tered among studios, laboratories, gymnasiums, playgrounds, and shops, where they have abundant freedom of movement and expression. Self-direction is everywhere apparent. The objectivity of learning, on which Dr. Montessori insists, is characteristic of Gary; for science is taught in well-equipt laboratories, where the child makes his own observations and experiments; and construction work in shops is done as nearly as possible under real industrial conditions. Play is directed by teachers and older children, but not so rigidly supervised that it becomes work.

When I first read Mme. Montessori's book I was disposed to say: "It is all very well for the kindergarten, but it can not be applied to older children." Since my visit to Gary I am obliged to modify this opinion. Mr. Wirt has broken down the excessive rigidity of the traditional school of which Mme. Montessori complains, and has given us the freedom of the Houses of Children in a wholesome school of study, work, and play, which, like the Casa dei Bambini, takes care of the child all day, gives him reasonable freedom and abundant opportunity for self-direction and self-expression.

P. S. 45 has pretty accurately reproduced the Gary discipline, because Mr. Patri, the principal, believes in that sort of discipline. But if others of my principals prefer some other kind I shall not quarrel with them. The Gary system is not a finished machine, but a plastic organism capable of infinite adjustments. A principal of a Gary school can have any sort of discipline he likes. If he loves

a maximum amount of freedom, he will have Mr. Patri's kind or Mr. Wirt's kind. If he prefers the military or semi-military kind, I believe he can have that without destroying the usefulness of the Gary idea. But even in our most rigidly governed schools the children in shops, kitchen, and playground enjoy reasonable freedom of speech and action; and as a Gary school devotes so much more time and space to these special activities, it naturally affords a larger proportion of legitimate freedom to children than the traditional school.

INDUSTRIAL CREDIT

The characteristic feature of the vocational side of the Gary schools is that the work is made as practical as possible. The pedantic notions of the schoolmaster are eliminated, and the industrial conditions of actual life are incorporated into the school program. The product of the shops must meet the standard of the trade in quality of workmanship. The school repairs and much of the school equipment are the work of the shops. In Gary this work is financed by crediting a certain part of the maintenance fund to each shop. When another department orders material or secures labor from any shop, that department is debited for the service at trade rates and the shop receives credit. Some such plan should at once be devised in New York. It is proposed to establish more than a hundred shops in the twelve schools of my district whose reorganization has been authorized by the board of education. P. S. 45 is to have a forge and a foundry. Probably none of the other schools will have these two shops; but they will need castings and forgings which P. S. 45 can furnish; and there should be inaugurated a system whereby debits and credits for such work may be centrally recorded. In this way the city will be able to cause its maintenance fund to perform the double service of keeping the schools in repair and educating the children who do the work.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION

Our program in P. S. 45 is so arranged that Divisions 3 and 4 of the X and Y schools may be excused for religious instruction in churches. This includes the children of the first four years of the course. Division 4 of the Y school may be excused for religious instruction for 80 minutes from 8.30 to 9.50. During the next 80-minute period, from 9.50 to 11. 10, Division 4 of the X school is excused. From 1.10 to 2.30 Division 3 of the Y school may go; and from 2.30 to 3.50 Division 3 of the X school is available. Thus the churches are able to employ religious teachers for 220 minutes during school hours, and our pro

gram is so arranged that these children have 80 minutes of free time each day, which is not taken out of the five hours prescribed by the by-laws, and which may be employed at the discretion of the parents. The program at the beginning of this article shows that no children are sent to church from school and back again to school in the same half-day session. They stop at the church on their way to school or on their way home from school. If they were not at church they would be at home or on the street. The school has not room to care for them for more than five hours.

Even while P. S. 45 was a part-time school, Rev. Father J. A. Caffuzzi of the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 927 East 187th Street, picked up some of our children when we sent them out upon the street and gave them religious instruction between the sessions of our classes. He was the first (and thus far the only one) to avail himself of the opportunity which the Gary program offers for more systematic instruction in religion.

The religious organizations of New York are profoundly interested in the opportunities offered by the Gary plan for religious instruction by the churches. How to separate secular from religious instruction in our democratic form of government, so as to provide for a sufficient amount of each form of instruction for the full and harmonious development of the child, is the problem which educators have tried to solve for many years; and a committee has been organized here which will endeavor to work out some way of solving this vexing problem.

The Interchurch Committee on Religious Education which has been appointed for this work is as follows:

Catholics (4)--Hon. John Whalen, 206 Broadway, City; Miss Mary L. Brady, P. S. 177, 46 Monroe Street, City; Miss Catharine McCann, P. S. 17, Forty-seventh Street and Eighth Avenue; Rev. Dr. Caffuzzi, 627 East 187th Street, City.

Jews (4)-Rev. Dr. Periera Mendes, 99 Central Park West; Rev. Dr. Maurice Harris, 254 East 103rd Street; Rev. J. L. Magnes, 356 Second Avenue, United Hebrew

Charities; Leon W. Goldrich, P. S. 62, Hester and Essex Streets.

Episcopalians (4)—Bishop F. Courtney, 31 East Seventyfirst Street; Very Rev. William H. Pott, 2041 Fifth Avenue; Rev. W. B. Stevens, St. Ann's Rectory, 141st Street and St. Ann's Avenue; Dr. Abby Porter Leland, 420 West Twentieth Street.

Baptists (2)-Rev. Albert G. Lawson, Ocean View Avenue, Jamaica, L. I.; Rev. Robert G. Boville, Bible House.

Methodists (3)-Bishop L. B. Wilson, 150 Fifth Avenue; Rev. Charles W. Flint, 1294 Dean Street, Brooklyn; Rev. Allen MacRossie, 150 Fifth Avenue.

Congregationalists (2) The Rev. Lewis T. Reed, 335 Rugby Road, Brooklyn; the Rev. Charles E. Jefferson, D.D., 121 West Eighty-fifth Street.

Presbyterians (4)-Dr. Anthony H. Evans, 336 West 86th Street; Dr. Harlen G. Mendenhall, 311 West 75th Street; Dr. Paul S. Lembach, 600 West 146th Street; Dr. Walter Laidlaw, 200 Fifth Avenue.

Lutherans (2)-The Rev. Dr. G. U. Wenner, 319 East 19th Street.

Moravians (1) The Rt. Rev. Morris W. Leibert, 112 Lexington Avenue.

Reformed Church (2)—The Rev. Henry E. Cobb, D.D., West End Avenue and Seventy-seventh Street; Darwin L. Bardwell, 131 St. Mark's Place, New Brighton, S. I.

Universalists (1)-The Rev. Frank Oliver Hall, D.D., 4 West Seventy-sixth Street.

Unitarians (1)O. Ellery Edwards, 233 Broadway, City. Disciples of Christ (1) The Rev. James M. Phillputt, D.D., 142 West Eighty-first Street.

Non-Conformist-Dr. Ira S. Wile, 230 West Ninetyseventh Street.

And one representative for each of the following denominations: Evangelical, Friends, Greek Catholic, United Presbyterian, and Reformed Episcopal.

This committee is ready to extend the work to all the Gary

schools of The Bronx as soon as the new program shall have gone into effect.1

LIMITATIONS

The school has a modified Gary program, but it lacks very many of the facilities that are necessary for a satisfactory alternation of study, work, and play. Our most serious handicap is lack of play room. Unless the board of education secures more play space we shall never be able properly to care for three thousand children on inclement days. Our basement and gymnasium are overcrowded now all the time. It is this congestion which gives some of our visitors the impression that a Gary school is confusing and nerve-racking. We have three classes in the gymnasium at a time. One class is quite sufficient. During the changes the halls are crowded. This is because the school was meant to accommodate about half as many children as are now using it. It is my opinion that in future the halls of school buildings should be at least ten feet wide. Teachers' rooms and toilets are also inadequate, for the reason that the number using these facilities is nearly double the number planned for. Our garden space is generous, but it is all contributed; and sooner or later we shall have to give it up, except the portion which is in Bronx Park. If future park commissioners are as enlightened as the present incumbent we shall always keep that.

Most of the shops and laboratories are not properly located and equipt. For instance, the room used by the cooking classes as a laboratory is little more than a closet. The sewing class is housed in a teachers' room. The pottery is in a dark cellar, where artificial light is always necessary. The drawing and music studios have only the equipment of an ordinary classroom. One science room has a demonstration table, the other has no special equipment.

1 Since the above was written there has been carried on a better debate in public meetings and the press, on the religious phase here described. As religious teaching is no essential part of the Gary system, but merely a possible opportunity, the agitation now going on may result in the idol elimination of religious teaching in connection with the Gary schools in New York.