SCHOOLS such as those in Gary, with their elaborate equipment and special school enterprises, obviously require methods of financing radically different from those of the ordinary public school. It is, perhaps, this problem of how a small and relatively poor city like Gary could afford to maintain such schools that has aroused the interest of practical school men in the Gary plan. When the public schools were first started in the new town, the authorities found themselves in a peculiarly difficult situation, owing to the limited funds at hand and the demands of a rapidly increasing population. The conventional method of meeting the situation would have been to erect inferior buildings, to omit playgrounds, laboratories, workshops, to employ cheap teachers, to increase the size of classes, to limit the yearly term, or else to try to accommodate all the children in a few buildings on half-time work. These have been the methods which our large cities have almost universally felt themselves obliged to adopt when confronted with these problems of economy and congestion. The other possible method—and this seems to be the unique contribution of the Gary plan to the economics of education—was to treat the public school as a public service, and apply to it all those principles of scientific direction which have been perfected for the public use of railroads, telephones, parks, and other “public utilities.” The new city of Gary could create thoroughly modern, completely equipped school plants, and operate them so as to get the maximum of service from them. Superintendent Wirt and the school board believed that this plan would be the true economy.