purpose of the league, therefore, is not to make of its members absorbed little civic specialists, but to make the boy's natural athletic life develop into good citizenship. The league has spent much of its time and energy in athletics. Baseball, basket-ball, and boxing have predominated. For example, last summer we had a regular baseball league organized, which played off a series of sixty-four games. Each team represented one block. Each block had to sign its players, and professional regulations were pretty closely adhered to. At first the games very much resembled a vigorous debating tournament, the subjects of discussion being the umpire's decisions, and of course every game ended in a free fight, "to prove it." But by the time the summer was half over, the umpire's decision, never mind how objectionable, was never questioned, and even after the last, the championship game, there was no disturbance.

The civic instruction is given principally, through a series of cards, which are issued to the members of the league about once in three weeks. The cards are 7 by 9 inches in size, of good lasting material, and have a hole near the top to hang them on the wall. The subjects so far treated are:

1. Keep your street clean.

2. Take care of your garbage.
3. Colonel George E. Waring.
4. Put only ashes in your ash-can.
5. Have gentlemanly manners.
6. Tie up rubbish in bundles.
7. Help clean away the snow.

8. Report dead animals for removal.

These cards give a few simple directions as to what to do; then, under the word "Because," printed in large letters, brief reasons therefor, and finally, in smaller type, a paragraph of pertinent information on the subject; as, for example, in No. 2, what becomes of the garbage, how it is taken away and made into marketable products, or, in No. 4, how the ashes are taken to Riker's Island to make land for the city at a saving of probably $2,000 per acre. At the bottom of every card is the suggestion, "Keep this card carefully. Hang it up in your home." The third card in the series gives a short account of the life of Colonel Waring, with a portrait produced from "StreetCleaning and Its Effects," by permission of Doubleday, Page, and Company, and an estimate of his work quoted from an address by the present commissioner, John McGaw Woodbury. These cards are prepared with the assistance of the experts of the departments con

cerned, and usually had the benefit of the criticism of the commissioner before being printed. The effort has been to make them as simple as possible, but absolutely correct.

Distributed to the boys through their gang-leaders and club captains, these cards were valued by the boys and by their families, and they were kept. In certain specific instances we know of cards that have been kept in the homes for over a year, for over a year and a half. For example, when it was deemed advisable to have a reissue of some earlier card, frequently boys have come up and said, "I have that. I have Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 5. Can I get 4?"

The effectiveness of the work is considerable. For example, take card No. 1, "Keep your street clean," when first issued, the boys would keep their block quite immaculate for about two weeks-the average lifetime of their civic enthusiasm for one particular thing. Then it would be time to issue card No. 2. But there was almost always a decided general improvement, such that the foreman of the street-cleaning department would notice.

The league is now concentrating its attention upon the establishment of work of this character permanently in the city's educational system. Private money can well work out the scheme and devise methods on a unit basis, but private money cannot of course carry such work on any scale sufficiently large to accomplish substantial results in the civic training of the boyhood of the city. How can this work be carried on in the public schools? No argument is needed on the point that the board of education is the proper agency to carry on this work. It is public work; it is educational work; the schools already have, in large measure, the working force and equipment for much of the work in their teachers and playgrounds and roof-gardens. None the less, to be practicable, to stand any chance of adoption, the scheme presented to the board of education must be one which will not require any material change in the curriculum, will not add to the labors of the already over-worked teachers, and will not entail very much additional'expense.

FEDERATING CHURCH WORK FOR BOYS IN LARGE CITIES

PROFESSOR EDWIN J. HOUSTON, PH.D.

PRESIDENT OF THE BOYS' BROTHERHOOD OF PHILADELPHIA; PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA ALLIANCE OF WORKERS WITH BOYS

Church work among boys will be greatly improved by its intelligent federation. This federation should not only begin in the Sunday school of each church, but should, I think, begin in each class of the Sunday school.

Regarding the Sunday school of each church as a unit, this unit properly consists of a number of smaller units consisting of the separate classes. The best work to be accomplished will depend to a great extent upon the intelligence and care that have been exercised in forming such classes. Instead of leaving the membership of each class a matter of chance, as is unfortunately too often done, the proper selection of its members should be regarded as a matter of the greatest importance. This selection should include the important question of age, mental ability and social position, this last consideration being handled delicately. As far as possible, the members of a Sunday school class should be selected from the same type of boys. Of course, this will not always be possible, but it is at least advisable.

The object of carefully selecting the members of each class is for the purpose of associating together in each class boys who will be as nearly as possible associated together during the week-days in their work, in their games, exercises, etc. In all classes where such a unit is established, the work of the Sunday school will go on much more smoothly, the attendance will be better, and the interest in the work will be greatly increased.

The proper units having been formed in the separate classes, an endeavor should then be made to federate the work of these classes in each Sunday school. Limiting my remarks now to the question of the boys' side of the school, I think it would be advisable, as far as possible, to establish such a federation of classes in the school as will permit some of the boys taking part in the management of the school, that is, forming its officers.

After the work of federation in the Sunday school has been effected, the more important question arises of federating the boys' work undertaken in each church throughout the city. This federation can either be denominational or interdenominational. So far as boys' work is

concerned, I think it will be found that the advantages will lie mainly on the side of some kind of interdenominational federation.

All successful work for the betterment of the growing boy, whether undertaken by the church or by organization from outside the church, must necessarily be based on the boy's peculiarities or characteristics. I will refer only to some of the more important of these.

The boy must be provided with playmates or co-workers. Call them what you will, they are what the boy calls his crowd or gang. The boy is not a solitary individual, but likes crowds. These he will find; so that it is of prime importance, in the first place, to provide for him a safe crowd of playfellows. In all localities, especially in large cities, it is by no means an easy matter to provide unobjectionable playmates. It is unsafe, however, to leave such selection to the boys themselves. The best work for boys is that which carefully considers this need.

2. The boy likes to take part in any work that is undertaken on his behalf. The most successful work is that in which the boy himself takes a large part. In such cases, however, the limitations of childhood must be carefully borne in mind. In other words, the work must be properly directed by adults, who constitute the court of final resort for all cases the boys themselves are unable properly to handle.

3. The greatest need of the growing boy is to afford him some opportunity for expending that wonderful excess of energy with which nature has supplied him, and which is absolutely necessary for his continued successful growth. As you all know, one of the best marked characteristics of the growing boy is his restless activity. He is fairly bubbling over with energy, too often misdirected, and generally thoughtlessly expended. It is this characteristic of boyhood that makes the boy so undesirable a companion to all who fail to understand him. But I think it needs no argument to prove that the greatest part of what passes with many as the natural wickedness or innate depravity of boys is only the necessity that exists for the boy to indulge in what I have ventured to call "physiological explosions." Such explosions, or excessive expenditures of energy, are absolutely necessary for his proper growth, and so far from regarding them as evidences of total depravity, I hail them as among the best evidences of something of value in the boy; i. e., energy that requires only intelligent direction.

Now, for successful work among boys in the Sunday school, all of these peculiarities must be taken into account. This is the reason for carefully determining the membership of the separate classes, for federating the classes into a unit at the Sunday school, and subse

quently for federating the separate Sunday schools of the entire city into a larger unit, either in the form of a denominational or an interdenominational union.

But it is the work which must be carried on outside of the Sunday school, during the week-days, that it is most difficult for the Sunday school to provide, and this especially as regards the necessity for the boy to safely find a vent for his superfluous energy. Where the church has been properly provided with a parish house or other church building equipped with a gymnasium, etc., the work can, to a certain extent, be carried on in such places. There are, however, certain serious objections that have been found to be invariably connected with work of this character. Some of the most important of these are as follows:

1. The necessity for separate gymnasium buildings for men and young boys. Whatever advantages may exist from a theoretical standpoint in having one gymnasium where both adults and young boys can exercise, the experience of nearly every one, I believe, has shown that work under these conditions will not be successful. It is possible, and indeed advisable, to carry on such work for men and the older boys, say boys over seventeen or eighteen, but for boys between ten and seventeen, a necessity exists for separate buildings.

2. A lack of the crowd element, or of a sufficient number of playfellows. Where a separate gymnasium or recreation house has been established in any Sunday school, much good work can be done among its boys. As a rule, however, such work, if limited to the boys immediately connected with the Sunday School and church, will not be very successful, nor is the reason difficult to find. The element of the crowd will generally be lacking. There are very few Sunday schools that have a sufficient attendance to make such gymnasium attractive.

3. A lack of opportunities for competition. As soon as a class of boys makes a certain advance in gymnastic work, a natural desire exists to compete with other classes of boys. For this purpose some kind of federation of the Sunday school associations must be made.

4. The lack of an athletic field or grounds where such games as baseball, football, cricket, etc., can be played. Our large cities are generally deficient in large playgrounds for the children and athletic fields for the boys. Even if such a field were provided for individual churches, the lack of the crowd element which could best be obtained by federation would be a serious drawback to the work.

But I would not limit the federation of the church work to the gymnastic side. There are other divisions of boys' work, such as find expression in the camping club, the debating club, the camera club,