The new uniform record system was given a preliminary trial in the investigation which was reported in the Bureau's bulletin (No. 28, 1915) "The Extension of Public Education," and the system itself is described in Bulletin No. 41, 1915, "Significant School Extension Records." Those who are familiar with these bulletins will remember that in this system the basis of accounting is not the number of persons in attendance, but the number and kinds of group occasions which constitute the extension work. A full discussion of the principles underlying this basis is to be found in Bulletin No. 41 (pp. 10-18), while the tables in Bulletin No. 28 (pp. 29-50) exhibit some of the significant facts obtainable through the new method. These 55 cities combined with those listed in Table 1 make a total of 518 communities in which school extension activities were carried on during 1915-16. This number is undoubtedly under the actual figures, since it is arrived at on the basis of reports which can not be assumed to be complete. It will be observed that all the States are represented with the exception of one, Nevada. In Table 1, the cities which report paid extension workers number 150. Among the cities listed above and not included in Table 1, there are some 20 or more which are also known to have paid extension workers; so that some 170 or more cities may be regarded as having reached the more advanced stage of administrative development that is indicated by this fact. The total amount of money reported as received from after-school rentals is $18,779.17. (This amount also includes the sums reported by several cities which did not supply enough other data to warrant their inclusion in Table 1.) TABLE 2.-Total group occasions reported in 463 cities classified according to line of activity and ranked in accordance with magnitude. The various group occasions reported in the first tabulation are summarized in Table 2, in such a way as to show the percentage that each line of activity constitutes of the whole. A "group occasion," as used in this bulletin, is one meeting of one group and under the head of "group" is included an audience, a class, a club, a party, or any other collection of individuals participating in, or engaged by, the same series of events. A glance at this table reveals the fact that on the basis of the number of group occasions organized and held the greatest amounts of effort were expended upon the physical activities and club work. Next in importance were reading and games rooms, entertainments, and adult society meetings, while civic meetings and general social occasions received relatively the least attention at all. This comparison is made more graphic by figure 1. If, however, the various lines of activity are compared on the basis of the probable numbers of individuals who benefited by them, a different ranking is obtained. In Table 3 an effort has been made to estimate the attendance represented by the total number of group occasions. The figures used in estimating the average attendance at occasions in the various lines of activity are lower than the figures oftentimes given for similar occasions in printed reports, so it is believed that in any case the averages used are not higher than the FIGURE 1.-Relative importance of the various lines of school extension activity in 463 cities, as indicated by the numbers of group occasions reported. actual facts. On this basis entertainments and general social occasions take precedence over athletics, while games rooms come last of all. Which of these two comparisons yields the greater significance to the reader depends upon his viewpoint. Indoor athletics and folk-dancing classes do not usually involve as large groups as entertainments or general parties, but they require a more continuous administrative scheme and a higher per capita expenditure of administrative energy; so that the comparison on the group occasion basis probably gives the better evidence as to the relative amount of stress being laid upon the various lines of activity by the administrators of school extension work. While 59,000 group occasions involving an aggregate attendance of over four and a quarter millions represent a volume of school extension activity which must be very gratifying to everyone interested in social welfare, it must not be forgotten that these figures are based upon returns from only about nine-tenths of the municipalities known to be engaged in this work and that the unreported one-tenth (see list on page 3) includes such leaders in school center enterprise as New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, a record of whose activities would vastly increase the total to which the movement as a whole is entitled. In a record of 45 cities for March, 1914, New York City alone furnished 68 per cent of the total group occasions reported and the record of this city for 1915-16 would also have shown a tremendous amount of activity. TABLE 3.-Estimated attendance at 59,218 after-school group occasions in 463 cities during the school year 1915-16. Statistics are chiefly valuable for comparative purposes. Rightly gathered they would tell us what administrative plans were succeeding best and which were failing. To be as useful as that, they must reveal the cost per unit of result. The question as to the cost of maintenance in the school extension questionnaire was not answered with sufficient generality and uniformity, however, to afford any valuable data upon this point. The figures furnished do make possible, though, two other comparisons, (1) the degree to which the amount of extension activity reported represents a utilization of the city's school plant, and (2) the relation which the group occasions provided bears quantitatively to the population enjoying them. ter. In order to measure in comparable terms the degree to which extension activity represents the utilization of available school plants, it was necessary to set up arbitrarily a unit of a quantitative characThe one which was used is called a standard school center, and it is defined as a school building having on an average three group occasions a week during a school extension season of 30 weeks, or a total of 90 group occasions. In the application of this unit, or standard center, to the amounts of activity reported by the various cities, no attention is paid to the facts as to how many buildings actually were utilized nor as to what lines of activity were involved. The total number of group occasions reported is divided by 90 and the quotient is taken as the number of standard centers to which a city's 1 See Bulletin, 1915, No. 28, pp. 43 and 49. product is equivalent. The ratio of the number of standard centers to which a city is entitled to the number of its school buildings (elementary and high) constitutes its score or rating in the comparison. A city which has five standard centers and 10 schoolhouses attains a 50 per cent degree of utilization. This is of course a crude comparison and one that is open to many objections. A building which has no assembly room can not be used for as many kinds of occasions as one which is thus equipped. But there are nevertheless many meetings and other occasions which can be held in ordinary classrooms, principals' offices, and even basement rooms, and it must be remembered that in the application of the standard there is no discrimination as to the type of occasion, a parent-teacher's meeting counting for just as much as a lecture or a mass meeting. Furthermore, if a city has buildings which are unusually well adapted for community use and because of that fact the actual utilization has been greater, there would seem to be no unfairness involved in its relatively higher score. An element of injustice does come in, however, in the case of a city well equipped for wider use which receives a score equaling that of a city which is poorly equipped. Here the first city is really entitled to less credit than the second. But despite these limitations the comparison is believed to have value, and it is presented (see Table 4) for what it is worth. It is interesting to note in glancing over the table that no large cities are found among the higher scores. The second comparison deals with the degree to which school systems are supplying leisure-time occasions to their respective constituencies. This is made on the basis of the estimates made by the United States Census Bureau of the population in 1915 of the respective municipalities. These figures are regarded by the Census Bureau as merely approximations, especially in the case of cities under 8,000, and they-the results based upon them-are not, therefore, presented as strictly accurate. Despite these inaccuracies, however, it is believed that Table 5, in which the results of this comparison are presented, throws useful light upon the quantitative aspects of school-extension activity in this country and the relative effectiveness of various systems. Any one city can not be sure, perhaps, that it in reality stands above the next one below it in Table 5, or even the second or third below it, but it can gain a rough idea of its rank in the group as a whole. TABLE 4.-Cities which reported 90 or more group occasions, ranked according to the ratio of standard centers to school buildings. (The standard center, arbitrarily set up here as a unit of measurement, is a building at which 3 group occasions a week take place during a school extension season of 30 weeks.1) 21. Titusville, Pa. 28. New Brunswick, N. J 29. Minneapolis, Minn. 30. Binghamton, N. Y. 36. Chisholm, Minn. 38. Newton, Mass. 39. Neenah, Wis.. 40. Mechanicsville, N. Y. 44. Seymour, Ind. 50. Albert Lea, Minn. 51. North Adams, Mass. 54. Lansingburg, N. Y. 57. Muncie, Ind.. 58. Charles City, Iowa. 64. Richmond, Ind. .40 65. Emporia, Kans 66. Moline, Ill.. 18 67. Decatur, Ill. 68. Albany, N. Y. The following cities, reporting over 90 group occasions, could not be included in this table because their reports did not include data as to number of school buildings, and supplementary requests for this information were unanswered: Beatrice, Nebr.; Bismarck, N. Dak.; Centerville, Iowa; Herkimer, N. Y.; Houlton, Me.; Santa Monica, Cal. Newark, N. J., was omitted because its report covered only half a season .18 |