draw all their pupils from the immediate neighborhood covered by our survey. The district of the Avondale intermediate school, however, extends considerably farther west; about two-thirds of the pupils attending come from the Hilltop or adjoining territory. The Fieser School, located at the corner of State and Starling streets, is in the midst of the most broken-down area on the west side. It has an average daily attendance of approximately 450 children ranging in ages from six to twelve years. The building is old and very ill-adapted to the service which a school should perform in modern community life. It is heated by hot air and has no ventilation system other than the windows and doors. Moreover it contains no artificial lighting system of any sort. Not only is this a tremendous handicap to the general work of the day school but it makes it impossible to use the building at night for neighborhood meetings. The Fieser School has a total play space of approximately 23,000 square feet which is divided by outbuildings into three different areas. Considering that there are about 450 pupils attending the school, this makes an average play space of about 50 square feet per child. Taking 145 square feet per child, the minimum amount of space agreed upon by experts as necessary for circle games, it is obvious that Fieser School falls far below this standard. The Franklinton Elementary School, located at the corner of Broad and Sandusky streets, has an enrolment this year (1919) of 550 pupils. There is a total ground space at this school of approximately 10,000 square feet which is divided into two long, narrow strips, one about 18 feet wide used by the boys, the other 15 feet wide comprising the girls' playground. It is apparent that these strips are entirely inadequate for any sort of group games. They do not even afford room for slides, teeters, etc., nor is there space adequate for the playing of basket-ball. The school has no gymnasium; one room in the basement might be used for this purpose if it were properly floored and ventilated. The Avondale Intermediate School, located on the corner of Avondale and Town streets, has an enrolment of about 600 pupils. It has a play space of approximately 40,000 square feet which gives considerably more room per child than is provided at the Frank linton School. There is no outdoor playground equipment but the principal expects to start basket-ball and indoor baseball soon. There is no gymnasium in the school. In addition to the fact that the schools of the neighborhood afford but little opportunity for healthful play we must note that the district facilities for outdoor recreation are also much below the average for the city as a whole. The houses and apartments of the neighborhood, with very few exceptions, are built close up to the sidewalks leaving no lawn or play spaces. Further, the backyards 22522/22SULLIVANT Mynicipal AVEN LEGEND STREET STREET SCIOTO CITY OF COLUMBUS, OHIO NEIGHBORHOOD SURVEYED SHOWING VACANT SPACES MAP XII are small and, for the most part, filled up with old shacks and weeds making them inaccessible for play purposes. These statements apply particularly to the eastern half of the district, especially to the section between Grubb Street and the river. On the accompanying map (XII) of the neighborhood we have shown all the available open spaces which are large enough for children's games. It will be noted that east of McDowell Street there is not a single vacant lot upon which the children may play, and it may also be said of this region that there is scarcely a single lawn or patch of grass big enough for the simplest games of even the smallest children. It is a common sight during any afternoon or evening to see dozens of little children in this section of the neighborhood huddled together in some grimy alley or chasing one another around a telephone pole on the street corner-human nature, both metaphorically and literally, being torn around by the hair of the head. XI. EDUCATION AND JUVENILE DELINQUENCY For a general conception of the educational status of this neighborhood the reader is referred to Table XXIV.1 TABLE XXIV PERCENTAGE OF NON-SCHOOL ATTENDANCE BY WARDS OF CHILDREN Recalling that our neighborhood is located in Wards 9 and 10, it is evident that a relatively large percentage of its young people are not attending school. Ward 9 stands at the bottom of the list with 44.1 per cent of the age group in question not attending school. Ward 10 occupies the fifth place from the bottom, with a percentage of non-school attendance of 25.2. There is no way of finding out what proportion of the non-school attendance of each ward falls in the lower years of the age group. Obviously, however, the largest part of it is made up of children over fourteen years of age. The different percentages just indi 'These figures are taken from the unpublished records of the Columbus Board of Education, 1918. cated may be taken, therefore, as a rough measure of the extent to which the young people of the various wards of the city go to high school or college. Ward 8 might be omitted from the list inasmuch as it comprises the central business section of the city and has but few children resident in it. Moreover, Wards 2, 3, and 13 with their relatively poor showing should be studied in connection with Map I' which shows the distribution of national and racial groups within the city. It will be observed that these are areas in which reside large negro and foreign elements. No attempt was made to obtain information relative to the question of retardation of the children of the schools in the neighborhood. But in a recent study, made by the department of psychology of the state university, the children of Fieser School were rated as mentally two years below the average for children of the same age in a school located in one of the higher economic areas of the city." Fieser School. The two elementary schools, Fieser and Franklinton, are both very much overcrowded. The Fieser School tries to obviate this condition by dividing its elementary classes into two sections, one attending from 8 to 11.30 A.M., and the other from 12:30 to 3 P.M. The school has an open-window or "freshair" class which on the date of inspection had an enrolment of eighteen pupils. These pupils attend school from 8 A.M. to 3 P.M. and are served their noonday meal by the school under the direction of Dr. Lenhart, the physician in charge. Penny lunches are served at the Fieser School at 10 A.M. daily. The principal states that about 25 per cent of the children patronize these lunches, which consist of a glass of whole milk and some graham crackers. The school also conducts a special class for retarded children. This class has an enrolment of sixteen children, most of whom are colored.3 Juvenile delinquency.-The reader is referred to Map V' for a general idea of the territorial distribution of the "official" cases of juvenile delinquency for a single year period, 1918-19. The followSee American Journal of Sociology, XXVII (September, 1921), 147. 2 J. W. Bridges and Lillian Coler, "The Relation of Intelligence to Social Status," Psychology Review, XXIV (January, 1917), p. 22. See American Journal Sociology, XXVII (September, 1921), 166. AKOTA ing map of the neighborhood shows the local distribution of delinquency in greater detail. Of the 521 cases of juvenile delinquency indicated on the map of the city, 36 fall within the confines of the neighborhood. While this is a larger pro rata percentage than for the city as a whole, still the neighborhood shows up favorably when compared with some of the other local divisions of the city. XII. NEIGHBORHOOD SENTIMENT In the course of time every section and quarter of a city takes on something of the character and quality of its inhabitants. Each separate part of the city is inevitably stained with the peculiar sentiments of its population. The effect of this is to convert what was at first a mere geographical expression into a neighborhood, that is to say, a locality with sentiments, traditions, and a history of its own.' Attachment to locality is probably the best criterion of positive neighborhood sentiment. There is a tendency on the part of most people after living for a time in a certain spot or locality to become so psychologically adjusted to their physical and social surroundings that they experience a feeling of discomfort and dissatisfaction when transferred to a new environment. We are all familiar with 1 Park, op. cit., p. 579. |