"machinery" is necessary, committees appropriate to the occasion are chosen by the pupils themselves.

PUPIL PARTICIPATION IN THE CIVIC LIFE OF THE COMMUNITY OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL.

Pupil participation in the government of the school shades imperceptibly into pupil participation in the larger civic life of the community of which the school itself is a part.

In the first place, the fact is continually emphasized that the children are now citizens of the larger communities of city, State, and Nation, and that in going to school they are doing the very thing that the community expects of them. Regularity and diligence in school work are made to seem a public service. School buildings and equipment are public property. Teachers, principals, superintendents, and school board are a part of the governing machinery of the city and State. The children's cooperation with these representatives of the community is good citizenship of the most practical kind.

The maintaining of order on the playground naturally extends to the maintaining of order on the streets in the vicinity of the school. It is common for committees of older boys to look after the safety of younger children in crossing streets near the school. Solicitude for the cleanliness and beauty of school grounds develops equal solicitude for the cleanliness and beauty of adjoining streets, alleys, lawns, and vacant lots. School gardening quickly stimulates home gardening, and whole neighborhoods have been transformed through the influence of the schools. The sodding of the barren dooryard of an adjoining tenement by a group of colored schoolboys led in one case to imitative activity on the part of neighboring residents. Neighboring fences were straightened up, walks repaired, back yards cleaned.

Experience in Indianapolis, as elsewhere, shows that children are eager enough to do things if their interest is once aroused. The problem is one of guiding action rather than of stimulating it. Pupil participation in community activities demands good judgment on the part of the teacher and affords excellent opportunity to train the judgment of the pupil. Children should not be permitted to develop undue officiousness nor to assume responsibilities that properly belong elsewhere. In the suggestions for teachers in the Indianapolis course of study occurs the warning, for example, that "petitions and reporting should be left to the more mature judgment of adults”—a pertinent suggestion in view of the somewhat common practice of adult organizations in many cities to "make a showing" by obtaining the signatures of school children to petitions relating to questions about which they can by no possibility form an independent judg

ment.

A few years ago, while the children in the Indianapolis schools were studying questions relating to public health, they became much

aroused by the existing conditions of sidewalks, street cars, and other public places because of the violation of the ordinance against expectoration. As usual they wanted to do something about it. Many (like their elders) wanted to complain of the situation-complain to the street railway authorities, to the board of health, to the mayor, to the police. Discussion, however, led to the conclusion that it was difficult to place responsibility in any one spot, and that, anyway, mere complaint seldom accomplished much. Some proposed speaking personally to offenders. Others thought that this would be too officious and might expose children to abuse. Various methods of procedure were thus discussed. The final conclusion was reached that there was no reason why the street railway authorities should want dirty cars, and that there must be difficulties in the way; therefore, let a committee be appointed by a proper authority (which they decided should, in their case, be the superintendent of schools) to inquire of the street railway authorities what their difficulties were and to offer the assistance of the children in any way that seemed feasible. This step ultimately led to a general movement in which the street railway officials, the board of health, many civic organizations, and the newspapers united, ending in a successful campaign for health and cleanliness. The children's participation consisted in three things: They initiated the general movement through proper channels; they helped form public opinion by their conversation at home and with friends; and they themselves observed the law against expectoration. The chief importance of the incident, so far as the children were concerned, was the training in judgment, in initiative, in cooperation, in responsibility, which they derived from it.

Spectacular children's crusades have not been in evidence in Indianapolis; but throughout the schools the children are quietly being trained in habits of cooperation with the fire department, the board of health, the street-cleaning department, the school and library authorities, and all public and private agencies of the city and State, in the interest of the common welfare. The following incident illustrates this.

The board of health requested the school children to cooperate with it in the inspection of the city for unsightly and insanitary conditions, noting especially the disposal of rubbish and garbage and the presence of manure bins in alleys. In one school the class in civics proceeded as follows:

1. The class drew upon the blackboard a map of their district, indicating streets and alleys.

2. The boys of the class were divided into squads, each squad to be responsible for a given section of the district.

3. Each boy prepared a map of his own section.

4. The boys went in pairs through their respective sections, taking notes concerning conditions, and locating on their maps places noted.

5. These notes and maps were examined and criticized by the girls, who made further inspections in groups.

6. The boys reinspected localities criticized adversely by the girls.

7. Written reports in good English, accompanied with the maps, were made to the secretary of the board of health, and the complete report delivered in person to the secretary by a member of the class.

8. Two weeks later the boys reinspected the district, to find what improvements the board of health had made.

9. Reports of failure to remedy conditions in certain localities were made to the secretary of the board, with an invitation to him to look over the district with them. 10. The secretary came to the school, explained to the class the working system of the board, and assuring them of as speedy action as possible.

11. The boys located, with the secretary, on the school map the most flagrant offenses against civic health and beauty.

12. The boys who reported the worst sections took the secretary to the points indicated on the map.

13. Two weeks later the boys again visited their special sections. They found: (a) In a number of cases families were taking better care of garbage and of surroundings.

(b) The board of health was at work cleaning up the district.

IS SUCH CIVIC EDUCATION EFFECTIVE?

Whether the children who are now undergoing this training for citizenship will in reality be efficient citizens 10 or 20 years hence can not, of course, be foretold. But there is apparently ample evidence that they are better citizens now, and moreover, that the present civic life of the city is appreciably affected by it.

The growth of the qualities and habits which it is the chief purpose of civic education to cultivate is observable. The growing interest of children in their community relations; the assumption of an increasing measure of responsibility for the welfare of the community-home, school, neighborhood, or city; the power to interpret knowledge in terms of community interest; the development of civic initiative and of judgment; the growth of effective cooperation; the increasing respect for law which is the expression of a common interest-such traits and habits as these are being developed more or less obviously under the eyes of teachers and parents. Teachers not only observe the change in conduct in the school, but say that it is no uncommon thing for parents to inquire what is being done in the schools to cause the transformation observable in the conduct of Ichildren at home.

But the effect reaches beyond the school and the individual home. In some cases, as has already been said, whole neighborhoods have been transformed. One large section of Indianapolis in particular, formerly a physical and moral plague spot, has become almost a model of orderliness, and unquestionably this is due chiefly to the

influence of the neighborhood school, although the latter has sought and obtained the cooperation of other agencies in bringing about the result. In a neighborhood of a very different character from that just mentioned two adult civic organizations have been organized in the interest of neighborhood welfare and to stimulate wider interest in the city as a whole as a direct result, it is said, of the activities and the unconscious influence of the children of the school.

These are but illustrations. They are enough to suggest that where immediate results are so apparent and so far-reaching, the effect upon future citizenship should certainly be appreciable.