Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 23 THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY WORK One of the greatest needs in America today is community work or social service. ‘The purpose of this so-called social service is this: “It endeavors to unite all elements of a community for democratic co-operation in leisure time activities, to increase the joy and well-being of all members of the com- munity through recreation, education, drama, and music, and, primarily, through citizenship, in which all shall be real participants.” Community ser- vice is an agency which is at work to restore among all the people in Ameri- can communities the almost lost art of being neighbors and friends. The pur- pose of a community service is to provide social life for the people. It is for the man who has to work long, hard hours, and who needs recreation, else he will be merely existing, not living. It is for the girl who is away from home and has no place to receive callers, no advantages which are homelike. Social service workers organize clubhouses and recreation centers so that girls will have good places to which to go, so they will not succumb to the in- fluence of the street and cheap theatres. The most common reason why girls leave home is that they are not sat- isfied. In some of the congested sections of cities, New York especially, it is almost impossible to have attractive homes. In these sections, home is a place of shelter, a place to eat and sleep. Consequently, the girl resorts to the street, to cheap places of amusement and the dance hall. Here her life is influenced by low standards of living. All this can be overcome by hay- ing community centers which provide clean, wholesome entertainment. Com- munity centers are needed in the cities and congested districts more than any- where else. They influence girls, inspire, and encourage them to do right, to be better women. This applies to the boys as well as to the girls. In fact, more so, be- cause boys are always a bit more unruly and untrained than girls. In the southern section of New York, the boys in the factory and railroad districts were stealing and destroying property, and doing countless other things to disturb the peace and keep the police and Humane Society busy. The crime wave was steadily increasing when someone suggested that a playground be instituted in this section where clubs could be formed. This was done, and in a comparatively short time, street ruffians were transformed into courte- ous lads of whom the community could be proud, and, as a result, the girls were brought to a higher standard of morality. Superintendent Koerbel of the Juvenile Court of Binghamton says: “Where this office five years ago had in one season 100 cases of thievery, burglary, and misdemeanor from the industrial towns, this season it had just three cases. Five years ago, I spent three afternoons a week in court in the factory centers; now I am in court there on an average of twice a month. Give the boys and girls clean recreation, keep them out of doors and interest- ed in something wholesome, and you will have no trouble with delinquents.” During those five years clubs have been organized, basketball, tennis and oth- er sports introduced, and classes in economics and domestic science started. The result was that crime decreased 96 per cent. Other communities have done the same thing with the same results. Does this not prove that commu- nity work is worth while? To do all this an immense corps of workers is needed. The demand is increasing. At present there is a great shortage of recrea tional workers. The field for social work is constantly growing larger, more workers are there- fore needed. In an effort to obtain additional workers, the Community Ser- vice, Incorporated, with Headquarters in New York City, has established a Personnel Bureau which is co-operating with the Employment Bureau to which persons out of work may go. If any of these applicants have ability along the line of social service, they are given positions in this work.

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22 SOMANELLS. EVENTS Schoolmates: During the past four years we have labored within these familiar halls, and at least a part of that time we have worked side by side with you. Now that the time approaches for us to leave, we know that you will carry on with the same objective for which we have worked to make South Manchester High School a bigger and better school in every way. There is much yet to be accomplished. Debating and Dramatics must be backed by the entire school if they are to continue. The idea of the Stud- ent Council should be supported, for it is an asset to both students and facul- ty. The standards set for athletics are high, but with the material so far dis- covered in S. M. H. S. every team should go strong next year. Freshmen: Your class this year has shown good spirit. Keep it up, and in three years you will have no regrets. With co-operation a class as large as yours can do much toward the bettering of S. M. H. S. Sophomores: Next year you will be upper classmen. See to it that your school does not lack your support. Try out for the teams and support the organizations that the school offers. It will be your duty and privilege as upper classmen to help lead the way. Your showing in athletics has been fine this year, and the school will expect much from you next fall. Juniors: To you falls the responsibility of leadership; from now until you stand here next June it will be your duty to see that the Senior responsi- bilities are carried out. Consider well what is before you, for there is much left to carry on. “Somanhis Events”, our school paper, rated among the leading school papers, will be practically yours. Subscribe for it; contribute to it; back it to the full extent of your power. Try out for the teams; if you do not participate, go to the games and cheer your team on to victory. The upholding and the bettering of South Manchester High School’s standards will give to you a feeling of pride when the time for your leavetaking comes. Classmates: We have only a short time before we must say good-bye to S. M. H. S. In one more week we shall come together for the last time. All our lives we shall look back and think of the happy days we have spent in this school. As a symbol of the start that '23 is making in life we have planted the class ivy this afternoon. Just as the tendrils from that root will spring forth and reach upward, so will the embers of the class of ‘23 branch out; some to further their education at higher institutions, others to enter the business world, but all of us cherishing the remembrance of our high school days and all striving to be a credit to ourselves and to our Alma Mater. Earl Saunders ’23.

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24 SOWA NEL ES=s Je VENTS The following is an illustration of the happiness one worker brought to the hearts of hundreds of children by devoting one hour a week to them. How would you feel if you had to get up every morning at 4:30, water and feed the cows and chickens, go to school, come home and do more chores, have sup- per, and then go to bed at 7:30? Suppose you had to do this week after week, month after month, the only interruption in the program being a Bible class on Sunday morning and a sermon every other Sunday afternoon. If you were between the ages of 12 and 15, wouldn’t you feel that you were being cheated out of life? These conditions are in existence right now at the insti- tutions for the correction of children who have gone astray. These children are not to blame; they are the products of bad home conditions. After a while the minister realized that the children needed more than a Bible class and a sermon on Sunday, so he asked a local community worker to take charge of the program for afternoon. An hour was spent in singing and playing simple games. The children were so grateful, so interested, that it was decided that more Sundays would be spent in songs and games. Just think of the happiness one social worker created in an hour’s fun. With the shortening of working hours there is more need for communi- ty centers because the people, especially the young, have so much more time in which to get into mischief. Many factories are establishing, at a short distance from the plant, recreation centers for their employees. This pro- motes good feeling. An employee is more efficient, more willing to work for his employer’s interests if he knows his employer is interested in him, and is trying to help him in his leisure hours. The Carnegie Steel Company has done much for its 52,000 employees in this way. The Company is divided in- to eighteen plants, each of which has its individual athletic association. In- ter-department and inter-plant championship contests are held in baseball, basketball, football, track and field sports, and the like. The value of a community center is expressed in the following statement made by Father Kervany of California: “The Community Center is the strongest influence that has ever come to this town, and I don't exclude the church when I make this statement.” This priest attends the Center every night because he finds it the best possible means of getting in touch with his people. Dramatic clubs are also of the utmost importance in community work. They are valuable in that they promote art, culture, and sociability. They encourage the foreign-born to dramatize their native customs and traditions, and in learning the plays, they become more familiar with the American peo- ple, their customs and ideals. A community theatre is one of the finest things a town can possess; every dramatic club should aim toward this end. The housing problem in cities is one of the vital problems with which social workers have to contend. Houses are built to hold the largest number of people in the smallest possible space. The increase in the price of land is the cause of this. The results are houses with small dark rooms and halls, unventilated closets used as bedrooms, damp and decaying cellars, hideous sanitary accommodations, dangerous fire risk, dirt, filth, and dilapidation. The people who live in these houses have a low standard of living. Combine these standards with the bad housing conditions, and you have circumstan- ces which are serious physically, socially, and morally. The people are liter- ally herded together, six and seven people living in two rooms. Under con- ditions like these, home life is impossible, and yet sweet, pure home life is the foundation of a sound and healthy society. The slums are the breeding places of intemperance, disease, vice, degeneracy, crime and poverty. They are the cause of the taxes which we have to pay to keep up the institutions which take care of this human wreckage. Miss Harriet Fulmer, Superin- tendent of the Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago, in a paper before the Conference of Charities and Corrections a few years ago, declared: “Two- thirds of the delinquent children, two-thirds of the physically ill children,