Evening star., 1940-01-10
School RecreotionoI Program
Supplements Milwaukee Parks
Combination Builds EnviobIe System
In City Which Adds Fourth Classroom r

The fourth of series of articles
comparing parks and recreation
of other cities 1Dith those OF the
District OF Columbia.
BY RUDOLPH KAUFMAN III.
MILWAUKEE, (By MaiD Mil
waukeeites are educated in fourth
"R."
Besides teaching reading, 'riting
and 'rithmetic" its Board of Educa-
ton teaches recreation. Milwaukee,
with a lack of foresight which
Washingtonians understand too well,
was never able to acquire a suffi-
cient acreage of city parks to give
its residents the opportunities for
play and fresh air to which they
were entitled.
It's Board of Education goes to
town, therefore, on a system of
community centers and school op-
Grated Fairgrounds.
In this respect, it was admitted
by every official in the other four
cities visited, Milwaukee leads the
country.
Miss Dorothy Enderis, assistant
superintendent of schools in charge
of recreation, gets three times the
money for her work that Lewis R.
Barrett gets for his in Washington
Her recreation leaders and super
visors are made to produce or get
out. They are paid the same SAL
aries as school teachers and are
called recreation teachers. Her out
door areas average larger than
Washingtons but are not so nu-
merous.
But more significant is her COM
munity use of schools. The Board
of Education has decided that the
education of citizens at leisure
from drooling infants to toothless
grandmother" as important as
is education in the classroom or at
work.
Recreation Throughout Building.
All during school hours the base
ments of the schools are busy with
club meetings, games, hobby prof.
ects, mothers associations, foreign
societies, etc. At the closing bell
the whole school, not just one or
two carefully prescribed rooms, is
turned over to community leisure
time use. Desks are not bolted to
the floors but to wooden runners
and are quickly stacked out of the
way after school. Games, tables
stoves, utensils, tools, etc, etc.
which have unassumingly kept
themselves tucked away in aban-
doned cloakrooms or corridors dur
ing school hours, come into play.
The Milwaukee Board of Educa-
tion operates 80 such centers
throughout the city, or only about a
half dozen more than does Wash
ington's Community Center and
Playground Department. The COM
parison, however, does not lie in
numbers. Washingtons centers use
only few rooms in any given
school, the gymnasium and audi
torium, for instance, and are open
only on certain nights. Three
fourths of Milwaukee's centers use
entire school buildings, from base
ment to attic, and are open six days
and nights a week.
Wide Range Of Activity.
Then, too. the scope of activities
carried on for both children and
adults in Milwaukee's social centers
is impressive. Available for the
public are:
Applied arts, crocheting, food
preparation and serving, flower
making, garment remodeling, in
terror decorating, knitting, lamp
shade making, leather tooling, life
sketching, metalwork, needle craft,
painting, patchwork quilt making,
pottery and clay modelling, rug
making, sculpturing. sewing and
dressmaking, tin craft, toy making,
weaving, wood carving and whit
tling, woodwork, beauty culture and
personal care, 20 different sports,
six kinds of dancing, swimming
classes, literary pursuits such as de-
batting, English lessons for the for
eign born, parliamentary law classes,
public speaking, reading and Eng
lish study classes; citizenship train
ing, dramatics, musical pursuits
such as bands, g1ee clubs, hstru-
mental groups, singing classes and
opera clubs; camera classes and
clubs, model airplane making, ra-
dio and short-wave radio, mechani-
cal institute, civic and social or
ganizations and so on.
One sure way for an alderman to
get elected is to bring home the
bacon to his ward In the form OF
one of these social centers.
The outdoor program of the Board
of Education is likewise impressive
On top of this the Milwaukee
County Park Commission operates
q 5,000-acre park system. Each and
every one of the parks in this sys-
tenn combines something Of beauty
with something of utility, except In
the case of small squares.
Take Whitnall Park for instance
It is an area of 612 acres, about one
third the area of Rock Creek Park
In it are an arboretum building, q
clubhouse. two service ? buildings