The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1920-12-13
THE SCHOOL,
A SOCIAL CENTER
Adapted From Address of Superin-
teudent Before School Improve
ment Association at Spar
tanburg During Teach
ers' Meeting.
proper Gander.)


It is usually customary to append
the photography to your paper but l
xhall be unusual in that I wish to rec
ammend to every teacher, principal
N superintendent interested in the
question of making a sort of COM
saunity center of his school a Silver,
Rurdett & Co. publication, The Com
munity Center by L. J. Hanifan which
has recently come from the press as
being a timely pedagogical hand
book rejecting with fidelity the signs
Of the times. While the problem in
Nr. Hanifan's book is treated rather
directly in it's relation to- the rural
school, special adaptations are shown
to be easily applicable to city school
system.
The author suggests that the social
aspect in community center should
be. its least significant phase. Rather
should community and school i'm
urovements of the most varied type
be- championed and directed by ap
prppriate organizations within the
school or community center.
DR.. Dewey names four specific ele-
ments which bear upon the school as
a'social center for the community.
1. The efficiency and ease with
which people are brought together
through transportation, cheap litera-
ture and centralized industry.
z. The weakening of the bonds Of
sseial discipline and control as rep
resented by the home, the church,
custom and tradition.
3. Education is much more close
u identified with life. All people are
at school because all science and all
industry are closely connected, and
uhat we call practical life is replete
With lessons and experiences which
tend to educate.
a. Change and progress are so
rapid that education for all who in
tend to be successful must be contin-
uous-
The propriety of opening school
hsuses and making them meeting
IR.ees for the people, was prompted
dsgbtless, by the successful work OF
speial settlements. This work, started
NJ 4 philanthropy, has taken on so
Hmy educative phases that the best
sxganized social settlements are qua
xzsehools for the people. The people
me reached in their homes through
tAe teaching of those arts which min
nser to household comfort and thrift
N well as through elements of re-
eseztion and entertainment.
=; The public school is not social
settlement, and can never fulfil the
fmetions of one. Where there is need
Of social settlement work in a COM
sunity this need should be filled by
the Home Service section of the Red
Gsuss or some other charitable organ
Mztion-
The practical question is, under
&kat conditions or circumstances can
Tn. public schools be made centers of
,soeiaI as we'll as intellectual culture.
Many experiments will be needed
GO work out this problem. So long as
suniitions vary in different commu-
mites experiments will naturally
Azve to be tried along different lines.
Hn well-to-do communities where
ksue conditions are ideal, or nearly
sa- it would be obviously absurd to
eeen the school houses for adults ex-
cept in the case Of parents meetings
ar education societies.
The conception that the school has
saly definite and restricted work to
do in training and in giving the sup
passed fundamental processes, to the
more modern idea that the school has
weial functions as we'll, has been
rs gradual as it has been positive.
The school of today stands no longer
apart from the other forms of COM
nmnity life. The school master is fast
hxing either his ascetic isolation or
1is position. The successful teacher
mud administrator of today is the
srzn or woman who is a good mixer
and who is politician of the first
uzter-provided the water isn't mud