Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/195

 .M '//<:. V/Y/'7C VALUE OF THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS iSi

boy problem. It appeals to the toughest gamin, and for the time being makes him quite tractable.

Night school and academy studies. In these classes study is conducted in the spirit of the family group, with the instructor in the social relation of an elder brother or sister. They supply the need of those whose long hours of labor in the shops and factories have robbed their lives of the intellectual and social clement. So instruction is made as pleasant and sociab! possible. A valuable test of the efficacy of the principles under- lying the new education is here being made. No more suggest- ive field of experimental pedagogy can be found than that opened up by the educational work of the social settlements.

The same idea of experimental unification forms the nucleus of the industrial meeting at Chicago Commons. It is not a fixed organization, with complicated machinery of officers and com- mittees to furnish the necessary friction to generate heat. On the contrary, it is an open clearing house for the fair exchange of thought. "All Welcome Free floor No favors!" is the watchword. One of the most radical of the radicals pronounced it "the freest floor in America." Here the single taxer, the socialist, the anarchist, the proportional representationist, the communist, the Christian socialist, the clergyman, the economist, the sociologist, and the capitalist meet on a common floor, and have the extremes rubbed from their theories. No one speaker ever has his own way about it, for he is opposed by strong argu- ments from five or six different schools of opponents. These meetings usually take an ethical turn before the close of the evening. Although the debates seem very shocking to those who hear them for the first time, we who have observed them longest, and know them best, have noticed a hopeful spirit of toleration come, even to the most radical thinkers, after taking part in some of these meetings. Such a result as this certainly has in it a suggestion for the future safety of society.

This function of the settlement as a social clearing house, where rich and poor, learned and ignorant, Catholic and Protes- tant, capitalist and laborer, can meet on common ground and find