Social center

“ Soon the cheerful living room, so unlike the urbanized parlors of the neighborhood, became a social center for the young folks, and music and good pictures and the joyous life developed undreamed of social resources in the community, hitherto latent but unexpressed. ”

“ A Community Plan for Socialization
Rural social life is simple and should be kept so. Elaborate organization is never necessary. What we need is that “touch of human nature which makes the whole world kin.” We do not need another institution, but possibly a social center and a working plan which can express and develop the common humanhood. ”

“ The spirit of the social center is the spirit of neighborhood, and its method is the method of Christmas and Thanksgiving extended to take in the family of the neighborhood, of the town.
As in every other movement, the appeal varies with the community. In one the need is recognized as the demand for social life. In another the need is for recreational life for the young people, "to keep the young people off the streets," they say. In another it is to satisfy the instinct for organization. ”

“ I want, if for no other purpose than to clarify my own thinking, to state as briefly as possible, what the movement is.
The object of the movement is to make the schoolhouse the civic center of the community, at any rate in [Pg 4] such communities as are supplied with no other place of common resort. ”

“ A social center thus maintained will stimulate neighborly intercourse and satisfy the demands of both young and old for religious culture, for recreation and pastime. Where schools are consolidated the school house and grounds will answer for all gatherings whether for worship, for the discussion of civic or neighborhood problems or for recreation and amusement. For without such neighborhood intercourse, life deteriorates into a dull routine, and the moral and religious tone of a community, degenerates. ”

“ I do not know where this social center should develop, and in an atmosphere that is not conducive to gossip. In some neighborhoods it might focalize in the church parlor. The center should be permanent, if possible. ”

“ The greatest difficulty we have encountered has been the intense racial prejudice existing between the different nationalities; but the tact and fine judgment of our director have overcome this, and today all members of the Social Center recognize the broadening influence that comes from being Americans together; in fact, one young man tells us that the Social Center is the only place since leaving school where he has met the right kind of friends. ”

“ It is so with a social center. But social relationships cover a wide field. The relationships of business, of religion, even of mere co-existence, are all social. May we have a center for so wide a range of activities? Even the narrower relations of business or of religion tend to form subsidiary groups and to multiply subsidiary centers. In a large city we may have not only a general business center but centers of the real estate business, of the hardware or textile trades, and so on. ”

“ If in fulfilling this humanly appointed mission of food center, any individual or group of individuals in the home in carrying out this plan lose from overwork or under education an opportunity for the harmonious development of the four divisions of social personality—the vital, the mental, the moral and the social, the home standing as it does midway between the knowledge of what is best for human nature in its development and the finished product or the social individual in society—is a hindrance to human progress. ”

“ Community—That unit of territory and of population characterized by common social and economic interests and experiences; an “aggregation of people the majority of whose interests have a common center.” Usually ascertained by determining the normal trade area of each given center. The primary social grouping of sufficient size and diversity of interests to be practically self-sufficing in ordinary affairs of business, civil and social life. ”

“ So that, in any case, we should have to have something in the nature of our contemporary "society." All the more do we need [Pg 15] "society" at present, since those ancient institutions, the church and the café, have almost entirely lost the character of real social centers. ”

“ The redirection of rural forces must be effected by the rural people themselves; (2) for the present, and probably for a good many years to come, the active work of such redirection must be carried on mainly by means of community activities centering around the school.” (Author’s preface) Contents: The community center and the world war; Leadership and the community center; The community center idea; The enjoyment of leisure; Recreation; Social capital—its development and use; The community center as an aid to teaching ”

“ The community, then, is the name that we give to this larger and most inclusive social milieu, outside of ourselves, our family, and our immediate neighborhood, in which the individual maintains not merely his existence as an individual, but his life as a person. ”

“ Classes for study and recreation are organized right along. The People's University Extension Society invades the home, the nursery, the kindergarten, the club, wherever it can, with help and counsel to mothers with little children, to young men and to old. In (p. 382) a hundred ways those who but yesterday neither knew nor cared how the other half lived are reaching out and touching the people's life. The social settlements labor unceasingly, and where there was one a dozen years ago there are forty. ”

“ Without forgetting the many institutions and workers in almost all departments of the field of civics, the rise of definite surveys and of scientific groupings like this Society, without ignoring also the many admirable workers and institutions of social endeavour, and their progressive integration into Social Unions, Institutes of Service, and the like, I may be permitted to press for the need of uniting both types, the scientific and the practical, into a single one—a civic museum and active centre in one. ”

“ To what extent do children follow the vocations of their parents and why? To what extent do individuals move from one class to another, and how does this fact modify the character of class relationships? News and the mobility of the social group.—The division of labor, in making individual success dependent upon concentration upon a special task, has had the effect of increasing the interdependence of the different vocations. A social organization is thus created in which the individual becomes increasingly dependent upon the community of which he is an indivisible part. ”

“ The first result of such a community effort will be a natural reaction on the local institutions, tending to encourage them and help them to function normally; bringing a finer spirit of cooperation into the church, new efficiency into the school and a revival of responsibility in many homes. The beautifying of public and private grounds, the establishing of play grounds and possibly a lecture or entertainment course, the stimulating of the local social life in an infinite variety of ways, will be suggested in detail by the local needs. ”

“ But I would like to suggest to you that every political community and neighborhood has a character of its own, a moral character, as well as every man and every woman, and it is exceedingly important, looked at even from the side of material advantage, that our communities should maintain a good reputation for social order, intelligence, virtue, and a faithful and willing obedience to law. ”

“ Importance of social environment I take the explanation of the differences that distinguish communities to be this: That each society, small or great, necessarily weaves for itself a web of knowledge, beliefs, customs, language, tastes, institutions and laws. Into the web woven by each society (or rather, into these webs, for each community above the simplest is made up of minor societies that overlap and interlace each other) the individual is received at birth and continues until his death. ”

“ Life, after all, is the only thing worth while, and in progressive communities its enrichment will be chosen at any cost. Here again it is the duty of the teacher to bring about the right spirit and attitude and the right decision in regard to all these important questions.
Organization.—A community which is socially and educationally organized will need a central post office and town hall, a community store, a grain elevator, a church, and possibly other community agencies. All of these things tend to solidify and bring together the people at a common center. ”

“ Civic improvers will find their ideals more realisable as they recognise the complex unity of the city as a social development of which all the departments of action and thought are in organic relation, be it of health or disease. ”

“ The most deliberate and conscious movement for neighborhood organization is the Community Centre movement. This is a movement to mobilize community forces and to get these forces expressed in our social and political life. Each community, it is becoming recognized, has its own desires, its own gifts, its own inherent powers to bring to the life of the whole city. ”

“ The development of professional social service, growing out of the charity movement, but now embracing community work of every kind, will probably lessen the evils of the modern neighborhood, and retain its desirable features. ”

“ These groupings include the family, the rural community, the city, and the nation. In the natural environment of the home social life finds its apprenticeship. When the child has become in a measure socialized, he enters into the larger relations of the neighborhood. Half the people of the United States live in country communities, but an increasing proportion of the population is found in the midst of the associations and activities of the larger civic [15] community. All are citizens or wards of the nation, and have a part in the social life of America. ”

“ Besides such outdoor interests village improvement societies create public spirit, educate the community by means of high-class entertainments, art and nature exhibits, and public discussion of current questions of local interest. They stand back of community enterprises for recreation, fire protection, and other forms of social service, including such economic interests as co-operative buying and marketing and the extension of telephone or transportation service. ”

“ Should not our clubs and social organizations, for men and women, boys and girls, face the question, as to whether their aggregate activities are unduly competing with the home, and should they not give definite thought as to how they may assist and strengthen the basic institution of our social organization? If the home is the essential primary social institution, then its well-being should command the consideration of every institution of the community ”

“ The view of theoretic civics as concrete sociology, and of practical civics as applied sociology may be more simply expressed as the co-adjustment of social survey and social service, now becoming recognised as rational, indeed in many cities being begun. ”

“ That means that every community, through the very character of the environment which it imposes upon the individuals that compose it, tends to determine the personal traits as it does determine the language, the vocation, social values, and, eventually, the personal opinions, of the individuals who compose it. ”

“ In advanced and complex societies, however, each individual belongs to a number of groups—to a town, a factory, a school, a home, a political party, a fraternal order, a church. In complex societies these groups are united to form the whole social structure. The individual belongs to society, therefore, because he belongs to one or more of the groups composing society, and his membership in society is dependent upon his membership in a social group. ”

“ The problem of the person whether in the narrow field of social work or the broader fields of human relations is fundamentally a problem of the adjustment of the person to his social milieu, to his family, to his primary social groups, to industry, and to cultural, civic, and religious institutions. The problems of community organization are for the most part problems of accommodation, of articulation of groups within the community and of the adjustment of the local Community to the life of the wider community of which it is a part. ”

“ In addition to community recreation, community health movements, community newspapers, community co-operative stores, community committees for securing needed legislation and for breaking the force of economic monopoly, are attracting widespread attention. The social unit and the block system of community service, are terms which indicate variations of the community organization concept, originally a product of the need of meeting the leisure time problem constructively with the very important result of re-creating democracy. ”

“ From its earliest beginnings in the consolidation of family life, the process of social organization has successively moved from the simple structures of clan and tribe, through multitudinous forms of urban society, to the eventual emergence of the nation-state, each stage opening up a wealth of new opportunities for the exercise of human capacity. ”

“ The value of the presence of visiting social specialists is in inverse proportion to the degree to which the socialization of a community has advanced. The practical conclusion is clearly that self-dependence of a community in adversity is furthered by the socialization of the existing institutions. ”

“ Every city and neighborhood has its urgent social needs which the resident may study and devote himself to with much better results to the world and to his own character than if he limits himself to the writing of checks. ”

“ The teaching in the village school would be altered to suit the new social order, and the children of the community would, we may be certain, be instructed in everything necessary for the intelligent conduct of the communal business. Intelligence would be organized as well as business. ”