Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/652

 636 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

wide-awake session of the Woman's Club is at its climax, the

.nasium is mildly noisy with its afternoon classes of girls, and from far up in the upper story come sounds of the chil- dren's chorus.

The applicants for employment make way with intervals for ventilation to the children's sewing class which comes tumultuously from school. Here and there, in corners slightly secluded, are single pupils a bright boy out of working hours getting uj) his Greek for college, an elderlv Russian plodding slowly along some bit of English text, or an eager young Jew making the crooked ways of his letters straight all this with

-tance of someone in the house.

The six o'clock dinner hour brings the household and its guests together in the beautiful dining room. This is the meet- ing ground of the day. Here the generalizations of the over young are discouraged with kindness and qualifying facts ; here are the all-experienced induced to reconsider and admit another fact of the great truth ; here is the free play of the indi- vidual with enough of friction to stimulate and enough of the juice of humor to sweeten. Thus the social consciousness of the living house grows. There may be a very radical end or a very conservative middle at the long oval but there is always a fair field and fair play.

In this general life the private affairs of the residents become shadowy, yet mothers have been seen there plainly visiting their children ; men have been known to come with motives not severely altruistic ; there have actually been engagements, and to an interested friend from the far West who asked breathlessly, "Do they marry:'" one might answer with truth, "Often, alas! often."

The leisurely last moments of the dinner hour are apt to be invaded by the classes, and from now on there is a riot of young people. The studious and there are many attend the Extension classes, which cover almost the entire ground of the teaching branches, ranging from clay modeling to psy- chology, from grammar to Dante, from embroidery to trig- onometry. The younger and gayer crowd, the dancing and