The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1914-10-01
ADVANCED TO
USE HIGH SCHOOL
BUILDING
For Work Under Town Recrea-
.tlon Director
IS BEFORE SCHOOL BOARD
Use o. School Buildings In Other
Places is Common For Munich
pal Effort

4 dege'ation OF ladies. including
Mrs. Thornton =. Tune-. Miss Hilda
Pratt. Mrs ". : Carpenter. Mrs.
Mary Adams. Mrs. l.. n. Nichols. Mrs.
G. p. Endress and Mrs II. ". Richie
appeared before the school board
Wednesday evening with a plan for
cooperation with the schools OF tho
public recreation teacher In evening
classes during the winter.
The plan contemplates the use OF
the hall In the new high school build
ing and the extension OF certain edu.
cational facilities as Is being done
moe and more throughout the coun-
try The school board deferred &C
ton for week In order to give the
mattfr full consideration. The plan
as put before tho beard by the dele
cation OF ladies is as follows:
We are sorry that il has seemed
necessary for us TO come before YOU
at this time. when you are overwhem
ed with practical details involved in
the completion OF the new high school
building. II is a beautiful building
one that the village will always be
justly proud of and that will make
Bennington In a new sense the center
OF the real life OF the county and one
Of the leading towns in the state. In
addition TO the beauty and splendid
fitness OF the building for school pur-
poses is the significant fact that. in
accordance with the broader educa.
tional trend OF today, Il has been
planned. and the idea is generally
current. that il will be used for civ
ic and social center Thus II would
seem that the time has now come
when in Bennington. as in other
places, the work Of the school board
may be co-ordinated with that OF 9th
er educational agencies.
The Bennington Civic League is an
organization for such work as this.
For the last FIVE years il has been
developing in Bennington the idea of
public play and community spirit
and has conducted educational class
es and dramatic and other entertain
ments which may very properly be
described as extensions of the school
idea. Indeed. in some places where
the school resources have been ample
much of this extension work has been
done by the school STAFF itself An
idea of the extent to which the Civic
League has carried this work in Ben
nnngton may be gained from a few
statistics which have been carefully
kept
In the school work of the League
81 classes were held last year for pu-
pills Of the high school and grades, at
which supervision and instruction
were provided in after-school recrea.
tion and play. including folk dancing
At these classes, in the four months
from January through April, there
was a total attendance OF 1904. Other
social work with persons not attend.
ing school included folk dancing
athletics for girls, glee club work,
cooking classes, sowing, millinery
and raliia instruction, informal talks
on different subjects, social dancing,
and other activities, some of which
wee carried on in cooperation with
other organizations. During eight
weeks OF last winter, when the
League conducted part of this work
| with the Young Woman's club, the at
| tendance was 1900. In the outdoor
F! work the figures are very impressive
| rhis includes the playground, and
| provides also for outdoor singing
| story telling, dramatics, folk dancing
such handicraft work as clay model
+! ling and rafiia work, as well as or
ganzed athletic contests. The total
| attendance here, including spectators,
| reached during the last year, l4,S1S
| Special events, which included Hal
| loween party for girls, story hour
| by Seumas McManus, the community
cant of aptriots, and various other
things which we shall not stop TO
mention, swelled the grand total for
the year to beyond 22,O00--and this in
a village to which the last census
gave population Of only 6,211 Thus
if this total attendance of $4,000 were
averaged over the whole population
of the village, it would show that ev-
cry man, woman and child in Ben
nington was reached by the Civic
League last year in the bcoadest edu-
cational way between three and four
times.
D We cannot doubt that the leaven