Page 54 - 1913 November - To Dragma

TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI 59

encouraging organized athletics, folk dancing and school gardening.
Nearly every school has its athletic league, and the various schools
meet in friendly contests. Folk dancing is taught in many of the
schools. In the school gardens, the boys and girls are learning to
dig and plant, obtaining a life-long interest in nature. The City
Federation has offered to cooperate with the School Board by furnish-
ing prizes for home gardens kept by the school children.

There are two gymnasiums here, one, the Marti Behrman, at
Prytania street and Washington avenue, the other, the Wiltz, in the
neighborhood of Spain and Mandeville streets. Admission is easy
to obtain and many have benefited by the gymnasium work.

There are thirty buildings in New Orleans available for public
lectures or night meetings. Courses of lectures have been planned
and carried on, but the talks have either been too long, or the sub-
jects not especially appealing, and they have never been a very great
success. There is development needed along this line. The School
Board encourages the use of the schools for entertainment purposes.
Any educational association not directly connected with the public
schools, and even though charging admission, may utilize any school
building free. For instance, the Story Tellers' League secured the
Sophie B. Wright High School for an evening, and admission was
charged. I t is interesting to mention here that Tulane charges five
dollars for Gibson Hall if admission is asked, while Newcomb
charges fifteen dollars for a free lecture and forty for one with ad-
mission.

The social center is a new thing in New Orleans, and as yet there
are no evening recreation centers and study classes. A short time
ago the City Federation, an organization composed of the women's
and men's clubs of New Orleans, began a movement for a social
center. Finally, on April 26, 1913, the first "Social Center Enter-
tainment" was held in the Jefferson School, in the Lane mill district
of this city. A short program was arranged, with several musical
numbers and a talk on "Home and School Gardens," given by Mr.
George Maxwell and illustrated with moving pictures. I wish every
one could have seen the packed kindergarten room, the hundreds
of mothers present, with the tense, live interest depicted on their
tired faces, the children crowding at the doors and windows, beg-
ging to be let in, and I wish everyone could have heard the whole
building reverberate with the enthusiastic chorus to the tune of
"Mr. Dooley:"

It's at the center,
The social center,
The place where everybody feels at home,