We went to the “professional philanthropists,” and after we had been turned down by most of them we came back to our own people—with just enough help from a few generous outsiders to give standing at home—and raised a large part of the money by a whirlwind campaign, such as the Y. M. C. A. has tried in many places. We could not stop at $25,000; the school and grounds have now cost about $45,000, and we know so well the places we could use a few thousand more! We began teaching school in the new building last September; it is full of children and is a joy forever. The swimming pool, the crowning glory, is not yet completed, for we had to contract for things whenever the money was in bank, and all trimmings were postponed as late as possible. The shower baths are in full effect. The laundry is being used not only to teach the school children how to wash and iron, but the mothers of the neighborhood, who bring their washing in, pay so much a wash for the use of the water and the steam drier and the beautiful ironing boards, with gas burners at the end. The big room, with the stage at the end, which serves for kindergarten in the morning and gymnasium in the afternoon, is a story and a half high, and is used for theatrical performances and dances at night. It is running full blast. We have various night clubs already started, but we could have more—and will have more when there is a little more money to pay for supervisors, or a little more time to drum up and keep in line volunteer helpers. But, even now, the school has demonstrated that the evening is the best time, not only for reaching the fathers and mothers of the school children, but the young people—girls who work in the laundries and in the stores at $3.50 a week, and who have no place to go for dancing and other recreation, and the young men from 20 to 35, working at the distillery or the tobacco warehouses. Evening is without doubt the great time to offer recreational opportunities to working people. Most of them cannot get these except in the evening, and the meeting at the schoolhouse is a social event; it is of all others the time when teachers and settlement workers may make connection with the parents and those over the school age.[25] In almost every city, women have been behind the movement for social centers. In Lynn, Massachusetts, for example, the Women’s Political Science Club persuaded the school board to install electric lights in the Breed School so that it could be used in the evenings. One of the leading topics now in the conventions of state federations of women’s clubs is the use of the schools as social centers; and this movement is spreading rapidly to country districts which need it quite as much as do urban communities.