Scout groups, both boys and girls, etc. As an example, however, because of the tremendous work that is being done by the Young Men's Christian Association along recreation lines in Chicago, a statement regarding their activities might prove of interest, and helpful.

There are thirteen separate branches of the Young Men's Christian Association throughout the city, and the buildings and property are valued approximately at $7,000,000. All these buildings have the standard equipment, including gymnasiums, athletic field, swimming tanks, etc. In addition to this equipment, the Association owns eight summer camps.

During the year 1924, 43,340 different members availed themselves of the privileges of the Association. The total attendance at gymnasium classes for the year was 267,000, a total of 658,000 making use of the physical recreation privileges. Thirty-eight physical education teachers are employed during the year to carry on that end of the program. The 43,340 membership just referred to represents 33,806 men and 9,533 boys.

At a meeting of public-spirited people of Chicago, held December, 1920, for the purpose of discussing problems relating to boys' work, it was decided that inquiry into existing conditions was necessary. This resulted in a study which was made under the auspices of the Council of Social Agencies, and included in the study committee members of the outstanding boys' clubs. The inquiry concerned itself, among other things, with Chicago's boy power, destructive influences, crowded living conditions, commercialized amusements, independent clubs, and many other similar phases.

The inquiry showed that there were approximately 325,000 boys between the ages of ten and twenty in Chicago, and that influencing this army of boys there are numerous destructive, as well as numerous constructive, agencies. The purpose of the committee was to get information concerning the constructive work being done for Chicago's boys, but in the process of the inquiry attention was called to the many destructive influences. Among those were the difficulty of crowded living conditions. Membership in an organized boys' club is a wonderful influence in the life of a boy living in the crowded quarters of a big city, but when one remembers that the boy comes from a neighborhood where there are 7,000 people in one square mile, that in spite of the excellent facilities spoken of in this paper, the street is still the usual background for a large proportion of them where most of the families are so crowded, one realizes that no matter how many and how efficient boys' clubs in the city are, they cannot do the whole job.

The committee further discovered that there were, at the time of the inquiry, 445 public dance halls, 432 public poolrooms, 387 picture shows, and scores of penny arcades; that the number of dance halls referred to, conducted in an orderly and decent fashion, are decidedly in the minority; that these dance halls are usually poorly ventilated and supervised; and that often young men attend them with the sole purpose of meeting girls for immoral purposes.

In the 102 poolrooms recently visited by the Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, there was a total of 69 violations, 18 admitting minors, 41 allowing gambling, and 4 permitting disorderly conduct.

The following observations were made of moving picture advertising on one day, late in the month of January: Within one block on Madison Street, in 250 full-length photographs and drawings of people used in display posters and advertising at the front of the theatres, four were shown playing cards, four drinking, twenty-four spooning, thirteen using revolvers, seventy persons in fighting attitudes, and twenty-three showing various parts of the nude human body. In the penny arcades the pictures are quite generally suggestive.

And then, too, there were discovered a great many independent clubs, or so-called "athletic organizations," composed of older boys and young men. These represent the gradual transformation from the gang stage in which they existed as a group of younger boys. Some of these clubs have formerly been members of the settlements and of other boys' clubs, but when the demand of the club for a room of its own and more athletic privileges could not be met, the group left and rented its own rooms. The Stockyards Community Clearing House knows of twenty-three of these independent clubs in its immediate neighborhood. A boy-work leader on the North Side observed six of them along three miles of one street.

Few of these athletic clubs have athletic equipment of any sort, though some have gymnasium privileges in the neighborhood organizations. Most of them could probably be better termed "pleasure clubs." They hold picnics and dances, both for pleasure and financial gain. Police officers tell of a few which practice holdups and robbery inside of the clubrooms.

The United States Census of 1920 tells us that there are in Chicago 111,565 girls between the ages of ten and fourteen, and 104,533 between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, making a total of 216,098 between the ages of ten and nineteen. Practically all of those between the ages of ten and fourteen, and many of those between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, go to school. Most of them use the parks, playgrounds, public libraries, museums, and recreation centers open to them, and many of them take part in activities directed by both the public and private enterprises. There is, however, the commercial recreational lure. The entire task of caring for the leisure time of the young girl is not taken care of wholly by the tax-supporting agencies. The commercial agencies, run by private individuals or corporations for private gain, make contributions toward the whole subject of recreation, and cannot be entirely disregarded.

The 387 moving picture theaters previously referred to have a seating capacity of 205,511 and an estimated daily attendance of 325,000 people. Eleven of the dance halls referred to have a floor capacity of 1,500 and over, and one of them is said to accommodate as many as 10,000 persons. There are four halls with a capacity of from 1,000 to 1,500; thirty-nine ranging from 500

to 1,000. None of these halls are open every night in the week, to be sure; Saturday and Sunday nights are the most popular, and attract the largest attendances. Dance halls attract approximately 125,000 every Saturday and Sunday night. They are not localized places of amusement, but draw patrons from all over the city.

Public cabarets also attract a large number of people. Although they do not reach as many young girls as picture theaters and dance halls do, they carry a far more insidious influence, and present a problem that is harder to solve.

There are, beside the two kinds of recreational facilities provided by the public taxation and private enterprises, a group of privately endowed and supported agencies, some of which are practically self-supporting from dues and other sources, which provide a great many different educational and recreational opportunities for the people of Chicago. Among these, a report of the girls' work in Chicago cites settlements, neighborhood centers, institutions under religious leadership, churches, clubs, and young people's organizations, and such other national groups as the Young Women's Christian Association, the Girl Scouts, and Camp Fire Girls. They provide an extensive and varied program of interest, from which the girls have only to choose what most appeals to them.

The Young Women's Christian Association has a central branch in the downtown district, which is equipped with women's gymnasium, swimming pool, and lunchroom, where the girls in business may come during the noon hour and eat lunches they have brought from home. In addition to the central branch there are two West Side clubhouses and a health education center, which likewise has the usual recreational and physical facilities.

An exceedingly interesting study of the whole girls' problem of Chicago has been prepared under the direction of the Committee on Girls' Work of the Chicago Council of Social Agencies, by Harriet Jane Comstock, only a few months ago, and is fully worthy of your attention.

Probably no other form of social service brings more actual joy to the individual who benefits by it than do summer camps, and, with increasingly higher standards of health and sanitation, they are coming more and more to be real builders of character and strength, as well as refuges from the heat and dirt and turmoil of the city.

There are forty-nine free or moderately priced camps near Chicago, which will take care of approximately 30,000 people during the summer. A few of these are open for undernourished boys and girls, or as rest and week-end camps for young women. These camps spent during the last year, according to a study made by the Wieboldt Foundation, $231,568.

The camping idea has extended considerably because of the splendid opportunity that is offered the citizens of Cook County through the 27,000 acres that are occupied by the forest preserves in the district of Cook County. These preserves of picturesque woodland, together with the lakes and rivers, constitute

one of the largest playgrounds in the world. Transportation by means of street cars, railroad trains, bus lines, take one to the very heart of this forest region, where one may enjoy almost any outdoor recreation. Concrete roads, equal to the city boulevards, lead to, through, and around these forest tracts. Within the preserves may be found athletic fields, tennis courts, picnic spaces, combination dams and fords, historical places. Drinking fountains and comfort stations are available. Animal and bird life remain undisturbed under the laws of the district. The only laws pertain to the safety of the visitors and to the conservation of the trees, plants, and animal life. By construction of bridges, concrete fords, roads, and pathways through the forest, the board has undertaken to solve the problem of the tourist within the woodland realm. There were in the aggregate over 7,650,000 visitors in these forest preserves during the last year.

Special facilities are provided for campers. Last year there were 4,300 permits issued to organizations and individuals seeking to establish camps free from molestation. These permits are free of charge to the visiting organizations which desire arrangements for special locations on special days.

Further, the preserves district has its recreational features, as well as fields for national research and historical pursuits. Golf links are being constructed as rapidly as the demand grows. Four of these have already been constructed. Baseball diamonds have been laid out in nearly every section, and tennis courts are contemplated in each tract. Swimming, boating, and fishing are all a part of this wonderful outdoor life in the forest preserves.

The sand dunes of Indiana, a mere stone's throw from Chicago, a distance of 35 miles from the heart of the city, again afford an opportunity to the people of Chicago to live in the open, without the slightest interference. Thousands of young men and women and families have, during the past few years, built shacks along the great Indiana sand dunes facing Lake Michigan. The suburban trains and the automobile, as well as buses, take tens of thousands of Chicago citizens for summer week-ends into these wonderful dunes.

No matter how much is being done, from all that has been here recorded of Chicago in meeting its recreational problem for its 3,000,000 people—in the face of the manifold socialized agencies that tend to draw the young people down to a level which is so far beneath the normal standard, making it almost impossible for the agencies as they now exist to counteract their influences—the feeling is keen and strong that much, much more must be attempted in the Chicago program of the next ten years. Chicago stands unquestionably as the first in its opportunities of a general recreational character from the point of view of physical facilities, number of acres, money spent, both on original planning and in the matter of maintenance, but it does fall short, and deplorably short-in the opinion of those who are close to the situation-in the matter of intelligent direction and leadership. To be sure, there are a few in the various systems referred to that are eminently fitted to carry on a really constructive recreation program, but they only are not sufficient. There is still a greater need, and that

is a personnel throughout all of these agencies, sufficiently well-trained, possessing personality and character, and understanding of recreational philosophy. Thousands upon thousands of such leaders are needed. They should be found in every one of our parks and playgrounds, in our settlements, in our institutions, in our boys' clubs, in our girls' clubs, and in other agencies that provide recreation opportunities, for the mere recreation facility alone is only meeting the problem half-way.

If we learn to look upon the great problem of recreation from a community standpoint, its great social and educational as well as character-building and citizenship-making possibilities-and by these I mean the community as a whole, not the social workers, not the social thinkers, for we are but as a drop in the bucket, but the three million people in Chicago-then we shall make it worth while for the thousands of young college men and women in our colleges and universities to take up recreation leadership as a profession, and if we dignify that profession with the proper kind of standard coupled with a compensation equal to that of the school teaching profession or similar vocations, we shall be able to accomplish much in the next decade.

The recreation leaders of Chicago are anxiously awaiting the appointment of the recreation commission referred to in the early part of this paper, for it will offer them the opportunity of planning and preparing a real program for the coming decade.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF COOPERATIVE PROCESSES

THE SOCIAL SERVICE EXCHANGE: IS IT A MECHANICAL OVERHEAD, OR A CASE WORK STIMULANT?

Bessie E. Hall, Social Service Clearing House, Cleveland

Miss Margaret Byington, in writing of the exchange in its early days, quotes from the prophet Ezekiel, "Whithersoever the spirit went, thither as the spirit went the wheels also were lifted up withal, and followed it; for the spirit of life was in the wheels." Granted that it is this "spirit of life" within the wheels which can make a social service exchange something more than a mechanical overhead, the question before us becomes, Is the exchange which is serving our community imbued with this spirit of life? If not, how shall we inject this spirit into it? How shall we translate mechanical activities into terms of human service?

A social service exchange is not a cure all for every community ill. It cannot manufacture a spirit of cooperation unless such a spirit already has some beginning. If there is a spirit of jealousy and suspicion in the community and an exchange is set up as a piece of machinery to prevent duplication, which all are invited or commanded to use, your exchange is not going to establish immediate