The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1911-12-18
SOCIAL SERVICE WORK
State University Girl Accomplished
Much Along Social Service Lines
AZ Prescott, VIE.

Those interested in social service
work will read with interest an ac-
count of what Miss Genevieve Turner
Of the state university was instrument
tai In having accomplished at Prescott.
Wis, where she was director OF the
work.
The following article was written by
visitor to Prescott and published lat
err i'm The Wisconsin State Journal at
Madison, together with a splendid cut
of Miss Turner and the public school
at Prescott
II was attracted at Prescott by the
workings OF the neighborhood school
center which was recently established
here. 1t was so interesting and every
body was enjoying 1t.
AT Prescott, / saw folks actually
making full use OF the public property
they pay taxes TO keep up. I saw a
whole town, men, women and children.
using the public square green as a
playground for evening recreation.
saw parents and children get together
in the schoolhouse for an hour of sing
intercourse-with apples and popcorn
on the side. And I tell you ii was
something well worth seeing.
"Six weeks ago Mayor Joseph How
es, who is man of progressive ideas
and who has wife as progressive to
back him, got Edward j. Ward, the
original social center man, to come up
from Madison to make a speech on
the longer use of the schoolhouse The
idea caught the people and Ward was
asked to send somebody to set the ball
rolling. He sent Miss Genevieve Tur-
ner a university girl. with experience
in playground work.
Nov, Prescott is a very different
place from the Prescott of six weeks
ago. The town Is awake as town.
1t is beginning to be conscious as a
whole rather than in sections. They
tell me that Prescott people have be-
/, come more neighborly in this little
time than they have been for a gener-
alton. In word the town has found
its social center. And practically
| everybody, except the members of one
small church. recognizes that center
now That church backed out because
Miss Turner taught the little girls to
dance Russian folk dances and do 9TH
er ring-round-the-rosy stunts.
Mayor Howes took me down to the
park to see an evenings play. 1t was
like stepping on the green of an Eng
lish town Of long ago, before folks
clean forgot how to get the most out
Of life. Only didn't see any quarter
slaves or broken heads.
ITO begin with, two picked teams
of high school boys played game OF
basketball. In the volleyball court
men of the town played a game, and
the children played in another part OF
the park.
when o'clock came the very
young children were sent home and
the rest of the folks adjourned to 9
big room in the high school building
There everybody sang the Social Center
Forever to the tune of Marching
Through Georgia; the mayor read {
timely editorial he had picked up; ont
girl spoke a defamation; two Others
played the Schubert-T ausig Marcel
Militaire arranged as a duet-it wa
: all very informal, and correspondence.
delightful. At 10 o'clock everybod!
went home happy.
We've solved the question Of keep
ing the boys Off the streets at nigh
and the girls from hanging around tn,
postoffice and the depot, Mayor