Classes in woodwork, basketry, sewing, weaving, and other handicrafts were eagerly patronized. There were also evening clubs where boys and girls who had early left school to work in factories could learn to make things of practical value or listen to reading and the spirited telling of the great world-stories.
One day Miss Addams met a small newsboy as he hastily left the house, vainly trying to keep back signs of grief. "There is no use of coming here any more," he said gruffly; "Prince Roland is dead!"
The evening classes were also social clubs, where the children who seemed to be growing dull and unfeeling like the turning wheels among which they spent their days could relax their souls and bodies in free, happy companionship and get a taste of natural living.
"Young people need pleasure as truly as they need food and air," said Miss Addams. "When I see the throngs of factory-girls on our streets in the evening, it seems to me that the pitiless city sees in them just two possibilities: first, the chance to use their tender labor-power by day, and then the chance to take from them their little earnings at night by appealing to their need of pleasure."
One of the new buildings that was early added to the original Hull-House was a gymnasium, which provided opportunities for swimming, basket-ball, and dancing.
"We have swell times in our Hull-House club," boasted black-eyed Angelina. "Our floor in the gym puts it all over the old dancehalls for a jolly good hop,—no saloon next door with all that crowd, good classy music, and the right sort of girls and fellows. Then sometimes our club has a real party in the coffeehouse. That's what I call a fine, cozy time; makes a girl glad she's living."
Hull-House also puts within the reach of many the things which their active minds crave, and opens the way to a new life and success in the world.
"Don't you remember me?" a rising young newspaper man once said to Miss Addams. "I used to belong to a Hull-House club."
"Tell me what Hull-House did for you that really helped," she took occasion to ask.
"It was the first house I had ever been in," he replied promptly, "where books and magazines just lay around as if there were plenty of them in the world. Don't you remember how much I used to read at that little round table at the back of the library?"