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studios. So we say when we think of the future. the studios are just two ordinary classrooms. The children have a lesson of forty minutes every day for thirteen weeks.

THE AUDITORIUM

P. S. 45 has a fine auditorium seating about four hundred, equipt with a moving picture booth, a screen for stereopticon, a grand piano, and a victrola. The board of education originally intended that this large room, containing eight classroom units and costing approximately $60,ooo (at the usual rate of $8,000 per classroom unit), should be used fifteen minutes each day. So the time schedule of the course of study informs us. In this way 400 children could use it 75 minutes a week. By the Gary plan 3,000 children use the auditorium 40 minutes a day. It is in continuous operation for 320 minutes. Every good principal knows, and every citizen who was once a pupil under a good principal knows what a fine opportunity the general assembly affords for the creation of ethical standards, school spirit, and high ideals of life. Here the head of the school may impress himself indelibly upon the heart of every child. What a pity, then, that in the past we have made so little use of this magnificent opportunity. Fifteen minutes a day for a small fraction of the school, when we might have had 40 minutes for all the children without encroaching upon their study time.

The value, scope, type, and variety of the assembly exercises depend upon the intelligence and ingenuity of the directing head. The Gary school uses the auditorium to bring before all the children specimens of the work of every department. This is the only chance children of one class have to learn what their friends in other classes are doing. In P. S. 45 we have much singing. We also have dancing and gymnastics. Some mornings are given up to authors whom children love. Thus, we have had Robert Louis Stevenson days, when children would tell the story of his life and recite scores of his poems of childhood. We have had grand opera days, when the victrola

(purchased by the school) would permit the children to hear the great artists of the Metropolitan opera house. We have had plays written, coached, staged, and performed by the children. Some of these literary and musical programs are organized and graded so as to run through an entire month or term.

PLAY

Every child in P. S. 45 has 40 minutes of play time in school. If we had more room we might have more. We are sadly cramped for play space. We use the basement, the gymnasium (only one and a half classroom units), the street, and a vacant lot. In bad weather we have to abandon the street and lot and play in the yard. The basement, however, on such occasions, is terribly overcrowded and insufficiently ventilated. Additional play room is absolutely essential, and the board of education should at once acquire for the school the vacant lot which we now use for play purposes. There are four teachers who direct the play-two women and two men. Nine classes are at play at one time and the play spaces are in use continuously. The asphalted street in front of the school is officially closed to vehicular traffic during school hours and makes an excellent playground in fair weather.

THE PUPILS' POINT OF VIEW.

From the above account one learns how this school impresses an adult onlooker. How does it look from within to the pupil? In order to be able to answer this question I became a pupil in one of the classes for one entire school day. The class I joined was an 8B boys.

From 8.30 to 9. 10 we had history in Room 412 by Mr. Joseph F. Condon. The lesson was a discussion of the important dates of the grade.

From 9.10 to 9.50 we had geography in Room 304 under Mr. Julius W. Meyers. The lesson was a discussion of industries and occupations as dependent upon climate and surface. The particular topics treated were coal and silver production, quarrying, and water power. The

children were taught the use of reference books, and were making outlines in their notebooks. I considered the lesson in every way admirable.

From 9.50 to 10.30 we were in the auditorium, which was in charge of Mr. Condon; Mr. Meyers at the piano. Mrs. Patrick led the assembly singing. The principle exercises, aside from the singing, consisted of the production of a play entitled, The star wife, which was written by an 8A girl by the name of Rose Gise. First the story was told by Elsie Welden, another 8A girl. The story is well written. The dramatization was crude, as it was the children's own idea and had never been rehearsed by a teacher. The school was intensely interested in the play.

From 10.30 to II. IO we had play. The class was divided into two squads. One squad went to the playground across the way and played baseball. Another squad was divided up into leaders who were put in charge of squads of smaller children, directing their play. The men in charge of this play period were Mr. John Molloy and Mr. Harold N. Lefkowitz. These two men, with the aid of the SB leaders already mentioned, conduct the play activity of five squads.

From 11.10 to 12. 10 we had lunch.

From 12.10 to 1.10 we had reading in Room 304 under Mr. Meyers. Subject: The play of Julius Caesar. The boys have made an outline of the play, act by act and scene by scene, and were engaged in reading scene first of act two. They were very much interested and the lesson was very satisfactory.

From 1.10 to 1.50 we were again in Room 304 under Mr. Meyers in language. This time the lesson consisted of a review of the parts of speech, more particularly the person, number, gender, and case of nouns and pronouns.

From 1.50 to 2.30 we were in Room 310 for arithmetic under Mr. Alfred Rado. He taught compound interest. One section was always working at the board and the other section at the seats. After each problem errors on the

board were pointed out and questions answered. The teaching seemed to me excellent.

The science

The section

From 2.30 to 3.50 the class was divided up for special activities. Thirteen went to the shop for manual training; nineteen went to the science room; and nine went to Bronx Park for gardening. As the garden is half a mile or more from the school, I did not go to the garden. I divided my time between the shop and the science room. room is in charge of Mr. William Jansen. consists of the 19 8B boys already mentioned, and some 6th year children who are assigned to this room to observe the older boys. These boys are here because the school is not yet equipt with all the shops it needs. I do not think, neither does the principal, that the 6th year boys should be with the 8th year boys for this work, but pending the construction of shops we think it is better to have them here than to send them to the street. The lesson consisted

of a brief explanation of a pin-hole camera. The boys were asked to make these at home as they had opportunity. The rest of the hour was taken up by considering the composition of the air, the making of oxygen, and various experiments of combustion in oxygen, together with an application of the principles thus developed, to the practical affairs of life, chiefly the hygiene of air.

The shop is in charge of Mr. Benjamin Baumritter. In addition to the thirteen 8B boys, he has seven 6th year boys as helpers. Three of the 8B boys are assigned to the carpenter as helpers. The objects under construction are

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I enjoyed the day very much and am sure that the day was exceedingly profitable to the boys as well as pleasant. It was a long day and probably satisfies all the demands of the boy for play and work.

DISCIPLINE

Some visitors to P. S. 45 are shocked by what they think is lax discipline. They see the children, while the changes between periods occur, walking thru the yards and halls without line formation and talking to each other. In the auditorium, too, they see less rigidity than is customary in our New York schools.

(1) Class Discipline.—In the recitation rooms, however, where the academic teaching is done, the visitor finds the same sort of discipline that any good teacher demands. On examination it will be found that the freedom which children enjoy on the playground and in the halls is liberty which is given to them; it is not liberty which they take. It will be found further that the freedom is quite innocent and harmless. There is no evidence of viciousness in the form of defaced walls or desks. So far as outward appearances go the children are not conscious of doing any wrong.

(2) Theory of Discipline.--This brings up the general question of what is good school discipline. Certain known dates make it evident that Mr. Wirt owes nothing to Mme. Montessori. It is but eight years since the opening of the first Children's House in Rome, and only three years since her method was given to the American public in authorized form. Mr. Wirt has had his plans in operation for fourteen years and the Gary schools were organized by him about the time when Mme. Montessori first began the application of her method to normal children.

Yet there is a remarkable similarity between the two systems. A visitor to Gary, familiar with the Montessori method, will at once exclaim: "Why, here is Montessori discipline applied to elementary and high school grades.' The children of Gary have achieved freedom. They sing and chatter as they wander or skip thru the wide corridors of the school. They have no fear of authority; yet they do not overstep the bounds of good breeding and they conserve the collective interest. They are not strapped to stationary desks for five hours a day. They sit in such desks about two hundred minutes and then they are scat

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