(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
This reproduction was printed from a digital file created at the Library of Congress as part of an extensive scanning effort started with a generous donation from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library is pleased to offer much of its public domain holdings free of charge online and at a modest price in this printed format. Seeing these older volumes from our collections rediscovered by new generations of readers renews our own passion for books and scholarship.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
Sources of speakers and topics for public lectures in school buildings
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
The School as a Factor in Neighborhood Development, by Clarence Arthur Perry ..
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
Clarence Arthur Perry was an American planner, sociologist, author and educator.
Background
He was born on March 4, 1872 in Truxton, Cortland County, New York, United States, the older of two children and only son of Duane Oliver Perry and Hattie (Hart) Perry. Both parents were natives of New York state and descendants of early English immigrants to New England. Perry's father worked as a farmer and teamster, and once tried acting as a member of a touring stock company.
Memories of childhood poverty, of having to sell newspapers while other children played, always remained with Perry and probably stimulated his professional interest in recreational opportunities for the young.
Education
Presumably lack of funds delayed his college education, for he was in his twenties when he entered Stanford University. After two years (1893-94, 1896 - 97) he transferred to Cornell, from which he received the B. S. degree in 1899. He also studied at Columbia's Teachers College (1904).
Career
His early career was in teaching and included two years in the Philippines. After a summer of study at Columbia's Teachers College (1904), he went to Ponce, Puerto Rico, as a high school principal (1904 - 05). There he met Leonard P. Ayres, general superintendent of schools in Puerto Rico and secretary of the Russell Sage Foundation's investigation of backward children. Upon Ayres's recommendation, Perry, then employed as a special agent of the United States Immigration Commission, was in 1909 appointed to the Foundation staff. He advanced to associate director of the Department of Recreation in 1913 and remained in that position, save for two years' service in the army Quartermaster Corps during World War I, until his retirement in 1937.
The community center movement was officially launched in October 1911, when the first National Conference on Civic and Neighborhood Center Development was held in Madison, Wiscosin. In Perry's words, "we came away from Madison in a state of religious exaltation - like missionaries going forth to read a new gospel. " Over the next decade the gospel was promulgated by Perry and his Division of Recreation at the Russell Sage Foundation, along with the extension division of the University of Wisconsin and the National Community Center Association, which had evolved out of the Madison conference. In seeking to redefine the school's function, Perry was particularly concerned with supervised group recreation, in which he saw opportunities for character building, moral uplift, and citizenship training.
Perry's interest in recreation embraced motion pictures - for many years, beginning in 1911, he served on the general committee of the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, a private and unofficial censorship group - and the community or "little" theatre movement, which he was active in promoting during the 1920's. In the fall of 1921 Perry wrote a historical review of the community center movement.
Having acknowledged that the community center ideal was a failure, he now turned to housing and planning. The objective remained the same, but the means shifted from the public school to the planning of the physical environment. Perry's notion of neighborhood unity derived in part from his experience of living in Forest Hills Gardens, Long Island, a model middle-income garden suburb planned in 1909 under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation.
He published The Neighborhood Unit: A Scheme of Arrangement for the Family Community. Perry later participated in the President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership (1931), was a member of the Committee on Slum Clearance of the New York City Tenement House Department, and served on the Community Action Committee of the New York City Housing Authority.
Suffering from arteriosclerosis, he died at the age of seventy-two of a cerebral hemorrhage in New Rochelle, New York.
Achievements
Clarence Arthur Perry was the head of Division of Recreation at the Russell Sage Foundation, under his direction three books and twenty pamphlets were published, that introduced new techniques for establishing social centers. Perry also helped organize the New York Training School for Community Workers in 1915-16, and was active in the development of the Playground and Recreation Association's Training School for Recreation Workers. Besides, he was an early promoter of neighborhood community and recreation centers.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
Views
Believing that the public school, even more than the social settlement, could serve as a stimulus to neighborhood social cohesion and regeneration, Perry became active in the community center movement. Its goal was to widen the after-hours use of the public school plant for recreational, social, civic, and educational purposes. In the most direct sense, the community center movement evolved from earlier limited experiments in the "socialization of school property. "
He concluded that, despite wide acceptance of after-hours use of the school plant, neighborhood organization of civic, cultural, and recreational activities had nowhere been fully established. Having acknowledged that the community center ideal was a failure, he became identified with the neighborhood unit concept. Perry conceived of the neighborhood unit as a kind of village cell, transcending the depersonalization of urban society.
To enhance the environmental stimulus to voluntary group association, Perry advocated fairly homogeneous population groupings. He set the ideal population at from 4, 800 to 9, 000, and believed the scheme applicable to both undeveloped tracts and blighted areas. Implementation of the neighborhood unit required large-scale tract development, which Perry hoped would lead to the mechanization and rationalization of the home-building industry and to enlarged powers for municipal housing and planning authorities.
Personality
He was hardworking, serious and modest.
Interests
Perry found relaxation in tinkering with electrical equipment.
Connections
On April 27, 1901, he had married Julia St. John Wygant, a physician, by whom he had one daughter, Sara Janet.
