utilities, but rarely in municipal operation. Municipal ownership
safeguards the city, and private or corporate operation avoids the
numerous objections to close municipal control of detail. So the library
authorities may retain sufficient control of these social activities by
the power that they have of admitting them to the parts of the buildings
provided for them, or of excluding them at any time. These activities
themselves are better managed by voluntary bodies, and, as I have said,
there is no indication that the formation of such bodies is on the wane.
The establishment and operation of a musical or athletic club, a debating
society, or a Boy Scouts company, are surely quite as educational as the
activities themselves in which their members engage. Do not let us
arrogate to ourselves such opportunities as these. I should be inclined to
take this attitude also with regard to the public playgrounds, were they
not somewhat without the province of this paper; and I take it very
strongly with regard to the public school. Throw open the school buildings
as soon as you can, and as freely as you can to every legitimate form of
social activity, but let your relationship to this activity be like that
of the center to the circle--in it and of it, but embracing no part of its
areal content. So, I am convinced, will it be best for all of us--for
ourselves, the administrators of public property, and for the public, the
owning body which is now demanding that it should not be barred out by its
servants from that property's freest and fullest use.




THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF VIOLENCE


The peace propaganda has suffered much from the popular impression that