Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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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,

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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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SiOuvicAsN EMS EV NT 2 un one-third of the mentally deficient, one-third of the shiftless mothers, and two-thirds of the deserting fathers come from homes where dirty and ill ven- tilated rooms predominate. To bad living quarters can easily and without exaggeration be attributed two-thirds of the necessity for much that we call ‘problems in our reform work’.” Community houses can overcome a great deal of this. Their influence improves the standards of the people. Social workers are endeavoring to im- prove the housing conditions through the legislatures, and they have already accomplished much in this way. Many social workers are needed also in the medical department. The care of children is especially important. The following is an illustration: A baby was suffering from stomach trouble and was taken to a hospital. In five weeks it was cured at a cost of thirty dollars, and was returned to its mother without any instructions as to the care of it. This is the weakest point with most hospitals. They do not make sufficient connection between the patients in the institution and their lives before and after. All our hos- pitals write on the patient's history when he leaves: “Discharged—cured” ; “Discharged—relieved” ; “Discharged—dead”; and there the function of the doctor ends. The hospital ought to see that someone else provides “after care.” The baby was “discharged—cured” into the arms of a generous, whole-souled mother who wanted to give her children the best of everything. The child got a hair-raising assortment of food, and in a few weeks was re- turned to the hospital precisely as ill as before. Again thirty dollars worth of cure was spent. Again the baby was turned over “cured” to its uninstruc- ted mother, and again the trouble recurred. If the mother had been given proper instructions about the baby’s diet, it would not have been ill again. It would not have taken much time or any money except a few dollars to a paid social worker to do what the hospital had hitherto failed to do, and thus the mother might have been guided correctly in the care of her child. Recreation work is growing rapidly, especially in the cities. During the year 1922 over nine and one-third million dollars were spent on public recrea- tion. According to reports, one-half million more was spent last year than in the previous year. For example, Detroit increased its budget for 1922 by $200,000; Indianapolis increased its appropriation from $63,855 to $101,805; and Scranton, Pennsylvania increased its expenditures for recreation from $22,000 to $54,000. The results in good citizenship and good health are evi- dent. A western mayor is quoted as saying: “It is a case of more play- grounds or more money for juvenile courts.” People are generous in giving money and land to promote recreation. A $200,000 golf course was given to Salt Lake City, and land valued at $75,000 was given to Lebanon, New Hampshire. Detroit is especially active in this work, Eight swimming pools are situated in various parts of the city. Miles of artificial canals have been built where the people can canoe in safety dur- ing the summer, and skate in the winter. In Oakland, California, provisions were made so that every boy and girl above the fifth grade could learn to play tennis. All cities are progressing. We read what this city is doing, and what some other city is doing, but now we are reading what Hartford, our city, is doing. A little over a year ago, two club houses were finished, one for men, the other for women. Each one is equipped with a dance hall, rest and club rooms, shower baths, and similar facilities. Near these houses are two base- ball fields, six tennis courts, four handball courts, two basketball courts, a running track, and a picnic grove with ovens and fireplaces. This is what the Travelers’ Insurance Company has contributed to Hartford. Special cars go to the club houses after business hours, The Hartford Fire Insurance Company is doing a great deal for the hap- piness of its employees. The company is famous for the part it played in paying the tremendous claims that arose after the fires at Baltimore, Chi-