Nor is the church without its claims to be considered as a social centre in a way not unlike the school. There are some 15,000 Ro man Catholic churches and nearly 175,000 Protestant churches and meeting-houses. Like the school, the church is universal. Its tradi tion as a social centre is longer historically and it has advantages over the former of being an adult association and centre and in appealing to wider range of life-interest. The development of the Sunday school and of week-day meet ings has also greatly extended its capacity and social significance in the last generation. Much earlier than in the school, the churches saw their social duty and the opportunity for social service in a society like ours. The institutional church was in existence long before any wider use of the school plant was conceived. As a result the church adapted its architecture and arrangements sooner and developed power as a social centre. The greater use of the church plant was also more apparent than even in the case of the school. It is fast becoming a very convenient social centre building, for the Catho lic Church has developed its separate parish houses for the like purpose. The modern in stitutional church thus serves the need for an auditorium, as well as for the miscellaneous recreative and convivial activities of the com munity. And not only the physical arrange ments but also the current spirit of religious work increasingly tends toward the ideal of social service. It, too, has conceived the pur pose of becoming a neighborhood, or even com munity centre, for social service. Denomina tional divergence is its chief limitation in this relation, but the large unchurched masses of our populations, alike in city, village and open country, give large scope to such purposes. The specific community church of definitely social service methods is becoming increasingly common. Church federation, in various forms, and interdenominational action for many pur poses, are fast rendering the accomplishment of the church's purpose to become a social centre more and more feasible.
More recently the great fraternal orders are making their claim to serve as a social centre. The lodges are broadening their membership in various ways to include women, and the more recently organized ones are showing a strong tendency to be more broadly social in method rather than strictly secret or narrowly fraternal. Often, too, their halls ,are in wide and frequent use as the most available place for miscellaneous social gatherings.
Our communities have, it is true, not yet developed the town-hall or civic centre as of the European type. The town-halls of New England and of the North Central States, where its institutional influence has extended, in a minor way often serve this purpose. But for the country in general there is as yet no sign of such a development. The civic centre is probably a long way off in our institutional development, although it may. some day crown our efforts toward social centres.
In the open country the grange is the most widespread of social organizations and its thousands of halls, especially in the North and East States, approach somewhat to the char acter of social centres.
So the social settlements, which have been established in various parts of the great cities, with the object of furnishing neighborhood centres, have, in a sense, pioneered the move ment in urban populations. City churches and
school administrations have been foremost in the same direction also.
A favoring condition in the creation of urban social centres is the formation of neigh borhoods. Neighborhood business centres have long been in existence in our cities, and social centres of various types are fast developing. In the expansion of our great cities the com munities consolidated retain much of their local feeling. As American life, alike in city and country, settles down these neighborhood ties will doubtless grow apace.
In the rural districts the passing away of open country life, remote from town and vil lage centres, is rapid. Hundreds of villages are springing up each year in all parts of the coun try — most notably in the isolation of the rural life of the South — and the 10,000 villages al ready existing are now fully realizing their function as social centres for their farm-dis tricts. Moreover, the new means of communi cation and transportation have brought the farmer closer to his neighborhood centre. The significance of the development of the village in our rural districts cannot be overestimated. For, although, in the case of many of the re cently developed special community centres, they have been located in the open country, there seems little doubt that the social as well as the business centres of such districts will naturally appear in the villages. This is in creasingly true of the ((consolidated schools° and of the "new rural churches.° More and more the village serves as a locus for the social centres of the rural community.
Such, then, are the more normal, widespread and underlying tendencies making for the de velopment of social centres in American com munities and neighborhoods. Much more spectacular and noteworthy but really much less significant are the many special and local centres that have been established. Special local or personal conditions have here and there favored the appearance and at least tem porary strength of fully developed social cen tres.
Leadership in this more specific movement should be accorded to educational administra tors. E. G. Ward, who developed the school house social centre in the city of Rochester, may be regarded as the leading pioneer. The wider use of the school plant has become a commonplace among educators in all parts of the country. It has taken many forms, hut all in the direction of making the school a (if not the) social centre. More particularly it has involved use of the building for educational purposes in other than schoolhouses. Evenings and week-ends, holidays and vacations, in fact, during fully one-half of the total available time, the schoolhouse has become useful as a social centre. This has all come about in a few dec ades. The conception, too, of the educational function of the school has broadened. It is now used for uplayx' as well as "study,'" for "work° as well as for 9earning.° It now gives opportunity to those whose school-education has been interrupted, and even for parents to gather that they may keep in touch with the school's work for their children.