The Gary school is an organized attempt to restore this natural education, adapt it to modern demands, and thus avoid these alternatives so disastrous for the future of the child and the quality of the coming generation. By making the public school as much as possible a self-sustaining child community, Superintendent Wirt believes that all the benefits of this older education can be attained. “We cannot,” he says, “trust the other social institutions to remedy the defects. Not more than one quarter of the urban children attend Sunday-School regularly. This makes an average of only two minutes a day for all the days and all the children. In fact, church, Sunday-School, public library, public playgrounds, Y.M.C.A., Boy Scouts, and all other child-welfare agencies do not occupy the time of all the children of a city for more than an average of ten minutes a day. The practical effect of this is that the streets and alleys and the cheap theaters and other commercialized places of amusement have the children for over five hours a day. The cities are not fit places for the rearing of children, because, as a rule, the streets and alleys have twice the time for educating the children in the wrong direction that the school, church, library, and playground have for educating them in the right direction.” This is the justification for extending the Gary school day to eight hours and limiting vacations. This is the plan which gives ample time for the intensive use of the remarkable school plant described in the preceding chapter. For in place of using for the special work and play activities a part of the already too few regular school hours per year, the Gary school secures additional time for these activities by appropriating the now worse than wasted “street-and-alley time” of the masses of city children. Saturday school, vacation school, even an all-year school, are features of the Gary plan which carry out this principle of providing a school life for the children for as long a time as they can be induced and encouraged to continue it. The Gary school deliberately seeks to employ and satisfy the children’s time with wholesome and interesting activity.