communities to meet, 
mingle and minister for the common good. 

The cost of this wing, with its electrical eleva- 



THE COMMONS 



17 



T5he Willia.ms Residence Ha.ll. 

Ready for Its Howse-Wa.rrrvlr\g. 






A RESIDENT'S ROOM. 



']"HE OPFN HEARTH IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD PARLOR. 




DINING HALL AND LIVING ROOM. 



18 



THE COMMONS 



tor, is $26,021. It was built as a memorial to the 
late John Marshall Williams of Evanston, whose 
early business connection with our district and 
whose later sympathies for our work with the 
workers, prompted him to head the subscriptions 
toward our building equipment. The gifts of his 
four daughters and two sons, in memory of their 
father, have identified his name with that part of 
the building, which, by providing for the resi- 



community can scarcely be human. 

At the center of the building, as of the city 
problem itself, is the provision for the children. 
To pre-occupy and prepossess child-life with the 
good that overcomes and crowds out evil is the 
best way to help parents in their home life. Am- 
ple provision is therefore made for the kinder- 
garten, kitchen-garden and advanced instruction 
in cooking, sewing, housekeeping and manual 




THE FAMILY PARLOR AND WARDEN'S STUDY. 



deuce of the Warden's family and the dwelling 
of the group of resident workers. . assures the 
perpetuity and progress of the work in making 
its leadership possible. 

The design of the new building speaks for itself. 
Indeed, the lines designating the uses to which 
the several apartments are to be put are simply 
traced over those common necessities of human 
nature, without some such provision for which a 



training, and for many small club and class rooms 
Overlying and in many aspects underlying child- 
hood's needs are the wants of womanhood and 
motherhood. The growing Progressive Club of 
young women and the flourishing Woman's Club 
for the older women of many nationalities, the 
Mothers' Club and the Tabernacle Ladies' Aid are 
all well provided for with attractive club rooms 
and kitchen equipment. . f. . . . 



THE COMMONS 



19 



THE PEOPLE'S AUDITORIUM. 
The larger social, recreative and religious de- 
mands of the community are met by the spacious 
auditorium, containing with the proposed annex, 
600 seats. The Pleasant Sunday Afternoons al- 
ready tax our seating capacity by the attendance 
of families of all faiths and nationalities gathered 
for free and helpful fellowship in song and story. 
Here also on Sunday is held the Tabernacle 
Family Service, with its carefully graded Bible 



their social, civic and moral betterment ; their 
economic, political and religious co-operation ; 
their art exhibitions, neighborly fellowship and 
musical festivals, to the attractiveness of which 
our Choral Club and Orchestra will increasingly 
contribute. 

CLUB HOUSE FOR MEN TO COMPLETE THE BUILDING. 
By the foresight of our old friend Mr. J. M. 
Williams, the title to the lot (20x160 feet), adjoin- 
ing our new building on the south, has been se- 




AUDITORIUM AND NEIGHBORHOOD ASSEMBLY HALL. 



school, and the Sunday evening assembly for song 
and sermon. The smaller class and club rooms 
will afford the best facilities for modern methods 
of church work. 

The main floor of the auditorium can be cleared 
or seated so as to be available for public receptions, 
recreative and educational purposes. It will be the 
only assembly hall not prohibitive in rental or not 
connected with harmful associations, to which a 
population of over 30.000 people can resort for 



cured, in hope that some one or two friends would 
soon erect a club house for the use of the hard- 
working, worthy men of our Ward, which, with 
its population of 65,000, is the largest and most 
cosmopolitan in the city. 

The temporary quarters of the Community 
Club will almost immediately be inadequate to ac- 
commodate or attract the multitudes of men with- 
in reach of its social and civic influences. 

The chance which this space for a five story 



20 



THE COMMONS. 



men's club house gives for the investment of $10,- 
ooo in the social settlement and civic patriotism 
of Chicago, some one who sees the situation will 
surely seize. We who know the men and are in 
touch with their needs are anxious to lose no time 
in supplanting the worse provision for their wants 
with this better preoccupation of their lives. 
AFFILIATION WITH OUR NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH. 

The affiliation between the settlement and the 
Tabernacle church is naturally closer than with 
any other organization for two reasons. First, 
it constituted the largest group in our predomi- 
nantly Protestant district which had longest main- 
tained its association, and, second, it consented to 
the lease of the site of the old building to the 
Chicago Commons Association, on condition that 
its entirely independent services be accommo- 
dated in the new building. Chicago Commons 
and the Tabernacle, though organically separate 
and distinct organizations, are thus affiliated in 
the same friendly relations in which the settle- 
ment work seeks to cooperate with all other insti- 
tutions and agencies at work for the good of the 
community. Two features of special interest and 
promise have characterized the growth of the 
church work during the past year. The grading 
of its Sunday-school to correspond to that of 
the twelve grades in the public grammar and high 
schools, marks a noteworthy stage of progress. 
The ordination and installation to its associate 
pastorate of the Rev. James Mullenbach, upon his 
return from his two years of Fellowship study in 
German universities, assures the old church of a 
new leadership, which promises to be as practi- 
cally efficient as it is intellectually able. 

WIDENING COOPERATIVE RELATIONS. 

More or less intimate cooperative relationships 
have been sustained with other churches, both 
Catholic and Protestant; the Chicago Theological 
Seminary, the _ Bureaus of Associated Charities; 
the Children's Home and Aid Society; the Chi- 
cago Relief and Aid Society; Catholic Visitation 
and Aid Society ; the Juvenile Court and its pro- 
bation officers, one of whom meets the boys in 
her custody under the Commons roof; the 
Parmelee Library; the Flower Mission; North- 
western University Settlement in the distribution 
of sterilized milk; the Art Institute, the North- 
west Civic Improvement Society, and last, but 
chiefly, the neighborhood public schools and the 
teachers of other public schools, in their effort to 
establish neighborhood social centers at their 
school buildings. 

WHERE LIFE AND LETTERS EXCHANGE VALUES. 

Chicago Commons, with several other well es- 

tr-blislud settlements, is being used as an educa- 



tional adjunct to university departments in eco- 
nomics and sociology, to theological seminaries 
and to schools for social service, and the training 
of lay workers for church work. For five years 
the University of Michigan has, through the vol- 
untary cooperation of the students and professors, 
kept with us a representative in settlement resi- 
dence for about half the year, to pursue some 
original line of investigation, under our immedi- 
ate supervision. One of its Fellows studied Juve- 
nile Delinquency in Chicago, another the Boy 
Problem, and a third furnished a report on "Eth- 
ical Substitutes for the Saloon," which has been 
widely recognized as an original contribution of 
first-hand value to the literature on the subject. 
The reflex influence of the settlement as a social ob- 
servatory or point of view is very widely attested, 
not only by the increasingly close affiliation, with 
institutions of learning, but also by the wide cor- 
respondence maintained with students, through 
which their students are guided and their outlook 
upon life is affected. 

ONE OF THE FEW PLACES FOR THE WHOLE 
FAMILY. 

The social settlement is the only agency, except 
the church, which avowedly aims to promote the 
interests of the whole family, by providing some 
privilege for each one of its members. Where 
else can the whole group go together and find 
such provision for its social needs as th; settle- 
ment makes for the babe in the day nursery, 
the child in the kindergarten, the boy and the 
girl in the club, the youth and the maiden in the 
gymnasium and social circles, the motherly home- 
maker in mothers' meetings, cooking class or Wo- 
man's. Club, the fatherly bread-winner in citizen- 
ship circle or economic discussion. But not con- 
tent with these special provisions for separate 
members of the family circle, definite, endeavor 
is made to minister to the whole family group. 
The neighborhood visitor of the settltment house- 
hold follows the club members home, welcomes 
the strangers moving into the neighborhood, ren- 
ders the amenities of neighborship in times of 
sorrow and of joy, in the crises of birth and 
death, marriage and bereavement, accident and 
impoverishment. 

Neighborhood socials, with invitations issued 
on the inclusive principle, gather entire family 
groups together in the neighborhood parlor, :!<e 
hospitality of which is offered the neighbors for 
their wedding and other festivities. 

The Pleasant. Sunday Afternoon is succeeding 
very largely as a non-sectarian, family, neighbor- 
hood occasion, to which the fathers and mothers 
come with their children, often bringing the babe 



T HECOMMONS 



21 



in arms. Stopping short of divisive points, and 
carrying the whole crowd as far as they will go 
together, our Pleasant Sunday Afternoon is both 
unifying and elevating the family life of the com- 
munity. The attendance already taxes the ca- 
pacity of our auditorium. Musical, artistic, recre- 
ative, instructive, and broadly ethical or religious 
programs rally the people to attractions offered 
by the Catholic Woman's National League; 
stereopdcon lectures and songs of the Scandi- 
navian home-lands; and musical selections ren- 
dered by a protestant church choir, or the chorus 
of some Woman's Club. 

OUR PUBLICATION REPRESENTING THE SETTLEMENT 
MOVEMENT. 

The medium through which Chicago Commons 
has enlisted most of its support, and exerted 
most of its reflex influence, is this monthly jour- 
nal, "THE COMMONS," which is published pri- 
marily in the interests of the whole settlement 
movement. It aims to represent life and labor 
from the social settlement point of view, and to 
be equally useful to settlement residents and 
workers in kindred lines of social service, by be- 
ing the medium of the exchange of their ideals, 
experiences, and methods of work. Its average 
monthly circulation has now reached about 4,000 
copies, and is very widely scattered over the 
the English speaking world. 
LEGAL ORGANIZATION AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 

The Chicago Commons Association is incorpo- 
rated under the laws of Illinois, the purpose of 
which being thus defined in the articles of in- 
corporation, "The object for which it is formed is 
to provide a center for a higher civic and social 
life, to initiate and maintain religious, educational 
and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate 
and improve conditions in the industrial districts 
of Chicago." The Board of Trustees is com- 
posed of the following eleven members : David 
Fales, Esq. (Lake Forest), and) Prof. H. M. 
Scott (West Side), represent the. Chicago (Con- 
gregational) Theological Seminary, board of di- 
rectors and faculty ; Frank H. McCulloch. Esq., 
secretary of the board, stands for the Evanston 
affiliation of the settlement, and Charles H. Hul- 
burd, of the Elgin Watch Company (North Side), 
represents the New England Church ; J. H. 
Strong (U. S. Life Ins. Co.) represents Plymouth 
Church; E. Burritt Smith (South Side) is an 
officer in the University Church and a prominent 
attorney; Edward Payson (Oak Park) a manu- 
facturer, and A. B. Scully (South Side) of the 
Scully Steel & Iron Co.. with Graham Taylor 
(Professor of Christian Sociology in Chicago 
Theological Seminary) as president and treasurer 



of the association and resident warden. M rs. 
Otto Matz represents the Chicago Woman's Club, 
and Miss Jane Addams embodies the close and 
friendly encouragement which has been reciprocal 
between Hull House and the Commons. 

THE FINANCIAL SITUATION. 

FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS DUE ON THE 
BUILDING. 

Of the $20,000 needed to discharge all obliga- 
tions on the building account, $5,075 have been 
subscribed within the last month. The balance 
of $15.000 is being carried by notes, liability for 
which has been personally assumed by those who 
can ill afford to carry the burden, while prose- 
cuting the effort to secure the subscription of this 
amount. As the tenure of the land forbids mort- 
gaging the property, thus providing against its 
alienation from the purpose to which it is now 
devoted, it will be necessary to secure the sub- 
scription of the $15,000 before the expiration of 
these accommodation notes. 

To SUPPORT THE WORK IN 1902. 

While all the groups and organizations using 
the building contribute toward its maintenance, 
and some of the departments are approaching 
self-support, it will require $650 per month, or 
$7,800 for the year, to meet the expense of the 
work, additional to what resident-workers con- 
tribute in gratuitous service while supporting 
themselves. 

For this amount Chicago Commons depends 
upon the spontaneous giving of its widely scat- 
tered friends, as it has neither endowment nor 
any one whose time is at command to solicit funds. 
Hitherto the support of the work has come from 
many small contributions, sent in from all parts 
of the country. Without the aid of these support- 
ers outside of Chicago, our work for these river 
wards could neither have been undertaken nor 
maintained. .To provide permanent foothold) and 
shelter for the work thus well inaugurated, the 
manufacturers and business men of our own dis- 
trict and other public-spirited citizens of Chicago 
rallied to the support of the building project. Now 
that this fine plant has been secured by their gen- 
erosity, the development of the larger work, which 
this great equipment warrants, must depend upon 
the increased support from Chicago which the suc- 
cess of this civic service is recognized to deserve 
and may be trusted to attract. 

Checks or postal orders may be made payable to 
Chicago Commons, or to Graham Taylor, Warden, 
(Grand avenue and Morgan street, Chicago, Illi- 
nois.) Subscriptions for 1902 should be forward- 
ed during or before the opening months of the 
year, stating when remittances may be expected. 



22 



THE COMMONS 



SCHEDULE OF SETTLEMENT APPOINTMENTS. 

For the Eighth Winter at Chicago Commons. 
Grand Avenue and Morgan Street. 



DAILY: (Except Sunday.) 
House open for neighbors annd friends every 

day. 
6:30 P. M. Day Nursery, 219 Grand avenue. 

(See Matheon Club below.') 
9:00-12:00 A. M. Kindergarten (except Satur- 

day.) 

Cooking classes, afternoon and evening. 
Gymnasium Exercises and Games for both 

adults and children. 
Boys' Clubs, afternoon and evening. 
Community Club Rooms for men, open even- 
ings. 

7:30-9:00 P. M. Manual Training. 
7 :oo-P. M. Household Vespers. 
SUNDAY: 

3:30-4:30 P. M. Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. 
(A Non-sectarian neighborhood 
gathering.) 
MONDAY: 

1:30-4:30 P. M. Kindergarten Training Clas- 
ses. 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Kitchen Garden. 
4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Gymnasium for boys. 
7:15-8:15 P. M. Gymnasium for boys. 
7:30-9:30 P. M. Orchestra Practice. 
7:30-10:00 P. M. Progressive Club for Young 

Women. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Young Men's Club. 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Book-keeping. 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Arithmetic and algebra. 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Stenography. 
8:30-9:30 P. M. Gymnasium for young men. 

TUESDAY: 

1:30-4:30 P. M. Kindergarten Training Class- 
es. 

2:00-4:00 P. M. Chicago Commons Woman's 
Club. 

4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Elocution. 

4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Gymnasium for girls. 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Junior Boys' Clubs. 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Penny Savings Bank. 

7:15-8:30 P. M. Gymnasium for girls. 

7:30-9:30 P. M. Junior Progressive Club. 

8:15-10:00 P. M. Free-Floor Discussion. 

8:30-9:30 P. M. Gymnasium, young women. 

9:00-10:00 P. M. Fram Quartette. 

WEDNESDAY: 

1:30-4:30 P. M. Kindergarten Training Class- 
es. 
4:00-5:00 P. M. Children's Dancing Class. 



4:00-5:00 P. M. Gymnasium for girls, 
f : 15-8: 15 P. M. Gymnasium for boys. 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Art Class. 
THURSDAY: 

I =30-4 :30 P. M. Kindergarten Training Class- 
es. 

3 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Mandolin and Violin Classes. 

4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Gymnasium for girls. 
7:15-8:15 P. M. Gymnasium for boys. 

7 :30-g :oo P. M. Mandolin and Violin Classes. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Chicago Commons Choral 
Club. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Community Club Weekly 
Meeting. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Class in English. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Stenography. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Gymnasium for Young Men. 
FRIDAY: 

2:00-4:00 P. M. Kindergarten Mothers' Meet- 
ing. 

3:00-5:00 P. M. Piano Instruction. . 

4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Junior Clubs (boys and girls). 

4:00-5:00 P. M Girls' Clubs. 

4 :oo-5 :oo P. M. Gymnasium for boys. 

7:15-8:15 P. M. Gymnasium for girls. 

7:30-10:00 P. M. Piano Instruction. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Arithmetic and Algebra. 

8:30-9:30 P. M. Gymnasium for Young Wo- 
men. 

8:00-10:00 P. M. Dressmaking. 

8:00-10.00 P. M. Shakespeare Club. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Elocution for Adults. 

8:00-9:00 P. M. Literature. 
SATURDAY: 

9:00-10:00 A. M. Sewing-school. 

9:00-10:00 A. M. Gymnasium for Boys. 

1 : 3-5 :3O P. M. Manual Training, Normal 
Class. 

7 :oo-8 :oo P. M. Penny Savings Bank. 

APPOINTMENTS AT BRANCH SETTLE- 
MENT HOUSE. 

75 GRAND AVENUE. 

DAILY : 

9:00-12:00 A. M. Kindergarten. 
MONDAY: 

4 :oo-s :oo P. M. Junior Clubs (boys and girls). 
WEDNESDAY : 
2 :oo-4 :oo P. M. Italian Mothers' Meeting 

(Fortnightly). 

7 : 3-9 : 3 P. M. German Mothers' Meeting 
(Fortnightly). 



THE COMMONS 



23 



THURSDAY : 

4:00-5:00 P. M. Junior Clubs for Girls. 
FRIDAY: 

7 :3O-p :oo P. M. Boys' Clubs. 

OCCASIONS UNDER OTHER AUSPICES. 

AT CHICAGO COMMONS, GRAND AVE. AD MOR.AX SI. 

TABERNACLE APPOINTMENTS. 
SUNDAY: 

10:00-11:00 A. M. Bible School for Children 

and Adults. 
11:00-12:00 A. M. Public Worship with 

Preaching. 

2:00-3:00 P. M. Sunshine Circle. 
7:00-8:00 P. M. Children's Church. 
7 :oo-7 :45 P. M. Senior Christian Endeavor. 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Evening Church Service. 
TUESDAY : 

P:oo-io:ou P. M. Forget -me-not Girls' Club. 
WEDNESDAY: 

7:00-8:00 P. M. Junior Christian Endeavor. 
8:00-9 oo P. M. Fellowship Meeting. 
THURSDAY: 
2:00-4:00 P. M. Ladies' Aid and Missionary 

Society. 
FRIDAY : 

7:00-8:00 P. M. Intermediate Christian En- 
deavor. 

SATURDAY: 
8:00-9:00 P. M. Choir Rehearsal. 

THE ARMENIAN COMMITTEE. 
SUNDAY: 
3:00-4:00 P. M. Armenian Religious Service. 

UNDER MATHEON CLUB AUSPICES. 
6:30 A. M.-6:30 P. M. Matheon Day Nursery, 
219 Grand Ave. 

WASHINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOL KINDER- 
GARTEN. 
FRIDAY: 

1 :30-4 -oo P. M. Kindergarten Mothers' Meet- 

ing. 

SPANISH AMERICAN WAR VETERANS. 
FRIDAY: 

7:30-9:30 P. M. McKinley Lodge. 
JUVENILE COURT PROBATION OFFICER. 
SATURDAY : 

2 :oo-3 :oo P. M. Conference of Probation Of- 

ficer with boys under care of court. 

PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL KINDERGARTEN 

"TRAINING SCHOOL. 

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 
Class Instruction. 

TRADES' UNIONS. 

Open meetings held in Chicago Commons Au- 
ditorium under the auspices of Trades Unions. 



LAWN SWINGS 



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Manufacturer 

Play Ground, Park, Gymnasium and Athletic Field 
Equipments. Write for anything you want. 

126-128 West Webster Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. 

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will be filled on receipt of the boks early in September 

AT 75 CENTS PER COPY 

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Street, Chicago. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
T5he Handbook f Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 

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Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
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ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 
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Chicago 

T5he Church in Socia 1 Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

15he New Fourth Edition S College. Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement point of view, J.t is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.& Morgan St.. 
Chicago, 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postofficeas mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
The Subscription Price is Fifty Cents a Year. 
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cash or stamps, not atove s-cent denomination., at our risk. 

Advertisements in the Commons During 1901. 

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Special Rates for Special Numbers of the Commons 

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CneLnges of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
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Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for sny 
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to the contrary. 



24 



THE COMMONS 



CHICAGO COMMONS* PLAY GROUND. 




THE ONLY PLAYGROUND FOR 12,000 CHILDREN. 



TKe Commorvs 

A MontKly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Point ef View. 



Number 66 Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. January 1902. 



The Making of Abraham Lincoln. 

Edwin Markham in his new volumes of poems 
entitled "Lincoln and other Poems," thus de- 
scribes the Norn-Mother when 

She took the tried clay of the common road 
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth, 

Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy; 
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 

It! was a stuff to wear for centuries, 
A man that matched the mountains, and com- 
pelled 

The stars to look our way and honor us. 

The color of the ground was in him, the red 
earth ; 

The tang and odor of the primal things 
The rectitude and patience of the rocks; 

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 
The courage of the bird that dares the sea . 

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves; 
The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 

The loving-kindness of the wayside well ; 
The tolerance and equity of light 

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 
As to the great oak flaring to the wind 

To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 
That shoulders out the sky. 

And so he came. 

From prairie cabin up to Capital, 
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on. 

Forevermore he burned to do his deed 
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king. 

He built that rail-pile as he built the State, 
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 

The conscience of him testing every stroke, 
To make his deed the measure of a man. 

President Roosevelt on "R_eform 
Through Socia.1 Work." 

In an interestingly straightforward article, con- 
tributed to the November number of the English 
"Fortnightly Review," President Roosevelt 
writes of reform through social work what is 
well worth the reading of every worker for so- 
cial oi* civic betterment. Its zest lies in the con- 
crete instances given of the reformatory value 
of certain men in New York City politics. The 
first of these to be graphically described is Mr. 
F. Norton Goddard, who is characterized as 



"probably the only man who ever entered on the 
career of a district leader by the door of philan- 
throphy." He is shown to have started upon his 
unique career under the single impulse "to do 
something serious in life." To test his capacity 
for settlement service, he settled alone over on 
the East Side and afterwards decided to swarm 
by himself. Joining a little club of men, which 
he found in his new neighborhood, he saw it 
grow into the "Civic Club." From this as a 
center, he moved steadily toward the control of 
the Republican party organization of his d's- 
trict. When the test at the primaries finally 
came, the candidates whom he and the "Civic 
Club" supported received more votes than both 
of their opponents together. He not only won 
out but stayed in, ever increasing his lead over 
all attempts to drive him out of party leadership. 
This he did by clean use of the social influence 
which Tammany corruptly, yet so effectively, em- 
ploys. His "Civic Club" is the social center of 
the district, and Mr. Goddard is the soul of it, 
every one's big brother, and "friend at court." 
A shrewd politician is quoted as saying that 
twenty such men in twenty such districts could 
save New York City from Tammany and force 
even the Republican machine to represent the test 
elements of the party. 

The President pays high tribute to the social 
settlements of New York City, the cost they are 
willing to pay for their influence and the civic 
achievement they have thus honestly earned. Of 
Mr. James B. Reynolds and his fellow residents 
at the University Settlement, he says, "They have 
stood for the forces of good in politics, in social 
life, in warring against crime, in increasing the 
sum of material pleasures. They work hand in 
hand, shoulder to shoulder with those whom they 
seek to benefit, and they themselves share in the 
benefits. They make their house the center for 
all robust agencies for social betterment. They 
have constantly endeavored to work with, rather 
than merely for, the community; to co-operate in 
honorable friendship with all who are struggling 
upward. Only those who know the appalling 
conditions of life in the swarming tenements that 
surround the University Settlement can appreci- 
ate what it has done." 

Of emphatic significance is Mr. Roosevelt's 
commendation of the settlement's close affiliation 



2 



THE COMMONS 



with organized labor. "Its work in co-operation 
with trades unions has been of special value, 
both in helping them where they have done good 
work, and in endeavoring to check any tendency 
to evil in any particular union. It has, for in- 
stance, consistently labored to secure the settle- 
ment of strikes by consultation or arbitration, 
before the bitterness has become so great as to 
prevent any chance of a settlement." 

Of the social influence of the churches he stout- 
ly maintains that "a living church organization 
should more than any other, be a potent force in 
social uplifting. In this connection he pays a 
well merited tribute to St. George's Protestant 
Episcopal Church for its honest effort to study 
the conditions of life and to remedy those which 
are abnormal. 

The four qualifications for real social work 
he finds typified in Jacob Riis, "high courage, 
disinterested desire to do good, sane and whole- 
some common sense and a sound sense of humor." 
Perhaps the most far-reaching influence of the 
President's valuable paper is its suggestion that 
the way to save even partisan politics in our great 
cities, is to invest them with responsibility and 
power for civic improvements and social pro- 
gress. 

The Fortnightly Review has done this country 
a service in eliciting this article from President 
Roosevelt. We hope that the very inadequate and 
fragmentary glimpse of it which, in respect to the 
American copyright, we have given our readers 
will only stimulate their interest to buy and read 
its full text. 

Since the publication of Mr. Roosevelt's article 
a very strong and practical attestation has been 
given his estimate of Mr. James B. Reynolds. 
His appointment as the private secretary of 
Mayor Seth Low was made for three reasons: 
first, because of his personal qualifications for 
the ' office ; second, because his long residence 
and leadership in the University Settlement had 
put him in close touch with the mass of the work- 
ing people; and third, because the densely popu- 
lated East Side tenement district had in Mayor 
Low's judgment the right to have its best rep- 
resentative close to him, thereby enabling him 
the better to serve the whole people of the city. 



The highest type of philanthrophy is that 
which springs from the feeling of brotherhood, 
and which, therefore, rests on the self-respect- 
ing, healthy basis of mutual obligation, and com- 
mon effort. The best way to raise anyone is to 
join with him in an effort whereby both you and 
he are raised by helping each other. Theodore 
Roosevelt in The Fortnightly Review. 



Chicago Settlements. 

BY ELIZABETH HEAD. FOR THE SETTLEMENT COM- 
MITTEE OF THE CHICAGO WOMAN'S CLUB. 

The Chicago Woman's Club has had for several 
years a "Settlement Committee," originated in 
l!ie Philanthrophy Department, but now includ- 
ing members from nearly all the other depart- 
ments. This Committee, feeling that everyone 
should be interested in some settlement, not only 
for the good of the settlement, but for the deeper 
knowledge and broader outlook upon life which 
such interest gives to the individual, decided to 
put before the public a brief description of all 
the Chicago settlements, that each person may 
choose for himself what line of work most ap- 
peals to him. A letter was prepared and sent to 
each settlement, asking for certain information, 
and the present article is simply a presentation 
of the answers to these letters, edited enough to 
avoid needless repetition. 

Certain features, common to almost all the 
settlements, as kindergarten, sewing-schools, 
cooking and manual training classes, womens' 
clubs, clubs for boys and girls, circulating li- 
braries, penny savings banks and neighborhood 
socials, will not be dwelt upon unless some spe- 
cial feature is to be noted in such connection. 
Hull House. (1889.) 335 South Halsted Street. 

Miss Jane Addams, Head) Resident. 
North-Western University. (1891.) Corner of 
Augusta and Noble Sts. Mr. William A. 
Hard. 

Forward Movement. (1893.) 294 West Van 
Buren St. Rev. George W. Gray, Super- 
intendent. 
Chicago Commons. (1894.) Grand Avenue and 

Morgan St. Graham Taylor, Warden. 
University of Chicago. (1894.) 4638 South 
Ashland Avenue. Miss Mary E. McDowell. 
Helen Heath. (1895.) Thirty-Third Place. Mrs. 

Marion H. Perkins. 

Eli Bates House. (1895.) 80 Elm Street. 
Neighborhood House. (1896.) 1224 Sixty-Sev- 
enth Street. Mrs. S. S. Van der Vaart. 
Gad's Hill. (1897.) Corner of Robey and West 

Twenty-Second Street. 

Henry Booth House. (1898.) 135 West Four- 
teenth Place. 

Association House. (1899.) 474 West North 
Avenue. Miss Carrie B. Wilson. 

ASSOCIATION HOUSE. 

Association House is the most recently estab- 
lished among the settlements. It was opened 
about two years ago, in response to a petition 
signed by one hundred and fifteen young women 
and fifty-three children, who were so anxious to 
have it that they pledg'ed hearty and continuous 



THE COMMONS 



support if the Young Women's Christian As- 
sociation would undertake the responsibility of 
securing suitable rooms, and would begin to carry 
on a gospel settlement work adapted to women 
and children. 



ing, is a distinctive and important feature. 

About one thousand people come weekly to the 
house, for various clubs and classes, not in- 
cluding special entertainments. The expense of 
conducting the settlement is about $5.500 yearly, 




The activities group themselves along the lines 
of club life and educational work. The clubs are 
self-governing, and include, under twelve or more 
groups, mothers, young women, boys and girls. 

A self-supporting club of young men, not di- 
rectly under the control of the settlement, has 
recently been granted a meeting-place in the 
building. There is as yet no penny savings bank. 

The usual educational work is done, with class- 
es also in english, arithmetic and Bible study. A 
very successful Kitchen-garden class has been 
in operation for two years. One of the must 
helpful departments has been the sales-room, 
where the partly worn clothes sent to the set- 
tlement are priced and made ready for sale by 
two from the Mother's club. The income from 
this department was used last summer toward 
the expenses of the playground. The playground 
has been maintained for two years, and has been, 
of course, of great value. The vesper service on 
Sunday afternoons, with an informal tea follow- 



House. 

$1,500 of which is raised by club dues, fees, and 
board. The rest comes from contributions for 
which the Board of Management is responsible. 




Association House Playground. 



THE COMMONS 



NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE. 

Neighborhood House, opened in 1896, is situ- 
ated among a population largely employed in the 
Stock- Yards, and of diverse nationalities, Amer- 
ican, Irish, Dutch, German, Swedish and Italian 
being represented. 



which it occupies was erected by Unity Church 
for an industrial school, with money left for that 
purpose by Eli Bates. So, although the settle- 
ment has been in actual existence only since 
1895, many of its activities have been in con- 
secutive operation for more than twenty years. 




Neighborhood House. 



The usual activities are carried on, in the way 
of clubs and classes. There are two kinder- 
gartens, one in the mornings, under the Board 
of Education, the other a private pay kindergar- 
ten in the afternoons. Gymnastic classes for 
adults and children are held several times each 
week, also singing-classes. The classes and clubs 
are rapidly outgrowing the hall ; the Young Wo- 
men's club, with a membership of fifty, has a 
waiting list of ten, and the industrial school, ac- 
commodating one hundred and twenty children, 
has a waiting list of seventy-five. An informal 
song service, held for an hour on Sunday after- 
noons, is eagerly attended by the neighbors, re- 
gardless of creed. 

The general expenses of the house are met by 
individual contributions, and donations for special 
class work are made by a number of Clubs and 
organizations. 

ELI BATES HOUSE. 

The Eli Bates House, known informally as 
"Elm Street Settlement," is located on Elm 
Street, near the river, among the gas houses. The 
neighborhood is peculiarly forlorn, and the 
House offers the only bright, clean, pleasant 
meeting-place for blocks around. The building 



The day nursery was the first in Chicago; the 
sewing school dates from 1884; there were boys' 
clubs from 1889 to 1892, though these lapsed and 
were, reorganized later under settlement con- 
trol. 

During the past year there have been forty- 
two clubs and classes, under fifty-two different 
leaders, and including eleven hundred and seven 
members. The usual classes are held, also classes 
in shorthand, designing, history, geography and 
travel. Four manual training classes, caring for 
fifty-six boys, have a waiting list of thirty-seven. 
The Penny Savings bank is gaining depositors 
among the adults as well as the children. The 
settlement considers that its strongest hold on 
the neighborhood comes through the kindergar- 
ten, day nursery and social gatherings. About a 
thousand people come weekly to the house. 

Unity Church gives the settlement the use of 
the building for a nominal rent, and many of the 
workers come from that church, their interest 
continuing to .the settlement as the successor of 
the industrial school ; but there is no alliance 
with Unity or any other church. The expenses 
for maintenance are about $3.600 yearly, met by 
subscriptions, donations and dues from member- 



THE COMMONS 



ships. (Associate membership, $2 a year; gov- 
erning membership, with a vote at the annual 
meeting of the corporation, $10. 

HELEN HEATH SETTLEMENT. 

During the winter of 1893-4, following the 
World's Fair, Dr. Helen Heath rendered most 
valuable assistance to the Relief and Aid So- 
ciety in dispensing its benefactions to hundreds 
of families among the foreign population center- 
ing at Wall and Thirty-second Streets. A social 
settlement had been for some time under con- 
sideration by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and this seem- 
ed a favorable opening. A building was planned 
and erected by All Souls Church. Dr. Heath's 
sudden death giving impetus to the work, and 
the settlement, fittingly named for her was in 
operation in November, 1895. 

The usual club and educational work is main- 
tained, an especially good library being one of the 
strong points. The Head Resident considers) the 
library and the manual training classes among 
the most effective means of reaching the com- 
munity. 

Most of the non-resident workers are drawn 
from All Souls Church, and the financial support 
comes largely though not exclusively from the 
same source. There was at first 'an indebtedness 
of $4,000 for the building, which has now been 



very cosmopolitan constituency, American, Swed- 
ish, Irish, German, Polish and Bohemian being 
represented. 

There is a Public Library delivery station at 
Gad's Hill, open daily. Besides the usual clubs 
and classes, are chorus classes for young men, 
boys and girls, meeting weekly, and a Loyal Tem- 
perance Legion for boys and girls. 

Gad's Hill lias a summer camp at Glencoe, 
large enough to care for one hundred at a time, 
and also maintains a playground in the summer. 
A project is now under consideration for open- 
ing a playgroom in one of the public schools for 
the winter months. So much has already been 
said of the desirability of using the public schools 
as a sort of neighborhood centre, in localities 
where no other pleasant gathering-place is offer- 
ed, that the playroom idea seems feasible, and 
might well be taken up by other settlements. 

Gad's Hill derives its main support from con- 
tributions from the business firms located in that 
part of the city, and it also aided by Central 
Church. 

HENRY BOOTH HOUSE. 

The Henry Booth House, named for the late 
Judge Henry Booth, for many years president of 
the Society for Ethical Culture, was opened in 
1898. It is not reallv a settlement, as it has no 




reduced to $1,500. in large measure by "one dol- 
lar a month" subscribers to this special building 
fund. 

GAD'S HILL SETTLEMENT. 

Gad's Hill Settlement, founded in 1897. has a 



Gad's Hill Settlement. 

resident workers nor room for any, its building 
being entirely taken up with clubs and classes. 
It is included, however, in the Federation of Chi- 
cago Settlements, and is working along settlement 
lines as far as is posible without residents. It 



THE COMMONS 



is surrounded by a Jewish, Irish and Bohemian 
population. 

There is no Penny Savings bank established 
here. The social relations with the neighborhood 
are kept up through the leaders of clubs and 
classes. A very successful singing-class meets 
weekly, besides the usual educational work ; also 
three gymnasium classes. 

The support and the workers come naturally 
largely from the Society for Ethical Culture, 
though some valuable help, personal as well as 
financial, is from outside. The financial outlay 
is about $2,000 a year. 

THE FORWARD MOVEMENT. 

The Forward Movement work began with car- 
ing for boys in a basement under a saloon at 
the corner of Harrison and Halsted Streets, un- 
der the direction of Dr. George W. Gray, in 
1893. As necessities have demanded, larger 
quarters and better equipment have been pro- 
vided. Miss Mary E. Dix has been for seven 
years the head worker. The Forward Movement 
is now located at 293 to 305 West Van Buren 
Street, comprising a resident house, kindergar- 
ten rooms, assembly hall, library, reading room, 
club and industrial rooms and a gymnasium. In 
the rear is a playground, a vegetable and a flower 
garden. 




Forward Movement Summer Cottage. 

The Forward Movement esteems its work as 
of the nature of a character-forming school ; it 
seeks more than to amuse or interest or even to 
teach, the dominant inquiry in any activity being 
how will it affect the development of character. 
"The greatest formative influence in the develop- 
ment of character," says Dr. Gray, "Is love; love 
dominates the workers and determines the meth- 
od of their work; love is an active principle out 
of which comes, naturally and joyfully, a life of 



service. The workers minister to the poor, to 
awaken in them a desire to minister to others ; 
to help them to help themselves is only a half 
truth. The agencies to be used by the people of 
the neighborhood are the -social, educational, in- 
dustrial, recreative and spiritual. The workers 
are here to suggest to them methods of opera- 
tion." 

The Forward Movement has a life and an an- 
nual membership, constituting a governing body, 
and is dependent for its support upon these mem- 
bers and upon voluntary contributions. 




Forward Movement Kindergarten. 
THE NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT. 

The Northwestern University Settlement was 
founded in 1891. It is just now entering upon 
the enjoyment of a new and suitable building. 
Mr. William A. Hard, Resident-in-Charge, re- 
ports accommodations for twelve residents, eight 
of whom are already in possession. Their month- 
ly publication, The Neighbor, gives more of the 
detail of their work than is possible in the space 
at our disposal. We note that their activities 
group themselves in clubs rather than calsses, 
which would seem to imply a certain element of 
selection and self government. Among them, be- 
sides the usual ones, is a Picture Loan club, a 
Mending Guild, the Progressive club (lectures 
and classes), and a club for household Arts and 
Crafts. 

The supporting constituency includes profess- 
ors, and students from the Northwestern Uni- 
versity and the University of Wisconsin, and 
friends in Evanston and Chicago. 

Mr. Hard's conception of the object of their 
work is one not out of place in any locality. 
"To increase the pleasures and opportunities of 
the life of the neighborhood; to cultivate the 
art and the joy of living; to be in all things un- 
prejudiced and imperial." 



THE COMMONS 



CHICAGO COMMONS. 

The Chicago Commons has just established 
itself in new and commodious quarters at the 
corner of Grand Avenue and Morgan Street. A 
branch house for kindergarten and clubs is main- 
tained at 75 Grand Avenue, in the neighborhood 
of the old Commons. The usual clubs and 
classes are in active operation, combined with 
individual features of great interest. Situated in 
a neighborhood predominately Protestant, the 
Commons finds it possible to maintain close re- 



classes which go on, the whole settlement is per- 
vaded by a distinctly home feeling, rarely met 
with in just such surroundings. After all, the 
essence of a settlement is neighborly living, and 
the actual home life is too easily crowded out in 
the press of other work unless great and con- 
scious stress be laid upon it. 

The Chicago Commons Association is incorpo- 
rated, with a Board of Trustees of eleven mem- 
bers. It requires about $7,800 a year, above what 
is contributed toward maintenance by the resident 




Williams Residence Hall. 

lations with the Tabernacle Church, whose serv- 
ices are held in the Commons building; to have 
a graded Sunday-school, and household vespers, 
and still to keep up co-operative relations with 
other churches of the districts, both Catholic and 
Protestant. The Assembly hall is used for many 
gatherings not under the direct auspices of the 
Commons, the public schools, trades unions and 
other neighborhood organizations being welcome 
to its use. The Tuesday evening "Free Floor" 
discussions are famous. The non-sectarian 
Pleasant Sunday Afternoons unite the families 
of the neighborhood. The field for usefulness 
seems almost boundless with such workers and 
so satisfactory a building. "The Commons," the 
most widely circulated settlement journal, has 
been published by this settlement for seven years. 
Notwithstanding the multitude of clubs and 



Winy. Proposed Men's Club House. 

and other groups, to support the work of the 
Settlement including its summer camp at Elgin. 
For all expenses it depends upon spontaneous 
giving of interested friends, having no endow- 
ment. 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SETTLEMENT. 

The University of Chicago settlement was 
founded in January, 1894 ,by the Philanthropic 
Committee of the Christian Union of the Univer- 
sity of Chicago. Miss Mary E. McDowell, the 
Head Resident, is a member of the faculty of the- 
University. Among the non-resident workers the 
University of Chicago furnishes forty, the gen- 
eral public thirty-four. 

The settlement has a gymnasium at 4630 Gross 
Avenue, back of the stockyards, erected in 1899 
by friends of the settlement. The Public Library 
station in the Gymnasium building; the day nurs- 



8 



THE COMMONS 



ery at Forty-eighth Street and Marshfield Ave- 
nue and the University Settlement Dispensary 
are affiliated interests not supported by the set- 



have social possibilities and that educational 
methods are more effectual if made in an atmos- 
phere of genial fellowship." 




University of Chicago Settlement 'Gymnasium. 



tlement. In co-operation with the neighborhood, 
the settlement has secured a free public bath, 
and manual training and kindergartens have been 
put into the public schools. A playground has 
been maintained for four years, summer con- 
certs and out-of-doors stereopticon lectures be- 
ing held there last summer. The usual clubs and 
classes are carried on, with the addition of a Bo- 
hemian Womans' Club, a natural outgrowth of 
the neighborhood. About 1,500 people come to 
the settlement weekly. 

The settlement holds fraternal relation with 
the labor movement, co-operating with Stock- 
yard Unions. The Head Resident is the Vice 
President of the "Womens" International Union 
Label League." One of the residents is a proba- 
tion officer, with 150 wards of the juvenile court 
under her charge. The support of this settle- 
ment rests upon the University of Chicago Set- 
tlement Committee, and the University of Chi- 
cago Settlement League. 

"From its experience of the last six years the 
settlement has concluded that all of its activities 



HULL HOUSE. 

Hull House was the first Social Settlement in 
Chicago, and is now the admiration and incentive 
of all the rest. Opened in 1889 with one build- 
ing not too well suited to Settlement needs, it 
comprises now a group of six buildings, cluster- 
ed about Polk, Halsted and Ewing Streets. There 
is no organization back of Hull House, save a 
Board of seven Trustees, and these substantial 
improvements have been made possible by indi- 
vidual donors. 

Many public entertainments are given in the 
Auditorium. lectures, concerts, and dramatics. 
Besides the classes common to all the settlements, 
Hull House has grammar school and coltege ex- 
tension classes ; classes in the history of art and 
music : classes in pottery, clay-modeling, metal 
work and wood-carving. A visiting nurse and a 
probation officer are in residence here, and a 
branch of the Chicago Post-Office is located in 
the Coffee House. The work for children, car- 
ried on in a building especially for them, is of the 
same nature, but on a larger scale, as in other 



THE COMMONS 



9 



settlements. The Day-Nursery, like the one in 
Eli Bates House, is a very important feature. 

The most recent undertaking at Hull House is 
the Labor Museum, which is intended to demon- 



a serious menace to civic life. If the settle- 
ments can inspire confidence toward its own 
workers, there is at once a working basis toward 
a mutual understanding. It is in this simple, 




Hull House Scene. 



strate the development of the various industries 
from their respective forms to their present con- 
dition. It is hoped that this will give an his- 
torical perspective to manufacturers, and help 
workers feel a great interest and therefore 
pleasure- in their task. The Museum is at pres- 
ent most completely illustrated in the Textile 
Room, where spinning and weaving are done by 
foreigners familiar with the simpler processes in 
their own countries. 

It has been possible to give here only a brief, 
matter-of-fact account of the work carried on in 
the several settlements. What the settlement 
really means to the neighborhood, in its close 
every-day relation to life, would be hard to put 
into words. In this era of great eommercial 
trusts has come, among the working people, a 
correspondingly great distrust. Every student 
of philanthropic or social questions has been 
brought up against this blank wall of disbelief 
and misunderstanding, nor can he fail to see in it 



unselfish neighborly life that the settlements are 
doing work so important to municipal and civic 
life that no one can afford to ignore it, and the 
more settlements there are, the more of these 
centers of interpretation, the sooner may we all 
hope to speak one language. 

The Federation of Chicago Settlements is an 
organization, meeting several times a year, for 
the exchange of ideas and experiences, compari- 
sons of methods, and results. The Federated 
Settlements find its fellowship helpful and its re- 
sults are shown in the work of each and in the 
sympathy and co-operation with each other. 

Best Books on Social Settlements. 

Philanthrophy and Social Progress (Crowell 
& Company), containing papers by Miss Jane Ad- 
dams on the objective and subjective necessity 
for social settlements. 
Hull House Maps and Papers. (Crowell.) 
English Social Movements, by Robert Woods. 
(Scribner's.) See also Settlements To Date (a 



10 



THE COMMONS 



booklet published by The Congregationalist. Bos- 
ton), and The City Wilderness, by the same au- 
thor. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.) 

Practical Socialism by the Rev. and Mrs. Sam- 
uel A. Barnett. (Longsman, Green & Co.) 

College and University Settlements by Will 
Reason. (Methuen & Company.) 

Hand Book of Social Settlements by Professor 
Charles R. Henderson of the University of Chi- 
cago (Lentihon & Co.), furnished by The Com- 
mons for 6oc. 

Neighborhood Guilds by Stanton Coit. (Scrib- 
ner.) 

Eighteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of La- 
bor Statistics of the State of New York for the 
Year 1900, Part II, Social Settlements, containing 
the best review of the New York Settlements. 
(Department of Labor, Capitol, Albany, New 
York.) 

The Commons, a monthly record devoted to 
aspects of life and labor from a settlement point 
of view, published by Chicago Commons, Grand 
avenue and Morgan street, Chicago, at soc per 
year, with the co-operation of the College Set- 
tlements Association, and the Association of 
Neighborhood Workers in New York City. 

Politics a.nd La.bor. 

BY RAYMOND ROBINS. 

President Roosevelt's first message to the con- 
gress of the United States has aroused more 
general interest than any other state paper with- 
in thirty years. The extraordinary circum- 
stances that have resulted in the elevat'on of Mr. 
Roosevelt to the most powerful political office of 
the modern world, are largely responsible for the 
unusual eagerness with which the people of the 
English speaking nations have followed his first 
steps in the courts of the mighty. Comparatively 
young and inexperienced, yet chief magistrate of 
the foremost industrial power in a commercial 
age, consigned by a designing political boss to the 
national political grave-yard, yet within a year, 
by the awful instrumentality of an assassin's bul- 
let clothed with untrammeled command of that 
boss and his party machinery, a reformer with 
high ideals, distrusted by predatory capital and 
feared by politicians, yet in an hour, ushered into 
the mightiest theatre of action and called with- 
out let or hindrance to play the title role among 
the rulers of the earth, he has well been deemed 
a sign and a wonder by the sons of men. Nor 
was there lacking that intoxicating flavor of mys- 
tery that ever envelopes the new and untried 
leader, suddenly emerging from obscurity into 
that fierce light that beats upon the throne. By 
some Mr. Roosevelt was regarded as an imprac- 
tical dreamer, chasing the butterflies of municipal 



and national purity about the byways of Police 
Commissions and Civil Service Reform. To oth- 
ers he appeared the incarnation of honest, com- 
mon sense and enlightened public spirit. For 
these latter Roosevelt was the Moses of the up- 
right, strenuous life, that would lead the people 
into the promised land of civic righteousness, and 
with his own right arm lasso our modern golden 
calf and drag him bellowing down the steps of 
the capital. 

Before us lies this first deliverance of the 
strenuous life in power. It is an inspiring mes- 
sage and worthy of our best faith in the main. 
Upon questions of labor it rings true to the 
nobler promise of the great Republic. Thought- 
ful men of all parties will endorse Mr. Roose- 
velt when he says: "With the sole exception of 
the farming interest, no one matter is of such 
vital moment to our whole people as the welfare 
of the wageworker. If the farmer and the wage- 
worker are well off, it is absolutely certain that 
all others will be well off, too. 

"The most vita! problem with which this coun- 
try, and for that matter the whole civilized world, 
has to deal, is the problem which has for one side 
the betterment of social conditions, moral and 
physical, in large cities, and for another side 
the effort to deal with that tangle of far-reaching 
questions which we group together when we 
speak of "labor." The chief factor in the success 
of each man wageworker, farmer and capitalist 
alike must ever be the sum total of his own in- 
dividual qualities and abilities. Second only to 
this comes the power of acting in combination or 
association with others. Very great good has 
been and will be accomplished by associations or 
unions of wageworkers, when they" combine in- 
sistence upon their own rights with law-abiding 
respect for the rights of others. 

"The national government should demand the 
highest quality of service from its employes, and 
in return it should be a good employer. If pos- 
sible, legislation should be passed, in connection 
with the interstate commerce law, which will 
render effective the efforts of different states to 
do away with the competition of convict contract 
labor in the open labor market. So far as prac- 
ticable' under the conditions of government work, 
provision should be made to render the enforce- 
ment of the eight-hour law easy and certain. In 
all industries carried on directly or indirectly for 
the United States Government women and chil- 
dren should be protected from excessive hours of 
labor, from night work and from work under un- 
sanitary conditions. The government should pro- 
vide in its contracts that all work should be done 
under 'fair' conditions, and in addition to setting 



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11 



a high standard should uphold it by proper in- 
spection, extending if necessary to the subcon- 
tractors. The government should forbid all night 
work for women and children, as well as exces- 
sive overtime. For the District of Columbia a 
good factory law should be passed ; and, as a 
powerful indirect aid to such laws, provision 
should be made to turn the inhabited alleys, the 
existence of which is a reproach to our city, into 
minor streets, where the inhabitants can live un- 
der conditions favorable to health and morals. 

"When all is said and done, the rule of brother- 
hood remains as the indispensable prerequisite to 
success in the kind of national life for which we 
strive. Each man must work for himself, and 
unless he so works no outside help can avail him; 
but each man must remember also that he is in- 
deed his brother's keeper, and that while no man 
who refuses to walk can be carried with advant- 
age to himself or any one else, yet that each at 
times stumbles or halts, that each at times needs 
to have the helping hand outstretched to him. 
To be permanently effective, aid must always 
take the form of helping a man to help himself; 
and we can all best help ourselves by joining to- 
gether in the work that is of common interest to 
all." 

Sounder words than these have not been 
spoken in recent years upon this supreme prob- 
lem of modern politics. 

Upon one subject only of this generally ad- 
mirable message, are we in complete dissent. Mr. 
Roosevelt could not have disappointed some of 
his ardent admirers more, than by giving the 
sanction of his name and fame to the crassly 
ignorant cry for legislative persecution against 
philosophic anarchy. To recommend a law that 
would exclude Tolstoi and deport Crosby, that 
had it been in force on the 6th day of last Sep- 
tember would have divided many happy homes, 
excluded some and banished other worthy citi- 
zens, but have left us Leon Czolgosz, the republi- 
can elector and native born citizen of Cleveand 
to assassinate our beloved President, is a depth 
of blind resentment we had not expected from 
Roosevelt the brave. The change advocated by 
this message in the fundamental law of the land, 
involving a new special jurisdiction for the fede- 
ral courts, with its calendar of state crimes, is 
both revolutionary and futile. 

For Czolgosz and all murderers of any faith and 
name we have the gallows and the grave. For 
philosophic anarchy there is just one cure, a free 
government providing equity for all its citizens. 
So long as our government presents the spectacle 
in many places, of corruption at the bottom and 
incompetence at the top, for just so long will ill- 



balanced persons, dwelling alone upon its crying 
evils and forgetful of its many great though si- 
lent blessings, revolt against government in any 
form. A purer administration and more equitable 
legislation in city, state and nation, is the only 
possible answer to philosophic anarchy. Legis- 
lative persecution to combat ideas is the bastard 
offspring of ignorance and fear. The stamping 
out process is an old failure. The Spanish In- 
quisition played out that hand three hundred 
years ago and lost. 

THE ANNUAL CONVENTION OF LABOR. 

The recent convention at Scranton of the 
American Federation of Labor was the largest in 
attendance in the history of that great organiza- 
tion. The past year tho conspicuously marked 
by the ravages of industrial wars, has been one 
of steady growth for Unionism as a whole. The 
increasing co-operation, and growing efficiency, 
of labor federations in dealing with industrial 
problems, was mightily evidenced by the annual 
reports. 

Conspicuous among the important acts of this 
convention, was the overwhelming defeat of the 
anti-machine resolution of the cigar-makers' un- 
ion. The reply of the convention to the protest 
against machine made products was "organize 
the operators of the machines and insist on a 
wage scale." 

Under, present leadership American . labor 
promises to avoid that rock upon which English 
commercial supremacy was wrecked. Industrial 
inefficiency due in great part to labor union rules 
opposing machinery and limiting the amount of 
product has taken from England the markets of 
the world. 

A wise limitation was made in the use of the 
boycott. Hereafter central labor organizations 
can alone order a boycott and then only after in- 
vestigation and earnest effort for settlement. 

For students of the race problem and indus- 
trial conditions in the south, a significant testi- 
mony to the insufficiency of industrial education 
Tuskegee Institute's and the like, for removing 
race antagonisms, was presented by the fate of 
the color line resolution, that was laid on the 
table because it was too hot to hold. 

The annual attempt to stampede the convention 
for socialism met its customary defeat. 

THE ANTI-STRIKE CONFERENCE. 

The impossible has happened. Mr. Hanna and 
Mr. Mitchell. Mr. Schwab and Mr. Schaffer, Mr. 
Marks and Mr. White, Mr.Kruttschnitt and Mr. 
Clarke, Mr. Ireland and Mr. Potter have met 
in the same hall and in the simple majesty of a 
common manhood have discussed without bit- 
terness and agreed without hypocrisy upon a 



12 



THE COMMONS. 



plan for the settlement of differences between 
labor and capital by arbitration. The plan may 
fail but the spirit of that conference is the sign 
manual of industrial peace. 

An executive committee of thirty-seven men 
twelve representing capital, twelve labor, and 
thirteen the general public was appointed. 

FOR THE CAPITALISTS. 

Mark A. Hanna, United States Senator. 

James A. Chambers, President American Glass 
company, Pittsburg, Pa. 

William H. Pfahler, President National Asso- 
ciation of Stove Manufacturers. 

S. R. Callaway, President American Locomot- 
ive Works. 

Lewis Nixon, President and owner of the Cres- 
cent Ship Yard, Elizabethport, N. J. 

Charles M. Schwab, President United States 
Steel corporation. 

H. H. Vreeland, President Metropolitan Street 
railway company, New York. 

Charles A. Moore, President of the Machine 
Manufacturing company. 

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 

E. D. Ripley, President Atchison, Topeka and 
Santa Fe railroad. 

Marcus M. Marks, President National Associ- 
ation of Clothing Manufacturers. 

Julius Kruttschnitt, General Manager Southern 
Pacific railroad. 

FOR ORGANIZED LABOR. 

Samuel Gompers, President American Federa- 
tion of Labor. 

John Mitchell, President United Mine Work- 
ers. 

Frank P. Sargent, Grand Master Brotherhood 
of Locomotive Firemen. 

Theodore J. Schaffer, President Amalgamated 
Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. 

James Duncan, Secretary Granite Cutters' un- 
ion. 

Daniel J. Keefe, President International Asso- 
ciation of Longshoremen. 

James O'Connell, President International As- 
sociation of Machinists. 

Martin Fox, President Iron Molders' National 
union. 

James E. Lynch, President International Typo- 
graphical union. 

Edward E. Clarke, Grand Master Brotherhood 
of Railway Conductors. 

Henry White, Secretary Garment Workers of 
America. 

Walter MacArthur, editor Coast Seaman's 
Journal, San Francisco. 

TO REPRESENT THE PUBLIC. 

Ex-President Grover Cleveland. 



Archbishop John Ireland. 

Bishop Henry C. Potter. 

Charles Francis Adams, Boston. 

Cornelius N. Bliss, ex-Secretary of the In- 
terior. 

Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard Uni- 
versity. 

Franklin MacVeagh, Chicago. 

James H. Eckels, ex-Controller of the Cur- 
rency, Chicago. 

John J. McCook, lawyer, New York. 

John G. Milburn, Buffalo. 

Charles A. Bonaparte, Baltimore. 

Chairman of thl conference committee, Oscar 
S. Straus, and Secretary Ralph M. Easley are 
ex-officio members of the committee. 

Archbishop Ireland made the closing address 
of the conference. He said in part : 

"May the winds carry the news over the con- 
tinent and around the world that such a meet- 
ing as this has taken place in the great City of 
New York. The hope of the twentieth century 
is that the great principles of brotherhood, char- 
ity, and justice announced by the Holy One of 
Palestine shall become wider and deeper at this 
time than at any other. Let us have industrial 
peace. Let employer and employe know that 
they are brothers. Let charity and justice, and 
justice more than charity, be the prevailing light 
of this great nation." 

LABOR CONDITIONS IN JAPAN. 

Our Consul-General, Mr. E. C. Bellows, thus 
officially reports to the State Department under 
the above title. 

The Jap$n Gazette of June 25 contained a 
translation of an article on "The want of skilled 
labor in Japan," which had appeared in the 
Asahi, a Japanese newspaper. It says : 

The Japanese believe that wages are low in 
Japan, though the rate of interest is high. It is 
true wages are low, but Japan wants skilled la- 
bor, and there is a great difference as compared 
with Europe and America as to the amount of 
production, and therefore, wages are actually 
higher in Japan than in Europe and America, 
when the cost of labor is taken into considera- 
tion. Take the spinning industry, for instance. 
The average wages in South America are about 
i yen (50 cents), whereas they are about three- 
fourths of that in Japan. Yet the individual 
amount of production is much more in the former 
than in the latter. In Japan, some one thousand 
hands are employed in a spinning mill of 10,000 
spindles, whereas in America about two hundred 
are sufficient in a factory of a similar capacity. 
* * * Despite the fact that the Government 
pays "encouragement money," or a bonus, for 



T HECOMMONS 



13 



every ship built in Japan, and that each ship built 
abroad involves the expense of bringing it home, 
most orders are given to foreign builders. This 
is because the cost is lower in the aggregate in 
foreign countries than in Japan. 

The writer concludes that the lack of skilled 
labor is a serious hindrance to the introduction 
of foreign capital, so earnestly desired by Japa- 
nese financiers. 

The Gazette of May 15 quotes the following 
from an article by Mr. K. Kawakami, a native 
writer. 

"Children under 10 years, even of scarcely 6 or 
5 years of age, are largely employed in factories, 
and men are generally made to work for injuri- 
ously excessive long hours, while women have to 
work for the same periods to which the men are 
subjected, and, like them, they have to work in 
the night-time, too. It is no exaggeration to say 
that fourteen, sixteen, and even eighteen hours 
a day are often worked in factories." 

The same article, after giving a table which 
shows that in most factories there are more than 
three hundred and twenty working days per year, 
comments severely in the lack of provision for 
the health and lives of the employees, and says 
that the Tokyo Tramway Company, which pays 
a dividend of from 30 to 40 per cent, pays its 
laborers $5 to $6 a month, and works them from 
fourteen to seventeen hours a day. He adds that 
in many factories no provision is made for suit- 
able ventilation and lung diseases are very com- 
mon among the employees, while the arrange- 
ments are such that in case of fire escape would 
be almost impossible. 

Japan has no laws for the protection of labor, 
or restricting the employment of women and 
children, but the subject is being considerably 
discussed, and in the many articles relating to 
this matter which have appeared in the local pa- 
pers lately are frequent references to the labor 
laws of England and America. While the indus- 
trial and economic conditions of Japan would 
hardfy warrant such close restrictive measures as 
are enforced in those countries, it is believed that 
some law of this kind will be introduced at the 
next session of the Diet. It is interesting to 
note, in this connection, that the agitation has 
arisen on this subject comes principally from the 
educated and professional or leisure classes, 
rather than from the laborers themselves. 

The Japan Mail of June 18 gives an extrau 
from an editorial in the Jiji Shimpo, deprecating 
the agitation of socialistic subjects. Tt asserts 
that the rich and poor of Japan are not separated 
by a gulf comparable with that dividing the 
plutocrat and pnuper in the West, and that the 



pool man here, with his compensations in holi- 
days, fetes, and festivals, finds nothing intoler- 
able in his lot. It ascribes the content of the 
working classes in part to the lack of ostenta- 
tion in the lives of the very rich, the Japanese 
house and manner of living not offering such op- 
portunities for magnificence and luxury a:; those 
of Europe and America, and rich Japanese usu- 
ally preferring to avoid any display of extrava- 
gance. 

A Social Settlement in the Scot- 
tish Highlands. 

BY LESTER L WEST. 

I have just been learning of a beautiful instance 
of social settlement work in the remote regions of 
Scotland, in a little village of the Highland fisher- 
folk. It was given to me by a young lady of 
Edinburgh, who was one of the chief helpers in 
its organization. 

This work had its inception in the heart of one 
of the devoted and self-sacrificing "Gray-Sisters" 
of London. She had especially interested herself 
in the work of teaching basket-making to the 
women and girls of London and the surrounding 
villages. Some months ago she came into the 
north with the feeling that her art ougnt to be 
made a national Scottish industry, tliereby mak- 
ing baskets a home product instead of having 
them all imported from Germany, as at pres- 
ent. 

In one of the northern fishing villages the Free 
Church people had recently been building a new- 
house of worship. As is not unusual it was fin- 
ished with a large debt upon it. Some people 
irt Edinburgh who were interested in that enter- 
prise, hearing of this lady, conceived the plan 
of getting her to go to that place and teach the 
people her art with the hope of their thus earn- 
ing some money for this debt by selling baskets 
to tourists and fisher-folk. She gladly did so and 
was not long in persuading many of the women 
and girls to take up the work. 

But this by no means satisfied her. She want- 
ed to interest the men as well, especially the 
idle porters and fishermen. To this end she car- 
ried her work amongst them, down to the piers. 
But the shy, canny, conservative highlanders were 
not like the versatile Englishmen of the south, 
and it was days before she could induce even the 
boldest) and most liberal minded of them to take 
her slender stems and splints between their coarse 
fingers and thumbs. But at length when the early 
winter darkness of the northern clime fell about 
them she found herself each night with a little 
cobbler's shop packed almost to suffocation with 
eager, interested, awkward learners. But mean- 



14 



THE COMMONS 



while, as always, the clever teacher was learning 
more than all her pupils. She was learning to 
look deep into a new phase of life. She was 
learning that highland village life can be as de- 
grading, and many times more desolate than life 
in London slums. The weary monotony and grim 
loneliness of it took hold of her heart. The men 
wasting their time and money and manhood in the 
public house the children swarming in the nar- 
row crooked streets the worn wives and mothers 
fighting dirt and hunger in narrow, squalid huts, 
and the fish girls cleaning the slimy herring day 
after day with cold, red hands, by the sullen sea 
and under leaden skies. Yes, most of all these 
fish girls in the midst of temptations and a life 
that seemed all but choked and smothered by 
material and moral filth ; all, but most of all these 
cried out to all the divine compassion with which 
her woman soul was filled. 

In a few weeks some score or more of poor and 
ignorant people had learned to make plain, home- 
!y baskets, but their wise teacher had learned the 
unfathomable needs, and heard the pathetic cry 
of an entirely new phase of human life. She 
came back to Edinburgh, but she could not stay 
there. Across the dying heather and the rugged 
Trossachs the north wind brought that cry of 
the dwarfed and stunted life of that one little 
fishing village. 

In that village there was a movement on foot 
to secure a Reading Room. They had heard of a 
man by the name of Carnegie and had asked him 
for one hundred pounds for a Reading Room. 
This he had promised them on the condition that 
they raise another hundred pounds. A commit- 
tee of thirteen had been organized. But things 
do not move so swiftly in the highlands of Scot- 
land as they do in Chicago, and the whole ques- 
tion of what to do and how to do it had been un- 
der advisement for eighteen months, with innum- 
erable long-winded but fruitless committee meet- 
ings; and they still seemed no nearer the end 
than when they began. A gentleman in Edin- 
burgh had also promised fifty pounds. 

At this point one Gray Sister was saying I must 
go and live with those people if a way of any 
sort can be opened. Then the idea was conceived 
of making the money for the proposed Reading 
Room serve the double purpose of that and an 
"Institute" or "Commons" by building them both 
under the same roof. The Edinburgh gentleman 
said he would make his pledge conditional upon 
its being so used. Armed with this promise our 
weaver of baskets and healer of hurt hearts went 
before the august committee of thirteen. But of 
course the plan was preposterous. It could not 
be thought of. And then the very idea that two 



'weaker vessels' from the south should come up 
there to teach off-hand the magnates of the 'toon' 
how to do what with great wrestlings and agoniz- 
ings of intellect they had already spent eighteen 
months at learning ! How ridiculous ! There 
were a score of reasons why it could not be done. 
At length the plucky little woman rose up and 
said "well then gentlemen I shall take this fifty 
pounds which was to have been yours and find 
other money elsewhere and build my insti- 
tute in spite of you, and you can build your read- 
ing room when you get ready." But of course it 
would not do to let that fifty pounds slip through 
their fingers like that, and so their final dodge 
was that the whole matter must be indefinitely 
postponed until they could raise the hundred 
pounds on which the Carnegie gift was condi- 
tioned. But she said : 'No, not indefinitely, gen- 
tlemen. My friend here and I, will see that the 
hundred pounds is raised before the next com- 
mittee meeting.' But they knew too well that 
that could not be done. So they adjourned. 

The next day the laird of the place was vis- 
ited and he gave them twenty-five pounds. Others 
were seen and letters were written an3 before 
the time for the next committee meeting had 
arrived, the money was raised and before the 
New Year had come the Hall and Reading Room 
were ready to be opened. The laird sent a piano 
in time for the opening day without having had so 
much as a hint that it would be desirable or use- 
ful. And now within the year, the Gray Sister 
is the Sister Superior and the comforting and 
counseling mother of the whole community, and 
her 'Institute,' as she calls it, is the vital center 
of its social life. It has brought life and light 
and inspiration and love to the whole village. She 
is doctor, nurse, priestess and friend to all the 
people. Her days are filled to overflowing with 
the unpriced service of love. There is almost 
nothing in the way of helpfulness that she does 
not have the opportunity of giving. She waits at 
her door to bind tip the cut fingers of the fish 
girls and the ugly wounds which the fishermen 
too often bring with them in the morning when 
they return from a night's fishing. She goes 
from home to home washing and nursing sick 
babies, teaching ignorant housewives how to cook 
their food and tidy up their homes. An orchestra 
has been organized and trained by the young lady 
from Edinburgh. Monday night the children are 
gathered and taught the truths of temperance and 
ethics. Saturday night there is an "At Home" 
for the whole community when the Hall is turned 
into a delightful drawing-room by a hundred lit- 
tle touches which can be given only by a woman's 
fingers, and a hundred devices which are never 



THE COMMONS 



15 



born any other where than in a woman's heart. 
Then tea is served, not with the chairs all in a 
stiff row around the wall and the cup trembling 
on a man's knees, but on little tables for four or 
six artistically arranged about the room. Then 
solos are sung and Gospel Hymns, and the or- 
chestra plays, and the community grows like one 
big family. On Sunday afternoon the people 
gather to sing and to listen to a quiet helpful 
talk from the woman whom they love because she 
first loved them. And every night the fish girls, 
whose rooms are only cramped and cold and 
cheerless sleeping places, come to the Institute 
for the light and gladness and companionship 
which they find there, and above all for the in- 
breathing of the spirit of one noble and unselfish 
and pure soul. 

On Sunday evening in the gloaming they have 
another gathering, the most sweet and hallowed 
of all, a sort of family vespers, which throws its 
radiance through all the darkness of the week. 

She is still hampered and hedged and weighted 
by her committee of thirteen highland lords of 
creation who cannot get away from the idea that 
women are either dolls and playthings, or slaves 
to scrub and cook and carry. And they think to 
this day that it is they who have done everything 
that has been done. Nothing must be thought of 
which they have not first deliberated and 'sat' 
on. When she first ventured to use her piano 
in her Sunday afternoon service she found that 
the pious orthodoxy had received a shock that 
shook the whole community ; and the chairman of 
the committee felt that the time had come to 
make himself heard in no uncertain way. But 
as sometimes happens with rash inquisitors, he 
went too far and had to come back and apologize, 
while the plucky heretic still uses her piano and 
the people still dare to come. 'What,' I said to 
the young lady who had organized the orchestra, 
'What would have happened if it had been a vio- 
lin?' 'O my,' she said, 'if I should dare take 
out my violin on Sunday it would break up the 
whole thing.' 'And if you should play your vio- 
lin by yourself in your own room what would 
happen?' 'Happen? I should have to leave the 
place at once.' But as a rule the sweet strategy 
of a wise love gets what it wants and the august 
committee does not even suspect that it has been 
wheedled or cajoled in the least and. the divine 
work is growing and deepening every month. 

Already this flaming heart is making plans to 
turn her work over to others that she may push 
on to do pioneer work in villages beyond. 

We get nothing from history without paying 
for it, and for a violent movement we have to pay 
double. Adolf Harnack. 



From the Settlements. 

The Social Settlements Association at Cam- 
bridge, of which our friend F. B. Stevens is now 
Secretary, had a very successful meeting on No- 
vember 7th, the Victoria Assembly Rooms being 
crowded. The speakers were Tom Bryan, M.A., 
Sub-Warden of Browning Hall Settlement, and 
Keir Hardie, M.P. ; and the subject under dis- 
cussion was "The Duties and Responsibilities of 
the Universities to the Working Classes." 

Mr. Bryan said that he believed that in a gen- 
eration we would see the House of Commons 
very largely in the hands of working men repre- 
sentatives. Whether it was to be for better or 
worse depended very largely upon the educated 
classes of the country, if he might say so, upon 
the Universities. The working men would in- 
evitably see that their class was more fully rep- 
resented numerically, and more fairly represent- 
ed, as far as opinion went, in the House of Com- 
mons; and if the working classes were educated 
and trained to take a broad view of things, and 
feel in sympathy with the richer and more cul- 
tured classes, then he believed the increased rep- 
resentation of the worker in the House would be 
for good, both for the country, the Empire and 
the world. But if, on the other hand, working 
men felt estranged from the richer classes, and 
there was a spirit of antagonism between them, 
increased representation would not be for the 
good of the Empire. There must be a spirit of 
sympathy. It was for the Universities, the rich 
and educated classes, to take the initiative, in 
order to build up a bond of sympathy Between 
the various classes of society. He need not tell 
them that the best way to do that was to found 
a settlement. A settlement was really the 
Church with perfect adaptability. 

Mr. Keir Hardie, whose speech we should like 
to prind in full, spoke of the value of University 
training. He considered that a Settlement should 
be a training-school where young people should 
gain experience. Dealing with the differences 
and similarities between rich and poor he said 
that life for the working man was one perpetual 
thought of how to obtain the necessaries of life. 
The real problem was how each class of society 
could be made to be of service to the other. The 
poor needed to be approached, as the rich did, 
not through the position they occupied, but on the 
ground of their humanity. He condemned the 
present system of wealth production, which elimi- 
nated the human element between employer and 
employee, landlord and tenant, as anti-Christian 
in its very essence, and tone which could work 
nothing but evil. The work of University Set- 
tlements could only be called a success, in so far 



16 



THE COMMONS 



as it helped to create that type of citizen which, 
by its strength of character, nobility and self- 
respect, made a nation great. Mansfield House 
Magazine. 

The "At Homes" began on the 24th of Oc- 
tober, when the P. S. A. was invited to meet the 
Warden and Mrs. Alden. The musical program- 
me was arranged by Miss de Fries, who, it will 
be remembered, gave the first Sunday Evening 
Concert of the winter. 

Since then the "At Homes" have taken place 
regularly every Thursday, and have been, as usu- 
al, a source of much enjoyment to entertained 
and entertainers. The Societies invited have in- 
cluded the Sunday Union, Hospital Letter and 
Convalescent Home Societies, Coal Club, and the 
Independent Order of Oddfellows, the last-named 
then paying their first visit to the Residence. We 
should like here to thank warmly the hostess a'nd 
friends who have given their services, frequently 
under great difficulties. Mansfield House Maga- 
zine. 



An off-shoot of the North-Western University 
Settlement, in the sense of its original inspiration 
coming from there, is an interesting work, mostly 
for children, which Mrs. Hermann Falkenstein 
has recently begun in her own home, 782 North 
Washtenaw avenue. Seeing what the North- 
Western Settlement people were doing, Mrs. Fal- 
kenstein felt that something of the same sort could 
be advantageously done in her neighborhood, and 
proceeded to do it. This is a most gratifying ex- 
ample of one of the best ways to extend Settle- 
ment work. 

Chicago Commons. 

OF MEN, FOR MEN. 

The Men's Community Club, since it opened its 
room in the new building, has more than dou- 
bled its membership, which now numbers about 
one hundred, and is enlisting the interest of many 
more of the citizens of our ward in the depart- 
ments of the city government, the purification _. 
municipal politics and the progress of civic ad- 
ministration. Professor Thurston's graphic pic- 
tures and words descriptive of the sanitary situ- 
ation of the city, attracted much attention and 
cannot fail to enlist many of our citizens in what 
he called "The Fight for Life in Chicago." The 
Municipal Voters' League's continuous campaign 
for honesty and capacity in the city council was 
discussed with much animation on the Free-Floor. 
The duplication and wastefulness of our seven 
fold taxation under the long outgrown town sys- 
tem of government were conclusively set forth 
and intelligently inquired into at a conference be- 
tween the secretary of the Citizens' Association 



and a group of Community Club men. The Club 
is recruiting and drilling its members, this off 
year between campaigns, so that it cannot fail 
to be heard from when the time for action is at 
hand. Its reception to Ben Tillett, f he noted 
English labor leader, rallied many trade tt.'iion- 
ists to hear him speak on the condition of labor 
in response to the club's ; nvitat ; oii to the labor 
organizations of the city. 

A FAMILY RESORT. 

Diverse elements of our very cosmopolitan pop- 
ulation meet and mingle as they never have be- 
fore at our Pleasant Sunday Afternoon, wliich 
is recognized to be a wholly un-sectarian, non- 
ecclesiastical neighborhood gathering, where peo- 
ple of every faith and antecedent can freely come 
without compromise or embarassment, to find 
something interesting and uplifting to every mem- 
ber of the family circle. It is becoming a favor- 
ite family resort. At the Harvest Home on 
Thanksgiving day Jewish, Catholic, and Prote- 
stant held genuinely heart-felt fellowship within 
a religious spirit comprehensive enough to in- 
clude them all and deep enough for that which 
was essential in each to rest. 

The Christmas-tide is flowing right merrily as 
we go to press. Almost all the organizations cen- 
tering at the building are in smaller or larger 
groups swelling the cycle of Christmas festivities. 
But high-tide is to be marked for the third year 
by the Apollo Musical Club's rendering of the 
Oratorio of the Messiah, Thursday evening. Jan- 
uary i6th, in the auditorium of Chicago Com- 
mons. No truer Christmas gift is offered in Chi- 
cago than that which the city's greatest chorus 
freely gives to its hardest working and highly 
appreciative people. 

Charles Kingsley's Christmas. 

God who taught mankind on that first Christmas 

day 

What t'was to be a man; to give, not take; 
To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour; 
To help, not crush ; if need, to die, not live. 
O blessed day which gives the eternal lie 
To self, to sense, and all the brute within ; 
O come to us amid this war of life, 
To hall and hovel, come; to all who toil 
In senate, shops, or study: and to .those 
Who, sundered by the wastes of half a world, 
Ill-warned, and sorely tempted, ever face. 
Nature's brute powers and men unmanned to 

brutes. 

Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas day. 
Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem, 
The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine ; 
And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas day. 



THE COMMONS 



17 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social SettlementatGrand Ave.s- Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

For particulars as to rates, terms of advertising, etc., see 
"Publisher's Corner." 



EDITORIAL. 

We take great pleasure in announcing to our 
old friends and all the readers of The Com- 
mons its alliance with another strong group 
of co-operative workers in the East. The Asso- 
ciation of Neighborhood Workers in New York 
City, upon the recommendation of its committee 
on publication, presented by Miss Wald, of the 
Nurses' Settlement, decided "that it was not war- 
ranted in undertaking a publication of its own, 
but that its interests would be best served by 
assisting to strengthen The Commons." The 
president of the Association was authorized "to 
appoint some member resident in New York, as 
editor, to send matter regularly to The Com- 
mons and that all members of the Associa- 
tion be asked to subscribe and procure subscrib- 
ers." This action allies with The Commons 
the most representative body of social workers 
at the greatest center of social activity in the 
country. The Association of Neighborhood 
W'orkers includes all the settlements, the ethical 
culture societies and schools, and many of the 
churches of different denominational affiliations, 
which are most effective in their social work. 
With an editor, representing this influential group 
and the manifold public interests of New York 
City identified with it. and the successfully con- 
duted department of the College Settlements As- 
sociation, under the editorship of its Chicago 
representative, The Commons should be worthier 
of its growing, widely scattered, actively at work 
and heartily interested readers. 

The Movement of A Spirit. 

In recommending the action above referred to, 
Miss Wald's committee put upon record "their 
opinion that the settlements should not be temp- 
ted into writing more frequently about them- 
selves as a 'movement,' it being the opinion of 
the members of the committee that publications 
other than those intended to stimulate their con- 
stituencies by interchange of thought and ex- 
perience should not be encouraged ; that we 
should rather discourage setting the settlement 
apart as a 'movement.' which in the opinion of 



this committee is in violation of the original in- 
tent of the settlement to be simply a group of 
people devoting themselves to the interests of 
their various neighborhoods, whatever those in- 
terests may be.'' 

The point is well taken. Anything which tends 
to emphasize distinction between the settlement 
and its neighborhood lessens its identification 
with it. Anything which makes the settlement 
in fact or appearance more institutional than 
personal robs it of its very soul. Personal rela- 
tionship on the basis of the most democratic so- 
cial equality is the settlement's only right to be 
and room to work. If the settlement "move- 
ment" has been occasionally referred to in these 
columns, the phrase has been used as that which 
to the writer's mind describes the rise and 
progress of the social spirit, for which the set- 
tlements stand with the least possible intimation 
of institutionalism. Indeed so far from tempting 
the settlement to be anything that builds itself 
up out of the community, instead of being every- 
thing that builds the community up out of itself, 
The Commons prefers them to be known, to 
their neighbors at least as "social centers" or 
"neighborhood houses." For, in the term settle- 
ment itself there is a divisive self conscious-" 
ness in the intimation of some people settling 
among others . 

If the editor exercises the prerogative of the 
blue pencil over the reports of their work, which 
the settlements send to The Commons, it 
will be intended at least to protect them from 
unwittingly separating themselves from their 
neighbors to the denial of their own spirit and 
the subversion of their own purpose. 

Shall we raise the subscription price of 
THE COMMONS. 

Our New York friends urge us to raise the 
subscription rate of The Commons from fifty 
cents to one dollar. It has been published for 
seven years, not only "not for profit" but at a 
continuous loss, to serve the cause which the 
settlements exist to promote. Many people of 
very limited means have been its 'most constant 
and appreciative readers. When one and another 
of them write that they must be deprived of its 
helpfulness because they could no longer afford 
to pay for it, we have promptly offered to con- 
tinue sending them the paper until they could 
make remittance. In many instances this offer 
has been gratefully accepted and the subscription 
has ultimately been paid. We would not lose 
such readers, even to bring the paper to self- 
support. But perhaps there are enough subscrib- 
ers who are as able and willing to remit one dol- 
lar as thev have been to bear their share of less 



18 



THE COMMONS 



than the cost of printing and mailing The 
Commons. Our own settlement has cheer- 
fully borne the heavy burden of this large de 
ficit, amounting to hundreds of dollars from its 
meager income for the support of the work, 
in hope of thus rendering the best service it 
could to the cause for which it, with all other 
settlements, stands. 

It may now be time, as crur New York friends 
suggest, to place the paper upon a strictly busi- 
ness basis, even at the cost of losing some sub- 
scribers. But we prefer to hold the decision in 
abeyance until we can hear from our readers 
ourselves, in whose interests The Commons 
has been and shall be published. Perhaps, if 
they are willing to double their remittance, when 
they renew their subscription, the paper may be 
abler than before to make concessions to those 
who would pay as much, if they could. Let us 
hear promptly the frank opinion of our readers 
upon this question raised by some of our sub- 
scribers. 

The American Press Censor. 

The. ruling of the third assistant Postmaster 
General in excluding Wilshire's Magazine from 
American entry in the mails as second class mat- 
ter is a violation of the spirit and the letter of 
our constitutional guarantee of a free press. 
Neither the blatant egotism that was the chief 
characteristic of that publication nor its slight 
importance in the contemporary literature of 
socialism should blind us to the grave and immi- 
nent menace that such a precedent would es- 
tablish. The legal effect of Mr. Madden's ruling 
is a contravention of the first amendment of the 
Constitution of the United States. Its practical 
effect is to establish an autocratic censorship of 
the press. 

A candid consideration of all the facts will 
prove : 

First : This ruling reverses the long establish- 
ed interpretation by the Post Office Department 
of the Act of March 3rd, 1879, Sec. 14, 20 Stats. 

359- 

Second : It has all the appearances of an arbi- 
trary discrimination against a Socialist publica- 
tion. (Witness, Win Carleton's Everywhere, 
Social Service, and other publications too numer- 
ous to mention.) This is to say the least bad 
public policy. It awakens interest in and excites 
sympathy for a noisy egotist. It breeds suspicion 
of the government and helps to bring officials 
into disrepute. It tends to give color to the 
destructive arguments of anarchists. 

Third : This ruling is futile as a means of 
economy in the Postal Department. Wilshire's 
Magazine will now be distributed by the U. S. 



mails as second class matter under the interna- 
tional postal agreement free of charge and the 
Canadian government will receive the revenue. 
Toronto will gain a publication and the incident 
business and advertising and New York is the 
loser. 

This ruling is a criminal blunder and should 
be condemned by the entire people and reversed 
by the administration. 

Woman's Club Cooperation with the Settlements 

The intelligent and sympathetic attitude of the 
strong and progressive Woman's Club of Chicago 
toward the settlements of the city has been from 
the beginning, and never more than now, a source 
of inspiration and helpfulness to each group of 
residents and their supporting constituencies. The 
admirably concise and comprehensive sketch of 
the settlement work at each of the centers, fur- 
nished by the settlement committee of the club in 
this number of The Commons, will be re-pub- 
lished in booklet form for local distribution and 
cannot fail to be very helpful to all the settle- 
ments, especially those of them who with the 
least resource are working with great efficiency. 
Copies of the booklet may be secured at five centi 
each by the settlements or their friends by ap- 
plying to Miss Elizabeth Head, No. 2 Bank street, 
or at the rooms of the Women's Club, Fine Arts 
building, or of The Commons. 

An Industrie^ Evangelism. 

Chicago Commons is greatly indebted to the 
League for Social Service for the profit and 
pleasure afforded its residents and neighbors by 
Dr. Tolman's beautifully illustrated and suggest- 
ively descriptive lecture on "Social and Industrial 
Betterment." Its realistic disclosure of the need 
of employers' efforts to improve the conditions 
of labor in their shops and in the housing pro- 
vided for their employes was a dark background 
for the bright pictures of what many industrial 
concerns are effectively doing to identify their 
interests with those of their labor partners. The 
League is rendering the whole country valuable 
service in sending Dr. Tolman forth upon his 
.wide tour of industrial evangelism. In Chicago 
his lecture was repeated at the residence of Mrs. 
Cyrus H. McCormick, where were invited many 
of the leading employers of the city and some of 
the foremen of the McCormick Reaper Works to 
meet Dr. Tolman and each other socially. 

"Social Service," the monthly magazine issued 
by the League, is a most interesting and helpful 
periodical which is doing much to leaven many 
circles of employers with the wisdom and hu- 
manity of practicing human, not to say Christian 
brotherhood in their industrial relations. 



THE COMMONS 



19 



LAWN SWINGS 



MAY POLES 



W. S. TOTHILL 

Manufacturer 

Play Ground, Park, Gymnasium and Athletic Field 
Equipments. Write for anything you want. 

126-128 West Webster Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. 

Orders for New Edition of 

FORBUSH'S BOY PROBLEM 

will be filled on receipt of the boks early in September 

AT 75 CENTS PER COPY 

Order of "THE COMMONS." Grand Ave. and Morgan 
Street, Chicago. 

Send 60 cents to THE COMMONS for 
15he Ha-ndbook of Social Settlements 

By Professor C. R. Henderson. The best single 
volume on the Social Settlement Movement. 

PESTALOZZI-FROEBEL. 
Kindergarten Training School at 

Chicago Commons. 

Two years' course in Kindergarten Theory and 
Practice. A course in home making. Industrial 
and Social Development emphasized. Includes op- 
portunity to become familiar with Social Settle- 
ment Work. For circulars and particulars, address 

BERTHA HOFER HEQNER, 363 No. Winchester Ave. 

Chicago 

'She Church in Social Reforms 

By Graham Taylor. An Address and Discussion 
at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

'She New Fourth Edition f College, Social 
and University Settlements Bibliography. 

Compiled by Caroline Williamson Montgomery. 
For the College Settlement Association, with much 
new material. Now ready. Order through THE 
COMMONS. Ten cents per copy. 

The Commons 

Is devoted to Aspects of L^fe and Labor from the Social Set- 
tlement DOint of view, It is published monthly at Chicago 
Commons, a Social Settlement at Grand Ave. r Morgan St., 
Chicago. 111., and is entered at the Chicago Postoffice as mail 
matter of the second (newspaper) class. 
TKe Subscription Price Is Fifty Cents a Year. 
(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for 3*2.50. Send check, draft. P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above s-cent denomination ., at our risk. 
Advertisements in the Commons During 1901. 
One Page, S2S.OO; Half Page, $15.00; Quarter Page, S8.00; One 
Inch, S2 00. For each insertion. 

Special Rates for Special Numbers of the Commons 
Any number under twenty-five copies, five eents each; over 
twenty-five and under one hundred, three cents each; over 
one hundred, two and one-half cents each. 
Changes of Address. Please notify the publisher of 
any change of address, or of failure to receive the paper 
within a reasonable interval after it is due. 
Discontinuances. Please notify us at once if for any 
reason you desire your subscription discontinued. In accord- 
ance with custom, and the expressed wish of many subscrib- 
ers, we continue THE COMMONS to each address until notified 
to the contrary. 



College Settlements Association. 

Standing Committee, 

President: KATHARINE COM AN, Wellesley, Mass. 

Vice-President : MARY K. SIMKHOVITCH, (Mrs. Vladimir G. 

Simkhovitch.) 248 East 34th St., New York City. 
Secretary: MABEL GAIR CURTIS, 829 Boylston St., Boston. 
Treasurer: ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS, (Mrs Herbert Parsons.) 

112 East 35th Street, New York City. 
Fifth Member: HELEN ANNAN SCRIBNER, (Mrs. Arthur H. 

Scribner,) 10 West 43d Street, New York City. 

EDITED BY CAROLINE WILLIAMSON MONTGOMERY. 



Enlarged Quarters for the New York Settlement. 

BY ELIZABETH S. WILLIAMS, HEAD RESIDENT. 

After several months of comparative inactivity, 
the College Settlement is rejoicing in the immedi- 
ate prospect of increased facilities for work. 
There will soon be two houses to take the place 
of the old three-story frame dwelling which was 
the workshop for so many years. These are 
both two blocks distant from the main house at 
95 Rivington Street, but in opposite directions, 
so that different centers of population will be 
reached. 

The Music School for several months has oc- 
cuppied its new house, No. 31 Rivington Street, 
and although the whole building, a three story 
dwelling, is used for this purpose and as a resi- 
dence for the two directors, it is none too large, 
for this rapidly growing work. The school num- 
bers now about two hundred pupils, taking piano 
or violin lessons. These latter are supplemented 
by theory classes, an orchestra for the more ad- 
vanced, and many opportunities are given for 
the cultivation of a taste for the best music and 
for an increase of their general musical knowl- 
edge. The recent growth of the school was made 
possible by a union with similar work conducted 
under the auspices of the University Settlement. 

The other house, at 188 Ludlow Street, is 
undergoing repairs, but when ready for use will 
accommodate the kindergarten, which was tem- 
porarily discontinued this fall ; the basement will 
be devoted to the work of the boys' clubs ; and 
one floor will be used for a domestic science de- 
partment and manual training and art class. In 
this educational work the aim both in equipment 
and course of instruction will be to meet what 
experience has shown to be the peculiar needs of 
this neighborhood, and to supplement rather than 
duplicate the work of the public schools. The 
cooking school will be fitted up as simply as pos- 
sible that the application of the lessons to the 
home life of the pupils may be felt directly. In 
connection with these and in the care of a shed 



20 



THE COMMONS 



room fitted up for the purpose, many house- 
keeping principles will be touched upon. The 
art classes will be associated with those in 
wood carving modeling and basketry. No at- 
tempt will be made to turn out finished workers 
or artists, but the endeavor will be to discover 
the especial talents of any of the children and 
secure other means for their development, to give 
as many as possible some training of hand and 
eye, and increase their capacity for appreciation 
of beauty. 

The upper floor will be used for residents' 
quarters, and these will allow of an enlargement 
of the force of workers, to include a trained 
nurse. 

Many clubs and classes, temporarily homeless 
will resume their meetings at this house and the 
residents will make it a centre for much informal 
social life. 

Ridge Farm at Mt. Ivy, N. V. 

SUMMER HOUSE OF THE NEW YORK COLLEGE 

SETTLEMENT. 
BY L. M. AMBLER. 

For the first six, or seven years the summer 
work of the N. Y. College Settlement was car- 
ried on in different country places. The houses 
were rented and often inconvenient and much 
too small for the number of people sent out to 
them. 

The work first became a permanency in 1895, 
when Mrs. Frederick Lee, then Miss Billings, 
bought a farm of eighty-five acres in Rockland 
Co. N. Y. It is situated on a high ridge of land, 
with mountains on both sides, and thirty miles 
from the city. A house was built, adapted for 
large parties and hot weather, and put at the 
disposal of the N. Y. Settlement. Last year Mrs. 
Lee made the settlement a present of the entire 
property, including the farm house, barns and 
summer house. This purchase, six years ago of 
Ridge Farm, provided an ideal vacation place for 
young people who belonged to the winter clubs 
and many older friends. There is an out door 
dining room, and large entertainment hall in the 
big house, with a swimming pool not far off wKich 
was built by the clubs, and last year a tent was 
added for campers. A farmer lives on the place, 
cares for the animals and in. summer looks after 
the needs of the family. 

Spring and fall parties go out from the city for 
a day, as soon and as late, as the weather will 
permit, but the house is open for the season 
from the middle of June until late in September. 
In the crowded East Side, where news spreads 
quickly and the excited imagination of the chil- 
dren easily depicts distant charms, the fame and 



popularity of Mt. Ivy has grown apace, until now 
it has become, in their imagination, a land of 
pure delight; of which tired mothers dream and 
for which discouraged children long. All winter, 
teachers are asked," to mind" the growing pile 
of pennies, which are to be the open Sesame to 
Mt. Ivy, and there is no subject more absorbing, 
to hundreds of city children than "what we do 
at Mt. Ivy." The kindergarten opens the season 
and there is a procession of all ages ending with 
school boys who arrive for the grapes and early 
nuts. The station is three miles from the farm, 
and all through the summer, the strong horses are 
kept on the jog along the station road, bringing 
and taking the travellers from the hot city to the 
big house. 

At first the summer house, like many others 
was an experiment ; the residents were inexperi- 
enced, and equipped only, with ideals and enthu- 
siasm. The children were unknown to them 
all met as strangers. There could not be any 
feeling of individual responsibility, on the part of 
young people, for the welfare of the house, or 
personal attachment for a place devoid of asso- 
ciations. It was often felt that the vacation ac- 
complished little, except better* air and healthy 
surroundings. 

In twelve years this has changed, men, women 
and hundreds of growing boys and girls, now 
have, as their happiest memories, these vacation 
days. Memories that are filled with sunshine, 
space, music and laughter, familiar spots dear with 
association, and above them all the sincerity and 
friendliness that was the atmosphere of the place. 
It is this background of happy memories, that has 
produced, unconsciously, the present splendid "Es- 
prit de Corps" that prevails at Ridge Farm. A 
spirit of personal responsibility, and an effort on 
the part of all to lend a hand. As one young 
man said: "You just can't be mean here." There 
are no rules, but there are certain things "no 
fellow can do" and the traditions are handed 
down with vigorous impartiality from one club 
to another. 

For nine years, Miss Elizabeth Robbins has 
been rti the head of the house, and the work has 
been peculiarly her own. She took the charge in 
its days of trial an..! uncertainty, and has been the 
unifying force around which the life of the house 
has centered. The present success, is certainly due 
to her rare good judgment, and unselfish devo- 
tion. A great many who have lived at Ridge 
Farm, must feel, that the best of all their happy 
memories of those days, was her sympathetic 
appreciation of their needs and very sincere 
friendship for them, either as little children or 
grown men and women. 



TKe Commorvs 

A MorvtKly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlernervt Poirvt of View 



Number 67 -Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago. Febuary 19O2. 



Hymn for Settlement Vespers. 

O thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
Who once appeared in humblest guise below, 

Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain, 
And call thy brethren forth from want and woe ! 

We look to thee: thy spirit gives the light 
Which guides the nations, groping on their 
way, 

Stumbling and falling in disastrous nigtit, 
Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. 

Yes: thou art still the Life thou are the way 
The holiest know, Light. Life :md Way of 

heaven ; 

And they who dearest hope, and deepest p-ay. 
Toil by the lignt, life, way, which 4 !iou hast 

given. 

Author, Theodore Parker; Tune. Pax Dei by 
Dyket, 

Rural Social Co-operation. 

IMPORTANT CONVENTION OF PROFESSORS, FARMERS 
AND COUNTRY PASTORS. 

By Kenyon L. Butterfield, University of Michigan. 
The farm problem, like most social problems, 
has several phases. The farmers have industrial 
needs because they must make a living under ever- 
changing conditions ; they have political needs be- 
cause legislation can vastly help or hinder the 
development of their occupation: they have pe- 
culiar social needs because comparative isolation 
is thir ordiary lot ; they have educational needs 
common to other classes because they are Ameri- 
is their ordinary lot; they have- educational needs 
because they are farmers ; they have the common 
religions needs of mankind, and possibly religious 
needs of a peculiar character because country life 
is so different from city life. 

Everybody concedes that a virile, consecrated 
personality is the main factor in any line of social 
progress. But in the end even vigorous person- 
ality builds a social machine of some sort, forms 
some sort of organization. We naturally and 
rightly then look to institutions of various kinds 
to supply the needs of the farmers. Many de- 
vices are suggested by many men. but 1 think 
that after reflect-on we shall all concede that at 
least three institutions arc fundamental to rural 
amelioration: i. The farmers' organization; 2, 
The schools, including the rural schools, the ag- 



ricultural colleges, experiment stations, etc. ; and 
3, The rural church. 

The farmers' organization gives an opportunity 
for mature farmers to discuss political and busi- 
ness questions, and to exert the class influence 
for or against legislation ; it educates to co-opera- 
tive endeavor and deals with interests that are 
material perhaps but also materially necessary. 
The schools, of course, are essential, and when 
broadly denned, as above, arc coming to be rec- 
ognized as having an especially necessary task to 
perform. The church in the country has a field 
which promises as fruitful a harvest as any that 
can be gathered in the city or in lands beyond 
the sea. 

Some ardent people think that some one of these 
three institutions will suffice. An enthusiastic 
member of the Grange declares that that order is 
the natural corner-stone of rural regeneration, 
and he is partly right. The strenuous rural teach- 
er wants to see the school the neighborhood cen- 
tre for all social purposes, and she is partly 
right. The up-to-date and devoted clergyman 
who is striving to vitalize the rural church, urges 
the idea that the church can take upon itself all 
the necessary social functions of the community, 
and he is partly right. 

Yet none of these is wholly right. Neither 
the farmers' organization, nor the rural school, 
nor the country church, neither farmer, teach- 
er, nor preacher, is alone sufficient. All are nec- 
essary. It would be next to fanaticism to seri- 
ously insist that any one of these institutions can 
serve the farmer at every point. 

It is a good sign, however, that there are 
farmers, teachers, and preachers who have this 
all-inclusive idea of their respective institutions. 
The common case is that of the farmer who can 
see no use even in a fanners' organization ; of 
a teacher whose vision of service is bounded by 
the four walls of the school-house: of a preacher 
who imagines the pulpit and the prayer-meeting 
the only arenas of conflict against low aims and 
poor lives. 

But it would be a better sign if farmer, teacher, 
and preacher would each recognize the need in 
rural life for this trinity of institutions. For 
ths recognition would surely lead to a form of 
co-operation big with possibility. Given a farm- 
ers' organization that ministers chiefly to indus- 



THE COMMONS 



trial and economic needs, though incidentally to 
moral and educational ones ; a school system that 
feeds chiefly the accepted educational needs, 
though acting perhaps as a moving force in in- 
dustrial and social betterment; a church which is 
chiefly a religious institution, but which touches the 
life of the community at many other points given 
these things and the obvious next step is co-oper- 
ation between them all, in order that a well-bal- 
anced kind of social progress may result. 

How can this be done? That is harder. The 
first thing is to show its necessity and its possi- 
bilities. Brief mention of an actual attempt to 
do this much may be of interest. 

The Michigan Political Science Association will 
devote the entire program of its next annual 
meeting to the genral subject of "Rural Social 
Progress." The meeting will occur Feb. 25-26, 
next, at the Agricultural College, near Lansing, 
Mich., and the sessions will be held jointly with 
the State Round-up Farmer's Institute, thus as- 
suring a large audience of representative farmers. 
Prof. Henry C. Adams, Secretary of the Asso- 
ciation, has arranged the program on the basis of 
the idea of co-operation referred to above the 
economic, the eduactional and social, and the re- 
ligious phases of rural life will receive attention 
from noted speakers. An endeavor will be made 
to secure, in addition to the farmers, a good at- 
tendance of rural teachers and country pastors. 

The spirit and aim of the meeting will be to try 
to show that the farm problem interests every- 
body in the rural community, and that the best 
and sanest and surest way to achieve rural prog- 
ress is not only to encourage farmers' organiza- 
tions, and better eduactional facilities, and a so- 
cial service church, including perhaps the social 
settlement, but that the hearty and avowed co- 
operation of these agencies is worth while. What- 
ever the success of this meeting may be, it will 
at least be noble in purpose and progressive in 
plan. 

Among the papers, provided for by the still in- 
complete program, are the following. "The Need 
and Possibility of Agricultural Organization," 
by Hon. Geo. B. Horton of Fruit Ridge, Mich., 
President of the State Grange ; "The Methods and 
Results of Rural Education in Canada," by Hon. 
Geo. C. Creelman of Toronto; "The Function of 
the Church in Rural Organization,'' by Prof. 
Graham Taylor. 

The Commons will present its readers with as 
full a report of this exceptionally interesting and 
important occasion as its space will allow. Ad- 
vance orders for the April number, in which an 
abstract of these papers and discussions will ap- 
pear, are solicited. 



The Country Chxirch Industrial. 

BY EDW. P. PRESSEY, EDITOR OF "COUNTRY TIME AND 
TIDE." 

Depopulation has been the least conspicuous of 
the changes during the last twenty years, in coun- 
try New England. The abandoned farm with its 
cellar holes or tottering, weather blackened build- 
ings is indeed somewhat conspicuous. The mo- 
ment you turn anywhere a few miles afield or 
off the main thorough fares. But these are not as 
conspicuous as the abandoned, semi-abandoned or 
dry-rotten institutions of the fathers. 

The population has not so much diminished as 
the character of it has changed. One is astonish- 
ed upon considering the population of twenty 
years ago and now, to see how comparatively sta- 
ble the numbers are and also to find how dispro- 
portionally to the decline of population popular 
institutions have declined. To speak without 
moral approbation or disapprobation, the change 
that has come over country New England has not 
been "death and removals," as is so often apolo- 
getically maintained by country newspapers and 
church officials ; but it has been a change in the 
habit and character of the actually resident popu- 
lation. 

To speak with an opinion, old New England 
that passed away about twenty years ago was 
public spirited. Present New England is con- 
spicuously lacking in public spirit. Too often a 
country region seems like the forlorn odds and 
ends of disappointed self-seekers and not half a- 
dozen public spirited persons of any degree in a 
population of five hundred. The old fashioned 
town meeting could scarely be found by the fath- 
ers in the present institution, dominated as it is 
so often by the mere smart bully, whilst the men 
of character are so close-mouthed as to be inef- 
fectual. Our schools of course are our pride, par- 
ticularly in Massachusetts where under profes- 
sional supervision -of an effectual class of virile 
men. But from another point of view even our 
modern country schools are an invention of the 
Devil for deceiving the very elect, if that were 
possible, for no purpose but to turn our boys and 
girls into a race of bloodless, anaemic city clerks, 
valuable chiefly as commercial assets. The heart 
rebels even from our charming schools, sometimes. 
But there is neither charm nor commercial asset 
in the New England country church and one may 
speak of that more freely without affecting the 
price of stocks. I am to speak of the country 
church as it is and as it is to be. It is without 
either moral or social importance just now; but 
of course that is not to be the fact. 

The most discouraging thing just now about 
the country church is not the lack of spiritual life 



THE COMMONS 



and popular interest; for there still continues a 
good deal of both, though not enough of either to 
preserve communities from hungry lonesomeness 
and decay. If there were less life and interest in 
the church there are plenty of Christian ideas and 
intentions that would probably rise out of its 
ashes. If this is anarchy, make the most of it. 

A few actual examples of country churches of 
the best and at the worst will illustrate what I 
mean by thus speaking out of school. Some years 
ago I found myself ministering to a country con- 
gregation in a town of two churches and several 
hundred inhabitants. My congregation had only 
seven or eight men who could be called in any 
sense regular attendants. Only two in the literal 
sense were regular. Three of the eight were 
superanuated men. One was a town pauper. One 
was a political scamp. Two were inoffensive 
young men, one married, one single. And there 
was one other tobacco soaked church official. The 
rest of the congregation were women and chil- 
dren. The women were more numerous and aver- 
aged better than the men with a proportion of 
them halt and blind and dangerously silly. The 
average of the children was very good. But the 
parents of these bright children were not general- 
ly in our congregation, and some of them other- 
wise had their grave defects, and all of them their 
problem. The only Sunday-school teachers we 
could get were of two classes mainly: disspirited 
persons who would have helped if they had had 
any heart or courage ; and foolish persons who 
made a shallow prattle out of the whole thing 
and would not and perhaps could not obey orders 
to any better end. 

The other church in town was in worse case in 
point of numbers. Over against our pauper, they 
had an idiot boy ; over against our political scamp 
they had a wolfish young deacon ; for our inof- 
fensive young men they had one or two very good 
ordinary middle aged men ; for our superanuated 
men they had an old elderly man who was "the 
last of the prayer makers ' and they worked him 
unduly and over-time. This town was not one of 
the worst. And it was a good way from the best. 
There were several towns immediately around us 
that had no church in action at all, though they all 
I believe had "ladies societies." 

The best cases were the most hopeless. For 
instance in our present region in western Mass- 
achusetts there are several country churches in 
the county and vicinity that have an all year round 
average congregation of one hundred and a very 
few possibly go up to a hundred and fifty. Such 
churches have seemed at a distance like heaven 
to the country min'ster who has been used to a 
summer congregation of sixty and a winter con- 



gregation of five to thirteen, or zero in stormy 
weather. But the average congregation of a 
hundred in these days is exceptional. Such happy 
congregations almost never do anything to meet 
the moral or material problems of decadent in- 
dustry and life about them. One sees a better 
future far off for the habitual church going com- 
munity. They are so complacent in their living 
tomb, the old parish church, that one almost feels 
the instinct of the Puritan to go in with an axe 
and smash the pipe organ and stained glass and 
cry, 'Let the Lord's people awake out of their fee- 
ble ecclesiastical dream and do the things that 
this community needs to have done, that the pub- 
licans and sinners may be masters of their ma- 
terials and the flesh.' 

And so I have arrived at the idea of the Coun- 
try Church Industrial ; the church that touches all 
life and makes the dead bones leap. One end of 
the parsonage study is now occupied by our parish 
compositor and cases of type. A little back room 
has become a press room. And the little mountain 
brook back of the barn is harnessed to the press 
for the greater glory of God. Across the brook 
are our cabinet and woodworking shops, where 
the all wood Clairvoux table is made to the glory 
of God and the handicraft of man. We have a 
farm fifteen minutes walk out of the village, 
where we are to teach the glory of God in the 
farmers practical life by the kindergarten method, 
by dealing with the things of a farmer's life and 
preaching onr sermons largely in object lessons. 

I am a kindergarten preacher and find myself 
bound to assume that all men and women are only 
children of a larger growth and require to see 
the green and gold, the solidity, the push and pull 
of actual things in a way to symbolize righteous- 
ness and purity as the new sacramental elements 
of their earthly faith, before they will see and 
believe and take warning or inspiration of the 
pulpiteer. Our business and industry clustered 
about the new parsonage and the new church 
where swarm the young and old with glowing 
hearts and eager hands are but the sacramental 
elements of our love of God and man while the 
spirit shall use to inspire the practice of the gold- 
en rule, the brotherhood of man. 

And so I sit in my house in the spirit of 
Jesus the Carpenter of Capernaum; and the dis- 
ciples, the little children and the publicans and 
sinners come and sit at meat in our house as in 
his and they follow us believing that power is be- 
ing given to us over the materials and the flesh 
that may not keep us slaves but make us masters 
of the flesh and the world. 

Montague, Mass. 



THE COMMONS 



Social Observations in a Country 
Pa.rish. 

BY A NEW ENGLAND COUNTRY TOWN PASTOR. 

The parish of which I write, is in many re- 
spects, an ideal one. Some of the influences that 
so often work against the higher life in rural 
communities, are not felt here. For example, 
the population is nearly as large now as it ever 
was. There is a very small infusion of foreign 
element in the parish: most of the people are of 
the old New England type. Again, denomina- 
tional rivalry has no field here for there is but 
one church. In years gone by, there was a Un- 
iversalist church, now defunct, and a Baptist 
church now located in another part of the town. 

There are within the limits of the parish 378 
persons. 138 men : 146 women : and 94 children 
tinder 15 years of age. It is distinctively a farm- 
ing community. There are 114 families in the 
parish* 76 of these are living on large farms. 
19 on smaller farms, and there is not a family in 
the parish that has not land enough for a garden. 
Of the 114 families in the parish, oo own their 
houses. 24 live in rented houses. Two-fifths of 
these farms are mortgaged, but not heavily. The 
farms are well kept up, the houses and barns are 
neat and tidy tor the most part. The arrange- 
ments for house life are convenient and health- 
ful. The drainage is good in almost every case. 
The water supply is secured from living springs, 
a few wells are in use. 

Economically, the parish is more than holding 
its own. Progress is the watchword with nine 
out of every ten of the farmers. New and im- 
proved implements for farm use are introduced 
every year. Modern methods are employed. The 
markets are carefully watched. Expenditures are 
wisely and prudently made. Thrift and enter- 
prise are evident on every hand. Within the 
limits of the village, a new school building, two 
new stores and three new dwellings have been 
built within five years. A Village Improvement 
Society, seeks in a multitude of ways to stimulate 
the spirit of enterprise and to inspire a love for 
the beautiful and the artistic. 

The social and intellectual life of the people is 
of a high order. 67 of the 114 families possess 
a library of their own. and as a rule the books 
are standard works. 45 daily papers are taken; 
225 weeklies; 50 monthlies and 42 distinctively 
religious journals come into the homes. This 
number is increasing rapidly since the rural free 
delivery has come into operation. There is not 
a family in the parish that does not take at least 
one weeky paper. One division of the town li- 
brary is located here, and an Average of 15 books 



are drawn each week, with an average of a little 
less than two-lhirds fiction. 

During the winter months there is a great deal 
of visiting among the farmers, hardly a week- 
passes that I do not run into a little company of 
friends and neighbors, spending the day in a so- 
cial way. The evenings are largely spent at 
home. The families gather around the fire and 
a book is read or a game is played, and conver- 
sation (not gossip) never lags over a pan of 
fameuse or gillyflower. 

Boys and girls are encouraged in their studies 
at home and sent away to school whenever it is 
possible. There are 31 young men and ladies be- 
tween the ages of 10 and 20 in the parish and 9 
of them are at present away at school. 

The social life of the community centers a- 
round the church. There are family gatherings, 
and an occasional evening party, but by far the 
larger part of the social life of the people has a 
direct or indirect relation to the church. The 
church is the only social institution in the com- 
munity. The village band, the village improve- 
ment society, and a flourishing literary club are 
indeed independent of the church, but on the best 
of terms with it ; and each in its own way con- 
serves the higher life for which the churcn stands. 
The pastor of the church is president of the im- 
provement society, a leader in the literary society, 
and a frequent visitor at the band meetings. 

The stores and post office are the only loung- 
ing places in the village, and they are remarkably 
free from loafers. There is comparatively little 
profanity or slang heard either at the stores or 
on the streets. Of course the village fathers 
could not exist without telling an occasional 
"Fish Story," but the boys and young men a.re 
conspicuous by their absence. They are taught 
to spend their evenings at home and this most 
of them do. The principal of the village school 
told me last evening that he had not had to stop 
a single "fight" among the boys since he began 
teaching here five years ago. I have been the pas- 
tor of the church for five years and I have yet 
to receive the first ungentlemanly or discourteous 
word or act from any boy or girl in the parish. 

This community has the advantage over many 
rural communities of its size in that its religious 
life centers in and around one church. Two 
churches would be a detriment to the people and 
a hinderance to the progress of the Kingdom of 
God in the community. 

Of the 378 people in the parish. 130 are mem- 
bers of some Protestant church. There are 8 
Catholic families. There are 94 resident mem- 
bers of the local church, and 36 absent members. 
There are exactly the same number of members 



THE COMMONS 



of oilier churches in the parish as of absent mem- 
bers of the local church. Of the 130 church mem- 
bers, 45 are men. 85 are women: 12 are under 20 
years of oge; 13 between 20 and 30; 24 between 
30 and 40: 41 between 40 and 50; 40 are over 50 
years old. 

Again, of the 130, 3 became members before 
they were 10 years old; 24 before they were 15; 
59 befpre they were 20: 32 before they were 30; 
30 between 30 and 50 ; and none after they were 
50 years old. Once more, of the 130, 44 were led 
to unite with the church at a time of revival in- 
terest ; of these 10 profess not to have had any 
great change in their life, but to have always 
considered themselves Christians. 86 united with 
the church as the result of some form of Chris- 
tian nurture. Of these 46 say they were brought 
up to consider themselves Christians, and never 
departed from the faith. II attribute their action 
to a deliberate choice. 3 to the direct study of 
the Bible. 2 to personal letters from friends. I 
to sickness; 3 to the direct personal work of their 
pastor, and the remaining 20 to the combined in- 
fluences of home, church, and friends. One wo- 
man told me that she had distinct recollections 
of impressions made on her when she was only 
2 years old. and she dates her religious life from 
that date. 

The history of the additions to the church for 
the last 25 years is interesting. Of the three larg- 
est ingatherings two were the result of revival 
meetings in 1888 and 1892. and one the result of 
Christian nurture and personal work, 1900. 
18771 18842 18912 18983 

18785 18856 189220 18997 

18794 18863 18934 100014 

1880 o 18870 18942 19012 

1881 I 188835 "8952 

18820 18892 18963 

18831 1800 2 18974 t 

There are 50 families in the parish in which 
both husband and wife are members of the 
church. 32 of these sustain a family altar and 
return thanks for daily bread. 14 Christian homes, 
pardon the paradox, have neither a family altar, 
or grace said at the table. 4 acknowledge the 
provident care of God at the table, but do not 
maintain an altar. The inveriable excuse for the 
neglect of these most essential forms of Chris- 
tian nurture is, lack of time. 

In closing allow me to say a word in favor of 
country churches employing Institutional meth- 
ods. The one great end and aim of all church 
work should be to reach and save men. The meth- 
ods that succeed best at any time or place should 
most, certainly be employed. It is my experience 



that the church that succeeds in interesting the 
largest number of people in some form of church 
activity will secure the largest number of con- 
versions. It is the business of the church to re- 
generate the community in which it is located. 
This it cannot do until every man and woman is 
in hearty sympathy with its work. The church 
should be the centre of the religious, social, in- 
tellectual and aesthetic life of every rural com- 
munity. 

Publications on Social Aspects of 
R\iral Life. 

The following articles, periodicals and volumes, 
referred to in this number of The Commons, are 
listed for the convenience of our readers. 

Municipal Affairs, Symposium on "The Dec- 
oration of Cities" in the fall issue, 1901, (New 
York Reform Club, Committee on City Affairs, 
52 Williams St., $2.00 per volume, $0.50 per 
copy) . 

Country Time and Tide, (published at Mon- 
tagu, Mass., by Edward P. Pressey ; price $0.50 
a year, 5c a copy) . 

Home and Flowers, (The Floral Publishing 
Co., Sprngfield, Ohio, $1.00 a year) . 

Articles by Rollin Lynde Hart on "The Regen- 
eration of Rural New England" in the Outlook 
for March 3. 10 and 17, 1900. (The Outlook, 
287 Fourth avenue, New York City.) 
Institutional Work for the Country Church, 
compiled by Charles E. Hayward, and containing 
twelve contributions by several writers on "The 
Country Church." "The Country Minister," "Ins- 
titutional Methods," Religious Instruction," 
"Men's Sunday Evening Club," "The Church 
Paper," "The Home Department of the Sunday- 
school," "Special Work for Boys," "Library and 
Reading Rooms," "Evangelistic Work in Out- 
districts," "Special Work for Girls," "Sociolog- 
ical Canvass." (Free Press Association, Burl- 
ington. Vt.) 

The Twentieth Century City. (Publication of 
the American League for Civic Improvement, 
Springfield, Ohio.) 

The Commons. "Civic Betterment in Chicago," 
being a report of the all day conference of Cook 
County Improvement Societies, (Chicago Com- 
mons, Grand avenue and Morgan street, soc a 
year). 



In Phillips Brooks' way of being a scholar, his 
biographer says, stood "his love of literature as 
the revelation of man. the yearning to enter into 
the deeper experiences of life, to know the world 
he lived in." 



6 



THE COMMONS 



A Lenten Thought 

Emma Playfair Seabury. 
I take this lenten thought with me, 

Along the Master's devious way, 
Upon the Mount, by Gallilee, 

He was the people's Lord alway. 
He took their burdens for his own, 

He healed the sick, he eased their care, 
He comforted wiA grief alone, 

He stool beside them everywhere. 

He took their children on his knee, 

And blessed them in his simple way, 
"O suffer them to come to me :" 

Ah 'tis so different to-day ! 
We kneel within our costly pew, 

And his poor children throng the street, 
With crime and want, and hunger too, 

With aching heart, and bleeding feet. 

He helped the humble fishermen, 

To fill, and fill, their empty net, 
He gave his gospel to them then, 

For all the years to come and yet 
We will not give the work he prays, 

We see him starved, his children cry, 
For mammon rules these latter days, 

And we unheeding pass him by. 

I give this Lenten thought to you, 

Who kneel in dusky aisles again, 
And ask his kingdom come anew, 

And dwell within the hearts of men. 
Give men your help, and with them stand, 

They scorn your pity and your gold, 
They want your love, your proffered hand, 

The Christ-like brotherhood of old. 

If he were here again I ween, 

He would not in his temples stay, 
But oftener he would be seen 

Where suffering, and hunger prey. 
And it would please him more that you 

With weak and helpless ones abide, 
Than kneeling in your cushioned pew, 

And leaving his dear ones outside. 

Rural Homes a.rvd Modern 
Progress. 

At the little town of Morris in the state of 
Connecticut there has grown up a typical Amer- 
ican festival. "Old Home Week" the New Eng- 
land fathers have called it. On this occasion from 
far and near gather the great sons, and simple 
home folk of the neighboring towns, and togeth- 
er they tell again the story of the Pilgrim pio- 
neers and the achievements of a line that has 
gone out into all the earth. Near this little town 



in the old Nutmeg state was nurtured the genius 
of Horace Bushnell and Adoniram Judson, and 
on a nearby stony hillside the turbulent yet he- 
roic soul of John Brown, began its strange and 
solemn march to the Charlestown gallows and 
an imperishable fame. 

Plain, stern, hard-headed and hard-handed free- 
men were these Connecticut farmer folk. Fear- 
ing God and nothing else, they bore the stamp 
of a great commission, and with unfaltering cour- 
age they gave living witness of their faith. For 
many years the neighboring Litchfield parsonage 
was Lyman Beecher's home. Theodore Parker 
said of this same Beecher, "he was father of more 
brains than any other man in America." 

But the sceptre has departed from our mod- 
ern Judah, and industrial changes, marked by de- 
serted homes and an alien people, have brought 
us face to face with the "rural problem." What 
is to be done to save the character, power, and 
beauty of American country life? It was the 
shadow of this problem that rose before each aro- 
tor during the festival of Old Home Week. A 
conference grew out of this discussion, and we 
here set forth some of the recommendations agreed 
upon : 

Better roads, the trolley, the farm telephone and 
rural mail delivery improve the industrial condi- 
tion and at the same time break the social iso- 
lation. The trolley and the automobile are ele- 
ments in the solution. The basis of better rural 
conditions must be laid in improved methods of 
farming. Dr. Bushnell, who saw things in their 
true proportions, declared: "The condition of 
many of our rural towns suggests that instead of 
ecclesiastical conferences we should rather resolve 
ourselves into a board of agriculture to discuss 
what may be done to revive this industry." 

The next to be considered is the educational 
need. The present school system, especially in 
Connecticut, is very faulty. The old district 
school often has few pupils left and no one in 
the district competent to manage the school. 
Schools should be combined, children being trans- 
ported and the schools graded and better teachers 
employed. The party who will put a good school 
automobile on the market will be a public bene- 
factor. Central schools are a social force uniting 
different parts of the town. Several towns should 
combine for the employment of a competent su- 
perintendent, the state paying a large part of his 
salary. State grants should be made to rural 
schools where the grade of work done is of a su- 
perior quality. With the trolley should come the 
county and district high school. In rural com- 
munities the courses of study should be adjusted 
to rural needs. Teaching in agriculture and 



THE COMMONS 



manual industries should be given. Educate coun- 
try boys and girls for life in the country. The 
local library, and library post, the Grange, the 
Reading Club, the Literary Club, the Women's 
Club have their value. 

Professors of social science should give courses 
of lectures upon the rural problem. Post grad- 
uate students should carefully study the subject 
and publish their conclusions. 

Among subjects proposed for discussion, many 
of which were suggested again and again, thus 
showing practical agreement as to their perti- 
nency, were : The Interpenetration and Interde- 
pendence of the City and the Country Transpor- 
tation and Communication in the Country ; For- 
estry ; Social Settlements for the Country; Coun- 
try Politics ; How to Secure Wise Leaders for Ru- 
ral Life?; The Beautification of Village Streets 
and Country Highways ; The Education of the 
Producer from the Soil ; Equal Education for all ; 
Consolidation of Schools ; District Supervision ; 
Industrial Teaching in Country Schools ; The 
Public Library ; Moral Conditions in the Country ; 
The Social Opportunity of the Country Church; 
Consolidation of Country Churches. 

The American Lea.gue for Civic 
Improvements. 

BY PROFESSOR CHARLES ZUEBLIN. 

The American League for Civic Improvement 
. was organized in the spring of 1900 at Spring- 
field, O. A little group of people, prompted by 
their own experience in a local improvement so- 
ciety and by a series of articles on civic improve- 
ment published in a local magazine, decided to 
call a convention. The convention was attended 
by people from various parts of the country and 
several interesting addresses were made. The 
organization which results was, however, large- 
ly left in the hands of those who inaugurated the 
movement, and the headquarters were located in 
Springfield. It was frankly regarded as experi- 
mental, since ihere were other organizations in 
similar fields, such as the American Park and 
Outdoor Art Association, the American League 
for Municipal Improvements, the League of Amer- 
ican Munic'palities, and the National Municipal 
League. The organizers of this new movement 
felt that in spite of the societies apparently in 
possession of the field, there was not only room 
for another, but also a necessity for a different 
kind of work. The first of the societies named 
is made up largely of professional landscape gar- 
deners and park authorities and attempts to ap- 
propriate as its field only outdoor art. The next 
two organiaztions are representative of municipal 
officials. The last aims at changes in administra- 
tion. It was felt that there was a demand for an 



organization which would represent the principle 
of federation and would embrace the various lo- 
cal societies of the country, which were known 
to be numerous, and at the same time be com- 
prehensive in its purposes. 

The first year's work was largely guided by 
the founder of the movement and its first corre- 
sponding secretary, Mr. D. J. Thomas, of Spring- 
field, O. The work of correspondence and or- 
ganization was carried on under his direction by 
Miss Jessie M. Good and Mr. E. G. Routzhan. 
It was through Miss Good's early efforts in writ- 
ing articles and corresponding with inquirers 
throughout the country that the first materials 
were gathered which seemed to point toward the 
advisability of such a movement. Her pamphlets, 
"The Work of Civic Improvement" and "The 
How of Improvement Work," still remain the 
chief literature of the movement. Through the 
efforts of these pioneers over three hundred local 
improvement societies were discovered, the geo- 
graphical distribution of which, confined as it 
naturally was to a certain number of states, has 
led to the belief that there are in the country at 
least a thousand of these organizations. While 
the work of the first year was national in its 
scope, the results were chiefly noticeable in Ohio, 
New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois. 

When the time came to call a second conven- 
tion, which properly enough was held at Buffalo, 
in August, 1901, it was found that a thoroughly 
representative gathering of a national movement 
was possible, and the new officers elected in a 
measure indicated the geographica 1 strength of 
the movement. They were : 

President, Charles Zueblin, University of Chi- 
cago; First Vice-President, E. L. Shuey, Dayton, 
Ohio; Second Vice-President, Mrs. Conde Ham- 
lin, St. Paul, Minn.; Third Vice-President, Henry 
Metcalf, Cold Springs, N. Y. ; Treasurer, Frank 
Chapin Bray, Cleveland, Ohio; Corresponding 
Secretary, E. G. Routzahn, Dayton, Ohio ; Record- 
ing Secretary, Charles M. Robinson, Rochester, 
N. Y. ; Organizer, Miss Jessie M. Good, Spring- 
field, Ohio; Albert Kelsey, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
vania ; Charles M. Loring, Minneapolis, Minneso- 
ta ; H. B. Beck, Austin, Texas ; W. H. Moulton, 
Cleveland, Ohio ; John L. Zimmerman, Spring- 
field, Ohio; Miss Mira Lloyd Dock, Harrisburg, 
Pennsylvania; D. J. Thomas, Springfield, Ohio. 

It was found that the presence of the Buffalo 
exposition, while it made it possible for some of 
the members to attend, prevented any attendance 
from Buffalo, so that the convention was distinct- 
ively one for work and mutual encouragement 
rather than propaganda. 

The first evening Miss Mira Lloyd Dock, of 



THE COMMONS 



tlie Pennsylvania state hoard of forestry, deliv- 
ered an illustrated address entitled "An Improve- 
ment Pilgrimage." the character of which may 
be slightly indicated by reference to the admirable 
pamphlet of Miss Dock's, issued by the organiza- 
tion which she represented, in which is recorded 
her observations on a tour through Europe, at 
the instigation of the Women's Clubs of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The next morning the various improvement so- 
cieties which were represented presented their re- 
ports, which were of great individual interest and 
especially encouraging because of the remoteness 
of many of them, such as the Civic Division of 
the Women's Club of Keokuk, Iowa, the Floral 
Association of Spokane. Wash., the Civic Club 
of Harrisburg. Pa., the Women's Civic League, 
St. Paul, Minn., the Women's Health Protective 
Association of Galveston. Txas. and the Im- 
provement and Cemetery Association of Tarpon 
Springs. Fla. One of the most stimulating ad- 
dresses of the morning was given by Mrs. Conde 
Hamlin, president of the Civic League of St. 
Paul, in which a record of work was presented 
which should be encouraging to every improve- 
ment association of the country, and particularly 
stimulating to the voters who are permitting such 
work of citizenship to be done by the women. It 
included the enlargement of the functions of the 
park board, the disposition of the garbage ques- 
tion, an attack on the bill board and smoke nuis- 
ances, the establishment of playgrounds, the car- 
rying through of a new charter, the opening of a 
reading-room and gymnasium, fresh air excur- 
sions, and finally the subdivision and co-ordina- 
tion of effort, involving a local organization in 
each ward of the city. 

At the afternoon session Mr. Starr Cadwal- 
lader. of the Goodrich House, Cleveland, spoke 
of the Home Gardening Association of that city, 
recounting the experiences of an admirable or- 
ganization which has encouraged the school chil- 
dren to plant gardens of their own. by selling them 
packages of seed. The success of this organiza- 
tion cannot be better indicated than by stating 
that over 120,000 packages of seeds were sold 
this last year at one cent each, without any ex- 
pense to the association, the small charge pay- 
ing for the seed, the printing of the envelopes, 
the sorting and distribution, and leaving a sur- 
plus, which was invested into bulbs for the school 
rooms. The discussion which followed brought 
out the fact that such work had also been done 
in Rochester and other New York cities under the 
inspiration of the extension work of Cornell Uni- 
versity, which was admirably described by Pro- 
fessor Craig. At this session there was also an 



address by Mr. H. S. Earle. representing the 
League of American Wheelmen, of which he is 
president, the subject of his address being "Bet- 
ter Highways.'' on which he speaks with author- 
ity, being the leader in the "Good Roads" move- 
ment in Michigan. A very instructive address 
was given by C. E. Bolton, the mayor of East 
Cleveland. Ohio, whose account of the accom- 
plishments of that delightful little suburb, was 
so full of interest and instruction, that- it is worth 
while calling attention not only to the report of 
it in the convention proceedings, but to the fuller 
accounts found in his beautifully illustrated re- 
port for last year, by means of which the citizens 
of East Cleveland have been encouraged and 
aroused. 

The evening addresses were illustrated by the 
stereopticon, and were given by Mr. Albert Kel- 
sey, president of the Architectural League of 
America, and by the president-elect of the Amer- 
ica"h League for Civic Improvement. On these 
two successive evenings the general subject of the 
City of the Future was discussed, which made an 
appropriate introduction to Mr. Kelsey's resolu- 
tion, acted upon by the League and subsequently 
sent to the exposition authorities, with the in- 
dorsement of other organiazations and the very 
general approval of the press throughout the 
country. These resolutions proposed a civic ex- 
hibit at the St. Louis exposition of 1903, and 
read as follows: 

"Whereas, The improvement of towns and cit- 
ies, in the judgment of this convention, is a sub- 
ject of widely recognized importance to the peo- 
ple of the United States; and. 

"Whereas, civic improvements of a public and 
permanent character must soon transform many 
communities, reflecting 'man in his full Twentieth 
Century development, exhibiting not alone his 
material, but his social advancement.' in a most 
conspicuous manner : and. 

"Whereas. Municipal art and_ the science of 
modern city-making has formed the subject of a 
department exhibit at three international exposi- 
tions abroad, therefore be it 

"Resolved. That the American League for Civic 
Improvement, in annual convention assembled, pe- 
titions the commissioners of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase Exposition to make provision for an ex- 
hibit which shall have this characteristic." 

Aside from the instruction and fellowship of 
the convention important results were achieved in 
the enlarging of the scope of the organization by 
embracing Canada as well as the United States, 
and by adding commercial memberships, so that 
now the membership consists of individuals who 
pay $2.00 a year, improvement societies which pay 



THECOMMONS 



$2.00 for , each 500 members, and commercial 
members paying $10.00. A full account of these 
convention proceedings is published by the League 
in "The Twentieth Century City," to be obtained 
from the headquarters. Springfield. Ohio. 

As indicating the scope of the American League 
or Civic Improvement, it may be worth while to 
append a few of the objects which it announces 
as within its province: Cycle side paths; county 
park systems : foot paths to reach scenic beauties ; 
forestry, fountains and wayside springs ; good 
roads and good streets; hand books and guide 
boards locating points of interest ; increased at- 
tractiveness of farm life; photography as an im- 
provement agency ; preservation of groves and 
natural features ; street and road signs ; street, 
road and riverside planting ; athletic and outdoor 
pastimes ; floral exhibitions ; flower and fruit mis- 
sions ; open air band concerts ; open-air restau- 
rants and picnic grounds ; parks for all the peo- 
ple ; people's play grounds and recreation parks ; 
pleasing church exteriors and surroundings; pub- 
lic assembly and lecture halls : proper patriotic 
celebrations ; public lavatories and closets ; pub- 
lic gymnasiums; recreation piers; rest room in 
towns and cities ; shelter houses for park and 
cemetery; village club room or nouse ; abatement 
of smoke nuisance; artistic public advertising; 
care of vacant lots ; care of railroad and traction 
right-of-way in city and country ; cemetery im- 
provement ; civic function of the church ; cleans- 
ing and beautifying public buildings: comfort, 
convenience and beauty of pubic vehicles; dwell- 
ings for the people : garbage disposal for towns 
and villages ; harmonious housing of public gas, 
water and sanitary plants; improvement of city 
water front : municipal architecture ; permanency 
and beauty in bridge building: practical and ar- 
tistic street planning; proper care of streets and 
alleys; planting about factories; proper naming 
of streets and roads: public lighting as an aid to 
city beauty ; public sanitation : public squares and 
open spaces : sanitary burial and cremation ; side- 
walk planting: sanitary and storm sewage sys- 
tem : statuary in public places : public memorials ; 
suppression of noise : study of public health and 
civic beauty by commercial bodies ; suitable group- 
ing of public buildings : the "city gateway" rail- 
way station and grounds ; vacant lot cultivation ; 
home roof gardens ; improvement of rear yards ; 
improvement work for church young people's so- 
cieties ; women's clubs ; Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. 
C. A., social settlements, civic federations and sim- 
ilar organizations. 

In all parts of the country all kinds of improve- 
ments are being undertaken by individuals, pri- 
vate organizations and public bodies, and the 



most pressing needs are for co-operation and ed- 
ucation. The American League for Civic Im- 
provement has the continent for its "parish" and 
a "more beautiful public life" for its goal. 

Decoration of Cities. 

This title is given to a series of excellent arti- 
cles in the last quarterly issue (1001) of Munici- 
pal Affairs. The subjects of small parks and 
tree planting, municipal sculpture and street fix- 
tures, plant decoration for city homes and the 
bill board nuisance, are thoughtfully cona.~ 

Upon the subject of small parks, Frederick W. 
Kelsey says in part : 

."In the attainment of large parks and connect- 
ing parkways, the small parks should not be over- 
looked. Nothing yields larger returns than the 
open oases in the crowded tenement-house dis- 
tricts of our metropolitan cities. Thither thou- 
sands flee in the hot sultry days of summer, to 
breathe the fresh air. There the children congre- 
gate to enjoy their sports, leaving the crowded 
streets for traffic. And if any one doubts the wis- 
dom of small parks, let him visit any of the small 
parks opened in New York within the last decade. 
Nothing is dearer to the hearts of the people, and 
the failure of the last administration to follow 
the constructive policy of Mayor Strong in this 
direction was a factor in the recent election." 

As a groundwork for all plans of municipal 
betterment a comprehensive scheme is indispensa- 
ble to secure symmetry and economy. Doubtless 
after Chicago has wasted a few more millions of 
dollars we will have a single commission appoint- 
ed by the mayor and removable for cause, that 
shall have charge of all public parks, playgrounds, 
baths, and street improvements. 

Municipal Affairs (52 William street. New 
York City.) is a publication that no settlement, 
municipal club, or person interested in civic bet- 
terment can afford to be without. A file of their 
annual issues is a history of the latest steps in 
civic progress and a storehouse of data for mu- 
nicipal improvements. 
PROF. THURSTON'S "FIGHT TOR LIFE IN CHICAGO." 

The cause of municipal betterment and the im- 
provement of social conditions is making steady 
gains each year through the patriotic and effect- 
ive service of the professors in our colleges and 
teachers in our normal and high schools. The 
result of their work is obvious to those who teach 
in the department of sociology and economics 
in the universities and the professional schools. 
Each new entering class has more of a social con- 
sc'C'isness and vision and increased intelligence 
in their observation and judgment of economic 
data. Conspicuous among these efforts is the 
scientifically accurate and practically efficient work 



10 



THE COMMONS 



done by Prof. H. W. Thurston in the department 
of sociology at the Chicago Normal School. His 
finely illustrated and brilliantly descriptive stere- 
opticon lecture on "The Fight for Life in Chi- 
cago," which he recently delivered before our Com- 
munity Club, has been published and copyrighted 
by the board of education of the city of Chicago 
as No. i in its series of municipal studies. It 
bears the same title as the lecture and will be 
conceded to be altogether the best sketch of the 
sanitary history of the city which deserves to be 
credited with official sanction, as it is compiled 
largely from offical reports. The marvelous 
healthfulness of Chicago which seems so incred- 
ible that its vital statistics have been discredited 
by statisticians both at home and abroad is due 
not only to its great lake, high winds and floods 
of sunshine, but also to the "seventy years' bat- 
tle" of the health department against its difficult 
topographical conditions and its still more dan- 
gerously cosmopolitan and transient population. 
Its remarkable engineering achievement in suc- 
cessfully completing the drainage canal is the 
greatest sanitary enterprise ever undertaken by 
an American city, and goes far toward assuring 
the good health of its great population. 

Professor Thurston's text book on Economic 
and Industrial History is the best inductive in- 
troduction to these subjects which we know. 

Chicago's Tratctkm Situation. 

The report of the special committee of the Chi- 
cago city council on local transportation affords 
an admirable basis for public discussion, popular 
education and intelligent problem. The long and 
bitter conflict between the justly indignant and 
suspicious public opinion and the devious and 
short-sightedly selfish policy of the street rail- 
way companies renders any satisfactory solution 
of the present deadlock extremely difficult. The 
expiration of the principal franchises next year 
necessitates prompt action of some sort, while the 
impending litigation based on the untested and 
very doubtful claim of the companies' alleged 
"ninety-nine-year extension rights" requires the 
most cautious and united effort to protect and 
promote the people's rights. The whole situation 
is very fairly and firmly stated in the council 
committee's report. With this as a basis, the 
public hearings given by the committee are elicit- 
ing the strenuous but deliberate discussion of the 
question from the differing points of view taken 
by those representing the divergent interests in- 
volved. 

The Municipal Voters' League (whose splendid 
success in ward politics assured an honest ma- 
jority in the city council and made possible such 



a capable committee) presented the most incisive 
analysis of the situation, demanded prompt ac- 
tion, advocated both direct compensation and re- 
duced fares, far better service during the term 
of the new franchise, which is not to exceed 
twenty years and may be. terminated after ten 
years, and provided for municipal ownership at 
the expiration of the lease, in case the city is 
then desirous and able to purchase and manage 
its street railways. The mayor in his message to 
the council strenuously opposes any action until 
the state legislature gives the city the charter 
right to own and operate its railways. 

In strange inconsistency with his overtly inim- 
ical attitude toward the civil service law, which 
he has done his best to nullify, he now insists 
that municipal operation of street railways is im- 
practicable until the merit system of appointment 
is thoroughly well established. 

The Chicago Federation of Labor urges delay 
until the question of municipal ownership can be 
submitted to a referendum vote, and the people 
can thus inform their representatives in the legis- 
lature and city council of their demand for low- 
er fares instead of compensation, protection of 
the rights of labor and the control of local trans- 
portation in the interests of the whole people. 

The Chicago Teachers' Federation are circulat- 
ing petitions to the city council protesting against 
granting any franchises until the companies pay 
their taxes. 

Among other civic bodies presenting their views 
at the public hearing, our own Seventeenth Ward 
Community Club, whose headquarters is at Chi- 
cago Commons, submitted the following action 
which made a distinct impression and which is 
reproduced in The Commons by request for local 
circulation and in order that each alderman might 
receive a copy. 

"Whereas, The street railway service in Chi- 
cago is a disgrace to our citizenship and a menace 
to the growth and prosperity of our city; and, 

"Whereas, The franchises of corporations di- 
rectly responsible for this vicious service are about 
to expire; and, 

"Whereas, The city council, having power to 
grant franchises, has appointed a committee on 
local transportation to inquire into this subject; 
now, therefore, be it 

"Resolved, That we, the members' of the Com- 
munity Club, as taxpayers and electors of the 
I7th ward of Chicago, do respectfully submit as 
the desires of our people upon this subject: 

"i. That rapid and adequate service is the first 
requirement and all franchises should provide for 
immediate forfeiture when this requirement fails. 

"2. That no franchise should be granted that 



THE COMMONS 



11 



does not provide for universal transfers to all 
surface lines within the city limits. 

"3. That low fares to the people should take 
the place of compensation to the city in all fu- 
ture franchises. Compensation to the city, so 
called, is but a heavy indirect tax upon the wage- 
earning class. 

"4. That all franchises should provide protec- 
tion of the rights of employes and of the people 
by regulations of the conditions of labor and 
agreements to arbitrate all differences between the 
railway corporations, and their workmen. 

"5. That all franchises should be drawn to pro- 
vide for municipal ownership and operation in 
the near future. We regard the operation of all 
street railways directly by the municipality as 
the only final solution of this problem. 

"6. That a department of transportation be es- 
tablished, with permanent quarters, where com- 
plaints of inadequate service can be received, with 
power to investigate all charges and make recom- 
mendations to the city council." 

Child Latbor in Illinois. 

By Harriet M. Van Der Vaart, Chairman of the 
Industrial Committee of the Illinois Federa- 
tion of Womens' Clubs. 

Child labor is steadily on the increase as shown 
by statistics of the state factory inspectors and 
this fact is enough to make any thoughtful per- 
son inquire, "What are the causes?" 

The Women's Federated Clubs of the state of 
Illinois have appointed an industrial committee. 
Early in November this committee began to in- 
vestigate conditions under which people labor in 
factories, sweat shops and stores of Chicago. This 
work of investigation has only begun and it is 
early to make a statement, but the general inter- 
est is such, that the committee have been re- 
quested to give this partial report of their efforts. 

Thus far forty places have been visited and 
hundreds of toilers observed. According to the 
state law, a child may not work under fourteen 
years of age. The parent is required to furnish 
a sworn statement of the child's age, if it be be- 
tween- fourteen and sixteen years. Of the work- 
ers seen one-fifth were children and a conserva- 
tive estimate of this committee would declare one- 
third of these affidavits false; thus one-third of 
all the children were under the legal age. This 
was notably so in the box and candy factories and 
in most of the department stores. 

What are the general conditions under which 
the child works? We find him at the age of 
puberty, rising at five in the morning, taking a 
long cold trip in a crowded street car to a fac- 
tory where he must labor from seven in the 



morning until five-thirty at night, with but one- 
half hour in which to hastily partake of a lunch. 
The conditions surrounding him while at work 
are not conducive to health. The air in many 
places is foul, the light poorly adjusted to the 
eyes, the toilet accommodations often inadequate 
and frequently unsanitary and the surroundings 
unfavorable to the development of both mind and 
body. Thus is the state jeopardizing the health 
and welfare of its future citizens for the sake of 
the mere pittance the child receives. And what is 
this pittance? At a liberal estimate it would av- 
erage in this city $2.50 per week from which must 
be deducted sixty cents for car fare. But what 
of the loss of vigor resulting, in the case of the. 
factory child, from the tension induced by the 
effort of human muscle to keep pace with the re- 
lentless energy of the machine. And, as the ma- 
chine is perfected, it needs, more and more the 
agility of the child to complement it. This se- 
vere nervous strain comes at the time of adoles- 
cence, when not only physically but spiritually and 
mentally the child is awakening to new and larger 
life. If his powers are stunted at this time, a 
dulled, ineffective life follows. 

As a single example, picture the little girl, 
twelve years old who, in making boxes, repeats 
the same automatic motion 15,000 times a day. 
By the time she is twenty years of age, what 
strength will she have to give in service, or to 
her possible future children? What is the pop- 
ular objection brought against legislation which 
limits child labor? It is, that the family or wid- 
owed mother needs the wage of the child. Is this 
a fact? The factory inspector's report says that 
this necessity is very largely over estimated. But 
even if it does exist, is it an intelligent and eco- 
nomic method of procedure for the state to allow 
the sacrifice of so large a number of its future 
citizens for the support of a few needy families? 
Surely it needs but the awakening of the mind 
of the people to devise some less wasteful and 
more intelligent method. 

For the present the committee feels that its ob- 
servations have been too limited and the problems 
involved are too complex to admit of its making 
any recommendations. "Publicity creates con- 
science" and through the medium of the press, it 
hopes a knowledge of existing conditions will re- 
sult in their speedy betterment. 



One must have the world already in his own 
soul, seeing much through anticipation, or he re- 
mains blind with seeing eyes, and all experience 
and observation become dead and unproductive 
labor. DR. A. V. G. ALLEN OF PHILLIPS BROOKS. 



THE COMMONS 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave.& Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 

The Subscription Price Is Fifty Cents a Year. 

(Two Shillings, English; 2.50 francs, French foreign stamps 
accepted.) Postpaid to any State or Country. Six copies to 
one address for $2.50. Send check, draft. P. O. money order, 
cash or stamps, not above 5-cent denomination., at our risk. 

Advertisements in the Commons During 19O2. 

One Page, S25.00; Half Page, $15.00; Quarter Page, $8.00; One 
Inch, SiTOO. For each insertion. 



EDITORIAL. 

The very interesting combination of forces, 
brought about by the joint conference of teach- 
ers, farmers and country pastors to be held at the 
Agricultural College at Lansing, Michigan, which 
is announced on another page, will doubtless 
prove an inspiring example, which will be eager- 
ly followed at other centers of educational effort 
and rural influence. The fact that such univers- 
ity professors as Henry C. Adams and Charles 
H. Cooley of the University of Michigan are 
actively participating, with the faculty of the 
Agricultural College and other educators, in 
promoting this conference should stimulate men 
of equal standing and influence elsewhere to rally 
similar combinations of forces which only need 
to organize their efforts in order to accomplish 
the social redemption of country life. 

Socializing the Country a.nd Ruralizing the City. 

The ruralizing of city life and the socializing 
of country life are equally essential to the pro- 
gress and satisfaction of al! life in America. It 
is with great pleasure and hopefulness that we 
give to our readers this month a little glimpse 
into the encouraging movements in both direc- 
tions, which are starting up in many quarters 
with such strong support. The American League 
for Civic Improvement promises to become the 
much needed clearing house and federative cent- 
er, which will bring into suggestively helpful re- 
lations, and to some extent into actively organic 
co-operation, the very diverse, yet well directed 
movements toward these ends. 

The literature of this fresh impulse is also full 
of promise. The symposium on "The Decora- 
tion of Cities" which Municipal Affairs presents 
in its fall issue for 1901, with the co-operation of 
the Municipal Art Society, .gives its readers the 
results of the careful thought and long experience 
are fast losing, or have never gained, that which 
makes country life worth living. The editor of 



"Country Time and Tide" is the pastor of a 
country church at Montagu. Mass. Another min- 
ister in the country town of Jericho, Vt.. lias ed- 
ited a valuable little volume containing a sym- 
posium furnished by a group of country pastors 
on "Institutional Work for the Country Church." 

The noteworthy articles on "The Regeneration 
of Rural New England," published in the 
"Outlook," last year, by Rollin Lynde Hart, 
aroused a great deal of interest and profitable 
discussion. 

Perhaps the most potent force that promises the 
most rapid and radical changes in the social con- 
ditions of country life is electricity. The rural 
trolley lines are proving an immense saving in 
the time and drudgery of farm work. The cheap 
and rapid transportation thus afforded, together 
with the co-operative telephone associations al- 
ready widely successful in farming communities, 
of several experts on the specific points of prac- 
tical interest. 

In the publication of the American League for 
Civic Improvement, entitled "The Twentieth Cen- 
tury City," full reports of the two improvement 
conventions may be found. 

"Home and Flowers," an illustrated monthly 
magazine devoted to the world beautiful, and 
published at Springfield, Ohio, while primarily 
devoted to practical floriculture, is exerting itself 
in a very popular way "to tell what is being done 
to make American life more beautiful and to 
make suggestions how this may be brought about, 
especially in the home life, through which we 
can most surely refine and exalt" our national 
character." Its September number contains an 
interesting sketch of the first annual convention 
of the American League for Civic Improvement. 

The rise of such little periodicals as ^'Country 
. Time and Tide," with its artistic typography, in- 
dustrial outlook and poetic spirit, is full of the 
potency to fulfill the promise of this one, to make 
"a more profitable and interesting country life." 

It is interesting to note also that the country 
churches are beginning to lead in these move- 
ments for the self preservation of what many 
country communities have either long since lost, 
will surely relieve the hitherto isolated homes 
from much of their loneliness and stagnation, 
and will as surely establish in the country those 
centers for the interchange of educational, social, 
moral and economic values which give to city 
life so much of its charm and profit. The rural 
free postal delivery is already transforming whole 
communities. 



Those who live too much in outer relation- 
ships become alien unto self. MARGARET FULLER. 



THE COMMONS 



13 



The University of Michigan Set- 
tlement Fellowship. 

For the sixth year the students and professors 
of the University of Michigan are planning 
through the Students' Christian Association to 
send a representative to Chicago Commons for six 
months' residence and the pursuit of some orig- 
inal research. To assist in this effort, the War- 
den of Chicago Commons met their annual ap- 
pointment to address the large rally of the friends 



employes; directly and indirectly promoted 
through efforts for social betterment; the politi- 
cal reform achieved and to be expected by hold- 
ing party administration responsible for social 
progress; and the vitalizing and humanizing of 
religion which has ever come through its appli- 
cation to the social conditions of the common 
life. Prof. Henry C. Adams, in making the ap- 
peal for the financial support of the Fellowship, 
declared that the social service of the times was 




DETROIT SETTLEMENT, 519 FRANKLIN STREET. 



of the settlement work from the University and 
the city of Ann Arbor on Sunday, Feb. I2th. 
His theme was "The Reflex Influence of Social 
Service." which he illustrated by the .personal de- 
velopment which settlement residents and work 
ers in kindred lines of effort attained through 
their work ; the reciprocal advantage to education- 
al institutions and public interests in giving ex- 
pression to the cultivated life : the improvement 
of the condition and relationship of employer and 



laying the basis for a new morality. He also took 
pleasure in affirming that the University's Fel- 
lowship at Chicago Commons had not been with- 
out its effect in certain departments of instruc- 
tion. 

Applications for appointment to the Fellowship 
are pressed more urgently than ever before. 

At the joint request of the Detroit Settlement, 
the Collegiate Alumnae and representatives of 
University of M-cliigan. Prof. Taylor also vis- 



14 



THE COMMONS 



ited that city in the interests of a possible co- 
operation of these three strong groups. He found 
the settlement well located and having an excep- 
tionally good building equipment, but in need of 
resident and non-resident workers to supplement 
the effective service of the three now in residence. 
The Collegiate Alumnae manifested hearty and 
intelligent interest in further co-operation with 
the settlement. The friends of both interests ral- 
lied in large numbers at two public appointments 
for the discussion of the settlement motive and 
method. The proposition to ally those interested 
in settlement service in the University of Michi- 
gan with the work of the Detroit Settlement, 
only forty miles distant, was most favorably en- 
tertained, both in the latter city and at Ann Ar- 
bor. But whatever practical development may 
come of it, both professors and students declared 
their affiliation with the greater center of popu- 
lation through Chicago Commons to be so ad- 
vantageous to the University that it must be 
maintained, and they hoped would be supplement- 
ed by reciprocally valuable co-operation between 
the Franklin street center and the University 
forces. 

Mr. Royal Melendy, Miss Edith Clark and Mr. 
Lionel Heap, former incumbents of the Fellow- 
ship are all at present students at the University. 

Conditions in Detroit seem to be ready, and 
public opinion among people of civic intelligence 
is ripening for a thorough investigation of the 
need for initiating such a juvenile court in that 
city as has been so successfully established in 
Chicago. If the University of Michigan could 
supply an investigator of sufficient capacity and 
calibre to grasp and demonstrate the situation, 
the Collegiate Alumnae and other friends of the 
Detroit settlement would prove to be abundantly 
able not only to provide for the very reasonable 
expense involved, but also to educate public op'n- 
ion to secure the enactment of such beneficent 
legislation. This settlement, with its capable and 
devoted neighborhood workers, its effective budd- 
ing equipment, and its generally recognized prac- 
tical achievement in its own district would read- 
ily become a center for broader civic interest 
and co-operation. All it needs to this end is the 
joint action and support of its own friends, and 
those in the Collegiate Alumnae and University 
in initiating some such needed work for the whole 
city as this proposed investigation would surely 
be recognized to be. 



He was alive in himself at every pore of his 
being and no life or expression of life could he 
regard as alien to himself. DR. A. V. G. ALLEN 
OF PHILLIPS BROOKS. 



College Settlements Association. 



Standing Committee, 

President: KATHARINE COMAN, Wellesley, Mass. 

Vice- President: MARY K. SIMKHOVITCH, (Mrs. Vladimir G. 

Simkhovitch.) 248 East S4th St., New York City. 
Secretary: MABEL GAIR CURTIS, 829 Boylston St., Boston. 
Treasurer: ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS, (Mrs Herbert Parsons.) 

112 East 35th Street, New York City. 
Fifth Member: HELEN ANNAN SCRIBNER, (Mrs. Arthur H. 

Scribner,) 10 West 43d Street, New York City. 



EDITED BY CAROLINE WILLIAMSON MONTGOMERY. 



Ea^rlv Days at FUvirvgtorv Street. 

BY JEAN FINE SPAHR, FIRST HEAD-WORKER. 

In the early days, life was very simple at the 
New York Settlement. The first servants came 
with no particular theories of life to carry out, 
no economic or sociological hypothesis to verify 
or disprove. They were moved purely by the 
sentiment of neighborliness. As it was impossible 
for the East Section to move into our vicinity, 
we would go to live near them. And we went in 
the first place with few places beyond the simple 
one of living in a tenement house neighborhood, 
and proving, ourselves good neighbors. 

We had been so warned and forewarned by 
those wise in the ways of the world, of the evil, 
and the drunkenness, and disorder of Rivington 
St., that we endeavored to placate Mrs. Grundy 
with a middle-aged housekeeper, and to defend 
ourselves from midnight assaults by having a 
man sleep in the house. And he was unwittingly 
the cause of the only fright which I had in the 
three years that I lived at the settlement. The 
month before the settlement opened Mrs. Rand 
and I spent in furnishing our house. We had a 
limited sum of money, and we endeavored to make 
it go far by painting our own floors, sewing and 
laying our carpets, and the like. When we had 
gotten the beds into the house it seemed as if it 
would be easier if the housekeeper and I slept in 
Rivington street instead of taking the long trip 
up town and back each day. We were very tired 
when night came, and as the gas had not been 
turned on in the house we extinguished our can- 
dle early and went to bed bolting the upper door 
and leaving the lower one unbolted for our pro- 
tection. About midnight I was roused from a 
sound- sleep by a violent ringing at the bell. I 
leaned out of the window, and called but received 
no answer. The bell continued to ring, the door 
was shaken and occasionally kicked. I stood and 
thought a few moments, and then supposing that 
this might be the regular part of any night's pro- 



THE COMMONS 



gram, I donned some clothes, lit my candle, and 
started down the stairs. But before I reached 
the front door, the disturbance had ceased, and I 
went back to bed, resolving that another night 
should find us with gas, and a chain bolt. The 
next night we learned that our midnight disturb- 
er was our paid protector. He had come at that 
hour to go to his bed and had found himself 
locked out, and vented his wrath on the front 
door before he went off to walk the streets for the 
night. 

That was the only time we were troubled at 
night, but our peace of mind was broken by an 
early visit from a policeman. Rivington street 
had a very bad name in those days, and until they 
got used to it, the street car conductors looked 
askance at young women who asked to be let 
out at Rivington street. And so perhaps we 
ought not to have wondered at our call from a 
policeman. He asked to see the "Madame," and 
he was with difficulty convinced that he had not 
a right to a bribe for letting us exist in the 
neighborhood. 

There was a good deal of hard work that first 
year at the settlement. The house was heated 
with stoves, and a good half of the residents 
"stoked" every day. Some of us became very 
skillful in keeping a fire alight, but the unfor- 
tunate individual to whose share the parlor grate 
fell, built many fresh fires. We had no servants 
in those days but a working housekeeper and a 
little girl from the neighborhood who changed 
every two months and who sat at the table with 
us, and was one of the family. Also in those 
days we sold baths in our basement, and the 
Jewish women were not very particular about 
scrubbing out the tubs after they had bathed. 
And so the residents scrubbed tubs, and washed 
dishes, swept, and dusted their own rooms and 
the parlors, and kept the front steps and sidewalk 
clean. 

It was in connection with our housework that 
I had an amusing call one Sunday morning. A 
young woman, a clerk in a Grand street store, 
came to see me. She had with her a newspaper 
containing one of the high flown accounts of our 
work to which we were treated in those days. 
She had called because the article said that we 
did our own work and she wanted to know if we 
did. She asked : "Do you sweep, and cook, and 
wash dishes?" When she had received an affirm- 
ative answer she sat a moment in silence, then 
sighed and said: "I thought ladies never did any 
thing but sit in the parlor and hold their hands." 
There was one delightful feature of that first 
year which is not likely to be repeated. Al- 
most all the residents were personal friends of 



the few who had been interested in starting the 
settlement. For two months of that first winter 
the seven residents who composed the family 
were members of either '83 or '84 of Smith Col- 
lege. This element of old friendship gave a 
unity to the family which it would have been 
hard to have gained otherwise. In spite of per- 
haps because of the hard work that fell to the 
share of each resident during the early days, our 
life was a very happy one. And it seems to me, 
that the fact that there are to-day many married 
men and women, fathers and mothers now, who 
count the "settlement" as one of their life's pos- 
sessions, who were children in the home those 
first years, goes far to prove that the hard work 
did not seriously interfere with the forming of 
strong ties with the neighborhood. 



LAWN SWINGS 



MAY POLES 



W. S. TOTHILL 

Manufacturer 

Play Ground, Park, Gymnasium and Athletic Field 
Equipments. Write for anything you want. 

126-128 West Webster Avenue, CHICAGO, ILL. 



Settlement Attitude Towa.rd Rad- 
icalism- 

The discussion of the attitude of settlements 
toward radicalism gave the Federation of Chi- 
cago Settlements one of its most animated and 
profitable meetings. Sixty-five of their residents 
and friends gathered in the neighborhood parlor 
at Chicago Commons Jan. l8th. In the opening 
address the position was taken that the settle- 
ments, to be true to their fundamental principle, 
should not discriminate against the radicals any 
more than any other class. The general advan- 
tage, both to the community and to fliose who 
hold extreme views regarding the social order, of 
treating them exactly like other people was urged. 
To afford an opportunity which brings the ex- 
tremist out into free and open discussion with 
representatives of other points of view, it was 
claimed tends to lessen the exaggerated empha- 
sis which isolation always lends to suppressed or 
repressed opinions In proof of this advantage, 
the open discussions at Toynbee hall and the 
Free Floor at Chicago Commons were cited. Up- 
on the latter, for instance, the anarchists' lead- 
ers have repeatedly been confronted with the rea- 
sonable, tolerant and firm defense of law by a 
prominent judge, an able attorney and a .widely 
known scholar. The questions and discussions 



16 



THE COMMONS 



thus elicited from the radicals were honest, earn- 
est, pertinent, in the best of spirit and entirely 
free from bitterness, personalities or any approach 
to a breach of parliamentary order. 

It was conceded, however, to be a debatable 
point whether the settlements should not only 
assure equal freedom of speech, but also afford a 
platform for the public utterance of individual or- 
factional opinion. The embarrassments of what- 
ever attitude the settlement takes toward radical- 
ism, it was agreed, were to be expected rather 
from the action it felt called upon to take in times 
of stress and strain, rather than from its mere 
tolerance or furtherance of radical expression. 
At whatever cost in the temporary loss of in- 
fluence or support, it was felt by all that the set- 
tlements must stand firm for even-handed justice 
to all classes against whatever misconception or 
injustice may confront them, and that when oc- 
casion clearly demanded it they must not hesitate 
to take the overt act which will prove the con- 
sistency of their attitude toward truth and justice. 
It was further urged to be the duty of the settle- 
ment to educate their residents in an intelligent 
understanding, a well balanced judgment and a 
calm attitude with reference to the conflicting 
theories and interests by which they are sure to 
be confronted and between which they are more 
or less compelled to judge. 

CHICAGO COMMONS 

The Cook county superintendent of public 
schools, Mr. Orville T. Bright, greatly interested 
the constituency of our two city-center schools and 
other friends by his x pictures and descriptions 
of the suburban and country schools within the 
county outside of the city limits. The County 
Association of Teachers have long been actively 
interested in our settlement kindergarten. Their 
contributions led the teachers of the state to ap- 
propriate, ^t their convention a year ago, enough 
money to warrant us in maintaining the branch 
kindergarten in the old neighborhood at 75 Grand 
avenue. 

The reciprocity between the trades unions and 
Chicago Commons is becoming increasingly cor- 
dial and helpful. The warden has recently ad- 
dressed in their own halls the Carpenters' Dis- 
trict Council, the Glass Makers' Union, and the 
mass meeting of Brickmakers and Cigarmakers at 
Blue Island. 

A series of craft conferences, to which the Free 
Floor Discussion is to be largely devoted dur- 
ing the remainder of the winter, was opened 
by the cigarmakers, who discussed the conditons 
of their trade, the effect of the new relations of 



the 'country with Cuba upon their craft interests, 
the growth and benefit of their union and the 
strength it has added to the labor movement. 

The Protestant Episcopal clergy are investigat- 
ing the Chicago settlements. Chicago Commons 
welcomed the inspection and the fellowship of 
the friendly and sympathetic clergymen, who spent 
an evening with us lately. 

The Catholic Woman's National League sup- 
plied one of the best programs at our Pleasant 
Sunday Afternoons this winter. The opportunity 
to reciprocate their courtesy was heartily im- 
proved by the warden to address their largely 
attended club meeting on Francis of Assisi, the 
initiator of social chivalry. Three social neigh- 
borhood centers on the north, west and south 
sides of Chicago are supported in their success- 
ful and varied work by this strong and growing 
league of Catholic women. 

The Apollo Musical Club of Chicago has proven 
its splendidly democratic spirit in ways which are 
as beautiful as the social service rendered there- 
by is invaluable. For the third season they have 
rendered the oratorio of the Messiah at Chicago 
Commons and at the settlement of the University 
of Chicago. The chorus of ninety voices was not 
as large by one-third as the number of their great 
chorus who volunteered to sing. Mr. Harrison 
M. Wild, their successful director, conducted the 
recital. The volunteer soloists, who so geiuious- 
ly and artistically contributed to the great suc- 
cess, were Miss Elizabeth Blamere. soprano; Miss 
Adah Bryant, contralto; Mr. Frank Hannah, ten- 
or; Mr. E. C. Rovvden, bats; Mr. Arthur Dun- 
ham, accompanist 

The encouragement we have received in thus 
offering the highest art in the service of thi.- best 
music to our great industrial and cosmopolitan 
population may encourage others. The first yjar 
the beer hall we were obliged to use was not 
half filled; last year our own new hall was not 
more than fairly occupied ; this year every seat 
we could crowd into it was taken, every inch of 
standing room, was eagerly sought, the adjoining 
stairways, halls and rooms held the overflow and 
many who sought admission were turned away 
from the building half an hour before the concert 
began. Fully seven hundred people thus eagerly 
rallied to hear the Messiah and willingly paid the 
admission price of twenty-five cents. The Chi- 
cago Commons Choral Club, under whose auspices 
and for the benefit of whose piano und the re- 
cital was g'ven by the Apollo Club, are greatly 
stimulated by the success of this occasion in their 
own effort to raise the ideal and promote the 
culture of the community in the refining and un- 
ifying art of song. 



TKe Commons 

A Morvthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Settlement Polrvt of View. 



Number 68-Vol. VI. 



Sixth Year 



Chicago, Harch 1902 



You and the Multitude. 

Already you include 
The multitude; then let the multitude 
Include yourself; and the result were new: 
Themselves before, the multitude turn you. 
This were to live and move and have, in them 
Your being, and secure a diadem 
You should transmit (because no cycle yearns 
Beyond itself, but on itself returns).' 

Browning's Sordelio. Book V. 

Public Opinion and New York City 
Politics. 

By JOHN L. ELLIOTT. 

So much is said in these days about educating 
public opinion and about the power of public 
opinion, that we grow tired of the very sound 
and sight of the phrase, and public opinion as a 
factor in social betterment has not infrequently 
proven itself to be a broken reed on which to lean. 
The majority of voters, even when well-inten- 
tioned, are often likely to be both uninformed and 
luke-warm about the public welfare. 

It is interesting, therefore, when, as in the last 
New York City election, we see these two difficul- 
ties in democratic government, ignorance and in- 
difference, overcome, and the best element in the 
community expressing itself in a sensible and 
vigorous manner. 

The campaign of '95 presented somewhat the 
aspects of a moral spasm. Moral it certainly was, 
brought about by sincere and unselfish reformers, 
and spasmodic its effects proved to be, for, after 
two years, the worst element in the city was again 
placed in power. On the evening of the city elec- 
tion in '97, crowds marched through the streets 
under double influence of liquor and* campaign ex- 
citement, shouting with a wildness that suggested 
the scenes of the French Revolution: "To hell 
with reform. New York is wide open." And 
wide open New York stayed for four years. There 
was hardly one decent sentiment in the community 
that was not trampled upon. The better element 
in the city was disheartened. A sincere attempt 
had been made for good government and after 
two years it had resulted in turning over munici- 
pal affairs entirely to Tammany. One observed 
in the pulpit and lecture platform, and in the bet- 
ter newspapers, in fact among all agencies which 
made for social betterment, the note of discour- 



agement, almost despair. The conditions which 
made these feelings so poignant have been given 
in shocking detail by the newspapers, and need 
not be reproduced. 

Up to about a year and a half before the elec- 
tion of 1901, no effort toward radical and imme- 
diate betterment was made. About that time a 
young man from one of the worst tenement house 
districts called upon a private citizen of influence 
in the community, detailed to him the life of the 
streets and tenements in his part of the city, 
and asked, "Is it true that we must live forever 
in these conditions! Is it true that nothing can 
be done?" As a result of the appeal of this 
young man, a committee on public morality was 
formed, which was made up of representatives 
from many of the better social agencies, especially 
from the settlements and churches. 

This committee employed a secretary who in- 
vestigated the conditions and reported to the 
committee, great care being taken to make no sen- 
sational appeals to the newspapers. This inves- 
tigation revealed conditions in what is known as 
the Bed Light District, which were so intolerable 
that those who knew what was being done were 
deeply stirred. Evidence was collected, particul- 
arly against landlords and police officials. 

The work outgrew the powers of this self-con- 
stituted committee and it was taken up by the 
committee of fifteen, appointed at a meeting held 
by the Board of Trade. The committee of fifteen 
was the outgrowth of the committee on public 
morality, as the committee on public morality had 
been the outgrowth of the appeal of a single in- 
dividual, and the political victory was very largely 
the result of the work of the committee of fifteen. 
The revelations brought out at the trial of one of 
the police captains, which was undertaken by this 
committee, gave to the better elements of the 
community the shock which was necessary to rouse 
them into action. 

The farcical incident in the campaign was fur- 
nished by the committee of five, which was ap- 
pointed by Tammany Hall for the purpose of rid- 
ding the city of its bad conditions, and yet, farci- 
cal as the incident was, it proved to be not without 
rll'cct. Tammany was put in the light of trying 
to destroy those conditions which it had fostered. 
The chairman of the committee was evidently sin- 
cere and he showed what might be done by conduct- 



THE COMMONS 



ing raids on gambling houses. Careful and secret 
preparations were made by the Tammany commit- 
tee and one of the most notorious gambling houses 
was raided, and when the fish were taken from the 
net, lo and behold, one of Tammany's leaders was 
found among them. The experiment was never 
repeated. But the effectiveness of raiding had 
been demonstrated and was immediately taken up 
by the committee of fifteen and proved one of its 
most efficient methods. 

Very seldom have the lines of political struggle 
in a campaign been so strictly those of morality 
and immorality, and those candidates of the Fu- 
sion ticket, who made their fight purely on 
moral grounds, were those who ran best on 
their ticket. Men voted as citizens, rather than 
as party men, and yet what will be regarded by 
many as one of the most hopeiul signs of the 
election, was that while it was a moral campaign, 
a campaign for reform, the reformers expressed 
themselves with great moderation, when we re- 
member how extreme reformers are likely to be. 
Of course the campaign could not be entirely free 
from mere party strife. There were many political 
soreheads. But on the whole it was a struggle and 
victory for common sense and common decency. 
The best public opinion had been roused and had 
made itself felt. 

However, as yet, we cannot say what the result 
will be. It is very possible that after two short 
years of repentance, the city will again be turned 
over to the forces of disorder and crime. It may 
be that our present reform administration will do 
exactly what other reform administrations have 
done and will go further than public opinion will 
warrant, just as the Tammany administration went 
further in the way of corruption than public opin- 
ion would endure. We have had a successful cam- 
paign of education and reform. It now remains to 
be seen whether we can have a successful adminis- 
tration of education and reform. We have reached 
the second stage ana now are waiting to see 
whether the better element can be kept alive to 
public needs, whether it is willing to take an in- 
terest and make efforts in the time between elec- 
tions. 

There is hope for believing that a new type of 
social reformer is evolving. Not simply the man 
who cries against evil conditions, but one who 
mingles thought and reason with his enthusiasm, 
and works patiently and persistently in times of 
campaign and in times of political rest alike, for 
a better city. 

The situation at present is both interesting and 
critical, and seems to turn on the infinitely diffi- 
cult saloon problem. The question has taken the 
form, Shall the saloons be opened on Sunday! 



The radical reformer says no, we will not tolerate 
evil conditions of any kind; we will not sanction 
them; Sunday is the day for rest and edification; 
we will not have our American sabbath disturbed; 
moreover our statutes say that the saloon shall 
be closed, and any infraction of the law which is 
permitted, will ,beget a most dangerous feeling 
of disregard for law; the mayor and his officials 
were elected to enforce the law; if we wink at the 
infractions of those statutes which exist, we are 
no better than Tammany; the mayor has taken 
an oath to enforce the laws as they are and he 
must do so; we will not open the saloons. 

The idea of destroying that which was bad 
dominated the last election. Now the city officials 
have the infinitely difficult task of finding the best 
means for making effective the ideas and senti- 
ments for which they were elected. There is a 
great chance that between the rampantly moral 
and the immoral forces, our present administra- 
tion may fall between two stools. 

It is time that we had a careful study and pub- 
lic enlightenment of the real conditions which 
exist in the saloons, and the voices of those best 
fitted to judge are beginning to be heard. The 
conditions seem to be these: 

That the discussion as to whether the saloons 
shall oe opened is purely academic. As a matter 
of fact the saloons are open all day, not the front 
door, but the side door, and the real question is, 
whether they shall be closed part of the day or 
not. Theodore Eoosevelt tried as sincerely as ever 
a man tried to do anything, to keep the saloons 
closed. He succeeded partially for three Sun- 
days and then gave up the attempt. The shades 
of the saloons are drawn up and there is much 
more loafing in the bar-room on Sunday than any 
other day, more loafing than would be allowed if 
everything was open to inspection, as on week 
days. If the front door were kept open legally 
part of the day, there would be an opportunity 
of keeping both doors closed part of the day, 
during church hours. The time when drunkenness 
is at its worst, is from twelve o'clock Saturday 
night until twelve on Sunday. If the saloons 
were opened at noon on Sunday and kept open 
the rest of the day, or at least part of it, there 
would be a fair chance of shutting the saloons 
at 12 o 'clock on Saturday night and keeping them 
closed for the next twelve hours, which is un- 
doubtedly the time when the danger is greatest. 
The first thing, then, is to stop the academic 
discussion as to whether we should open the 
saloons, and see the question fairly, Can we keep 
them closed part of the time! 

The second point seems to be, that in fighting 
the saloons, we are not fighting an absolutely un- 



THE COMMONS 



mixed evil. The saloons do many things besides 
making their patrons drunk. In fact, drunkenness 
is not at all the rule, but the exception in many 
places. The saloon performs many legitimate 
functions in the community. We may be tired of 
hearing it called the "Poor man's club," but it 
is that to a certain extent. It is true that every- 
thing in the bar-room points to drinking, from 
the over-salted lunch to the lack of chairs, and yet 
there are many legitimate club features. In the 
first place the saloon is almost the only place 
within the reach of all working men where there 
is perfect freedom and equality. For five cents 
he becomes a patron and an equal of all those 
who frequent the place. The feelings of freedom 
and equality are very sweet to the working man, 
who all day long is bound to obey strict com- 
mands, freedom, of course, being used in its best 
sense, and not in that of license, the freedom 
which he would enjoy and should enjoy if he had 
a home, but the average tenement house dweller 
an scarcely be said to have a home when we con- 
sider- the condition of tenement houses, especially 
in New York City. The saloon is the place for 
the gathering of people of the same race and in- 
terest and in this sense has distinctly the club 
feature, and it serves in no small degree as an 
employment bureau. 

A do not wish for one moment to be understood 
as defending the saloons, as upholding the saloons 
as they exist. The point is, that while they per- 
form all these legitimate functions, it is simply 
folly for the radical reformer to knock at the door 
and say to the patrons of the thirteen thousand 
saloons in New York City : ' ' Get out, move on. ' ' 
The men who frequent the saloons know what the 
rabid reformer does not know, of the good fea- 
tures of these places. Never can the baneful 
influence of the saloon be destroyed until these 
good features of the freedom and equality of the 
club and the employment bureau, are met in other 
ways. It has been stated on good authority that 
in one district, measuring 374 yards by 514, there 
are 148 saloons. There would not be this number 
if the saloon was for nothing but drunkenness, 
and yet one has only to contemplate the figures 
to recognize how great is the price of evil paid 
for the features which are not bad. But not until 
the city has opened up other places which shall 
satisfy the needs of the thousands of men who 
use the saloon for legitimate and healthful pur- 
poses can we hope to eradicate the evil influences. 
Experience has shown us clearly enough what the 
effect is of trying to go further in the matter of 
prohibition than the sentiment of the community 
will warrant. It was tried in Maine, tried sincere- 
ly, and when prohibition was at its height, there 
were forty representatives of wholesale liquor 



houses traveling in the State, who seemed to be 
happy and contented and did not claim to be there 
for their health. The number of speak-easies in- 
creased greatly, and it was said that there were 
two hundred men walking the streets of Portland 
who carried liquor for sale around with them. Only 
a little quiet thought will be required for anyone 
to see that if this has been the experience in 
Maine, what could be done in New York City with 
its infinitely more difficult problems, brought about 
by overcrowding and the presence of hundreds of 
thousands of foreigners, to say nothing of th 
other difficulties. 

The solution that seems to be most commonly 
offered is that of local option. If the State Legis- 
lature can be induced to give New York City the 
right to legislate for itself in this matter, it may 
then be possible to have laws which shall really 
accomplish the purpose for which they were in- 
tended, and not which pretend to do so. It is ad- 
mitted by all those who are familiar with condi- 
tions that the present liquor laws do nothing ex- 
cept to make secret what is done and add thereto 
the dangerous features of blackmail and bribery. 

Will we get our new type of reformer, the one 
who has common sense as well as moral enthusi- 
asm, who takes into view not only theories but 
conditions as well, and who recognizes that you 
cannot drive out an evil unless you put something 
better in its place? Truths which are trite 
enough, but however trite, are not yet in force in 
New York. The old method of treating insanity 
was to beat and torture the patient with the hope 
of driving 'the devil out of him. That seems to 
be the present method of much social and moral 
reform, and we, too, must learn that mere punitive 
methods will not suffice. We must have a reform 
which is based on sympathy and common sense. 

Reformatory Influence of Social Service 
Upon City Politics. 

The New York Sun in an editoral, which we 
take pleasure in reproducing, justifies President 
Roosevelt's claim, quoted in our January number 
from his British Fortnightly article, that city pol- 
itics are best reformed by imposing upon tHem 
the responsibility for social betterment and by 
placing their administration in the hands trained 
for the trust by experience in social service. 

"The make-up of the new city administration 
shows an extraordinary number of important offi- 
cers who have been prominently associated with 
the organized charities 

James B. Reynolds, Mayor Low's private sec- 
retary, was the head worker of the University 
Settlement Society, and his selection was largely 
due to the fact that his service there had made 
him familiar with East Side conditions. 



THE COMMONS 



Robert W. De Forest, tenement house commis- 
sioner, is the president of the Charity Organization 
Society. It was due to him that the important de- 
partment of tenement houses was established by 
the legislature last year. 

His first deputy, Lawrence Veiller, qualified for 
his appointment through being secretary of the 
Charity Organization Society's tenement house 
commisson. 

Homer Folks, commissioner of charity, is the 
secretary of the State Charities Aid Association. 

Mr. Folk's first deputy, James E. Dougherty, 
is a veteran worker in the Catholic charitable or- 
ganization, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. 

Thomas W. Hynes, commissioner of correction, 
is the president of the Brooklyn council of the 
St. Vincent de Paul Society. 

Dr. E. R. L. Gould, city chamberlain, served 
the Charity Organization Society. on its tenement 
house commission. 

President Cantor of the Borough of Manhat- 
tan selected for superintendent of public baths, 
Richard W. Taylor, who made such a success of 
the People's baths, established by the New York 
Assocaition for Improving the Condition of the 
Poor. 

And Mayor Low, who was the founder of the 
Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, has-been for many 
years an officer of the Charity Organization So- 
ciety. 

There are other minor appointments that are 
due entirely to good records in the same sort of 
work. If these appointees prove competent they 
will certainly reflect credit on organized charity as 
a training school for municipal office." 

The Ethical Culture riovement. 

FRANK A. MANNY, NEW YORK CITY. 
To the reader of "The Making of an Ameri- 
can, ' ' by Jacob Biis, Felix Adler is an interesting 
character; to the many students of the latter 's 
"Moral Instruction of Children" he appears in 
another but equally suggestive light. But the 
man himself is more than the sum of the many 
views of him which could easily be enumerated. 
What strikes the student of the situation most 
forcibly is the amount that he has accomplished 
in a short time. It is only a little over a quarter 
of a century ago that he began his public work, 
but in that time has come into existence the great 
work of the parent society in New York with its 
thousand members, effective organizations in 
Philadelphia, Chicago, St. .Louis, and across the 
water in England, Germany, Austria and Switz- 
erland. When one considers that this work has 
been among classes of people not usually consid- 
ered the easiest to reach, it is difficult to under- 



stand its success until he appreciates the fact that 
the founder brought to his task the none too 
common capital of high and definite ideals and 
excellent training. 

In the New York society, the personality of 
the man appears in every phase of the work. The 
organization is extensive. There is provision 
for growth in thinking and doing. The great 
auditorium at Carnegie Hall every Sunday morn- 
ing is filled with people. During the week there 
are courses of lectures and classes carried on by 
the various divisions, for mature men, mature 
women, young men, young women, youths, maid- 
ens, and children. It would seem that everyone 
has an opportunity to do f or* himself and for 
others. One of the best students I have ever had 
secured her training in the wage earners' sec- 
tion, and in her work as a stenographer. The 
mothers have classes in child study; tettlement 
workers and others form an Industrial Ethics 
Section, etc. 

There has been at all times an emphasis on 
unity of deed rather than of creed, but this in 
no way is allowed to 'be an excuse for loose think- 
ing. There is constant effort to give every pos- 
sible opportunity to the individual to know the- 
best that has been thought, that he may form 
his own thought as a vital force in life. The 
ethical aspect is at the front, but the religious 
life in a very real sense seems never to be for- 
gotten. 

One of the earliest responsibilities assumed was 
a school. It began in a free kindergarten, and 
has grown in scope until it now includes as well a 
training school, a high school, and an elementary 
school. It has done pioneer work in many lines, 
notably in manual training and in systematic 
ethical instruction. Its organization is unique, 
and presents many problems in that it aims to pre- 
serve the democratic conditions of membership 
found in the public school, and at the same time 
to secure the advantages of the small classes, etc., 
of the private school. It is suggestive of the 
spirit of the society that those who support the 
school send their children to it and wish to have 
them educated with children of other classes. It 
is understood that no class shall contain more 
than fifty per cent of pay pupils, and that all are 
on a common footing. 

On this democratic foundation, the general pur- 
pose of its work is to serve as a school of experi- 
ment, demonstration and observation. Visitors 
come from all parts of America and from abroad, 
not. only those who are at work in schools, but 
workers in churches, clubs and settlements. Classes 
are held by its teachers for those who wish to 
prepare for more effective social work. Even in 
the regular training school there are many stu- 



THE COMMONS 



dents graduated who never expect to teach, but 
who take the work as a help to better service in 
the home and in society. The aim is not to confine 
these opportunities to those who can come to the 
school, but x provision is made for sending out, at 
the expense of the society, to those who cannot 
come. Last spring one teacher spent some time 
in a negro school in the South introducing cer- 
tain forms of industrial work. A conference in 
the South will be provided for this winter. Ex- 
hibits of work have been sent to other less access- 
ible sections. 

Not content with what could be done on other 
days, a Sunday school was organized. It is on 
a thoroughly business basis, with paid teachers, a 
sufficiently long period for lessons, separate 
classrooms, etc. A part of the course of study is 
similar to that given under the name of ethics 
in the day school, and printed at the close of this 
article. Other classes are provided so that pupils 
will not duplicate work. One very suggestive de- 
velopment is that of clubs into which the children 
pass after completing the Sunday school course. 
It is one of the most definite and successful at- 
tempts to meet the problem of what in the day 
school we call the "secondary" or "high" school 
problem that I have known. Both nature and 
man are kept in mind in these courses. One is 
for the students who have had some study of sci- 
ence and history in the day and Sunday school, 
and now are led to look into theories of develop- 
ment and gain a definite notion of what is meant 
by evolution. Another course has to deal with 
the ethics of organization. In this division as 
elsewhere it is not considered sufficient for the 
students to have training in thought alone. They 
are brought into relations with the many practical 
lines of work, especially in this case with that of 
the Hudson Guild in the Tenderloin district. This 
is not called a social settlement, but much of its 
work is that usually found in settlements and its 
clubs, classes, dramatic representations, library, 
etc., afford ample opportunity to "secondary" 
training. The major part of the students are found 
systematically at work here under the inspiration 
and direction of Dr. John Elliott, who is the chief 
factor in this work as well as in the Sunday school 
and in many other sections. 

This laboratory principle is found everywhere, 
the children in school and in special guilds make 
things needed by those in the hospitals ; the Young 
Men 's Union has a summer home in the country to 
which city children are taken for an outing; the 
women sustain the work of the district nurses; 
the young women provide park outings for down- 
town children. There is an extensive East side 
work besides all this. The multiplicity of activi- 



ties cannot be understood until one realizes that 
everyone is at work, and that there are leaders. 

I Mans are now making for a large building on 
Central Park West which shall house the central 
work of the society, and afford to it better op- 
portunities for effectiveness. 

Settlement and School in New Com- 
bination. 

A very promising experiment in social endeavor 
is being initiated by the Teachers' College of 
Columbia University, New York City. Mr. and 
Mrs. James Speyer recently gave the college $100,- 
000 for the erection of a building, which will com- 
bine the equipment of a free school and a social 
settlement. It is to be a five story structure, with 
exceptionally good provision for a kindergarten 
and the eight grades of the elementary school, in- 
cluding also a gymnasium, assembly and club 
rooms and residence quarters. It is located only 
a few blocks from the University and in the 
midst of a distinctively wage-earning population, 
where settlement work will find its most open 
field. The work of the Speyer school has already 
been inaugurated and includes, notwithstanding 
very inadequate accommodations, the kindergar- 
ten, four primary grades, and classes in sewing 
and cooking for other than grade pupils of the 
school. The settlement activities have begun with 
a girls' social club, a mothers' club of fifty mem- 
bers, a free library and other features. While the 
primary purpose of the school is to furnish oppor- 
tunity for extensive practice teaching by the stu- 
dents in the teachers' college under expert super- 
vision, it is believed that the settlement will find 
the school a uniquely valuable point of contact 
with the neighborhood, and that this union of 
forces will disclose possibilities hitherto unrealized 
for making the city school a social center. Per- 
haps, however, the greatest significance of the 
plan lies in the fact that teachers from all over 
the country will receive their professional train- 
ing in such close contact with settlement methods 

and ideals. 

Two of the residents are to be nominated by 
the University Settlement Council and are to give 
their entire time to the organization and super- 
vision of the distinctively settlement activities. 
The new building is expected to be ready for use 
in the fall of 1903. 
Religious movements for Social Betterment. 

Under the above title three interesting sketches 
have recently appeared in The Christian World 
(James Clark & Co., 13 Fleet street, London, E. 
C), from the pen of Rev. A. Holden Byles. After 
a four months' tour in the United States study- 
ing settlement and institutional church methods. 



THE COMMONS 



Mr. Byles has given to his countrymen the results 
of his investigations. 

Upon the question of the success of institution- 
al church methods, he says : "It has been the 
salvation of many of the down town churches in 
New York, Boston and other American cities; it 
has kept them in healthy, and vigorous work in 
districts too sadly neglected; and thus, while do- 
ing much to solve the vexed problem of the 
stranded city church, it has helped to remove the 
reproach that the Church of Christ is too ready 
to make Lot's choice of 'the well-watered plains.' 
In connection with this the startling statement 
was made at a meeting of the Institutional Church 
League, that 'in New York, while 200,000 people 
moved in below Fourteenth street (the poorer 
part of the city), seventeen Protestant churches 
of the old type moved out.' 'What shall we do?' 
cried Dr. Myers, of Brooklyn, a prominent leader 
in Institutional work. 'Stand and face it ; face 
it with the Institutional Church. The only way 
on earth to reach' a man is by Christ's own way, 
the point of contact, to get near to him with your 
love. The moment you sit down beside him and 
give him your love, that moment you begin to 
save: 

"This is the whole secret of the power and suc- 
cess of the Institutional Church ; it establishes a 
'point of contact,' or bond of sympathy between 
those who are inside and those who are outside 
the fold of the church. 'The Institutional Church* 
(said Dr. Nidson to me), 'is nothing more than 
systematic organized kindness, which conciliates 
the hostile and indifferent, alluring them within 
reach, and softening their hearts for the reception 
of the Word of Life.' 

"They are not merely regaining a hold on the 
multitude by ministering to their physical and 
mental necessities, but they are showing a far 
larger percentage of admissions to Church fel- 
loswhip than can be shown by those churches 
which continue to run on the old lines. Dr. 
Strong tells us that he has found, as the result 
of a careful examination of records extending 
over a period of six years, that 'the average Con- 
gregational Institutional church had precisely six 
times as many additions on confession of faith 
as the average' Congregational church of the old 
type,' and the same is true in other denomina- 
tions: and he claims for these churches as a 
bonus against which the old line churches had 
nothing to show 'all that they accomplished on 
behalf of cleaner and healthier bodies, better in- 
formed minds and a more wholesome social and 
civil life.' " 

Speaking of the difficulties to be met in ap- 
plying institutional church methods, and the ad- 



vantages of the freedom enjoyed by social set- 
tlements, Mr. Byles has this to say: 

"A further objection and this seems to me the 
most serious is that this work is better done by 
the Social, or University Settlement. To a cer- 
tain extent, and in one important particular, I 
am afraid this is true. In the matter of provid- 
ing amusement, I was disappointed to find that 
very few, even of the Institutional Churches, 
were prepared to 'grasp the nettle." If the Church 
is to lay hold of the young people who now throng 
the billiard saloons of the public-house, or fre- 
quent the music-halls, it must have the courage 
to gratify all that is legitimate in these cravings 
on its own premises. I found the leaders of the 
Institutional movement in favor of this almost to 
a man, but they told me, 'The churches are timid, 
and the saloons are doing the work that ought to 
be done by us.' Some churches are bolder, and 
they have had their reward. Dr. Scudder, of 
Jersey City, once said, 'I have saved more souls 
by my skittle-alley than by my sermons.' Fast 
young fellows had been attracted to his rooms by 
the cheaper prices, and when there had to use 
his phrase 'touched elbows' with the Christian 
young men who were always about. If, however, 
the churches will not undertake this work, others 
must.." 

Social Development of Y. M. C A. Work. 

The annual report of General Secretary, L. 
Wilbur Messer, to the directors of the Y. M. C. 
A. of Chicago, contains four very interesting and 
important recommendations for larger work. 

The first plan is to establish a large dormitory 
to accommodate young men whose work neces- 
sitates their living down-town. Present condi- 
tions are such that good lodgings can not be had 
at reasonable rates in the central portions of the 
city. Consequently young men are compelled to 
live in either poor or disagreeable houses. 1795 
men were directed to boarding houses during the 
last year by the Association. The success of the 
Mills' Hotels . and of similar plans carried out 
by the Y. M. C. A. in in New York City are cited 
to demonstrate the feasibility of the plan 

Recognizing the small way in which the Y. M. 
C. A. touches the working man, a second recom- 
mendation is to establish Y. M. C. A. centers iir 
those parts of the city most suitable and con- 
venient for mechanics and working men. The 
success of the association among working men is- 
demonstrated by the Railroad departments. 

Third a Rescue Home for men is proposed, 
where the unfortunate can find a home until he 
can get on his own feet. The great need of such 
a place in Chicago has long been felt by all who' 
have ever met the stranded man. 



THE COMMONS 



The fourth plan is to enlarge the boys' work 
by establishing special departments for boys be- 
tween the ages of 14 and 18 years of age. The 
Board of Education is quoted as saying 85 per 
cent of the boys leave school between the ages of 
14 and 18 years. Special buildings are recom- 
mended at a cost of not less than $100,000. The 
"school boys" are to use the building on after- 
noons and the "working boys" in the evening. 
No provision is made for the "street boy." 

These recommendations should commend them- 
selves to all. Business men are already offering 
their support. The report shows a large grasp 
on all the problems involved and is the outcome 
of experience and careful study not only of the 
needs of Chicago but of similar work successfully 
carried on in other places. 

Dale Memorial Library at Browing Hall. 

It is happily proposed by the Robert Browning 
settlement to make a special feature in its nearly 
completed Men's Club House of a memorial libra- 
ry of Christian sociology to bear the name and 
perpetuate the influence of the late Eev. E. W. 
Dale, D. D., of Birmingham. Dr. Dale was a na- 
tive of Walworth and was born within a stone's 
throw of Browning Hall, now the geographical 
center of the county of London, and one of the 
most densely peopled districts in the whole metrop- 
olis. Dr. Dale was one of the most eminent men 
in the whole ministry of the English free churches. 
He was not only a voluminous author, popular 
preacher and the . successful pastor of large 
churches, but was recognized as a political power 
and civic force, whose statesmanship grew to in- 
ternational proportions. His best efforts and 
most sustained interests centered in the sphere 
which he himself defines as "the relations of the 
Christian faith to the improvement of the ma- 
terial conditions of mankind and the reformation 
of the social order. ' ' In their endeavor to col- 
lect "this literary epitome 01 what the Christian 
conscience has to say on the handling and solving 
of social problems" the council of Browning 
Hall is consulting leading experts in Europe and 
America and will welcome suggestions from all 
competent guides. The contribution of $2,500 
is being solicited for the purchase of at least a 
thousand of the best books and the gil't of other 
volumes is expected. Communications may be 
addressed to the warden, F. Herbert Stead, M. A., 
29 Grosvehor Park, S. E., uondon, England, who 
will be glad to receive all remittances and sugges- 
tions. The Club House, in which ttus collection of 
literature, which is said to be unique in London, 
wih be suitably and safely hqused, is a fine build- 
ing, costing $25,000, and is increasingly frequented 
by the intelligent workingmen of the district who 
are both capable and desirous of sharing the use 
of the proposed library. 



From the Settlements. 

From Lincoln House, Boston, to Gordon 
House, New York. 

Mr. "William A. Clark who for eight years has 
been the managing director of Lincoln House, 
Boston, has resigned that position to take charge 
of the new and growing work of the Gordon 
House, in New York, now situated in temporary 
quarters at 127 West 17th street. 

Mr. Clark was one of the early residents at the 
South End House, coming there immediately after 
finishing his course at Harvard. He at once be- 
came interested in the; investigation of two spe- 
cial subjects which he continued to study for some 
years at Lincoln House, the results being given 
in two chapters contributed by him to "The City 
Wilderness, "" The Boots of Political Power," 
and "Strongholds of Education." When Mr. 
Clark took the executive charge of Lincoln House 
it had just stepped out of its early stage as .1 
club for small boys. He has not only greatly 
developed the work among boys, especially by 
means of varied instruction in handicraft, but he 
has taken the lead in a program which now in- 
cludes in its scope all the members of some hun- 
dreds of families. Lincoln House now has a force 
of about a hundred workers, about fifteen of 
them being paid instructors, and it is, without 
question, the leading exponent in Boston of suc- 
cessful club, and class work, ine founders of 
Lincoln House who give it such ample financial 
and moral support expressed their appreciation 
of Mr. Clark's seryices by presenting him, at his 
departure, with a library of one hundred volumes 
upon present-day social questions. 

Gordon House was started a year ago by Theo- 
dore G. White, Ph. D., who, though having ac- 
knowledged standing as an expert in some branches 
of physical science, found his chief interest in 
social work. His work among boys began with 
a Sunday-school class. This led to the formation 
of a club which at first met in a stable, in which 
Mr. White and his boys worked together with 
their hands to prepare suitable accommodations. 
Mr. White unfortunately met his death as a re- 
sult of exposure after a summer swimming excur- 
sion with his boys. He left his personal fortune 
to establish Gordon House upon, an adequate and 
permanent basis. 

The Nurses' Settlement. 

The Nurses' Settlement in New York has just 
finished a year of varied and interesting work. 
The nursing staff rose through the year to eight- 
een, including a hospital thirci-vear pupil and two 
who give only a part of their time. The number 
engaged in systematic visiting nursing rose from 



8 



THE COMMONS 



ten to twelve, the others being in the Country 
House, the first aid rooms, in executive work and 
in extra emergencies in the outside work. 
Three thousand three hundred and twenty-five 
sending about 22 per cent and the patients' fami- 
lies 33 per cent; about 20 per cent came from a 
dispensary with which one nurse is connected, and 
the rest were from miscellaneous sources. Strictly 
nursing visits made numered 26,600; many visits 
made for other purposes are not counted. In the 
three first aid rooms 12,694 minor dressings were 
done within the year. 

The nursing service is almost entirely acute dis- 
eases and includes a complete variety of medical 
cases, among which were in the year 502 cases of 
pneumonia and 107 of typhoid, the latter having 
had a light season. There are many cases of burns 
and accidents, and many of scarlet lever with 
complications. Diphtheria eases are frequent. At 
times it is necessary to set one nurse aside for 
these cases. Few obstetrical patients are taken, 
as a special medical service with pupils in train- 
ing attends to these. There is a small proportion 
of operative cases, usually curettement. 

During the year 285 patients were taken to hos- 
pitals, and 225 convalescents were entertained for 
varying periods in the Country House. This charm- 
ing home which is open all the year, the gift of a 
young married woman of New York, is one of the 
most satisfactory parts of the work, and calls 
forth the most heartfelt and affectionate recogni- 
tion from the patients. The donor supports it 
on liberal lines, and the nurse in charge conducts 
it on the happy and unrestrained basis of an un- 
selfish family. A summer camp and excursion for 
the young people are also features of the Country 
House. There are now thirty-five clubs which have 
grown up as parts of the social life of the settle- 
ment, and classes in sewing, kitchen-garden work 
and housekeeping, basket weaving, cooking, and 
home nursing. By the kindness of the Children's 
Aid Society a large building is utilized in the 
evenings for many purposes, among inem gymna- 
sium and dancing classes, of which there are four, 
all self-supporting. 

The new features of the settlement this winter 
are carpentering classes for boys, conducted by a 
young graduate of Smith College, and assistants, 
who have different groups of boys on each 
evening, in all about 150; and a little flat in a 
near-by tenement, managed by an up-towu friend 
in co-operation with a committee of the Household 
Economic Association, where the classes in house- 
keeping are held. 

Alumnae Settlement House. 

From the interesting and attractive Hifth Annu- 
al Report of the Alumna; Settlement, 446 E. 72nd 



street, New York City, we share with our readers 
these valuable suggestions : 

Dr. Jane E. Bobbins, in her report as head 
worker, thus strongly emphasizes the responsi- 
bility of the settlement for conserving the family 
unity and national heritage of their neighbors: 
"In our interest in the individual boys and girls, 
we try not to lose sight of the fact that we are 
not only to be neighbors to two or three hun- 
dred young people, but we are also to be the 
friends of the families to which these young 
people belong. One thoughtful club girl said, 
'A Settlement is to make girls more contented at 
home', and we feel that if 'more contented' means 
in truer relation with home life, we could not 
have a higher ideal set before us. There is a 
superficial Americanism in our large cities that 
some of us in the settlements view with growing 
alarm. The children, in their thoughtlessness, try 
to shake off the traditions of their fathers before 
they are in the least ready to take to heart the 
traditions of the 'Land of the Pilgrim's Pride'. 
Traditions do not spring up in a day, and we 
believe that we ought to encourage those who are 
now coming to America to bring with them all 
the ideals of their fatherland, and to hold their 
children to them against all the ' streetiness ' and 
cheap Americanisms that so overwhelm the chil- 
dren of the first generations in this country. 
Despising one's forefathers is not a strong founda- 
tion on which to build good citizenship, and the 
boy who says with flashing eyes that Ziska was 
the George Washington of Bohemia, has a good 
deal better chance of understanding what George 
Washington really stood for than his school-mate 
whose conceptions do not include anything broader 
than a flashy, pretentious Americanism. We en- 
courage the young people to talk Bohemian and 
German, and we take warm interest in the efforts 
of the parents to have them taught to speak cor- 
rectly the tongue of their forefathers. We feel 
that the ideals of other countries are just as true 
as those which we sing in 'Columbia' and 'The 
Star Spangled Banner,' and that, in standing 
for these ideals, we are standing for the truest 
Americanism. ' ' 

The East Side House Settlement, New York 
City. 

After ten years of vigorous and effective settle- 
ment work tTie East Side House finds itselt with 
new incentives and necessities to prompt its most 
strenuous effort to secure a more adequate build- 
ing equipment. Its homestead like old house h?s 
served its purpose well, but now suffers in com- 
parison with the provisions being made for hous- 
ing and helping the vast tenement house popula- 
tion, of which it is the natural social center. In 



THE COMMONS 



9 



its immediate vicinity the City and Suburban 
Homes Company is building what promises to be 
the finest tenement house in the United States, 
and a little further off has erected another great 
model tenement ; near by also are the New York 
Trade School and Public School No. 158, which 
opened in 1900 one of the largest and best school 
buildings in the city. Immediately opposite the 
East Side House, fronting on the river, lies the 
proposed playground which the new park board 
expects to open in 1902; here, too, is the Webster 
Free Circulating Library under the care of the 
settlement, which is said to be the most popular 
library of its size in the city. To meet the de- 
mands of the ever increasing neighborhood, by 
enlarging the settlement work, the managers of 
the East Side House have begun a new building 
adjoining the fine old mansion, which will con- 
tinue to give a home atmosphere to all its sur- 
roundings. They hope to have the addition com- 
pleted early next summer, if their effort to se- 
cure funds enough to complete their plans for 
building and equipment meets with the success it 
deserves. In its tenth annual report, Mr. Clar- 
ence GorMon strongly emphasizes the conviction 
which "should underlie all settlement endeavor 
and aim, that reform, betterment or whatever else 
settlement aims may be called, cannot be imposed 
from above. The desire, the ideal, must have 
seed; it is innate with the great majority qf our 
fellows, and, recognizing its strivings, however 
rough the shape, the settlement worker has but 
to tend and water that which is the need and 
want of others, a need and want otherwise 
without surrounding opportunity. Uive it 
this one's best friendly companionship and 
faith, and a partner is won from whom 
largely shall come the increase." Thus only may 
settlements become "the birthplaces of the better 
society, the juster economics, the more righteous 
government, the ideal democracy which shall be." 

FELLOW-CITIZENSHIP ASSOCIATION. 

The Fellow-Citizenship Association of East 
Side House, New York City, aims to maintain ' ' a 
fellowship, independent of race, religious denomi- 
nation, political party, social class or money pos- 
session, inviting us to cultivate and enjoy all 
social recreation which is joyful and impressing 
and inspiring us, especially at the same time, 
to learn and practice citizenship, to learn and do 
what we can in the Fatherhood of God and 
Brotherhood of Man. ' ' The democracy of the 
association is shown by having in its membership 
' ' a liquor dealer, two lawyers, a paper hanger, 
a physician, a cigar maker, a contractor, a plumb- 
er, a teacher, two policemen, a haberdasher, a house 
painter, a florist, a tenement-house landlord, 



three printers, a cornetist, a glazier, a broker, a 
miner, a staff member of the State Bureau of 
Labor, an awning maker and several 'at large.' " 

Trinity House, Buffalo's New Settlement. 

It was a pleasant evening the Welcome Hall 
residents spent around the hospitable board at 
Trinity House, our newly pledged sister settle- 
ment. For some years the Trinity Co-operative 
Society has been carrying on work as best they 
could without resident workers, but about January 
1st Miss Alice Moore was installed as head work- 
er, and with her sister, Miss Moore, went into 
residence in the cottage that had been used as 
kindergarten, library and club room by the non- 
resident members. The house is very quaint, 
with its large rooms, low ceilings, dark cubbyholes, 
and unexpected stairways, and it was hard to 
realize, as we sat about the cheery, old-fashioned 
stove, listening to their plans and hopes for the 
future, that we were in the heart of a great com- 
mercial city, with its lumber yards and docks 
within a few blocks of us. Across the road the 
first floor of a large tenement house, owned by 
the Moore estate, and the house in which Miss 
Alice Moore was 'born, has been converted into a 
kindergarten and club room. We can hardly con- 
ceive a more ideal arrangement than for Miss 
Moore, after many years' absence, to return to 
her old home not only as landlady but also as 
friend and counselor. When* we think of the 
obstacles some have to encounter in getting a 
foothold in a neighborhood we can but rejoice 
with Miss Moore when, in visiting many of the 
older people, she is greeted with "Oh yes! I re- 
member your father, he was a good man." She 
is fortunate also in having control of a large, 
vacant lot next the tenement, which will make an 
ideal playground. The outlook here is certainly 
a bright one, and we want to congratulate the 
society upon securing Miss Moore as head resi- 
dent. Our happy evening came all too quickly to 
an end, and we left wishing a Godspeed for this 
interesting work. 
Chicago Contributes One of its Best Workers 

to New York. 

The University Settlement of New York City 
has recognized rare personal capacity, has hon- 
ored Chicago and has served its own great inter- 
ests by inviting Mr. Robert Hunter to succeed 
Mr. James B. Reynolds in the leadership of its 
work. Mr. Hunter entered upon his varied social 
service in Chicago immediately upon finishing his 
course at the University of Indiana in 1896. 
While achieving the long delayed establishment 
of the district charity bureaus as organizing secre- 
tary of the Associated Charities, he was in resi- 
dence successively at Northwestern University 



10 



THE COMMONS 



Settlement, Helen Heath House and Hull House. 
When the City Homes Association instituted its 
investigation of the serious housing problem in 
Chicago, Mr. Hunter became chairman of its com- 
mittee in charge of this difficult and heavy task, 
and furnished the text of its notable report of 
"Tenement Conditions in Chicago" (to be se- 
cured of A. C. MeClurg & Co., Chicago), which 
has won deservedly wide recognition as an orig- 
inal and scientific contribution to the literature 
of the subject. Since the completion of this expert 
work his continued relation to the Central Bureau 
of Associated Charities has allowed him not only 
to render valuable service as a member of the 
Special Parks Commission of the City of Chi- 
cago, and also on the School Extension Com- 
mittee, but to assume the superintendeney of the 
recently established Municipal Lodging House. 
His travel abroad and temporary residence at 
Toynbee Hall round out his training for the 
exacting duties which he is invited to assume in 
New York. We who know him best regard his 
intelligence, versatility and accuracy very excep- 
tional in a man of twenty-seven years of age, and 
find our only consolation over the loss his with- 
drawal costs our local work, in the fact that New 
York has at hand a larger opportunity to serve 
the common cause than Chicago is at the present 
ready to offer him. Mr. Eeynolds may, with freer 
mind, give himself to serve Mayor Low's adminis- 
tration, now that ^he work of the University Set- 
tlement, which owes so much more to him than to 
anyone else, is assured such capable leadership. 



The Hodman Guild Mouse, Columbus, Ohio. 

The Italian neighbors, who are reported "in 
the past to be slow to accept the hospitality of 
the House are now seen in the kindergarten, 
sewing-school and mothers' club." The settle- 
ment co-operates with the public schools in look- 
ing after truant children. 



It is not words, but deeds, and not deeds only 
but self-sacrificing deeds and not only self-sacri- 
ficing deeds, but the surrender of life itself, that 
form the turning point in every great advance 
in history. Adolf Harnack. 

"Money can never take the place of service, 
and though here and there it is absolutely neces- 
sary 1 to have the paid worker, yet normally he is 
not an adequate substitute for the volunteer." 



"We have a peculiar right to expect syste- 
matic effort from men and women of education 
and leisure. Such people should justify by their 
work the conditions of society which have ren- 
dered possible their leisure, their education and 
their wealth." ' 



College Settlements Association. 



Standing Committee, 

President: KATHARINE COMAN, Wellesley, Mass. 

Vice-Presidcnt : MARY K. SIMKHOVITCH, (Mrs. Vladimir G. 

Simkbovitch.) 248 East 84th St., New York City. 
Secretary: MABEL GAIR CURTIS, 829 Boylston St., Boston. 
Treasurer: ELSIE CLEWS PARSONS, (Mrs Herbert Parsons.) 

112 East 35th Street, New York City. 
Fifth Metnier: HELEN ANNAN SCRIBNER, (Mrs. Arthur H. 

Scribner.) 10 West 4Sd Street, New York City. 

Denison House. 

A COLLEGE SETTLEMENT IN BOSTON, BELONGING 

TO THE COLLEGE SETTLEMENT ASSOCIATION. 

BY CORNELIA WARREN. 

It was with great joy of heart that Denison 
House was opened at 93 Tyler street, Boston, in 
December, 1892. Most of those interested had 
been active in settlement efforts four years earlier. 
Then it had seemed wise to plant the first settle- 
ment in New York City, as the metropolis of the 
country and the distributing center of immigra- 
tion, and so the spacious, old-fashioned house at 
95 Eivington street, became one scene, of their 
first settlement love. Next, a promising and much 
needed work already started in Philadelphia was 
offered to the association, and the settlement now 
at 433 Christian street became their second. 

But women in Boston and vicinity were longing 
for a work near at hand, and late in 1892 took 
courage and hired a house. They knew indeed 
that the new association had but little money to- 
give them and as yet they had no head-worker in 
view, but there were six or seven women who 
could be trusted, ready to go into residence, and 
so they went, with the object not so much of start- 
ing any activities this first year as of becoming 
acquainted and discovering what things might be 
best worth doing. Most of them had occupations 
already in other parts of the city. 

Vida Scudder, of Smith College, who had been 
a prime mover in the New York house, became 
the first chairman of the Denison House Com- 
mittee. Katharine Coman, professor at Wellesley 
College, stood as its sponsor before the public. 
Emily Balch, of Bryn Mawr, gave several hours a 
day at the house, without becoming a resident and 
thus superintended its beginning. Miss Balch has 
since served for two years as one of the trustees 
of the Children's Institutions Department of the 
City of Boston, and is also on the Wellesley faculty. 
The names of those who went into residence be- 
tween Dec. 27 and Jan. 23, most of them to stay 
till June, were Helen Cheever, who later succeeded 
Miss Balch as trustee for children; Laurette Cate, 
a director of the Working Girls' Association, 
Carol Dresser, afterwards head worker at Eliza- 



THE COMMONS 



11 



beth Peabody House, Maud Mason, who came on 
a fellowship of the association, Susan W. Pea- 
body, who has since been a teacher and has been 
active in a large factory club, and Mrs. I. G. 
Hartwell, the latter as housekeeper. Among the 
transient visitors that year were women of marked 
experience in other fields, "instructive visitors" 
they were called. Also residents entered later in 
the year who were afterwards most devoted. 

The house was named for Edward Denison, who 
lived in East London in 1867, and it was hope:! 
to imitate both his spirit of work and his level- 
headedness. It was a satisfaction to feel that in 
taking this house, a center of immorality was 
broken up. Also, it was encouraging to receive 
at once neighboring attentions, such as buckets 
of hot water when our boiler refused to work. It 
must, however, be admitted that one of the hard 
tasks before the residents was to live down the 
reputation of philanthropists given them by an 
over-enthusiastic press. One of them was met by 
a neighbor, holding her own front door gently 
but firmly shut behind her as she said: "I 
don't intend to let you in. I see in the papers 
that you are ladies from the Back Bay, who 
mean to elevate people in the slums by per- 
sonal contact. Now I don't consider my home to 
be in the slums, and I prefer not to have visits 
from you." The visitor naturally withdrew, but 
later in the season had the satisfaction of seeing 
this same neighbor come down her door-steps to 
stop her to say : "I hope you will excuse what 
I said to you last January. I feel sure you will, 
when you remember it was simply because I didn't 
understand what you came for." And some years 
later this neighbor refused to move away from the 
neighborhood, because of three good influences 
there for her children, a boy's club (not ours) then 
in active operation, the branch of the puolie libra- 
ry and Denison House. Indeed, Denison House is 
not in the slums, and the root idea of settlement 
work is one whose efficacy need not be confined to 
a neighborhood of slender means. It should be a. 
new ideal of social possibilities; new, because 
Christianity is still somewhat startlingly new. 

In September, 1893, Helena S. Dudley, of Bryn 
Mawr, became the first head-worker and is still 
holding the same position, having perhaps the 
longest record of any one in such work except 
Miss Addams, of Hull House. Before coming to 
Boston, she had for a year been in charge of the 
Philadelphia settlement. Names crowd to one's 
pen of those who have been her efficient helpers, 
either officially recognized as such, or giving the 
same devotion year after year without official 
recognition. In a way, outside workers are more 
permanent than residents, as their homes remain 
the same. One of the encouraging signs of our 



work is that old friends return continually to per- 
petuate their influence in classes and clubs, in va- 
cation school work, in nursing and in the health- 
ful social activity which, like the life-giving air of 
spring, fosters goodness and life and suppresses 
what is bad with a success not to be tabulated '.u 
reports. It is the failures of life, the crimes, the 
deaths, that lend themselves to statistics. 

One of Miss Dudley's marked successes has 
been the social life. She has made the house a 
home and a pleasant one for her fellow-workers 
and a center of pleasure and stimulus for hun- 
dreds of neighbors and acquaintances. Thursday 
evening always finds the residents at home, ami at 
most seasons of the year from sixty to a hundred 
come in without special invitation. As one neigh- 
bor who moved to a distance said, "I can't often 
go now-a-days, but I always know it is going on 
and that I should be welcome if I could go." And 
Denison House recognizes in this social work, not 
merely an element of charm and grace naturally 
accompanying woman's influence, but a distinct 
power for good, and that possibly the greatest at 
its command, second, at least, only to the indi- 
vidual, personal influence so closely allied with it. 
When the house was first opened, one after another 
of those about it, as they became acquainted, com- 
plained that they lived lonely lives. Indeed, the 
complaint became so general as to be almost 
ludicrous, as, if all were lonely, the remedy seemed 
to be near at hand. But the hindrances to a bet- 
ter state of things were very real. Lack of time 
or of energy after exhausting days for the neces- 
sary effort to plan social tratherings, lack of space 
for entertainment, divisions of religion and race, 
and the sad but often necessary distrust of one's 
nearest neighbors, especially neeaful where chil- 
dren had to be protected. A social nucleus whose 
influence could be trusted, proved the solvent of 
these difficulties, and in the beautiful green room 
of Denison House, of which many are proud be- 
sides our own household, a moral force has been 
set free more powerful for good than mere ma- 
terial disadvantages are for evil, even such as in- 
sufficient food, poor lodging and hard lines gen- 
erally. When one studies the scant opportunities 
open to young people of social intercourse free 
from dangerous influences, when one finds among 
those who have become the problems of society, 
how the wrong start was taken because of a 
natural and at first innocent love of a good time, 
when one sees how the weight of toil is lifted, as 
the older~and more careworn look with pleasure 
on the young people dancing, how the frictions and 
acerbities of home or shop life melt away in the 
genialness of human society, how our young men 
find pleasure in being the main dependence of our 
residents in these social entertainments, seating 



12 



THE COMMONS 



guests, passing refreshments, and helping put to 
rights afterwards, when one remembers how much 
right feeling good manners stand for, one feels 
that a settlement would be a success were this its 
only achievement. I have never forgotten a preg- 
nant remark made to me by a cabman with whom 
I talked at a ball at Hull House. A large ban- 
quet for a library had been recently announced 
in the newspapers and he expressed some disgust. 
' ' 1 suppose, ' ' he said, ' ' I ought not to say any- 
thing against colleges and libraries. They're good 
enough in their own way. But after all we know 
a good deal already. What we want now is to be 
able to use and enjoy what we know, and Hull 
House shows us how to do that." 

I shall touch but briefly on the other activities 
of Denison House. The marked events of our nine 
years of life are, perhaps, the opening of a work- 
room for the unemployed in December, 1893, un- 
der direction of the mayor's committee, when over 
six thousand dollars were distributed in wages; 
the starting of a vacation school in the summer 
of 1894, which has been carried on ever since for 
six weeks every season, with an attendance usually 
of over two hundred the city has given us the 
use of two schoolhouses, and the Associated Chari- 
ties has raised the necessary money, now the 
city is starting vacation schools of its own; the 
organization of the Women Clerks' Benefit Asso- 
ciation, still in active operation, with a member- 
ship in good standing of about two hundred; the 
organization of a highly successful social club of 
public school teachers in our neighborhood; the 
addition of a new house to our plant in 1896; the 
opening of the green room in our new house to 
the sessions of a city kindergarten, which still con- 
tinues; two short-lived efforts to start a reading- 
room for older men, which led, however, to the 
establishment near us of a branch to the public 
library; the large increase in our industrial work, 
leading to .the opening of living rooms room for 
residents in a third house next door to us; and, 
lastly, our success in securing a municipal gym- 
nasium in our neighborhood. 

Through the generosity of a Boston woman our 
industrial equipment is now more efficient than 
ever before. Also our oldest boys' club has given 
us $200 towards our industrial work, the money 
being earned by dramatic performances. We have 
ten very popular classes in cooking and two in 
laundry work, also sloyd-work, a cobbling class, 
and basket weaving. Our college extension classes 
number about one hundred and fifty students, 
and diplomas for attendance are awarded in the 
spring. 

In closing, I will speak of the gymnasium. The 
need of this outlet for the energies of the boys 
has been felt for a long time, and in 1900 a room 



next door was fitted up for it. But this was very 
inadequate and that same year another generous 
Boston woman gave us outright a piece of land 
not far away on which stood a wooden chapel. Our 
first wish was that the city should take it from 
us and put up a gymnasium. But Mayor Hart, 
just entering on a rehabilitation of the city finances, 
said street improvements must come first. So 
Denison House invited to its aid an auxiliary com- 
mittee of men, who refitted the chapel as a gym- 
nasium, and conducted it for several months very 
successfully. In the spring, however, overtures 
were made by the city, and Denison House leased 
the gymnasium to them for a term of years. 
The first result of this was a closing of the 
gymnasium, as the city wished to strengthen the 
floor and to add to the capacity of the bathing 
facilities. During last summer, however, the spray 
baths were open to the public, and in the autumn 
the gymnasium was reopened. It proved at once 
to be far more successful than under private man- 
agement. The men's classes filled up at once, and 
even the young women, who had feared lest the 
withdrawal of any fee for admission might bring 
in a rowdy element, found that under the efficient 
superintendent and teacher the order was excellent, 
and re-formed their classes. All went merry as a 
marriage bell till January 4th. when a serious fire 
broke out, burning through the roof in several 
places. Though the loss is fully covered by in- 
surance the apparatus has had to be removed tem- 
porarily, and matters are at a standstill till it ; s 
determined whether further repairs shall be made 
to the wooden structure, or whether a new and 
better building shall take its place. 

The author of the article of this issue has been 
one of the oldest and truest friends of the C. 
S. A. For many years she served as the treasurer 
of the association at large. She has been and is 
the chairman of the Denison House Committee, and 
by her wise counsel, earnest and painstaking work 
arid her large-hearted and thoughtful generosity, 
has been a friend in need and out of need to the 
three settlements and especially to Denison 
House. 

To move among the people o.n the common 
street; to meet them in the market place on 
equal terms; to live among them not as saint 
or monk, but as brother-man with brother-man; 
to serve God not with form or ritual, but In 
the free impulse of the soul; to bear the bur- 
dens of society and relieve its needs; to carry 
on multitudinous activities of the city social, 
commercial, political, philanthropic in Christ's 
spirit and for his ends; this is the religion of 
the Son of Man, and the only meetness for 
heaven which has much reality in it. Henry 
Drummond. 



THE COMMONS 



13 



The Commons. 

A Monthly Record Devoted to Aspects of Life and 
Labor from the Social Settlement Point of View. 

GRAHAM TAYLOR Editor. 

Entered at Chicago Post Office as Second-Class Matter, and 
Published the first of every month from CHICAGO COMMONS, 
a Social Settlement at Grand Ave. * Morgan St., Chicago, 111. 



EDITORIAL. 



Report of Conference en Rural Life in Next 
Issue. 

The uniquely interesting and suggestive joint 
meeting of the Michigan Political Science Associ- 
ation and the Michigan Farmers' Institute, which 
is convening as we go to press at the Michigan 
Agricultural College, will be carefully reported 
in our next issue by the competent pen of Mr. 
Kenyon L. Butterfield, one of the promoters of 
the conference. Advance orders for the April 
number of The Commons, containing this expert 
outline of the papers and summary of the dis- 
cussions, are solicited so that we may know how 
large an edition will meet the additional demand. 
New York Neighborhood Association Depart- 
ment and its Editor. 

The Commons congratulates its readers and 
itself upon the announcement that Mrs. Mary 
Kingsbury Simkhovitch will edit the department 
which the Association of Neighborhood Workers 
in New York City will open in the April number 
of this journal of the Settlements. The associa- 
tion includes representatives of such organizations 
a* maintain houses for neighborhood improve- 
ment, also such individuals as are considered help- 
ful to its purpose. It was started in December, 
1900, and has already enlisted in co-operative 
fellowship no less than fhirty-three groups, com- 
prising, besides the Settlements, many church and 
mission houses, such as those of the Paulist Fath- 
ers, St. Rose's, Madison Square church and others, 
and other centers of social service, as the Barnard 
College Sociological Club, Hudson Guild, League 
for Political Education, the Down Town Ethical 
Culture Society. Among those who are serving 
upon the council are Dr. Felix Adler and Mr. John 
L. Klliott, whose contribution to our columns in 
this number will be appreciated. Its committees 
oil legislation, public morality, education, tene- 
ment houses, parks and playgrounds, and co- 
operation formulate the ideals and action of those 
who are most directly at work among the people 
of the metropolis. 



The Commons is privileged to become the 
medium of communication between these associa- 
ated working groups, their own constituencies and 
our widely scattered readers, all of whom are- 
personally interested or enlisted in social service. 
No one representing the association could receive 
heartier welcome to co-operative fellowship from 
the Editor and readers of The Commons than 
Mrs. Simkliovitch. She was formerly head resi- 
dent of the College Settlement in Rivington 
street, and is now at the head of the Friendly 
Aid House at 248 East 34th street. We have 
good hope of securing the co-operation of Mr. 
Simkhovitch also in contributing notes of social 
progress in European and Russian life and litera- 
ture, for which his connection with the Columbia 
University library and his wide personal observa- 
tion and relationship abroad afford him such a 
commanding view-point. 

The Organization of the World Demands the 
Co-operation of the Churches. 

The function of the churches in promoting the 
social unification of the people must first be exer- 
cised in unifying themselves. No more notable 
utterance in the interest of church unity has ever 
been made in America than by the Rev. W. E. 
Huntington, D. D., the rector of Urace Church, 
New York City, both in his books and in his noble 
appeal at the Convention of the Protestant Epis- 
copal churches in behalf of his "Christian Unity 
Amendment", permitting the bishops to assume 
oversight of churches, putting themselves under 
their care, without enjoining the use of the Book 
of Common Prayer. He based his plea for the 
passage of the measure upon the following social 
issues at stake in the action then pending: "Four 
great questions confront the American people at 
this solemn hour, when they are passing from an 
old century to a new. These questions are the 
sanctity of the family ; the training of youth 
to good citizenship and good character; the puri- 
fication of the municipal life of our great cities 
and the relation between capital and labor. But 
towering up above them an, as a snow mountain 
towers up over the more conspicuous but less im- 
portant foothills that cluster about its base, rises 
the question for every American citizen who is 
a believer in the religion of Jesus Christ, the 
question, How may Tve correlate and unify and 
consolidate the religious forces of the republic? 
Those other questions are in a measure independ- 
ent of one another, whereas the question of the 
correlation of the religious forces of the republic 
touches every one of them intimately, vitally. 
Our whole attitude toward the unity question de- 
pends upon our notion of what the church, to. 
which we are attached, is really like." 



14 



THE COMMONS 



One view of the church which some seem to en- 
tertain he described "as a little working model of 
wliat a true church ought to be, kept under a glass 
case, provided with its own little boiler and its 
own little dynamo, the admiration of all who look 
at it, but by no means and under no circumstances 
to be connected, either by belt or cable, wfth the 
throbbing, vibrant, religious forces of the outer 
works through broad America, lest they wreck the 
petite mechanism by the violence of their thrill." 
^'We sit here debating these petty technicalities, 
devising the ingenious restraints, and meanwhile 
out-of-doors the organization of the world goes on. 
The old Latin scheme is broken up never to be 
reconstructed. The larger ecumenicity is at hand. 
Shall we not build for that? So then I say build 
large. ' ' 

While this breadth of view and powerful argu- 
ment, even with the strong support they rallied, 
did not secure the adoption of the amendment, 
the Convention subsequently ratified the right 
claimed by the bishops to take under their per- 
sonal charge such churches as desire their over- 
sight without, on the one hand, enjoining upon 
them the Book of Common Prayer, or, on the 
other hand, admitting them to a voting status in 
the diocese. The Protestant Episcopal Church 
has thus taken the most advantageous and strate- 
gic position that the personality of the bishop 
may become the center for the spiritual unifica- 
tion and co-operation of churches, which could 
not unite or co-operate upon any more formal basis 
of ritual, creed or polity. The possibilities of thus 
promoting social unification and of advancing so- 
cial progress thereby will be measured by the 
social vision, human brotherliness and capacity for 
administrative tact, which one and another of the 
"bishops may prove himself to possess. The country 
-will watch for what such a man as Bishop Potter, 
of New York City, may accomplish in this way 
with the hope born of the wide recognition of the 
very distinct social service which he has already 
rendered. But the more direct and visible result 
is likely to be achieved by men of his spirit, 
whose bishoprics lie within those sections of the 
country where social conditions are in a more for- 
mative and transitional stage of development and 
where denominational bonds are less rigidly and 
permanently crystallized. Social progress halts in 
every direction chiefly because of the division of 
the forces of righteousness within the churches. 
Not until they establish some basis upon which 
they can insure comity and co-operation between 
themselves will the churches ever fulfill their great 
responsibility and high function in promoting the 
unity and progress of mankind, the highest ideal 
of which is their greatest trust. 



Literature of Social Interest. 

An Ideal School. 

By Frank A. Manny, Ethical Culture Schools, 
New York City. 

Settlement workers will find this book very sug- 
gestive They will not care whether Mr. Search 
is right or wrong in many of his ideas, but they 
know that his efforts to organize education on 
an indivdual rather than on a class basis are much 
needed in schools to-day. Even in the settlements 
the graded system presses unduly to the front 
at times it seems like such a saving and it is a 
saving; but it can easily go too far. In addition 
to the suggestions that will be valuable to club 
workers, there is much that will help to a bet- 
ter appreciation of such problems as that of the 
evening school, the relation of home and school 
(in such matters as home study, responsiblity of 
parents, etc.). 

The discussion of the epochs of life and corre- 
sponding interests and needs is valuable. On 
the whole, there are few books which recognize 
so fully the broad social opportunities of present- 
day eduaction, and perhaps there is no other writ- 
ten by a schoolman which takes so thoroughly 
the point of view of the parent. 

"An Ideal School," by Preston W. Search. 
New York : International Education Series, D. 
Appleton & Co., 1901. 

Tha Americanization of the World. 

With the fertile heroism of genius, William T. 
Stead, reformer, editor, author and prophet, has 
proclaimed a new message to the political lead- 
ers of England. From the Maiden Tribute to 
The Americanization of the World is a far cry, 
yet the vision of the seer and the courage of 
the martyr are luminous in both. 

It is difficult to decide whether we marvel most, 
because of the consummate skill of the argument 
or the author's sublime courage. After the pit- 
iable platitudes of the sulky Achilles at Chester- 
field, these ringing words come with the impact 
of a great hope. Through the mists of dissolving 
parties and the tumult of fratricidal strife, rises 
this calm voice and serene form the prophecy and 
the prophet of the "United States of the World" 
the culmination of democracy in universal peace. 

The Americanization of the World is not how- 
ever, more instructive for Englishmen than it is 
enlightening and inspiring to Americans. In 
the brief compass of some hundred pages is here 
given a series of remarkably clear pen pictures 
portraying American power and influence in all 
parts of the world. The chapters setting forth 
"How America Americanizes" and "What is the 



THE COMMONS 



15 



Secret of American Success" discover a knowl- 
edge and appreciation of the hidden yet mighty 
forces of the New World little short of marvel- 
ous. 

The Americanization of Ireland is an entertain- 
inb bit, reminding us of the point of a Senator's 
amendment to the Hawaiian treaty, recommend- 
ing the annexation of the Emerald Isle on behalf 
of home industry, "it being the prime duty of 
every republic to raise its own policemen." 

Summing up the case for Democracy vs. Aris- 
tocracy in the world struggle for commercial 
dominion, our prophet says : 

"Aristocratic institutions, no doubt have their 
advantages, but they do not tend to develop in 
the mass of the people a keen sense of citizen- 
ship. They effectively paralyze that conscious- 
ness of individual power, which gives so great 
and constant a stimulus to the energy and self- 
respect of the citizens of the republic." 

Altogether this extraordinary prophecy is worth 
reading by even the busiest American. 



"Economists have been trying for a long time 
to discover how best to employ the energies of 
men. Ah, if I could but discover how best to 
employ their leisure ! Labor in plenty there 
is sure to be. But where look for recreation? 
The daily work provides the daily bread, but 
laughter gives it savor. Oh, all you philosophers ! 
Begin the search for pleasure! Find for us 
if you can amusements that do not degrade joys 
that do uplift. Invent a holiday that gives every- 
one pleasure, and makes none ashamed." 

Emile Souvestre: Un Philosophe sous les 
Toils. 



Chicago Commons Items. 

FREE FLOOR DISCUSSIONS. 
The attendance and participation in the frae 
discussion of industrial, economic, social and 
ethical issues have been more satisfactory this 
winter than ever before. From 75 to 250 persons 
compose the gathering each week. A large ma- 
jority of them are wage earners, with a few repre- 
sentatives of the professional, commercial and 
student classes. Four-fifths of them are men. 
The topics considered have been varied and of 
present import. The men and women who have 
opened the discussion have been widely represen- 
tative. An eminent surgeon emphasized the 
value and limitations of free thought and speech; 
one of the foremost judges of the city and one of 
its ablest editors discussed the relation between 
free speech and the suppression of anarchism; a 
prominent attorney answered the questions 
"What is law and why we need it?" The 



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at the International Congregational Council in Boston, 
1899. Twenty-five Cents. 

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and University Settlements Bibliographv- 

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Is devoted to Aspects of Life and Labor from the Social Set- 
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THE COMMONS 



Consumers' League was represented by its able 
national secretary, Mrs. Florence Kelley, who 
spoke on "Individual Responsibility for the In- 
dustrial Problem." The Union Label was ad- 
vocated on one occasion by representatives of sev- 
eral trades unions and on another evening oy 
women representing the Woman's Label League 
and the Federated Women's Clubs. Commandant 
Snyman ably and loyally defended the Boer cause 
against the British claim. The Chicago Traction 
situation was discussed by the representative of 
the Chicago Federation of Labor, who formulat- 
ed the view of that body at the public hearing of 
the City Council. The Eeferendum movement in 
the traction issue was argued by a delegate of 
the Referendum League. The series of craft con- 
ferences was well inaugurated by the Cigarmakers, 
whose international officers most effectively served 
their interests. Other unions and allied tradas 
are officially to conduct similar open meetings. 

The discussion of these subjects has been, al- 
most without exception, serious, animated, help- 
ful and educative. Even the exceptional inci- 
dents, of which some sensational exaggerations 
have been made in the public press, were entirely 
within the bounds of propriety and parliamentary 
procedure, without an approach to disorder or vio- 
lent attitude, and at most indicative only of earn- 
est and honest contention for sincere personal con- 
viction. The defense which the most radical at- 
tendants have made against serious and sustain*! 
attack from platform and floor has with scarcely 
an exception been dignified, reasonable and with- 
out bitterness. The wisdom of free speech con- 
tinues to be justified of her children. 

OUR NEIGHBORHOOD SOCIAL LIFE. 
The Social functions of the winter are proving 
more unifying, heart-warming and helpful to home 
life in the neighborhood than ever before. The 
convenient accommodation for social life provided 
by the new building and centering at the neigh- 
borhood parlor in the Williams Residence Hall 
accounts for much of this new success. Its 
ample spaces permit and invite those large hospi- 
talities which the residents, the clubs, and the out- 
side neighborhood organizations for the first time 
are equipped to extend. To our Woman's club 
reception four hundred representatives of sixteen 
women's organizations responded, overflowing the 
whole house with a simple and single-hearted re- 
ciprocity equally charming to the suburban matron 
and the hardest-worked, least privileged member 
of the Settlement club. A North Side culture 
club of twenty members, after dining with the 
residents, enjoyed the Free Floor discussion of the 
Union Label, as really as those whose standard of 
living was at state. The first group of work- 
men, employed upon our new building, to share 



its hospitality mingled as freely with the resi- 
dents and enjoyed the Pleasant Sunday After- 
noon musical programme as though they belonged 
under the roof which they had spread for us 
all. The unique "Alumni Association" of a 
neighboring Scandinavian church rallied to our 
auditorium five hundred former members and 
"Catechumens" to greet their veteran pastor. 
The fortnightly neighborhood socials gather groups 
of our neighbors, numbering from forty to one 
hundred, who, often for the first time, delight to 
find themselves in each* other's company, and with 
almost idyllic childlike joy join in the innocent 
games and simple-hearted social intercourse. 

The smaller groups and personal guests who 
meet in some cosy corner, or at the family board 
in our hospitable dining-room, are no less import- 
ant factors in our happy social life. Professor 
Francis G. Peabody, of Harvard University, was 
recently among our most interested and interest- 
ing guests. 

OUR NEED OF $13,000 FOR 1902. 
While the financial situation of Chicago Com- 
mons should encourage its friends, their continu- 
ous co-operation through this last year of our 
long struggle is urgently needed. Although we 
closed the past year without deficit in current 
accounts and have secured the gift or pledge of 
about one-third of this year's support, _ s we still 
lack the assurance of at least $5,000 to meet the 
expense of the work now in hand for the summer 
and autumn. In view of the decision of the Board 
of Education to close the Public School Kinder- 
gartens for lack of funds, the necessity not only 
of maintaining but of doubling the capacity of 
our own schools and other work for the little chil- 
dren is imperative. 

The Building Fund calls for a last united effort 
this spring to make the final payment now due. 
Through the generosity of the Williams family 
in adding $6,000 to their previous gift of $12,000 r 
and to their father's original contribution of 
$8,000, the Williams' Residence Hall stands com- 
plete and paid for, at a cost of $26,000 the work- 
ing memorial to the long life of honorable and 
successful industry lived by John Marshall Wil- 
liams. 

The sole condition of this munificent memorial 
gift remains to be fulfilled in the replacement of 
the $8,000 with which he started our building 
fund, and which was withdrawn from the Mor- 
gan street wing account in order to lay the foun- 
dation for the Residence Hall, the superstructure 
of which his children reared to his memory. 

Thus to close the current year free of any 
claim against our efficient building equipment 
and without deficit in current expense account 
we need $13,000, and take this only means we 
have of making our need known to the friends 
of Chicago Commons. 



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