Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/66



up when school is out. Don’t you think it would be nice if the mothers could go there, and the girls, and learn to sew and other things? I’d like to have a gymnasium in the schools; and a swimming tank. The schools ought to be the place where the people of the neighbourhood go to read and hear lectures, and hold meetings, and for the children to play. Do you think that is foolish?”

He hadn’t read of the efforts elsewhere for these ends. He was glad to know his scheme had struck others as feasible.

“I don’t see why things shouldn’t be useful, like that, and pretty. Do you think it would be foolish — I haven’t talked about this to the others, but do you think it would be so foolish to have flowers in the schools?”

“Why do you care about other people?” I asked. “You seem to like men. Do you really?”

His look answered that, but he went on to talk about his boyhood and his experiences as an undertaker. These would make anybody like the people, he thought.

“What do you mean by the people?” I asked. “The poor people? The working people? When you address a crowd, do you appeal to labour as labour, to the unions, for example?”

“Oh, no. I never do that. I mean everybody.