ILLUSTRATIONS

The Froebel School[Frontispiece]
The Emerson School[14]
The Swimming-Pool at the Froebel School[22]
The Printing-Shop at the Emerson School[46]
The Machine-Shop at the Emerson School[88]
The History Room at the Emerson School[116]
Drawing from a Model at the Emerson School[140]
The Foundry at the Emerson School[170]

INTRODUCTION

During the past fifteen years I have tried approximately fifty different programs for “work-study-and-play schools.” The several factors in such a school program can be combined in countless ways. I have not tried to design a system or type of school program as a set form that would constitute a universal ideal school for all children. Rather, I have tried to develop a system of school administration that would make possible the providing of a great variety of school types, so that all cities and all of the children in the several parts of a city may have the kind of school they need.

I have had only two fixed principles since I began establishing work-study-and-play schools at Bluffton, Indiana, in the year 1900.

First: All children should be busy all day long at work, study, and play under right conditions.

Second: Cities can finance an adequate work-study-and-play program only when all the facilities of the entire community for the work, study, and play of children are properly coördinated with the school, the coördinating agent, so that all facilities supplement one another and “peak-loads” are avoided by keeping all facilities of the school plant in use all of the time.

At what children work, study, and play; how they work, study, and play; when and where they work, study, and play; what facilities are provided for work, study, and play; and the total and relative amount of time given to work, study, and play;—these may vary with every city and with every school in a city. No set system can possibly meet the needs of all children, nor could a set system be uniformly provided with the existing child-welfare facilities.