MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN YOUTH COMMISSION Appointed by the American Council on Education OWEN D. YOUNG, New York HENRY I. HARRIMAN, Boston MIRIAM VAN WATERS, Framingham, Massachusetts Secretary WILL W. ALEXANDER, Chicago CLARENCE A. DYKSTRA, Madison DOROTHY CANFIELD Fisher, Arlington, Vermont FLOYD W. REEVES, Director YOUTH-SERVING ORGANIZATIONS National Nongovernmental Associations BY M. M. CHAMBERS Second Edition Prepared for The American Youth Commission AMFORD LIBKAR AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION Washington, D.C., 1941 610148 COPYRIGHT 1941 BY THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION Brief parts of this report may be quoted without special permis- FROM Foreword ROM the beginning of its existence in 1935 the American Youth Commission has been cognizant of the activities of a large number of national nongovernmental youth-serving organizations of various types and has felt an obligation to keep itself informed as accurately as possible regarding the scope and characteristics of their work. Officers and directors of some of the leading youth-serving associations have from time to time conferred with members of the staff of the American Youth Commission. With many of them there have been fruitful exchanges of correspondence. The Commission's relations with these organizations have been mutually cordial and helpful. One of the earliest documents published for the American Youth Commission was the first edition of Youth-Serving Organizations, appearing in lithoprinted form in 1937. So great was the demand for this document that the edition was exhausted within approximately a year after its appearance. Continued requests led eventually to the confirmation of a tentative decision to prepare and publish the present second edition, in more attractive and durable form. The staff member chiefly responsible for this work, M. M. Chambers, is author of the pamphlet, The Community and Its Young People, and co-author of several other staff reports. He is widely known as a writer for the educational press, having contributed some 200 articles to national educational journals during the past ten years. He has also contributed articles on youth to the Social Work Year Book, the New International Yearbook, the Encyclopedia of Educational Research, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Formerly Dr. Chambers was for four years a high school teacher, after which he was successively a teacher of political science in colleges and universities and a research and editorial worker for philanthropic foundations. During recent summer terms he has served as associate professor of education at the Ohio State University. The American Youth Commission was established in 1935 by the American Council on Education from which it received a mandate to: 1. consider all the needs of youth and appraise the facilities and resources for serving those needs; 2. plan experiments and programs which will be most helpful in solving the problems of youth; 3. popularize and promote desirable plans of action through publications, conferences, and demonstrations. As in the case of other staff reports prepared for the Commission, the author of the present volume is responsible for the statements which are |